She stood up abruptly and fetched a glass of iced water. She drank it quickly, trying to cool the hot burn of emotion.

Whatever had happened between them, death was always a tragedy.

Was it? Was she being hypocritical?

She should probably cry—if not for him then for the woman who’d made the bad decision to get into the car with him. Joanna sympathized. She was never one to judge the bad decisions of another. When it came to Cliff, she’d made so many bad decisions she could no longer count them.

She thought about Rita. Would she be shocked to discover she hadn’t been the only woman in Cliff’s life? Why was it that a woman so rarely believed that a serial cheater would cheat on her? They all thought they were different. That they were special. That they would be the one to tame him. When he’d said, “You’re the one,” they’d believed him.

Once, a long time ago, Joanna had believed that, too.

She’d wanted so badly to be special to someone. To have someone whose love she could rely on.

Putting the empty glass down, she took a deep breath and forced herself to think. She and Cliff were no longer married, but they still shared the business. Cliff’s was a brand, but now its figurehead was gone. What did that mean for the company they’d built together? She’d invested twenty years of her life into its growth and success, which was why she hadn’t walked away from it at the same time as leaving her marriage. That, and the fact that she had no idea what else she would do. Cliff’s was one of the few things she’d done right in her life—although the media didn’t understand that, of course. They didn’t understand how she could still work alongside a man who had humiliated her so completely.

She closed her eyes. Forget that. Don’t think about that.

Right now the worst part was that there would be a funeral—and she hated funerals. No matter whose funeral it was, it was always her father’s funeral. Again and again. Like some kind of cruel time travel trick. And she was always ten years old, shivering as the cool Californian rain blended with her tears. This was different, of course. She’d adored her father, and her father had adored her back. He was the only man whose love she’d been sure of. And then he’d left her...swept out to sea by a riptide, his body recovered a week later.

And now there would be Cliff’s funeral. Did she have to go? Yes, of course she did. Everyone would expect it. Divorce or no divorce, it would be the respectful thing to do. People would be watching. Everyone would want to know how she felt.

How did she feel?

She heard sounds in the distance, and then the insistent buzz of her gate’s intercom. Without thinking, she stepped to the window and looked down the curving sweep of the drive to the large iron gates that protected her from the outside world.