The whole edifice — the self-made story, the borrowed arrogance, the aristocratic certainty — came down in the space of a breath.

He had built all of it, I understood, on a foundation he’d never actually owned: my money, laid quietly under him six months before, holding up a life he believed he had earned.

He had been standing on my generosity the entire time and calling it his own two feet.

“Adaeze, please.” There were tears in his eyes now, the honest kind, the kind fear produces.

“Don’t ruin me.

We can start over.