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Bas groans miserably, and I suspect a baby was my first wife’s way of distracting herself from her heartache over Sebastian.

“When I heard she was pregnant, I pasted on a smile and pretended to be happy for you two. But I was dying inside. I wanted that to be me. To be my baby. Goddamn it.” He pounds a fist against the wall and grits his teeth against tears.

I feel for him. He loved Becca in a way I never did. I blithely spent every day of my life without any clue how much they wanted one another. I’m shocked, yes. But given how much I love Nia and how much I loathe knowing about all her other sexual partners… I can only imagine how deep Sebastian’s pain was to discover the woman he loved was pregnant by his best friend, who didn’t love her at all.

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry? I’m the asshole who couldn’t keep my heart in line.” He sighs. “But it’s such a guilty relief that you finally know.”

Oddly, I understand his anguish. After all, I didn’t set out to fall for Nia. It just happened. The way I’m assuming it happened for them.

“What did you love about Becca?”

He pauses. “Everything.”

“She was very quiet.”

“Which made finding a way to coax her to talk interesting.”

“She was OCD.”

A momentary smile breaks up his grief. “She was particular. She wanted things neat and organized. The way her brain worked fascinated me. I loved watching her make tea. A spoonful and a half of sugar. No more, no less. She brought that exacting concentration to everything she did.”

Not with me, but I don’t dwell on that. “She wasn’t a sexual creature.”

Bas drops his gaze to the floor and fresh guilt flashes across his face. “I think you’re wrong. I don’t know for sure. But…she blushed at anything I said to her. Last fall, I remember telling her that I was hanging my coat in the hall closet, and she turned all rosy. So I talked to her about nothing, told her jokes, simply to see her react. I sometimes I thought the way she looked at me meant something, but then she’d clear her throat, tsk at me, and walk away. She never betrayed you, either.”

Logic tells me they pined, and it doesn’t matter that they never consummated their feelings. It’s still a betrayal. But I simply can’t muster anger, only regret. “I must have been too self-absorbed. I never saw how either of you felt.”

I hate that.

With a heavy sigh, I turn to the next page of Becca’s journal, dated January twentieth. Stapled to the page is a business card for a divorce attorney I’ve never heard of. My heart stops.

“What?” Bas asks. “You turned pale as shit.”

“She thought about leaving me for you.”

“What? I never encouraged⁠—”

I hold up a hand and start reading. “‘The most terrible, wonderful thing happened today. A man approached me as I left the yoga studio. I worried at first. This stranger was waiting for me. Apparently, he and his son want to buy Stratus. My stubborn husband won’t agree to their terms, so they hatched a plan to force his hand. They need my help…’”

“Lund?” Bas sounds as alarmed as I feel. “How did Becca think that snake-oil salesman was going to force you to do anything? And why would she go along with it?”

I scan on. The passage is long, but it doesn’t take more than a few seconds to get the gist of her entry.

This is a betrayal I can’t forgive her for. Never. Ever.

“She was going to divorce me. Washington is a community property state. I would have been forced to sell Stratus to buy Becca out. The Lunds were waiting, money in hand. And they promised her fifteen percent of the sale price, in cash. Once the deal closed, she’d have the money to be free and finally be happy. She was going to ask you to run away with her.”

“Oh, jesus.” He looks stricken, as if I punched him. “I had no idea. I swear.”

“I know.” Becca’s journal entries make that clear. But I don’t ask whether he would have left with her if she’d gone through with the plan. I probably don’t want the answer. Hell, he probably doesn’t want to envision what he would have done. “The Lunds referred her to the attorney, apparently.” I flip the page, stunned to find my hand shaking. “She met this shyster the following Monday.” I flip another page. “By Wednesday, she decided to go through with it and they were drawing up papers to serve me. They had it all set up for Monday, the thirtieth.”

Bas closes his eyes. “But she discovered she was pregnant over the weekend. I’ll never forget that Saturday afternoon you called me to tell me. You were so thrilled. I tried to be happy for you. But I knew that was the nail in our coffin.”

I scan a few more pages. “She knew it, too. She dropped all proceedings the day she intended to serve me. And, in her words, she spiraled into depression.”

She wrote no more journal entries after that.