It was not anger, exactly, that came over their faces; it was something worse for Roman, which was embarrassment — the specific, allergic embarrassment of sophisticated people who realize they have been fooled, and who cannot stand to look at the person who fooled them, because looking at him means looking at their own gullibility.

That is the thing charm cannot survive: not accusation, which it can deflect, but exposure, which curdles the very affection it fed on.

Roman had spent his whole career being liked, being trusted, being given the benefit of every doubt because he was warm and confident and told a good story.

And in that conference room, all of that turned inside out in an instant, and the warmth these people had felt for him became the heat of their own shame, and they turned away from him not because they hated him but because they could not bear to have been his fools a moment longer.

A man like Roman can survive almost anything except being seen clearly by the people whose good opinion is his whole power.