When his cards were canceled she would discover, as I had, that everything she thought she possessed had in truth possessed her — that the apartment was a lease he controlled and the necklace was evidence and the man was a liability with a countdown running under him.

He had not chosen her over me, not really.

He had simply found a newer, less expensive way to feel large, and would have found a newer one than her soon enough.

I did not hate Selina.

Standing in that boardroom watching her flee, I understood that in the ledger of Barrett’s life she and I occupied the same column after all, just at different exchange rates — two women he had valued precisely as much as we were useful to him and not one dollar more.

That was the last thing I needed to understand before I could say the sentence I had come to say.