Chapter 23 - Ryan in the Room at Last
During a formal deposition tied to the financial review, Ryan finally admitted under oath that the affair existed and overlapped with some travel under scrutiny. In a short side conversation, away from the official record but not without witnesses nearby, James asked him directly why.
Ryan confessed what James had already guessed: envy. He had cared about Emily, but he also liked what it meant that she chose him. He had wanted a share in the life James seemed to embody, and taking from James had felt easier than becoming more himself.
That ugly honesty clarified everything. Ryan was not a monster from another species. He was a man whose selfishness and insecurity had found just enough charm, opportunity, and intelligence to become devastating.
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Back in the formal record, Denise tried to draw out James’s marital shortcomings—work, absence, neglect. James did not deny them. He simply stated that such problems are to be addressed by honesty, counseling, separation, or divorce, not by sleeping with one’s best friend while billing dinners to the company.
Afterward James felt strangely better. The hidden explanation he had kept half-expecting did not exist. There were only ordinary ugly motives. That made the pain no smaller, but the mystery less powerful.
