He had shown her in front of sixty witnesses, and she would never again have to wonder.

It had not always been like this, and that was the part that would take her the longest to grieve.

When she had met Dane, four years earlier, he had seemed to genuinely admire what she was — had asked good questions, had listened, had told her once, early, that being with a woman who was so completely herself made him want to be more himself too.

She had believed him.

She still thought, looking back, that he had probably even meant it, in the beginning, before the beginning wore off.

What she had not understood, and what she understood now with a terrible clarity, was that admiration and resentment can grow from the very same root — that the thing a weak man loves about a strong woman at the start is very often the exact thing he comes to hate about her by the end, because it will not stop reminding him of his own size.