Eliot Cross, Marcus's lawyer, placed the document on the table between us. Forty-seven pages. I had signed page forty-seven. I had not read pages one through forty-six. In my defence, I was twenty-five years old, desperate for the job, and Marcus Vane had been sitting across from me in a suit that cost more than my mother's monthly medical bills. I had not been thinking clearly. I had not been thinking at all. What I had signed, Eliot explained in his careful, measured voice, was not merely a non-disclosure agreement. It was a conditional employment contract with a spousal clause embedded in section thirty-one. If Marcus Vane ever entered into a second marriage, and if the second wife was a current employee, that employee would be bound by the terms of the original prenuptial agreement between Marcus and Celeste Vane.

"That's not legal," I said. My voice was very calm. I was proud of that. "It's been tested," Eliot said. He did not look at me when he said it. "By whom?" I asked. He finally looked up. "By the woman who came before you."