At my bridal fitting, my fiancé’s mother looked me up and down in a $14,000 gown and said, “White is for girls who have a real family waiting at the end of the aisle.” And while the entire salon stood frozen, my fiancé lowered his eyes and said nothing.

It had floor-to-ceiling windows, white oak floors, and a library with rolling ladders. No one outside a very small circle knew it belonged to me, and Miles had never been here.

That had not been an accident. From the beginning, I had kept parts of myself behind locked doors out of self-preservation.

I had wanted Miles to meet me unadorned by status. He knew I worked in finance and had done well for myself, but he did not know that Kensington Capital managed more than forty-seven billion dollars in assets.

He did not know that the tower in the Financial District with my surname in steel over the entrance was named after me. He did not know that his father’s law firm had spent months negotiating the most important transaction in its history with my company.

That night he came over with apologies shaped like excuses. He brought flowers and opened a bottle of wine from my kitchen without asking, because at some point he had begun to confuse access with intimacy.

“Camille, I’m sorry,” he said softly. I leaned against the counter and asked him what he was specifically sorry for.