Introduce something that cannot be argued with, a recording, a document, a timestamp, a witness who will not be frightened into silence, and the whole apparatus of charm and deflection has nothing to push against, and it collapses.

Vanessa was formidable right up until the moment she met a truth she could not talk her way around.

Then she was nothing at all.

And I have made my peace, mostly, with having been fooled by her for as long as I was, because I have decided that the alternative, becoming a man who trusts no one in order never to be fooled again, is a worse fate than the one she nearly handed me.

I would rather be occasionally deceived and remain a person capable of trust than armor myself so completely that no Vanessa can ever reach me, because that same armor keeps out everyone else as well, all the Teresas and Gregs, all the ordinary decent people who make a life worth having.