I asked everyone else to leave the room, then replied quietly, “I’m trying to stop turning against people I should have cared for.”

She sat on the edge of the sofa, furious.

“You’re going to choose Marianne over me?”

“Marianne is not asking me to choose her.

Chloe and Sophie are my children.

That isn’t an insult to you.”

“It is when you make our life a public scandal.”

“The scandal began when you attacked two students for winning honestly.”