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“Yes,” she says slowly. “I blamed myself for putting temptation in his way. I blamed you for falling under his spell. That’s what we do, isn’t it?

Blame women for treating men like rational beings capable of controlling sexual impulses.

Even in my bitterest anger, I realized Colt had done the seducing, and yet it was easier to blame you. ”

“You needed someone to hold accountable for your husband’s infidelity, and I was the disposable person in your life.”

She leans back in her chair. “There was no ‘infidelity,’ Lucy. Colt and I had an open marriage. For him, life has a lways included an all-access pass to sex. I used to joke that expecting monogamy was like expecting a man of appetite to refuse a buffet. I don’t make that joke anymore.

Appetite is an excuse. The truth is that he’s a glutton, and he cannot look at the buffet and tell himself that he has better food at home. ”

She sips her coffee. “I offered him non-monogamy because I knew he’d cheat.

I had other reasons to be with Colt. We were good friends and good partners, and I knew we’d make good parents.

Refusing his proposal because I couldn’t expect fidelity would be like finding the perfect house and walking away because it lacked a master bath. ”

“Perhaps,” I say. “But you could always add the master bath. Or you could ask your husband to look inside himself and figure out why he couldn’t walk away from the buffet, what need it satisfied and how that hole could be otherwise filled.”

Isabella’s burst of a laugh flings me into the past. “I used to think you were someone I’d like to know when you got older. You’ve grown into a woman who is much, much wiser than I was at her age.”

“Don’t,” I say and then add, softer, “Please.”

She nods. “You are painfully correct about Colt, but at the time, I felt like such a progressive and modern woman, granting his sexual freedom to lift that specter from our marriage. Sex, then, was not the issue. The issue was that, when I married him, I had the wisdom to protect my future family and, yes, my heart. There were rules. Strict rules. He had to be discreet. He could have flings but not full-blown affairs. He would never bring that side of his life home – he wouldn’t mention the women to me, and his children would not find out. Distance and discretion.”

“A one-night stand with a fellow actor who would maintain his privacy,” I say. “Not a fling with an eighteen-year-old tutor at your summer house.”

After a moment, she says, quietly, “Yes.”

“And that’s why he did it, isn’t it? Giving a child all the cookies doesn’t mean he’ll stop stealing them.”

“Because it isn’t just about the cookies,” she says. “It’s about the thrill and challenge of the theft.”

I shrug and lift my coffee cup. “I won’t presume to analyze your husband and your marriage, but you threw me into a position where I had to do that if only for my own understanding.

Colt loved you very much. That was obvious.

But he was bored and feeling old. I was a diversion.

It had nothing to do with either of us. It was all about Colt. ”

“He’s told me that many times. He accepted responsibility, but I still felt responsible. I was busy that summer, and he felt neglected.”

“As if it was your wifely duty to surrender your dreams to nurse him through his midlife crisis.”

Her lips twitch. “I could have saved myself a lot of money on therapists and just talked with you.”

“I wish you had talked with me,” I say, my voice low as I set my coffee down untouched. “That was what I wanted more than anything. To talk to you.”

Tears glisten. Then she blinks them back and straightens. “I understand, but I also hope you understand why you couldn’t. You were having sex with my husband.”

“No, I wasn’t. I was a virgin when I arrived at your home and a virgin when I left.

” I manage a wry smile. “I even went to the doctor afterward to see if my hymen was intact. Now we know that’s bullshit, but at the time, I thought it was what I needed to clear my name.

Yes, it was intact, but m y mother rightfully convinced me that going public with that would only make things worse. ”

“Just because you didn’t have penetrative sex–”

“There was no sex of any kind. Unfortunately, a doctor’s note wouldn’t prove that . My only hope was that you would believe me when I explained it in my letter. Obviously, you didn’t.”

She goes still, and something in her eyes…

“You did read my letter, right?” I say. “You must have. You sure as hell replied.”

She flinches at the profanity, however mild, but then that look returns: discomfort and dismay.

“You didn’t read it,” I say. “Not past a line or two. You didn’t give a damn what I had to say. You had something to say. You had a lot to say.”

“I…”

“You presumed my letter was excuses and apologies. I’m so sorry, Isabella. I didn’t mean to screw your husband. I just couldn’t control myself. Please accept my deepest apologies… and is there any chance I can come back next year, maybe get an internship on your new show? ”

I look at her. “The letter was an explanation. Not an excuse. I wrote it and rewrote it until I’d erased any hint of self-pity or blame-laying.

I made a mistake. But my mistake was not what you saw in the papers, and I needed you to know that.

I would think you already did, considering you were still with Colt.

Whatever he intended that night, I’d have made damn sure you knew he never got it. ”

Silence.

“What did he tell you, Isabella?”

She fusses with the coffee cup, and I’m about to prod again when she says, “We separated briefly after that night. I needed to get the children away before the media circus began in earnest, and I needed to make rational decisions, not emotional ones. Colt tried to contact me, of course. Tried many times in many ways until I said, if he kept trying, I’d respond with divorce papers.

After that, he gave me my space. We reconciled. I suspect you know that.”

“Kinda hard to miss,” I say, “when every move you two made brought a fresh invasion of paparazzi… and a fresh onslaught of vitriol from your fans.”

God, that sounds bitter. Sarcasm sharpened on fourteen years of pain, and I am ashamed of myself. I want to be stronger, want to tell her none of it affected me.

How could it not affect me?

“You reconciled,” I say. “Presumably then, he told you what actually happened.”

“He said the papers got it wrong, that there hadn’t been anything more than what I saw in those pictures.

Which seemed convenient. He couldn’t deny the photos, and clearly, nothing happened after you two realized you were being photographed, but the chance that some paparazzi just happened to be there to record your one and only encounter?

” She shakes her head. “I wasn’t that stupid.

I told him that I wanted to set it aside and move on. ”

“And he wasn’t going to insist on clarifying and jeopardize the reunion.”

She says nothing.

“As for the chance that someone recorded our first and only encounter? It was a party. There were paparazzi skulking in the bushes and getting their long-range shots from the water. They certainly caught me swimming with Justice Kane. The guy who took those shots saw Colt sneak off with the nanny. Of course he followed. Of course he got t he shots. That was our only encounter, Isabella. While I no longer care whether you believe that, at the time I wanted nothing more than for you to understand… and you tossed out my letter and wrote me a reply that had me with a bottle of pills–”

I stop, biting off the words and shaking my head fiercely.

“Oh, Lucy,” she says, and she stands and makes a move as if to cross the space between us.

I raise my hands, almost falling back in my haste to ward her off.

She settles into her seat again and says, “Will you tell me now?”

I lift my gaze to hers, my face as impassive as I can make it.

“Will you tell me what happened that night?” she says. “I would like to know, and I’d like to hear it from you.”