I sat at the kitchen table, sipping a mug of jasmine green tea, feeling strangely untethered. I’d felt this way since Mum’s passing. Funerals were meant to be a time of closure, a chance to share memories and say a final goodbye. Taking place a week after her death, Mum’s funeral had brought closure but no peace. Aunt Minerva had wept throughout the entire service. Nana Meggie and I had barely kept it together. And Troy had been so withdrawn. He’d barely said a word and that had been his default state ever since. The rest of Mum’s family and friends had given their earnest and sincere condolences, shaking my hand or kissing my cheek until I was ready to scream. I’d got through it, but only just. Without Meggie – and Tobey, I admit it – I would’ve fallen apart.

One positive since Mum died was that the charge of perverting the course of justice levelled against me had been dropped, along with the murder charge against Tobey, through lack of evidence. I still believed that my ex, Gabriel Moreland, had brought the action against me, but I had no proof. Besides, it hardly mattered now. I’d dodged that particular bullet and, since I’d announced I was taking a year’s sabbatical from work, Gabe could no longer get to me. Not that anyone in my law chambers expected me to return when my year was up. Their reasoning? I was the wife of the PM. Why on earth would I want to return to work? Only Sol and I knew I had nothing to return to. My decision to defend Tobey in court meant my reputation was irrevocably tainted.

That wasn’t good enough for me so I was seeking new paths to forge. Being the PM’s wife certainly made that easier. In fact, I was seriously considering a new career in politics and was taking a keen interest in Tobey’s work – all his meetings and briefings. I was soaking in that world like a thirsty sponge, even beginning to drop the occasional hint to Tobey about working with him. So far he’d brushed all such suggestions aside, but my mind was made up. Over the next couple of years, Tobey was going to teach me everything he knew about the political world. He just didn’t know it yet.