And Chloe, as it happened, ended their relationship only a few weeks after the gala, once the luxury apartment and the leased cars and the easy money began to evaporate into legal fees and disgrace.

Whatever she had believed she was staying for that night, it had not survived contact with the consequences.

I confess I have spent very little energy hating Chloe, less than people seem to expect.

It is not that she was innocent; she knew he was married, knew there was a wife and a child somewhere on the other side of those late dinners, and chose to accept the apartment and the jewelry anyway.

But she was, in the end, a supporting player in a story that Julian wrote, and when the money that had drawn her disappeared, so did she, which tells you most of what you need to know about what had actually been holding the two of them together.