He had just learned that his wife owned a fortune he’d never suspected, and his very first instinct — before hurt, before anger, before even curiosity about how — was to work out how much of it he could take.

That look confirmed everything the previous six years had slowly taught me and that I had refused, six years running, to fully believe.

It told me there was no wounded love in him that I was betraying by leaving, no partnership I was breaking.

There was only a man calculating a claim.

And a woman can leave a calculation with a clear conscience in a way she can never quite leave love.

That greedy look was, in its way, the kindest thing he ever gave me: absolute permission to go.