Lover by Design
I didn’t answer straight away, because the honest answer rearranged furniture I’d been standing on for a long time.
“Those aren’t the same thing,” she went on, gently, relentlessly. “Betrayal means he turned. But you don’t actually know he was ever yours to turn. You knew he was useful. You knew his interests lined up with yours. And you called that loyalty, because calling it loyalty meant you never had to check.”
She looked out at the mountains. “You do it with people, Michael. You always have. You mistake a person behaving predictably for a person being trustworthy. They aren’t the same, and one of them just put a boat in our cove.”