That is exactly why I would not do it.

I had learned the single most important rule for dealing with a person like Casper, and it is this: you do not let them get you alone, ever, because their power lives entirely in the private room and dies entirely in the public one.

In front of witnesses, with everything documented, Casper was a man who had thrown a rag in his wife’s face and was about to sign an annulment.

Alone, he might have been able to make himself my husband again for just long enough to do real damage.

So I let Katarina answer for me, and I did not give him the five minutes, and I watched him understand that the private room he was counting on was never going to exist.

Chapter 17 — The Second Act