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Reaching into a box, Alexia pulled out soraphs She preferred to keep her work and home lives separate, but these days everyone was so touchy-feely, having pictures of one’s children on one’s desk had becoueur

There was her daughter, Roxie, at eighteen, her blond head thrown back, laughing How Alexia h Of course, the picture had been taken before the accident

The accident Alexia De Vere hated the euphehter’s suicide attempt, a three-story leap that had left Roxie wheelchair bound for the rest of her life In Alexia’s view, one should call a spade a spade But Alexia’s husband, Teddy, insisted on it Dear Teddy He alas a soft touch

Placing her husband’s photograph next to their daughter’s, Alexia sedhair and permanently ruddy cheeks, Teddy De Vere beamed at the camera like a lovable bear

How different my life would have been without him How much, how very much, I owe him

Of course, Teddy De Vere was not the only ood fortune There was Henry Whitman, the new Tory prime minister and Alexia’s self-appointed political mentor And soood man A man who had helped her

But she mustn’t think about that man Not now Not today

Today was a day of triurets

The third picture was of Alexia’s son, Michael What an insanely beautiful boy he ith his dark curls and slate-gray eyes and that mischievous smile that melted feht that Michael was the only person on earth she had ever loved unconditionally Roxie ought to fall into that category too, but after everything that had happened between them, the bad blood had poisoned the relationship beyond repair

After the photographs it was ti in a steady stream since Alexia’s shock appointment was announced two days earlier Most of them were dull, corporate affairs sent by lobbyists or constituency hangers-on They had pictures of popping chane bottles or dreary floral still-lifes But one card in particular iainst a Stars-and-Stripes background, the words YOU ROCK! were ee inside read:

Congratulations, darling Alexia! SO excited and SO proud of you All my love, Lucy!!!! xxx

Alexia De Vere grinned She had very few female friends—very few friends of any kind, in fact—but Lucy Meyer was the exception that proved the rule A neighbor from Martha’s Vineyard, where the De Veres owned a summer home—Teddy had fallen in love with the island whilst at Harvard Business School—Lucy Meyer had become almost like a sister She was a traditional homemaker, albeit of the über-wealthy variety, and as American

as apple pie Alternately motherly and childlike, she was the sort of woman who used a lot of exclamation points in e-mails and wrote her i’s with full circles instead of dots on the top To say that Lucy Meyer and Alexia De Vere had little in co that Israel and Palestine didn’t always see exactly eye to eye And yet the toed over so many blissful summers on Martha’s Vineyard, had survived all the ups and downs of Alexia’s crazy political life

Standing by the , Alexia gazed down at the Than and stately, a softly flowing ribbon of silver snaking its silent way through the city But down below, Alexia knew, its currents could be deadly Even now, at fifty-nine years of age and at the pinnacle of her career, Alexia De Vere couldn’t look at water without feeling a shudder of foreboding She twisted her wedding ring nervously

How easily it can all be washed away! Power, happiness, even life itself It only takes an instant, a single unguarded instant And it’s gone