He did not understand that I was not purchasing security.

I was purchasing my freedom, in full, before the ground under his feet gave way.

There is a bleak comedy in how easy he made it, and I have turned it over many times since.

Spencer prided himself, above almost everything, on being the sharpest man in any negotiation.

He believed he could read anyone, that he always knew what the person across the table truly wanted beneath what they said they wanted.

And it was precisely that pride that undid him, because it made him certain he had read me — the frightened, foolish wife, clutching for financial safety because she could not bear to lose him.