He looked at the photograph, and the dissipation claim, and the gift deed, and at me.

And I watched the great romance of his life die on his face in real time — watched him stop seeing the woman he’d thrown away a marriage for and start seeing a felony charge, a restitution order, a threat to his career and his credit and possibly his freedom.

Whatever he had felt for Valentina, it did not survive contact with a police report.

There is a particular expression a person makes when self-preservation overrides everything else, and I watched it arrive on Damian’s face and settle in to stay.

Four days earlier this man had stood in a towel and declared his feelings for Valentina worth the demolition of our marriage.

Now there was a detective in the lobby and a photograph of his mistress carrying stolen goods on the table in front of his corporate lawyer, and I could see the exact moment his brain finished the calculation and arrived at its conclusion: she is not worth this. Not worth the charge.