Libby’s hand flew up into the air. “She didn’t mean steal my husband in the process! You’ve abused my friendship in the worst possible way. I don’t know how you can sleep at night knowing that. All I’ve ever done is love and support you, especially this last year—” Libby’s body suddenly flinched violently as if she’d been electrocuted. “You must have been laughing at me every time I sent Nick around to fix something.”
“No!” The need to clarify was suddenly important. “It’s not like that. It was never like that.”
“How dare you do this to me after everything I’ve done for you!”
“Everything you’ve done for me? From the moment we met, Libby Hunter, you haven’t done anything for me that didn’t serve you too. You loved the excitement and exhilaration of spicing up your vanilla life with a bit of my working-class smut. But it made you feel uncomfortable so you eased your guilty conscience by offering me entry into your clean and tidy life.”
Libby’s cheeks burned red. “If it was so abhorrent to you, why didn’t you reject the gifts and the holiday trips? My friendship? My love? My support?”
Jess swallowed around an uncomfortable lump. “I didn’t say I didn’t get anything out of it. I’m just painting this friendship in its true colors. We love each other but we’re both guilty of taking advantage when we need to.”
“I’ve never used or abused our friendship. I’ve only ever been a true friend, unlike you, you lying, backstabbing witch!”
The tempo of betrayal increased, throbbing like a pulse deep inside Jess. “You’ve peddled the story of our perfect friendship for so long you believe every word. Get real, Lib. Ours is great, but nothing’s perfect.”
Libby stared at her from eyes filled with loathing. “Especially when one friend’s screwing the other one’s husband. You don’t even know the meaning of the word friendship. I’m looking at a stranger.”
“No, you’re not. I’ve been a good friend to you. I am a good friend to you. Nothing’s changed.”
Libby’s eyes dilated, their serene blue suddenly wild and unpredictable. “You’re insane if you believe that. You have a child with my husband. How could you do this to me?”
Jess wanted to scream at Libby’s blindness. “I wanted a child.”
“That’s not an excuse! I want a child too, but I’m not sleeping with someone else’s husband to make it happen.” Libby’s tone was the self-righteous one of a woman who’d only ever known love. She had no idea what it meant to be forced into the trenches and fight for what you want and deserve.
“Sometimes the means justifies the end. Leo is proof of that.”
“Oh my God!” Libby’s hands tore so hard at her hair, strands came away in them. “You’re not even sorry!”
There was no point disagreeing with her. It was impossible to be sorry when Leo was the perfect gift.
Chapter Nine
“Oh thank God. I wasn’t sure you’d come home.”
Libby heard the concern in Nick’s voice. She tried looking at his warm brown eyes, his open and familiar face and his friendly mouth, but all she saw was him in bed with Jess. Her stomach lurched and she dry retched.
“Are you okay?”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” She never swore and he flinched, but she didn’t care. She wanted to hurt him. She wanted to upend his world like he’d upended hers. She wanted to destroy him. She threw her handbag and keys on the counter and marched to the fridge. The only bottle of alcohol was French Champagne. If she opened it, did it mean she was celebrating the end of her marriage?
“I’m sorry,” Nick said. “That was a stupid thing to say.”
Her hands trembled on the slippery bottle as she fumbled with the foil. “It’s not stupid. Stupid is fucking my best friend!”
“I know, I know. I should have told you earlier.”
The cork popped, the sound as hollow as she felt inside. She poured the liquid into the glass and it fizzed up the sides before spilling over like her emotions. “What you should have done is not had an affair with her.”
“She told you it was an affair?” He poured himself a drink and took a big gulp. “It so wasn’t an affair.”
“What then?” She forced herself to ask the question she feared the most. “True love?”
“God, no! Did she say that? It was nothing like that. Tesoro mio, you’re my one true love.”
He reached for her but she side-stepped him. The thought of Nick touching her made her skin crawl.
“How can you say I’m your true love and mean it? You slept with her! You have a child with her. You wanted to move her and that child next door to us so you could keep sleeping with her.”
“Libby, no. I don’t want her anywhere near us.”
“Then why are you buying Sulli’s place with her?”
Nick’s head dropped and his curls drooped. Libby got a flash of Leo and the air rushed out of her lungs so fast and sharp, she almost cried out.
When Nick looked at her again the only emotion she could detect in his Tuscan eyes—oh God, Leo’s eyes—was anguished exhaustion.
“I thought I owed it to Leo,” he said quietly.
Libby thought she’d experienced every possible emotion from shock and betrayal to an all-encompassing fury that had driven her to claw and rip her dress off Jess’s shoulders. But none of those feelings had prepared her for the savage grasp of jealousy that tightened around her like a vice.
“You thought you owed it to Leo?” she said quietly and then lost control of her restraint. “What about what you owe me? Your daughters?”
“I’m sorry.” He wrung his hands. “I’m just trying to do the right thing by everyone in a very difficult situation.”
“A situation you created because you can’t keep your dick in your pants!”
He stiffened at her shrewish tone. “I know you’re upset, and you have every right to be, but I
