I didn’t pull away. I wasn’t worried about his intentions. I knew exactly what his intentions were. He intended to sit back and wait for me to make the first move. That was his established MO. It had become obvious to me in the last three weeks, not only in how he behaved toward me but in how he behaved toward all the other women in the office. He believed himself to be so desirable to women that he never had the burden of initiating the seduction. He could rely on his conquests wanting to conquer him. This was what he considered his greatest strength—his sexual magnetism, his utter irresistibility. I’d thought about it a good deal, especially when I thought about jujitsu. How to use his greatest strength against him. Ideas were percolating.

He refilled my glass as Kevin trotted up the stairs. “Thought you might like some go-withs,” Kevin said, flourishing a plate of tiny savory tarts.

“Ah, this is a favorite of mine,” Mark said. “Thanks, Kevin.” He picked one up as the chef galloped back downstairs. “Try it,” he said, and finger-fed it to me. “Good, right?”

“Mmm.” It was filled with goat cheese and fennel and melted into a buttery glow on my tongue.

“God!” he burst out unexpectedly. “It kills me to think of what they did to you. And why! That’s what’s driving me crazy.”

I swallowed. “I wish I could tell you.”

He popped a tart into his own mouth and looked thoughtful while he chewed. “Interesting phrasing you used there,” he said finally. “Like it could be either I wish I knew or I wish I weren’t subject to a gag order. I don’t suppose you could tell me which?”

I regarded him for a moment, as if deliberating. “The latter.”

“I knew it! God damn it. They’re covering up something so heinous that it made that woman kill herself. They couldn’t risk anyone finding out what, so they made it look like you killed her.”

“Sounds pretty fantastical when you say it.”

“But you lived it. They did it to you, Shay. The old men who wrote the rules of attorney-client confidentiality—they never imagined a situation like this one.”

I looked away. “I’m sorry, Mark. I can’t discuss it.”

He was silent for a time before he gave up and changed the subject. He wanted to know about the reporters vying for my story and which way I was leaning.

“You know,” he mused after I gave him the rundown, “why give the story to any of them? No one could tell it better than you could yourself. You should do a book. I know a few publishers. Work up a pitch, then sit back and wait for the bidding war.”

“Only if I’m acquitted.”

“You will be. Of course you will. You know—” He was thinking again. “We could collaborate on a book. Yeah!” He sat up excitedly. “How you were framed, and how the two of us exposed it and toppled the evil scum who did it to you. What d’you say?”