“No, thank you.” Her thoughts were complicated enough without clouding them with alcohol. Untangling her emotions was complicated. Was she feeling humiliated? Cliff’s behavior had continually embarrassed her, even after they were divorced. Was she prostrate with grief? Angry at the impact his actions might have on the business and the people they employed?

Joanna finished her coffee. It was cold, but she didn’t care. She felt oddly detached. She felt grief, yes, but was it grief for Cliff or grief for the life she’d wanted that had never turned out the way she’d hoped?

She wasn’t sure what she felt. It couldn’t be relief, because that would make her hard-hearted. Would it? Or would it make her human?

The buzzer sounded again. Annoying. Persistent.

Nessa slid off the stool and refilled her glass. “I’ll tell people in the office you won’t be in for a few days. Give it time to calm down. They’ll soon move on to something, or someone, else.” She added ice to the glass, splashing droplets of water onto smooth Italian tiles. “Anyway, unless you’re going to wear a disguise and shimmy over the wall like I did, your only way out of this place is through the front entrance. You can drive over the photographers, but then you’d be arrested and I don’t have enough money in my account to bail you out. I suppose they’ll go away eventually.”

“They won’t go away.”

She knew how this worked. There would be endless gossip. In the past she’d even been the subject of a women’s daytime chat show. Successful women who stay with men who cheat.

Joanna had watched it, appalled but also fascinated by this external analysis of her life. Was that really who they thought she was? Apparently she was a doormat, a coward, a disgrace to women. Where was her strength? Her dignity?

To them she wasn’t a person, she was a story. She was ratings, sales, a commercial opportunity, a talking point. They weren’t interested in the truth.

They didn’t know anything about her relationship. They didn’t know anything about her life before she’d met Cliff. They weren’t interested in who she was or what she felt. They didn’t know that although Cliff was the face of the business, it was her hard work that had made him famous. There was a popular TV show, a chain of expensive restaurants, branded cookware, cookbooks—the franchise had grown like a monster.

Please, Joanna, I can’t do this without you.

He was the face of the company, but she was the engine. She kept everything going, and he knew it.

He’d known it, she reminded herself. It was all in the past now. There was no more Cliff.

Why did you crash, Cliff? Were you driving too fast?