His power was entirely borrowed, extended to him at my pleasure and revocable at my word, and he had spent eight years spending it as though it were his own, never noticing that it was on loan, never reading the fine print that said so.

This is, I think, why he could believe he was divorcing me and taking the company in the same breath.

In his mind he was not taking anything from me; he was simply keeping what was already his.

He genuinely did not understand that the throne he had been lounging beside had never had his name on it.

And there is a lesson in that which reaches well beyond one arrogant man, one I have watched play out in boardrooms my whole career: never mistake the appearance of power for its substance, in yourself or in anyone else.

The person with the real power is very often not the one at the head of the table making the noise.