Jean Guest is the central antagonist of the novel. She presents herself as a therapist who utilizes unorthodox methodologies to help her clients heal from their trauma. In truth, Jean operates a predatory scheme that exploits young women from rich families by making them dependent on her advice as a counselor.

Jean’s primary method of manipulation is emotional extortion. She puts many of the characters she exploits, especially Gus, in situations where they feel indebted to her. She also misrepresents her therapeutic practice by focusing largely on traumatic past experiences, forcing her clients to reveal shameful or embarrassing parts of their past or planting fabricated memories that make her clients pliable to her needs. When she is ready to exploit her target, Jean threatens to expose the truth to others or withdraw from their lives, forcing them to admit their dependency on her. Jean frequently blurs the line between friendship and therapy, making Gus feel as though she is listening and sympathizing with her as a friend. It is only later that Jean makes Gus feel as though she has been taking advantage of her skills as a therapist, pressuring her into bankruptcy and debt.

Jean’s unreliable nature makes it difficult to assess whether anything she shares of herself with Gus is actually true. However, she does tell Gus that she experienced pregnancy loss when she was in her thirties, which helps Gus intuit her plan to take custody of Mary’s daughter after she is born.

Gus overcomes Jean by using her own methods against her. In the climax of the novel, Jean threatens to tell Gus’s parents about their sessions, violating doctor-patient confidentiality to get her way. Gus then reveals that she has been recording Jean without her consent, catching her in the act of witness tampering. This makes her liable to criminal charges and would destroy her ability to practice as a therapist again. Gus uses this to force Jean to distance herself from Mary, then later gives the recording to Lucy Ayres to help her seek justice for Jean’s exploitation of Lucy’s daughter, Oriel.

Mary Finbow is Gus’s romantic interest throughout the novel. She is the daughter of celebrity chef and ceramicist Anna Finbow, and she is an aspiring artist practicing her portraiture technique at the Melrose Academy in Rome.

Gus is primarily drawn to Mary because of her physical beauty. Gus convinces herself that Mary reciprocates her feelings because she is Mary’s first and only choice of model at the model casting session. Jean exploits this misconception to drive Gus’s fixation on Mary, making her believe that Mary will acknowledge feelings for Gus once she goes to therapy and learns to articulate her feelings more confidently. In truth, Mary’s wealthy background creates an extreme difference in aesthetic values and perceptions from Gus’s perspective. Her background makes Mary reliant on others, which is why she is so willing to adopt Jean as a surrogate for her mother after Jean plants the false memory that Anna had condoned Lawrence Melrose’s abuse of Mary.

Mary’s dependence on Jean makes her susceptible to her material exploitation. For instance, it is revealed early on that Mary signed over her properties to Jean so that she could manage them for her. The trial makes it clear to Mary that this gives Jean financial power over Mary. Later, after Mary reveals that she is pregnant and continues to live in an encampment, Carr reminds her that this will make her vulnerable to investigation by child services. Mary’s panicked reaction signals her complete lack of awareness about her situation, implying that she was falsely assured about her living situation by Jean.

As with Gus, Mary becomes disentangled from her dependence on Jean once she gains enough distance from her. Though Jean wins the trial against Anna, she agrees (under Gus’s extortion) to stay away from Mary, giving Mary the space to reflect on her and her baby’s needs. Over time, this space also enables her to reconcile with Anna, which suggests a growing maturity in Mary.

Anna Finbow is a major supporting character, and she functions as a false antagonist at the start of the novel. Jean’s manipulations force Gus and Mary to see Anna as an abusive, neglectful figure. While Anna is neglectful, she is also conscious of her responsibility as Mary’s mother and expresses sincere pain over their estrangement. This reaction convinces Gus that Jean misrepresented Anna and that there is reason for Anna and Mary to seek reconciliation.

Anna is a celebrity chef and ceramicist who previously broke out into the British cultural scene as a rock musician. Anna’s celebrity status informs the high-profile nature of her trial against Jean while also implying some aspects of Mary’s upbringing. While Anna continuously asserts that she committed herself to giving Mary a happy childhood, she is unaware of the faults and oversights that contributed to Mary’s early trauma. For instance, early on in the trial, it is revealed that Anna and her husband Bonamy’s neglect exposed Mary to drug use when she was still a teenager. More importantly, Anna’s neglect made her unaware that Mary was being groomed and abused by her artist friend, Lawrence Melrose. Believing that Lawrence could have a good influence on Mary’s art career, Anna effectively forced Mary to seek Lawrence’s mentorship at the Melrose Academy. Anna’s unwillingness to believe Gus when she tells her about Lawrence’s abuse signals her lack of information about Mary’s private life.

Anna loses the trial against Jean on several technicalities, including Gus’s sabotage of her testimony, which would have definitively proved that Jean had inserted false memories in her mind. Nevertheless, the novel suggests a happy ending for her as she begins to work toward reconciliation with Mary in the wake of her public humiliation.

Lawrence Melrose is the novel’s secondary antagonist. The novel reveals that he has been sexually abusing Mary since she was a child, carrying on that abuse during her time as a student in his school, the Melrose Academy in Rome.

Lawrence is portrayed as a temperamental figure at the academy. He frequently curses and makes crude sexist remarks, at one point comparing Gus to a sex worker when he comments that she is being paid overtime to model. Lawrence channels this aggression into his mentorship of Mary, verbally abusing her as he tries to affect her artistic technique. Mary claims that as a student at the academy, she has found equal footing with Lawrence as a sexual partner, but this merely stresses that Lawrence’s abuse has been normalized after several years. Mary is nevertheless ashamed to admit the truth about her relationship with Lawrence, disguising him under the moniker of her enigmatic lover “Vincenzo.”

Lawrence’s presence complicates the conflict, since Gus understands that Anna’s potential victory at the trial will mean that Mary will continue to experience Lawrence’s abuse. The novel ends with the implication that Lawrence is being held accountable for his abuse, which affected other students aside from Mary. These allegations are also what prevent him from participating in the trial altogether.