Caitlin fought back a scream. A scream could get her hit or worse. She grabbed the thumb of her left hand with the fingers of her right and squeezed. “And you do, Embower? You see me as a woman?”

“Such a woman, Caitlin. A strong, intelligent woman who doesn’t take shit from anyone.”

She shook out her hands and met his eyes. “I thought I needed to be saved.”

His smile dropped instantly. “From yourself, yes. The things you do and say.”

She bit the inside of her cheek, anything to slow down the eruption. This wouldn’t be a panic attack. This was pure rage. “And what did you say to Woods as me?”

Embower set his feet shoulder-width apart, looked down to the floor, then raised his head with both altered posture and voice.

“ ‘I don’t accept your apology, Troy, nor do I need it.’ ”

“I don’t sound like that.”

He continued, “ ‘You may have taken my body, robbed me of my halcyon days at IU—’ ”

Caitlin hated the word halcyon. Hated.

“ ‘—but you didn’t take anything I couldn’t replace. While your life spiraled out of control, I built a career.’ ” One hand went to his hip, the other punctuated his words. “ ‘While doors locked you away, I broke through walls, soared through the sky.’ ” His voice thundered. “ ‘I do not need your apology, just as the world does not need you. Your crime, inconsequential; your mark on the world, invisible. I am Caitlin Bergman. Who the fuck are you?’ ”

Embower hung up an invisible phone, dropped his hands to his sides, and raised his eyebrows.

Caitlin looked down at her hands, both white-knuckled from squeezing the tabletop.

“I didn’t expect applause,” he said, leaning down over the table, “but not even a smile?”

If he came a foot closer, even bound to the chair, she could strangle him or gouge out his eyes or pull the tongue out of his sick fucking mouth. “Are you that delusional, Branford?”

His expression darkened. “That’s not my name.”

She leaned forward, straining against her straps. “Do you really think I’m over what Woods did to me?”

“You’re a strong woman, Caitlin,” he said, as if that would put out the fire in her chest.

“Do you know what it meant to leave everything I cared about, to be ashamed of who I was”—the straps moaned under her movement, and her voice left the volume of polite conversation—“to be afraid to tell my father why I left college weeks before graduation?”

“Caitlin, you’re upset, but you shouldn’t raise your voice at me.”