He had come into possession of confidential corporate financial records and internal contracts, and he had shown them to a private individual who was not an employee, not an owner, not counsel, and who was the opposing party’s spouse in a live divorce.

It does not matter that his motive was decent.

It does not matter that I am in the story.

It is a breach, it is discoverable, and the moment Julian’s side learned of it — which they did, in a deposition, in the following April, because Arthur answered the question honestly — it became the single best fact they had.

Their theory from that day forward was not that the money had not been mine.

Their theory was that the corporate investigation had been manufactured by a business partner who was sleeping with the other party’s wife, and that the whole apparatus — the accountants, the law firm, the board — was an expensive costume for a personal vendetta.