“Because you kept asking questions about the accounts.

Because Larissa is easier to love.” I stared at him, and he tilted his head, and he said the thing I have carried with me every day since, the thing that turned out to be the single greatest mistake of his life.

“Don’t look at me like that, Adeline.

No one likes a proud woman in a cage.” Then he stood, and buttoned his cedar-smelling jacket, and walked out, and he never came back.

He never visited again.