Page 11 of A Secret Escape

She wasn’t a bad person. Despite what everyone was saying about her,she was not a bad person.

And she definitely wasn’t a destroyer of marriages.

Or was she?

To distract herself she stood up and flicked on the light. She saw that papers and a couple of files had been hastily stacked in a pile on the floor and felt a stab of guilt because Milly had given up this room for her. If she was really a good friend she probably would have gone somewhere else because once they found her— and they would eventually find her—it would make Milly’s life difficult. But her plan was to leave before that happened. Just a few days, she’d told herself when she’d made her desperate call to Milly.

For now, she was where she needed to be. After everything that had happened she was emotionally and physically exhausted. It felt wrong that she was the one hiding while Justin was still living his life,his reputation apparently reinvigorated by the publicity, while hers had been trashed. Was he ashamed of himself? Did he feel at all guilty for what he’d done to her?

On the train she’d picked up an abandoned newspaper, and there he was on the front page.

We’re More in Love than Everscreamed the headline above a photo of Justin hand-in-hand with his wife, who stared unflinchingly at the camera. The injured look in her blue eyes would have pricked Nicole’s conscience had she not known it was fake.

The implication was that the affair was all Nicole’s fault. That she’d led him astray.

She’d dropped the paper as if it was infected.

The man was a hypocrite and also a coward, and at some point she’d need to deal with that. Right now she was too bruised by everything. He’d broken her, something she wouldn’t have thought possible because she never allowed people close enough to inflict that level of damage.

The press had some of it right, but most of it wrong. She could have told them the truth, but what good would it have done her? She’d been in the public eye for long enough to know that although some people were interested in the truth, most were more interested in a good story. Some people loved to gossip and judge, and they savored the misfortune of others.

She had to try to put Justin behind her, but in the circumstances that was almost impossible. The best she could do was make a plan, and maybe here, in this part of the world that was far removed from the one she normally occupied, she’d be able to do that.

Restless, she pulled a lightweight wrap from her suitcase and wrapped it around her shoulders before quietly moving the chair she’d wedged under the door handle.

She walked quietly to the kitchen, filled a glass with water and drank it quickly before venturing out onto the deck. The only access was from the house, so she felt relatively safe. As safe as she ever did these days.

The lake was still, patches of light shimmering on the surface and the trees casting dark shadows over the water.

She felt instantly calmer. The tightness in her spine eased, and her muscles relaxed.

Forest Nest had always had this effect on her.

She sat down on the porch swing and breathed. For now the heat wave had eased its relentless grip and allowed the air to cool.

The moment was all the more precious because she knew it would be short-lived. There were decisions to be made, and once they found out where she was she’d have to leave because it wasn’t fair to inflict the goldfish bowl of her life onto Milly, who had enough problems of her own.

But for now, she could rest. There was no role to play. No character to inhabit and no need to look over her shoulder. Not yet.

At this precise moment in time no one knew where she was. And because it was barely dawn, she could enjoy being outdoors undetected.

Letting that feeling wash over her, she closed her eyes.

Chapter3Milly

It still shocked her to wake up and find herself alone in the bed, even though she’d been doing exactly that for eighteen months. It was her worst time of day, those early moments when she was alone with reality before she threw herself gratefully into the demands of life.

It was the stillness she noticed first, the almost unnatural silence that greeted her every morning. She still slept on the right side of the bed, her side, and the emptiness of the left side seemed to encapsulate everything that had happened to her. There was something about that stretch of smooth, untouched sheet that made her indescribably sad.

It might have been easier to cope with if she understood, but she didn’t understand. She’d thought she and Richard were happy, and the fact that he’d been unhappy enough to have an affair and leave and she hadn’t even known he’d felt that way left her with an even greater sense of failure.

He’d loved her once, she was sure of that.You’re everything to me, Milly. You’re exactly what I need.

Richard was twelve years older than her, which at times had felt like a lot,and at other times like nothing at all. She’d met him when she was twenty-one, and he’d seemed so sophisticated compared to all the men of her own age whose idea of dressing for a date was to pull on a clean-ish T-shirt.

Richard worked in pharmaceutical sales and had just had a promotion. He wore suits and drove an expensive car that smelled of leather. He took her to dinner and sent her flowers. He made her feel safe.

Right from the beginning their relationship had been comfortable and easy and right. They weren’t just lovers, they were friends. Good friends. He’d taken her for weekends away and proposed to her under the Eiffel Tower on a trip to Paris. For their honeymoon he’d whisked her off to Greece. They’d swum under a sky so blue it dazzled, in a sea so clear you could see right down to the bottom where shells nested in the sand. At night, her skin warmed by the sun, she’d worn strappy sundresses and sat across from him feeling beautiful and loved as they’d dined on plates of creamy tzatziki while watching the sun go down over the Aegean. The setting had been perfect, but they’d agreed that they didn’t need a Greek beach or gourmet food to be happy. Their surroundings didn’t matter. All that mattered was each other. In this crowded world, this massive sea of people who inhabited the planet, somehow they’d managed to find each other, and it felt like a miracle.

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