“The two men maintain firm eye contact. A poker game, both of them bluffing. Or pretending to.”

“That was the secret to maintaining lies: not trying to hide them.”

“She glances at each of her three companions, at the protective veneers they’re all wearing, trying to mask the different lies they’ve told one another. The lies they’re all continuing to try to maintain. Hoping these lies will carry them through the rest of their full and satisfying lives, despite the truths they’ve chosen not to tell the most important people in their worlds.”

“You go about your business, as far away from these lines as possible, pretending they're not there. So when you eventually find yourself at one of these lines, your toe inching over, it's not only shocking and horrifying, it's banal. Because you've always been aware the lines were there, where you were trying with all your might not to see them, knowing that sooner or later you would.”

“But when Kate returned home he was gone. Back to the video camera that had recorded her. Back to his unexplainable office. Back to his secret phone, his unfamiliar contacts, his fifty million stolen euros. Back to his other life.”

“He laughed again, red-faced and moist-looking, at another unfunny comment. He was either drunk or an idiot. Possibly both.”

“Kate was never going to understand the extent to which men were stupid.”