She was sure she was on the right side of the road.

The autoroute consisted of blind bends winding around the mountain. As she drove, Jess caught sight of the road looping above and below.

The road above was the worry. Was she imagining it?

She drove cautiously around the next bend and caught a glimpse of a blue, open-topped sports car. The car was two curves above. Coming fast.

Driving against the cliff edge.

Her side.

Surely it should be on the other side?

She braked hard, turning her car onto a slight verge between cliff and road. The bend ahead was blind. If the car ahead came round on the wrong side…

It had to be her imagination. She was basing this fear on a flash of blue, now out of sight.

Maybe the driver ahead had better vision of the road than she did. She was being too cautious.

But she still felt the first claws of fear. Too much had happened in her life to trust that the worst wouldn’t happen now. Thus Jess was almost stopped when the blue car swept around the bend. Travelling far, far too fast.

On her side of the road.

She was as far onto the verge as she could be without melting into the cliff. There was nowhere she could go.

‘No.’ She put her hands out, blindly. ‘No.’

No one heard.

Today was meant to have been his wedding day. Instead…it made a great day for a funeral.

‘Do you suppose she meant to do it?’ Lionel, Archduke of Alp’Azuri, looked at the flag-draped coffin with distaste. He was supposed to be supporting his great-nephew in his grief, but neither man could summon much energy for strong emotion.

There’d been too much grief in the past few weeks for another death to destroy them.

‘What, kill herself?’ Raoul, Lionel’s great-nephew, didn’t even try to sound devastated. He sounded furious, which was exactly how he felt. ‘Sarah? You have to be kidding.’