Hell, yes, Lanie had made this decision emotionally. And it was personal. And here was the other thing—the deep, dark, humiliating, terrible thing she’d finally figured out. Lanie wasn’t just upset at River. She was upset at the Capriottis. They’d brought her into the fold, shown her love and easy affection. They’d made her one of them.

And then they’d done the same for River.

The irony here was that Lanie hadn’t even wanted them to love her in the first place, so why she was so inexplicably, ridiculously . . . jealous, she couldn’t even say.

But the truth was, she wanted the Capriottis to feel the same anger and hatred and resentment that Lanie herself had felt about what had happened to her. And she wanted them to feel it against River.

Instead it’d brought the pregnant woman even tighter into the fold. And Lanie couldn’t seem to get out of her own way about that. It made her feel like an awful person, but no matter how unreasonable, the feelings were real and wouldn’t go away.

“You know, Lanie,” Alyssa said quietly, “if you ever want to talk about it—”

“I don’t.”

Alyssa looked at her for a beat. “What happened wasn’t your fault, you know that, right?”

Lanie had taken on a lot of guilt about a lot of things, but that Kyle had turned out to be addicted to women wasn’t one of them. “I know.”

“Good. Because River doesn’t blame you.”

Lanie stilled. “What?”

“River doesn’t blame you for being the other woman, for being the woman who made her marriage illegitimate, for being the one to get his entire life-insurance policy payout, leaving her with absolutely nothing.”

Lanie blinked slowly, willing her brain to catch up with the ball of emotions bouncing inside her. “That’s nice of her,” she managed. She gestured to the door. “I’ve got a busy day ahead, so . . .” She then walked out it, shutting it behind her.

She got all the way to her car before she realized she’d been followed. “Still not talking about it,” she said, turning to face Mark, assuming Cora had just told him she wasn’t going to stay.

He stepped in closer and cupped her jaw, the rough pad of his thumb swiping away a tear she hadn’t meant to shed. “Hey. Hey, come here,” he murmured, pulling her in. “I know it’s been a rough week—”

“I’m not that pathetic that I need you to ‘there, there’ me again. And I know you’ve just talked to your mom, and man, she works fast, but—”

“Actually,” he said, “I haven’t seen her today.”

Okay, so he didn’t know. Yet.

“And I think you’re a lot of things like impressive and hot, but pathetic isn’t one of them.”

He was very close, his scent intoxicating, the intensity of his stare dizzying. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but you’ve handled a really shitty situation with serious class and grace. What can I do to help?”

“I’m fine.” She was fumbling through her purse for her damn sunglasses, which she could never seem to find when she needed them—

Mark pulled them off the top of her head and held them out to her.

Shit. She snatched them from his fingers. “Thanks. Gotta go.”

“I used to wonder what your wall was about,” he said quietly, stopping her in her tracks. “All I knew was that it was thick and well built.”

She met his gaze. “You really want to go there? Because I’m not the only one with walls, you know.”

“My walls are to protect my daughters. Your walls are to protect yourself, your heart. Not a healthy way to live.”

“You don’t know, you don’t understand.”

“I’d like to.”

“No.” She gave him a push away even though he wasn’t touching her. Just his close proximity, with that easy, confident stance and those broad shoulders that could handle the weight of her world made her want to move in close way too much. “Look,” she said. “We share orgasms when it suits us, but we’re not sharing emotions, remember? You decreed that.” And then, without waiting for his response, she slid into her car and sped off, literally leaving him in her dust.

Five minutes later she was on the highway, roof window open, windows down and inhaling the ocean air in big gulps, trying to figure out where her important place to be was.

Fifteen minutes later, she turned into a narrow, windy driveway on a hill a quarter mile from Morro Bay, because apparently her place to be was her family home. She parked and sat there, pissed off at the world.

Her mom opened the front door and from twenty feet, they studied each other, each giving nothing away. After about fifteen seconds of the stare down, her mom nudged her chin in the barest of movements.

The only invite Lanie was going to get.

Proving it, her mom vanished inside, but Lanie took heart—and also a good amount of annoyance—in the fact that she’d at least left the door open.

She found her mom in the big, huge country kitchen, which had been updated and renovated to the latest and greatest. Her mom, tall, elegant, and coolly beautiful, resembling a model playing a real person—a person who juiced most of her meals—actually baked like a boss.

The evidence was all along the counters in the form of cookies, cakes, and pies, and Lanie’s mouth immediately watered. Nothing helped stroke-level stress like a sugar overload. “Looks like a heart attack walking in here.” The first words they’d spoken face-to-face in years.

Her mom shrugged. “Bake sale for the adult literacy program tomorrow.”

“Of course,” Lanie said. “Because heaven forbid we not have our causes. Never mind the children as long as the world thinks you’re a giving, loving philanthropist.”

Her mom sighed. “Still with the dramatics. You’re hardly a child, Lanie.”

“I was.”

“Which I well know, as I pushed all seven and a half pounds of you out of my vagina. I did what I could, but as I’ve told you, I’m bad with babies.”

“And children.”

“And children.”

“And teenagers.”

Her mom rolled her eyes and went to the bottle of wine on the counter between a strawberry pie and a cheesecake. “To be fair, you were a horrid teenager. But I’m good at adults. Which I’m assuming you’ve finally become.” She handed Lanie a glass and gently knocked their two together in a toast. “To the both of us being adults at the same time.”

Lanie tossed back her wine and reached for the bottle.

“That’s a very expensive Napa Valley cabernet,” she said. “You don’t want to drink it too fast.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Well, then, darling, next time warn me that you’re having a moment and I’ll drop by the store for a boxed wine.”

Lanie took her second glass in hand and reminded herself she’d come here to see about actually getting along for a change. After Lanie had moved out at eighteen and gone off to college, things had gotten better between her and her parents. They all checked in with each other via a phone call once a month. Very civilized. When Lanie had gotten married just before her twenty-fifth birthday, her parents had come to Santa Barbara for the festivities. Since then, they’d met for some of the holidays but not all. More civility.