And Preston, watching them enter, turned to me, and his voice broke, and for the first time all evening he said my name without a trace of contempt in it.

“Iris,” he said.

“Iris, please.

Tell them it was just a misunderstanding.

Please.”

I looked at him for a long moment.

An hour earlier, he had wanted an audience to watch me suffer, had staged the whole thing precisely so that it would be witnessed.

So I gave him one now.