Vivian drummed her fingertips again, but she didn’t look away from Jules’s face. Now she felt like the one getting cross-examined as Vivian seemed to stare directly into her brain.

“I had an abortion when I was eighteen,” she said.

Jules’s breath caught.

Vivian smiled bitterly. “You’re surprised.”

“Well…” Jules tried to find the words. “A little. It’s more that I never thought about it at all.”

“Well, I did. Knocked up at eighteen outside of Toledo, Ohio.” Vivian snorted derisively. “Like so many other girls I knew.”

Jules swallowed. “Oh. So you—”

“So I got out. I’d always known I had to get out. That as soon as I graduated high school…” She took a deep breath and let it out again. “I felt like I’d been running for the gate at a prison camp, and someone was trying to stop me right before I could cross. I couldn’t let that happen.”

“Oh. Would your family have—”

“I wasn’t a minor. I was lucky.” Vivian gave a short laugh. “And then I packed up and came to New York with a scholarship and six hundred dollars in the bank. Just like that. I’ve never looked back.”

“Wow. So this is…?”

The word atonement hung unspoken in the air.

Vivian shook her head. “I’ve never regretted it. It was the right decision for me then.”

Jules nodded. Then she dared, “And now?”

Vivian shrugged one shoulder. “I can afford a child now. And if I’m ever going to do it, this is the time.”

“So you never wanted kids?” Jules guessed.

“I never felt strongly about kids one way or the other. I felt very strongly about having a career, and children weren’t conducive to that.” She snorted. “As I informed my first and second husbands, who both thought I’d change my mind for some reason.”

Vivian sure had married some idiots. It didn’t seem tactful to point this out. “And now you have.”

“I wouldn’t have put it exactly like that, but yes.” Vivian smiled mirthlessly. “I got the job. The money. The fancy home. Everything I told myself I would.” She studied Jules. “And some other things I didn’t anticipate.”

Jules grinned at that. “You got the girl, huh?”

“Looks like it.” Vivian gazed at her thoughtfully, as if she were trying to decide whether or not to say something.

Jules held her breath, though she had no idea why. The moment felt weighted, significant, like Vivian was about to utter something momentous.

“I’m glad I hired you.”

Jules’s breath left her in a whoosh, and she bent forward, laughing helplessly. “Me too.”

“What’s so funny?”

“I didn’t expect you to get sentimental on me.” A lock of hair had fallen over Jules’s face when she bent over. She pushed it out of the way, still chuckling, and grinned.