“Every fucking day,” he’d uttered. And it was true. Things had never clicked with Jennifer; he’d often wondered what he’d walked away from.

Her eyes had closed as he spoke, and she’d exhaled, her shoulders slumping the tiniest bit, as if she’d held her breath for his answer. He stared at her mouth for a long second and then kissed her. He slid his hand around the back of her neck, closing the space between their bodies as he pressed her backward into the hallway wall. She wobbled in the heels as his body met hers from hip to chest, their lines melting into each other. The moment lasted forever as he explored her mouth and sank both his hands into her hair. Silk. Pure smooth silk. She gave a small moan in the back of her throat and relaxed against him.

His brain shot into overdrive and all rational thought exited. “Open your door,” he whispered against her lips.

She stiffened under his hands.

Seth froze. Too far.

He slowly extricated himself from her heat, holding her gaze. Anger and then sorrow shone in her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she mouthed. No sound came from her lips.

“Tori,” he started, but she broke their eye contact and dug in her purse. She pulled out her room key, her hands shaking.

“We shouldn’t have had dinner.” Her words tripped over themselves. “I thought I could do this. I thought we could talk about old times and everything would be fine. I didn’t know we would end up like this. I won’t do that to my husband, and you shouldn’t do it to Jennifer and Eden.” She turned her back to him and fumbled with the door lock, trying to find the slot for her key. “I screwed up. I shouldn’t have let it go this far.”

“It’s not your fault, Tori,” he’d said, feeling utterly helpless. Why had he considered going in her room? He wanted to shoot himself. “I didn’t mean it.”

She looked over her shoulder at him, her eyes angry. “You just needed some sex?”

“No, that’s not what I meant. Christ, I don’t know what I want.”

She pushed her door open and turned to face him, blocking him from the room. Her chin was up, her eyes fiery. “We’re both married, so I’d say we know what we want. We made our choices long ago. Well, you made the choice for us.”

His heart cracked at her words and the angry tone. Here was the elephant that’d been in the room with them at dinner. They’d delicately danced around the topic, but now she’d ripped it open and laid it before him. A gulf widened between them, spread apart by his past decision. He couldn’t fix it now.

“We’re married. And I think we’re both happy for the most part. I won’t apologize for something I did long ago. I made the only choice I could,” he answered.

Her face had paled, all emotion disappearing behind a cool mask. “Good night.” She stepped backward and shut the door in his face. He’d stood there for a long moment, hearing her heels click across the floor in her room, and then there was silence.

In the car, Seth knew Victoria was slightly buzzed from her wine at Lacey’s. She hadn’t eaten dinner that evening and had said she rarely drank more than one glass of wine. After the emotional group at Lacey’s house, he’d offered to drive her home and she’d readily accepted. She’d given Lacey and Trinity a hug good-bye. From Lacey’s faintly surprised look, he’d gathered that Tori wasn’t a hugger.

He was learning about her in bits and pieces. Watching her interact with other people was the most telling. Tonight had been an eye-opener.

Seeing her break down over the thought of her adoptive parents lying about her birth parents had told him two things. First, that Tori adored and had utterly trusted the wonderful people who’d brought her up. Second, that she had a stiff upper lip around her friends. When Michael Brody looked crushed at the sight of Tori in tears, Seth knew she’d never shown that side to anyone. Lacey had looked stricken, and Trinity had been moved to tears in sympathy.

The people around Tori cared deeply for her but never saw below her shell. A shell she kept up nonstop. Until tonight. Even now it was still down, a relaxed state about her that was no doubt created by two glasses of white wine.

He wished it didn’t take wine to tear it down.

“How long ago did your parents pass?” He’d never met her adoptive parents. He remembered her phone calls home from college; she’d seemed very close to her mother, calling at least once a week to check in and see what was up.

“I was twenty-five. Mama died and then Daddy three months later. I swear he died of a broken heart. He was never the same after she passed.”

“I didn’t know you’d been so young. I remember you’d told me your parents were older.”

“They were in their seventies when they passed.”

“That’s young. It may not have seemed so when you were twenty-five, but personally I find that to be young. No doubt the perspective of what is old changes as we age.”

“Definitely,” she agreed.

They lapsed into a comfortable silence.

“You’ll finish the inventory tomorrow?” he asked to fill the quiet.

“Yes, shouldn’t take me long. As long as there are no more interruptions.”

“Have you learned anything in general about the women? That was a different era.”

“I wish I could say I have. Lacey made a general observation that they had a lot of amalgam fillings. Something you’d expect to see from that era. She said some of the dentistry was quite poor. Poor enough to make her wonder if it wasn’t American. But she mentioned that dental techniques had come a long way in the past fifty years and perhaps that it was simply a dentist who wasn’t very skilled.”