Rosalee spoke up. “Because he said he would kill her and make it look like an accident. By that point, we had finally realized how powerful he was. I stayed because I was afraid for her. I think if it wasn’t for me, he would have crippled or killed her. He said Amalie belonged to him. There was always security around. When she went to get her hair done or her nails, there was always security. She was never alone. At times I would be with her but not always. To answer your question, it was impossible.”

Isabelle leaned forward. “I realize this is a personal question, but what kind of . . . um . . . intimate life did you have?”

Amalie laughed out loud, a bitter sound of misery. She raised her head defiantly, and said, “I could count the times we had sex on one hand. It worked once, on our honeymoon; four other times he said it was my fault that it didn’t. For all I know, the man prefers other men. Or maybe he is just so into himself that having sex with another person would be demeaning. All I do know is that the day I said I would like to have children, he beat me to within an inch of my life. Rosalee thought I was going to die. She called her mother to ask what to do for me. I survived because of her.”

“What was the final straw?” Alexis asked.

Amalie Moss drew a deep breath, and said, “I told him if he didn’t let me go, so I could return to my family, I was going to tell the whole world what a fraud he was, that I did not use La Natural, and how he had done nothing more than repackage the same junk the company was selling when it almost went broke, mounted a splashy ad campaign even before I was involved, and tripled the price. And the new product the chemists were working on, something he said would make Botox obsolete, would all be lost. He had some scheme to use my mother and me with the new product. I was so furious, I then threw in the President and said that Gabriel would be a laughingstock because of him. I never saw the blow. The next thing I remember is waking up in bed in a world of pain. Rosalee was sitting by the bed crying.

“Rosalee is the one who got me away. I know in my heart I would be dead by now if it weren’t for her.”

“How did you do it?” Kathryn asked.