Page 12 of A Secret Escape

And it was true that their marriage hadn’t been perfect every day, but whose was? Richard had been away for work so often that she frequently felt like a single mother. He never seemed to be available for the boring bits of parenthood, like doctor appointments or visits to the orthodontist, but she was mostly fine with that because her job was more flexible than his, and anyway she adored being with their daughter. There were times when Richard annoyed her, and she was sure she annoyed him, but that was part of marriage, wasn’t it? It wasn’t just showing up for the candlelit dinners and laughs, it was weathering the tough stuff. The parts that weren’t dreamy.

Her conviction that their relationship was solid made it all the harder when it ended. She hadn’t seen it coming. Just as she hadn’t seen it with her father.

She’d been twelve years old when her father had walked out, taking her sense of security with him.

Her mother hadn’t seen that coming either, and for months she’d operated in a daze, convinced that he’d return once he realized what he was missing.

He loves you, Milly. Even if he wanted to leave me, he’d never leave you.

Milly had clung to that, feeling a weight of responsibility that she didn’t entirely understand. When he hadn’t returned, Milly had taken it to mean that even if he did love her, then he didn’t love herenough.

She’d been looking for someone who would love her enough ever since, and she thought she’d found that in Richard.

With a sigh she sat up in bed. She had to stop dwelling on it. Churning. She hadn’t wanted this to happen but it had, and now she had to find a way to live with it. What she needed was a clean break from him, but when you had a child together, that was not an option. How was she supposed to move on when she was forced to talk to him and see him in person and bite her tongue when he was unreliable?

This new version of Richard was nothing like the Richard she’d married, but she was determined to keep things calm and civilized for Zoe, so she’d been careful to avoid conflict. The result was that she stewed and boiled inside.

Not having Nicole there to talk to had been one of the hardest things about the past eighteen months, and seeing her in person the night before had made it even harder because Milly had been reminded of what they’d lost.

After that tense car journey she’d felt so exhausted and vulnerable she’d almost thrown her arms around Nicole and forgiven her for not being there for her, but something had stopped her. Self-preservation? A desire to be less of a pushover? Maybe it was fear of rejection, although she should be used to rejection by now. She’d experienced enough of it.

And she still didn’t really understand why Nicole was here.

She reached for her phone and did the one thing she’d resisted doing up until this point. She looked at the news reports that Nicole had mentioned. They weren’t really news reports of course, because the sex life of an actor, even a Hollywood star, wasn’t news, it was gossip. It had no relevance to the public beyond morbid fascination, but that didn’t stop the story dominating, probably because it provided light relief from the flood of grim stories that populated the headlines.

All the versions of the story seemed to be saying the same thing. That Nicole had tried to destroy one of the longest and most enduring marriages in Hollywood. There were pictures of her and Justin Fisher looking loved-up on a beach somewhere, and then a short blurry video presumably shot by a fellow diner showing Justin Fisher’s wife storming into a restaurant in Malibu where Nicole and Justin were dining together. After a few minutes of shouting (excruciating to watch!), Justin’s wife had picked up the water jug and poured the contents over Nicole’s head.

Milly winced. She watched the video five times, pausing it in some places, and what she noticed was that in the few seconds before Justin Fisher’s furious wife interrupted them, Nicole had looked happy. Genuinely happy, not acting happy. She was smiling at Justin as if they’d just shared a joke that only the two of them could possibly understand. There was an energy between them, a chemistry that even a wobbly camera had captured.

Was Nicole in love with him? The idea of it threw Milly because it had never occurred to her that Nicole might lower her guard sufficiently to let anyone that close.

Was that why she seemed so fragile? There was a time when she would have known because Nicole would have shared it with her in one of their late-night email sessions or video catch-ups.

But now she didn’t have a clue. She had no idea what was going on in her friend’s life.

She closed the video and flicked through the rest of the coverage. Almost every piece she read included old photos of Nicole with other men,those images presumably provided to prove that she hadform, a history of seducing other women’s husbands.

She switched off her phone. She knew that plenty of those rumors weren’t true. How true was this one?

Something about this situation wasn’t making sense to her.

Nicole had been the subject of lurid headlines before and never tried to hide from it. She’d shrugged it off as part of the job.

What was different about this? Why the urgent need to hide away?

There was something Nicole wasn’t telling her, but that might have been Milly’s fault because she hadn’t exactly encouraged conversation.

With a sigh she forced herself out of bed.

She knew what Nicole was like. She went from man to man, searching for something that she couldn’t find inside herself. Some sort of validation. And because no one could give her what she needed, the relationships inevitably ended leaving hearts scattered underfoot like pieces of broken glass.

She didn’t want to think about that now. Whatever had happened was done. Justin Fisher was reunited with his wife, who was clearly willing to forgive his transgressions. Would Milly have taken Richard back if he’d knocked on her door and said he’d made a mistake?

No way.

She turned on the shower and waited for the water to heat. The only way she might consider taking him back would be if it felt like the right thing for Zoe. But since he was showing no signs of regret, it wasn’t a dilemma she was likely to have to face.

She stepped into the shower and started her routine for the day. It felt like an effort, but she knew that once she got going she’d be fine. The day would be busy because every day was busy. She had a staff meeting at ten o’clock, and before that she was going to head to her mother’s house so that she could take Zoe to school. That was one part of the day she refused to miss, a routine she’d been following since Zoe’s first day at school.

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