“It was before you even met him,” Annie implored, not wanting her to think that she’d done anything untoward. “And he dumped me when he met you. And then after... I didn’t want you to know. I couldn’t tell you, Colette. I didn’t want to hurt you, not when we’d all gone back to our own lives anyway. He was so good to you in the end. He helped you get over Luca. He brought you back from despair. How could I ever tell you about Ed, when he’d been so much better to you than he’d been to me?”

“And you never thought to say anything when you found out you were pregnant?”

“You and Ed were together by then. I was back in Ireland. Your mother had died, all our lives had moved on, I couldn’t...”

“So for all these years you just said nothing?” Colette was trying to wrap her head around it. “And even worse, neither did you.” Now she looked daggers at Ed.

“I offered to help when I found out, but at the time she said she didn’t want any,” he implored. “She just wanted me to know.”

“So you knew and you lied—right from the start of our marriage. You knew you’d fathered a child, Ed, and you never said anything? After everything we’ve been through? I’ve been through? The hell I felt when I couldn’t give you a child?”

“Colette...”

“He didn’t lie,” Annie said, sobbing, unsure why she was defending him. But she couldn’t bear to see Colette’s pain. “It’s just...neither of us admitted the truth.”

“And what about that summer and Luca?” Colette said, rounding on Annie now. “Didn’t you withhold the truth then, too?”

Annie looked at her. “What are you talking about?”

“The note Luca left here at the villa, right before my last day. What did you do with it?”

“What?” Annie frowned as she tried to think back to the day she was talking about.

“What did you do?” she shouted, and Annie’s mind reeled as she struggled to figure out what she was talking about.

“I don’t—”

“What the hell is going on here?” Kim hissed, barging into the room then, her eyes wide. “Everyone can hear you from outside. What is this?”

“You tell her, Annie,” Colette snapped, her mouth tight. “You seem to be full of confessions tonight.”

Chapter 57

Now

“Annie?” Kim demanded.

“I didn’t do anything with any note,” she told Colette. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about. I remember telling you when you got back that day that Luca had called and left something for you in the kitchen. At the time I barely noticed him, to be honest.”