My legs fold up, and I land on the sofa with a thud. The sofa where we just made love last night.

“A baby.” I wish I could come up with something more intelligent, but she has me at a loss. A big, fat, major loss.

She covers her stomach with her hands. “Yes, I’m pregnant. And no, I didn’t trap him. It was an accident, but he was more than happy for us to keep it. After all we had already decided to get married by then. You need to step aside and let the rest of us get back to living our lives. You had your chance years ago and you blew it. Maybe you even had a bit of fun here with him, but it’s over now.”

I can’t even look at her. I was sleeping with her fiancé. Her baby’s father. I’m the bad guy. I force myself to look up. “He never said a word about it. That’s the truth.”

She shrugs like it doesn’t matter. “I’m willing to let it go, because the two of you did mean something to each other back in the day. I guess having you back in town made him go a little crazy. Nostalgia, you know. I’m trying to be the bigger person, but I’ve got my baby’s happiness to think of. You wouldn’t want to be a home wrecker, would you?”

I don’t understand. I feel so confused. How could Cole be the way he was with me if he had a fiancée? Why didn’t he tell me? How could he? How could I have so completely misjudged him? Are they on a break? Did they break-up and she can’t come to terms with it? I realize I’m making excuses for him, but I need to do something. Anything to stop the pain in my chest from spreading. I can’t believe he would lie to me like that.

“Are you two happy?” I search her face for any sign of a reaction, anything that will tell me she’s lying.

“We’re very much in love,” she says with a slow, satisfied smile. “We have been for years. We got together at my niece’s christening party three years … after you left.” The last three words are a reproach, a curse. She perches on the edge of the opposite sofa, like she doesn’t want to let her clothes touch it.

She sighs, rubbing her hands together. The diamond gleams and shines and sparkles. “I won’t lie to you. He was pretty broken up about you leaving. I guess—I don’t know—the romances we have when we’re young affect us more strongly. I’ll give him that much. I was there for him even before we started going out together. What I’m saying is I picked up the pieces. I made sure he didn’t do anything rash, which he might have done. For a while it was bad. And that was when we got closer, but after the party we knew what he had with you was the lust of a hormonal boy and what we had was the real thing. Neither of us has looked back since then.”

“Except for now. When I came to town,” I say slowly.

“Except for that.” Her lips tighten. “I don’t know—maybe he wanted to get you out of his system, once and for all. That makes perfect sense to me. Look at it this way. You can finally have him out of your system, too. Right?” The way she says it, it sounds like she’s doing me a favor. Like I should be thanking her.

“I guess so,” I hear myself whisper, my mind going around in circles. He wanted us to be together. I know I’m not wrong about that. Maybe he really does, but like a leopard never changes its spots, he hasn’t altered either. Despite all his protestations that he was a kid then and he is a man now, he is still the same unreliable person he was years ago. Then he changed his mind at the last minute and left me in the lurch, and now it looks like he is doing the same thing to Victoria. I can’t stand Victoria, but good luck to her. Let her have him. I don’t want a man who is so fickle and changeable. I want a man who is an unshakeable rock. A man who keeps his promises. Cole has broken every promise he ever made to me.

“Hey,” Victoria adds, “your life isn’t even here anymore. This town? You’ve outgrown it. Right?” She raises an eyebrow. “Listen. I was pissed off and hurt before, and I said some things I shouldn’t have said. About you being trashy, I mean. I won’t pretend like I’ve never followed your career. Maybe it’s morbid fascination, I don’t know. Or I might have wanted to keep tabs on the girl my boyfriend, now fiancé, used to love. Who knows? Regardless, you’ve done well for yourself. Really. You should be proud.”

“Thank you.” In over twenty years she has never been nice to me. Any compliments were backhanded, and came with caveats. Once another friend of mine said that her compliments were like cupcakes with shards of broken glass inside them. They’re not completely complimentary. Right now, compared to the way things normally are between us, we’re practically best friends.

“You don’t belong here anymore. I mean, nothing changes here. You’re jet-setting around the world, while half the people in this sleepy little ghost town don’t know how to use Facebook. Don’t waste your time dredging up the past. It won’t get you anywhere.”

“You’re right about that,” I admit, strange as it sounds coming out of my mouth. I don’t belong here. I should leave and have an agent take care of the house for me, right down to the packing. Hell, I actually don’t want anything from this house anyway. I don’t want anything to do with it, or this town, or Cole, ever again. It was all a mistake, a waste of time. Who would have guessed Victoria of all people would steer me straight?

“Cole won’t be coming back,” she says, standing and going to the door. “I’ll take care of that. You take care of the rest of your life and leave the rest of us to our lives. Okay?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“Because if you don’t, I’ll make sure the entire world knows you’ve been screwing the father of my child.”

Ah, there’s the girl I know. She couldn’t let it go at that. She had to twist the knife in my chest. I don’t even look at her. I can’t. I’m staring at the floor, and that’s as far up as my eyes will go. If I look at her, I’ll have to claw her eyes out.

“I get it. Just go.” I want to see her to the door. I would still love to kick her ass, pregnant or not, but I can’t move. I’m like a block of ice. The sound of the door closing is more like the sound of my dreams ending.

I fooled myself again.