"It's not that simple," John replied. "They are like bedbugs. I'd have to fumigate the whole city to be rid of them." Unless... she was implying he could pay someone to "take care of it", which... well he'd done that. And it had been satisfying for a while, until he'd come back. And interesting that she would imply that with barely a flicker. ...she was implying that, right?
But for her, he could accept that it would be stifling for an upwardly mobile young woman to wish to spread her wings in a more permissive society. "So when have you seen embezzling?" He was watching her now, this woman who seemed to have great hidden depths. He'd thought her beautiful but bland, the sort that if he hadn't promised her father anything he would love and leave, but he was starting to get the impression that was what she wanted him to think.