“I don’t remember. I don’t know what day it is. I don’t even know if it’s night or day. I don’t know how long you’ve had me locked up in here.”

“Do you prefer Judge’s cellar?”

“Judge?”

“I can take you back there. With the rats.”

“You’re hurting me.”

“Do you want me to take you back there?”

I give a slight shake of my head.

“Use your words, Ivy.”

“No,” I spit.

“Then watch your mouth and do as you’re told. When I come in here, you should drop to your knees eager to please me, yet what do I get? A petulant, defiant little wife who can’t even be bothered to wash herself.”

Tears are forming at the corners of my eyes, and the food in my mouth is turning sour, but he finally releases me roughly like he’s disgusted by me, and I chew and chew as my stomach turns and idiotic tears run down my cheeks. I feel so hated, so unwanted. And it hurts so much more than I ever thought him hating me could.

He leans against the wall, arms folded across his chest, death glare on me as I finish every morsel. I’m so full that I’m sure the meal will make a reappearance. When I’m finished, I turn to him.

“Did your brother give it to you?”

“What?”

“When he was here for that impromptu visit conveniently on the day of the gala.”

The poison again. I exhale, shaking my head. “Why do you ask me? You don’t believe anything I say anyway.”

I push my chair back and walk up to him, closer than he expects because he straightens to his full height, and I have to crane my neck to look up at him. This close, I see his gaze roam my face, slip to my breasts, then back up to my mouth. Looking at me arouses him. He’s just as attracted to me as I am to him despite everything.

So, I steel my spine and stand a little taller.

“I don’t know why you’re hell-bent on finding me guilty when I am not. You have an enemy so hateful he is willing to poison you. To murder you. That enemy is not me. But let me ask you something, Santiago. Have you ever stood back and thought about why? Thought about how someone can inspire such emotion in another human being that they would go as far as murder? You are hated, Santiago. You. Are. Hated. How does it feel?”

Fury sparks in his eyes, darkening them, and it takes all I have not to back away.

“I’d think you’d have some sense of how that feels by now, Ivy.”