I don't respond because there's nothing else to say. She has expectations of me that I'll never meet. And at some point, she will be forced to accept it.
I turn into her and kiss her face. "Good night, sweet Ivy."
20 Ivy
As the sun rises, I lie still beside him, listening to his even breathing. He’s passed out. Exhausted probably from days, weeks even of not sleeping. Of drinking too much. Of worrying.
And I am only going to add to that worry when he wakes.
Sitting up on the bed, I pet his dark head, brushing the hair from his face.
God. What a mess this is.
He stirs but barely, and I pick up the dagger he’d been carrying last night. I went back downstairs to get it after he fell asleep when I couldn’t sleep.
It’s as beautiful as it is deadly. Roses and skulls always with him. I bring the tip to my finger, and it takes just the littlest bit of pressure to break the skin. I watch a droplet of blood pool, then another. I smear it on the inside of my palm. Lay the blade flat there.
Blood on my hands. No. Not on mine. Not yet.
But on Abel’s.
On my father’s.
On my husband’s.
“What are you doing?” comes his deep, steady voice.
Startled, I look over at him. Not asleep. Not even sleepy. Alert. Awake. Like any good predator. He’s dangerous. Not to me, but to those I love. And I’m torn.
If I tell him, I betray my friend.
If I don’t, I betray him.
And betrayal may be the least of my concerns. I’m sure I will have to tie him down for him to hear what Colette confided in me. If he is to remain still and listen to reason after the words are out. If not, I know my husband. This dagger will have much more blood on it than the few drops from my finger.
He’s sitting up beside me, looking at the palm of my hand. At the smear of blood on his blade.
“You were going to kill my father,” I say. “If I hadn’t stopped you last night, you’d have done it.”
He neither confirms nor denies it.
“What would you have told me this morning?”
“Ivy,” he starts, reaching for the dagger.
I snatch it away and shake my head. “What would you have told me, Santiago?”
His eyes harden a little, but it’s not to shut me out. I know this now. This thing, this vengeance, in a way, it’s separate from me. Or at least it has become so to him. It has to be because how can he be how he is with me one moment and in the next be walking out of this house on his way to the hospital to kill a helpless old man?
Well, walking isn’t quite right. He’d been staggering. Did he need to drink so much to be able to bring himself to do it?
I think about what he told me about his own father. I knew already, at least a little of it. I knew he was a cruel man. But I guess I can’t imagine someone with that much power over you who is only ever cruel.
“You have to let this thing against my father go.”
“That’s not your concern. Give me the dagger.”
“Would you have lied?” I ask instead of giving him what he wants. “Climbed into bed beside me and maybe made love to me after murdering an old man?”
“Murder?” he snorts. “An eye for an eye, Ivy. Give me my knife. Don’t test my patience.”
“Patience?”
“I’m not asking again.”
“No.”
“Be reasonable.”
“Because you are?” Can I tell him what Colette told me? Would Marco help me? Would he hold him down until I made him see reason?
His expression changes, his body relaxes a little, and he smiles that one-sided smile. “You manipulated me last night.”
“I stopped you from committing murder. Tell me what you would have told me this morning if you’d gone through with it.”
“You want to know if I’d lie to you about killing your father? About taking my rightful revenge?”
I falter. He is painfully honest. It’s just that truth has many, many sides. And believing yours too fervently is dangerous.
“I—” I start, and I’m not expecting him to move so quickly. To grab the wrist of the hand that’s holding the hilt of his blade and squeeze until my fingers uncurl so he can take the dagger from me. I’m not expecting him to drag me onto my back and straddle me, the steel of the knife hard against my wrist as he holds it and me, spreading my arms to either side of the bed, face dark as he looms over me.
“You’re going to stop hovering outside my study door.”
“It’s the only way I get any news,” I say. I’m not scared of him. He won’t hurt me. “And I wasn’t hovering,” I say as his gaze runs over me, over the nightgown that’s slightly ripped where he yanked at it last night. At my partially exposed breast.
“No?” he asks, dipping his head down to flick his tongue over my nipple, the sensation sending a charge straight to my clit.
“No,” I say, feeling his grip ease a little, watching as he leans over to his side of the bed, opens the nightstand drawer, and drops the dagger inside it before returning his full attention to me, eyes dark now, pupils dilated. He’s aroused.
“I knew I’d have to safeguard the house for my child, but for my wife, too? That dagger is not a toy, my dear.”
“I know that.”
“Then you know it’s not to be played with.”
“I wasn’t playing. And neither were you.”
He leans down to graze his teeth over that same nipple, and I close my eyes as my body arches into his. “Don’t get me wrong,” he says, releasing my wrists to slide down between my legs. “I don’t mind that sort of manipulation.”
