It was her personality, the whole of it, laid bare in how she spoke to a housekeeper and a driver.

I had all the evidence I needed about who she was in the first month, in the way she talked about the people who kept my home running.

I had simply refused to read it.

Now I knew.

And knowing it, I had to reckon with an uncomfortable question that has stayed with me since: how many warnings does a comfortable man get to ignore before their consequences stop being bad luck and start being his fault?

I had been given every chance to see Vanessa clearly.