Page 2 of A Secret Escape

The name that flashed up wasSister.

Milly had stared at it for so long it had stopped ringing. But it had immediately started again, and this time she’d answered it, even though part of her didn’t want to.

It wasn’t her sister, of course. She didn’t have a sister, but when Nicole’s career had taken off, she’d insisted that Milly store her number under a different name. It had felt exciting at the time. Clandestine. It had made her feel special, because all of a sudden everyone wanted a piece of Nicole, and Milly had her number in her phone.

They’d been in their early twenties, but even at that tender age their lives couldn’t have been more different. Milly was married to Richard and had just discovered she was pregnant. She spent her days helping her mother run the family business, a small but exclusive resort of lakeside cabins nestled close to the water in the beautiful Lake District.

Nicole, on the other hand, had dropped out of college to pursue acting seriously, and by the age of twenty-one had achieved global fame after starring in a movie about a teenager who traveled back in time to save the planet from destruction. It had broken all box office records. Milly had seen the film and agreed with the critics that Nicole had been captivating in the role, but that wasn’t the point where she’d recognized just how talented her friend was. That moment had come a few months later, when Nicole had all but floated onto the stage to accept the most coveted award in acting wearing a custom-made gown that somehow managed to make her look both innocent and alluring. Her speech had been heartfelt and moving, and many of the people in the audience had cried.

Milly had cried too, and that was when she’d realized that her friend wasn’t just going to be big, she was going to be huge. Because the speech was all lies,and Milly knew it was lies. She was, quite possibly, one of only two people who knew it was lies, the other being Nicole’s mother, who was unlikely to be watching.

But still Nicole had made her believe every word.

Nicole had called her afterward.

“Did you hear my speech?”

“Yes, I heard your speech.”

“You know the truth. People would pay you to tell my story.”

Milly had rolled her eyes.“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“You have no idea how far people will go to get information on me and tear me down.”

“You’re sounding paranoid.”

But Nicole had said the same thing a few days later when Milly had met her in her suite in a London hotel where she was staying for a premiere of her latest movie.

She’d been escorted to the room by unsmiling security guards with earpieces and overdeveloped muscles, and she’d sat stiffly on one of the white sofas in the ridiculously opulent suite, feeling out of place and desperate to find common ground with her old friend.

She remembered ten-year-old Nicole sayingOne day I’m going to be famous, and here she was—famous.

And fame had changed everything.

“Seriously, Milly, you can’t have my name in your phone anymore. Someone might see it. We need to agree on a different name.” Nicole had been wired, nervous, talking too quickly, sipping a glass of wine even though it was three in the afternoon. Her hair fell in dark silky waves down her back, and those famous green eyes,eyes that made you lose your power of speechas one smitten critic had put it, were huge in her pale face. In real life she seemed thinner than ever, and Milly, almost eight months pregnant by then, had felt like a baby elephant next to her.

She’d shifted slightly, trying to get more comfortable, which was almost impossible with a baby stuck under your ribs. “Who is going to see it? And what are they going to do? Mug me and steal my phone? I live in the middle of nowhere, Nic. I’m surrounded by trees and mountains.When I open my windows I hear nothing.” That wasn’t quite true. She frequently slept with the windows open, and she lay in the darkness and listened to the plaintive call of the birds and the occasional hoot of an owl, thinking how much she liked her quiet, predictable life. Unlike Nicole, she’d never had a desire to be famous, and nothing about her friend’s life had given her reason to revise her opinion. “My home isn’t exactly Paparazzi Central.”

Nicole had looked at her with a mix of envy and pity, as if she was wondering how anyone as unworldly as Milly made it through the day.

“Indulge me.” She’d put down her wineglass and taken the phone from her friend. Her slim fingers had flown over the keys. “There. Fixed.”

Milly had stared at it.“Sister?”

“Why not? It’s what we are. It’s the way I feel about you. The way I’ll always feel about you.” Nicole had hugged her then, and Milly had hugged her back, and for that brief moment their old connection had flickered to life. This was the Nicole she’d grown up with, not the new glamorous Nicole who couldn’t walk down a street without being recognized. Still, she hadn’t been able to shake the uneasy feeling that their relationship was about to change in a big way, and it made her sad because nothing was more important to her than their friendship.

“You’re going to forget about me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Nicole had said exactly what Milly had hoped she’d say. “You’re my best friend. You’ll always be my best friend, and when we’re both old, you’re going to come and spend winters with me in California and we’ll sit on the deck and watch the sunsets and talk about that time I drank half a bottle of vodka and dyed your hair purple. You were so upset you threw my favorite bag in the lake.”

Milly knew those weren’t the moments she’d remember when she looked back on their friendship. She’d be thinking of all the times Nicole had walked into a room first because Milly had been too shy to enter on her own.She’d remember the patience Nicole had shown when teaching Milly how to project confidence even when she was quaking inside. She’d think about the nights Nicole had stayed over at her place after Milly’s dad had walked out. The hours they’d lain awake talking about the future and what they both wanted.

And despite Milly’s fears, their friendship had endured. There were frequent phone calls and messages where Nicole would send photos of herself being transformed by hair and makeup into an assassin, an FBI agent, an art thief, a superhero.

Milly had sent back photos of Zoe. Zoe at six months. Zoe taking her first steps. Zoe’s first day at school. She’d sent photos of the four new luxury cabins they’d built by the lake and then felt embarrassed because Nicole owned properties around the world and Milly’s cabins, modest by comparison, were probably of little interest to her.

But despite their very different lives, they’d been in regular contact until eighteen months ago when Nicole had suddenly ghosted her.

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