It did not.

It only made me tired, and sad, and aware of how thoroughly I had been fooled, and by how little.

That last part is what stung most, in a strange way.

I am not a foolish man.

I had built a company, negotiated with hard people, learned to read a room and a balance sheet and a bluff.

And yet a woman with a good performance and an eye for my weak spots had gotten seventeen months and a diamond and very nearly my father’s legacy out of me, and had done it not with some brilliant deception but with the oldest and simplest one there is: she had told me she loved me, and shown me the version of herself I wanted to see, and let my own hope do the rest.

There is no expertise that protects you from that.