It was that the transformation took no time at all.

There was no flicker of shame, no pause in which the man who had ordered her toward the restrooms sixty seconds earlier reckoned with what he had done.

The instant her value changed — the instant she stopped being a cheap embarrassment and became the heiress of the man he most wanted to impress — his entire posture toward her reversed, seamlessly, as if flipping a coin from one face to the other.

And a reversal that fast is a confession.

It meant that the contempt and the sudden adoration were the same thing wearing two coats: both were simply Damson calculating her worth to him and arranging his face to match.

He had never seen her at all — not the embarrassing wife an hour ago, not the precious wife now.