Out of responsibility, he bought her parents a house.

Out of responsibility, he paraded her through gala dinners.

Out of responsibility, he shared her bed for three years.

And when he finally came home to New York, he had meant to set her down gently and be done with her — right up until he discovered that I had made peace with my parents.

Then he changed his mind.

His affair stopped being about Bianca at all and became about me: a way to prove that if anyone was going to be discarded in this marriage, it would be me, and on his schedule.

His one fatal miscalculation was assuming I would sit still and wait to be discarded.