She stared at the TV, her gaze fixed on the smoking wreckage. She’d always said his libido would be the death of him, and it seemed she’d been right.

Her phone rang. A friend offering support?

She checked the screen.

Not a friend—did she have any true friends? It was something she often wondered about... Rita. Cliff’s personal assistant and his lover for the past six months.

Joanna didn’t want to talk to Rita. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. She knew from painful experience that anything she said would find its way into the media and be used to construct an image of her as a pathetic creature, worthy of the nation’s pity. Whatever Cliff did, she somehow became the story. And no matter how much she told herself that it didn’t matter, because the woman they wrote about wasn’t really her, she still found it distressing. Not just the intrusion—and the stories were intrusive—but the inaccuracies.

She wanted to correct their mistakes. She wanted to stand up and yell That’s not me! But she didn’t because no one was interested in the truth. For years she’d been outraged by the injustice of it—which was surprising, because she’d always known the world was an unjust place. She’d grown up in a small town, the focus of gossip and scrutiny, but even that uncomfortable experience hadn’t prepared her for life in the spotlight. Every time Cliff had an affair, people judged her. Unfair, but that was how it was.

She rejected the call, muted the sound on the TV, but continued to stare at the words scrolling along the bottom of the screen.

Celebrity chef Cliff Whitman killed in car accident. Dead at the scene.

Well, damn.

She’d spent the last few years wanting to kill him herself, and she didn’t know whether to feel elated or cheated. After everything he’d done, everything he’d put her through, it seemed unfair of the universe to have deprived her of the chance to play at least a small part in his demise.

A hysterical laugh burst from her and she slapped her hand over her mouth, shocked. Had she really just thought that? What was wrong with her? She was a compassionate human being. She valued kindness above almost all other qualities—possibly because her encounters with it had been rare. And yet here she was, thinking that if she’d seen his car hovering on the edge of a ravine she might have given it a hard push.

What did that say about her?

Her legs were shaking. Why were her legs shaking?

She sat down hard on the kitchen stool.

Her journey with Cliff had been bumpy, but she’d known him for half her life. She should be sad, shouldn’t she? She should feel something? Yes, Cliff Whitman had been a liar and a cheat who had almost broken her, but he had still been a person. And there had been a time when they’d loved each other, even if that love had been complicated. There had been good parts. At the beginning of their marriage he’d brought her breakfast in bed on Sunday mornings—flaky, buttery croissants that he’d baked himself and juice freshly squeezed from the citrus fruit that grew in their home orchard. He’d listened to her. He’d made her laugh. She’d organized his chaotic life, leaving him free to play the part he enjoyed most. Being Cliff. He’d said they were a perfect team.