LeeAnne had a few habits that drove everyone batty. One was running down the back stairs to the kitchen, very loudly, sounding like a herd of children, rather than one adult. It also meant that if someone were starting up the stairs, she would come around the corner and run into them, her momentum knocking them over, more likely than not, since she was coming down, while the other person was going up. Since it was the most convenient way to get upstairs from the laundry room, many times the person in question would wind up lying in a pile of clean clothes to boot.

"Would you mind just walking down the stairs like a normal person, or, if you insist on thundering about like a herd of bison, just using the nice, wide, front stairs?" Luke asked when she knocked him back into the wall as she ran down to the kitchen.

"The front stairs are way out of the way," she objected. "These are much more convenient to come and get a drink." She gave him a sunny smile. "I will try to be more careful, though, okay?"

Until the next time, when her running footsteps would once again be heard on the narrow stairs.

Another was bursting into tears and running off to the bathroom, sometimes to actually throw up, whenever something unpleasant was happening around her. The list of things that LeeAnne found unpleasant was quite long.

Anything regarding Chiara and Drew's wedding.

Anything regarding Mara and Luke's wedding.

Anything regarding Gary and another woman that might show up online, even though he hadn't stirred from Langton in months, and she and Gary weren't a couple.

Anything that could be construed as criticism about her.

Anything that could be construed as criticism about the baby.

Anything about when she would leave Langton and return to LA.

The others were getting exhausted just being around her, and Chiara found it was a relief to go to work every day. She felt very professional to put her breakfast things in the sink and kiss Drew good bye before stopping off at the cottage to get what she'd need for the day and drive off in the truck.

The best part of her day, LeeAnne notwithstanding, was returning to Langton to move forward with plans for the wedding. In addition to the daily care that she put in as part of her job, she was preparing the rose garden and the grounds for the big event that would take place there the next year.

Sometimes, she'd catch LeeAnne watching her through the French doors, holding Sienna, who could hold her head up now, and had become an alert little baby who smiled readily and cooed at everyone. LeeAnne even came outside sometimes to ask what Chiara was doing, and offer her opinion about where the roses were moved or how many chairs would fit.

One day in late April, Chiara came home expecting to find everyone in the kitchen preparing dinner as usual. Instead, she found Mara holding the baby, and Ned getting off the phone from ordering a pizza, and everyone looking upset and distracted.

"What?" Chiara asked, going to the mudroom to wash the day off her hands and arms. She returned to the kitchen. "Where are LeeAnne and Nicholle?" She looked around. "What's going on?"

"We don't exactly know," Mara answered. "They're up in their room."

Chiara waited, but no one said anything else. She looked around.

"Where's Drew?"

Again, she waited, but she got only silence.

Mara looked around, but no one else seemed inclined to answer, so she stepped gamely into the breach, first handing Sienna to Gary.

"He's, um, gone," she said. "He said to tell you he had to go up to London for a bit, and he'd text you when he could."

"He had to go up to London?" Chiara repeated, confused. "Did he say why?"

No one would meet her eye.

"What are you not telling me?" she demanded. Her voice was so loud that the baby jumped in Gary's arms. "Someone talk to me, dammit!"

Ned took a deep breath.

"Look, love, we don't exactly know ourselves, yeah?" He moved toward the kettle. "Let me make you a cup of tea."

"I don't want a cup of tea, I want someone to tell me what's going on," Chiara said, sitting at the table anyway. In a minute, she accepted the tea she didn't want, drinking as she waited.

"Okay, we'll tell you what we know, which isn't much," Ned agreed, sitting next to her.

"This afternoon, whilst we were working, Drew got a text, and he said he had to leave and take care of something," Ned began. "We thought it was from you, actually." He smiled.

"Next thing we know, we hear loud voices from the kitchen, even though the doors are closed. So we come out to see what the fuss is about, and Drew is, you know shouting and swearing, saying stuff like, 'I don't believe you,' and 'You're lying,' and calling LeeAnne and her sister names, things I don't want to repeat."

Chiara swallowed and stared at Ned, transfixed.

"Then he saw us watching them, and he stopped. He came out, grabbed his keys and said he had to go up to London, and to tell you he'd text you when he could," Ned concluded with a shrug. "And he left." He covered Chiara's cold hand with his own. "Now you know what we do, love. That's all there is."

"What about LeeAnne and Nicholle? Did they say anything?"

The boys shook their heads.

"I was upstairs, I passed them as I was coming down and they were going up," Mara explained. "They didn't say anything to me, either."

Chiara pulled out her phone and sent Drew a text.

Ten minutes later, she was still waiting for a response.

What was going on?

The baby started to fuss, and Luke automatically rose to make her a bottle while Gary changed her.

Chiara went to the bottom of the stairs and called.

"LeeAnne?" She waited and called again.

"Yeah?" Her voice could be heard, very faintly.

"Can you come down here, please? I'd like to talk to you."

There was a thudding of stairs as first LeeAnne, then her sister, came down the back stairs.

"Is dinner ready?" she asked. "I'm starving."

She and Nicholle had obviously spent their time upstairs re-doing their make-up.

"Can you tell me anything about what happened this afternoon between you and Drew?" Chiara asked, ignoring her question about dinner.

LeeAnne bit her lips together and looked at her sister, finally shaking her head.

"You should probably wait and talk to Drew about it," she said.

"Why? You were both here, it happened in the kitchen, which is a common room, why can't one of you just tell me?"

Nicholle stepped in front of her LeeAnne. "You heard my sister. Just leave it alone until your boyfriend comes home, okay?" She looked around to include everyone in the room.

The bell rang, signaling the arrival of the pizza, so everyone sat down to eat, taking turns holding the baby. No one mentioned Drew or the shouting match that had occurred that afternoon.

Chiara no longer had an appetite, but she ate anyway, because it was easier to eat than not, but she left the table feeling slightly ill, and went to bed early, simply because she didn't want to talk to anyone but Drew, and he was incommunicado.

She worried, all through the next day, texting Drew periodically but getting no response. She even texted Ellie, just a "Hello, how are things," sort of text, since she didn't want to worry her, but Ellie's response was completely normal, so she knew that Drew wasn't there. She thought about contacting Noah, but he was at school and had exams, she knew, and she didn't want to distract him in any way, so she didn't.

By the time she came home to dinner, she was nearly incoherent with worry, as was the rest of the household, with the exception of the two American girls. No one felt like messing around with dinner, so people just picked at leftovers, though of course LeeAnne and Nicholle complained.

"I'm sure he'll contact you tonight," Ned said to Chiara, putting an arm around her.

Chiara could only nod.

"Okay, enough sulking and fretting, everyone," Gary called cheerfully. "Let's get our pajamas on and watch a movie, all right? Get our minds off things?"

"Yes," Luke agreed. "Come on, everyone."

So Chiara dutifully went upstairs, showered, got her PJs on and went down to the lounge, where she sat next to Ned and looked at a movie. She couldn't honestly say she "watched," because she had no idea what it was about, or even what it was called.

Finally, after they'd been sitting about an hour and a half, they heard the door to the kitchen open and Drew came into the lounge.

He looked awful.

He hadn't shaved, and he looked like he hadn't slept in the entire time he'd been gone. He was wearing the same clothes he'd been wearing yesterday morning, when Chiara had last seen him, and his shoulders were slumped, as if he were exhausted. But the rest of him looked good, compared to the expression on his face.

Chiara was shocked to see he looked as if he'd aged fifteen years. He had circles under his eyes, which had a hollow, dead expression in them. He had brackets around his mouth, which was pulled down in a slight frown, like he was trying not to cry. His Adam's apple bobbed up and down as his eyes landed on Chiara and he swallowed.

"CC, can you come upstairs with me, please? I need to speak with you."

It was the fact that there was no greeting, no apology, no nicety of any kind that frightened her more than anything and got her moving.

Chiara rose without a word and walked to where he stood. She took his outstretched hand and left the room with him, going up the stairs, her body ramrod tense. She knew not to talk until they were in their room. Her dread was palpable.

Behind her, the room was frozen in a shocked tableau, all except the Marcum sisters, who sat in smug silence, small smiles on their similar sister's mouths.

Chiara sat wordlessly on the bed, hands in her lap, eyes on Drew, waiting.

He paced in front of her in his shorts and Grateful Dead T-shirt, looking exhausted.

"I don't know how to say this," he began. He stopped moving and turned to face her, dropping to his knees and taking her ice-cold hands in his.

"First, you know I love you. More than anything. Anything. Loving you these last months has been the most amazing experience." He quickly dashed away a tear that was rolling down his cheek.

Chiara only nodded, taking a deep breath.

"Oh god, oh shit." Drew wiped another tear with his shoulder without releasing his hard grip on her hands.

He took a deep, quaking breath, elongating his thin frame.

"LeeAnne Marcum is pregnant, darling."

What?

"Did you hear me? She's going to have a baby."

Chiara looked at Drew in confusion.

"But what's that to do with us?" She shook her head. "Surely that's Gary's problem?"

Drew looked down and let out one sob, then looked back at her. "No, CC, it's not. She's been to see a solicitor, and so have I. Shit," he said again, his voice hopeless. "I can't marry you," he said. "I can't do a lot of things we had planned." He looked around the room, then back into her confused blue eyes. "I'd give anything not to have to tell you this." He squeezed her hands. "I'd give anything to spare you this heartache.

"The baby's mine."