“He has millions behind him, and lawyers, and he is a man who does not accept losing.” I looked down at the soda-can pull tab still resting on my ring finger, and then at the bright red silk of Lily’s dress, the dress a father had run back into a fire to save.

“Neither,” I said quietly, “will I.” And I meant it in a way that surprised even me.

Because Caleb had made a mistake, in his contempt, that his kind always makes: he had assumed that because I did not care about money, I could be frightened by the threat of losing it.

But a woman who never wanted the fortune cannot be threatened with its loss.

His entire arsenal, the litigation, the ruin, the burying-me-in-legal-fees, was built to terrify a person who was in it for the money, and I was not.