"Tell you, Kendric sets up targets to knock down, fixates on them, devoting himself single-mindedly to their downfall. For the kind of left-hand business he's involved with it's a commendable trait. He'd been pretty successful, too; built up a good reputation for reliability, top man in the field. He'd never really known failure. Then I come along, hired by your grandfather, and we thwart him in what was probably his most ambitious scheme ever: asset-stripping Event Horizon. His first true debacle. Then you followed it up by humiliating him with blackmail. Anyone flying that high is going to be hurt bad by the fall. Small wonder you dominate his thoughts; any normal person would be bitter, but with a wacko like that it was probably the push over the edge. You misjudged him completely, and now Katerina is suffering because of that."

"She went with him," Julia said defiantly. "It was her choice."

"Of course it was, but you engineered it. You and your oh-so-logical nodes, meticulously sketching out all the conceivable scenarios the players could be combined in. You've got Kendric, rich, handsome, an expert in seduction, kinky wife who doesn't object to him playing the field. Katerina, in your eyes naive, also sex-mad and your close friend, who just happens to have in tow a very desirable stud who you've had your eye on for some time. And finally the poor old stud himself, Adrian, who Katerina had almost tired of anyway."

"You invited Katerina and Adrian to Horace Jepson's party, a real fiesta rave atmosphere complete with the world's greatest rock star. Katerina could no more refuse that than a bee can ignore pollen. And you chose it because that party was the perfect melting pot. Kendric walks in, sees you, the lonely little rich girl with probably her only real friend in the world, who by lucky chance is a real stunner and just as randy as he is. Well, he jumps at it, doesn't he? And he succeeds easily, because he's got the same sex appeal as Adrian, loaded with a suavity Adrian couldn't begin to match, and filthy rich with it. Katerina simply leaps at him."

"Kendric thinks he's scored a double bonus, depriving you of a friend and confidante, and at your age friends like that are terrifically important, plus he gets himself and Hermione a nice chunk of fresh meat to fun around with. You, in the meantime, get rid of Katerina, in whose company any girl will look like one of Cinderella's sisters, and get to console a devastated Adrian, who gratefully repays you with the only currency he's got."