I will have my relief. I will set into motion what needs to be done to draw Abel out. But the cost is too great to consider right now. Best to plunge headlong into it, worrying about the consequences later.

"Santiago," Ivy growls, finally releasing me, only to run around my front and intercept me by slamming her palms against my chest. "I know what you're doing."

"Eavesdropping again?" I stagger back slightly as I hurl the accusation at her.

She raises her chin, eyes locked onto mine. Tears hang precariously from the edges of her lids. And here I had stupidly thought I was done making her cry.

A foolish notion if ever there was one.

"Don't." I bring my thumb up to wipe the moisture away.

She grabs my forearm, her gaze moving to the knife. "You can't do this."

"I can and I will."

My voice is gravelly. The drink, probably.

Her lip wavers, and she gently directs the knifepoint to her chest, holding it there. "Then you may as well stab me first."

When I don't answer her, she draws in a ragged breath.

"You won't just kill him," she whispers. "You will destroy my heart. Can you live with that?"

"You will hate me for a time," I croak. "But you will get over it."

"No, I won't." She tightens her grip on my arm. "I will die too. Killing him is killing me. It's killing what we have together."

"No," I growl.

"Yes." She brings her other hand up to my face, and reflexively, my eyes fall shut as she strokes my jaw. "You are not this man. You won't do this to me."

I want to tell her how wrong she is, but I am failing to harness the resistance I once had to her charms. When she touches me this way, when she begs me so softly, nothing else seems to matter.

Abel is a distant memory. My hatred for Eli is eclipsed by something bigger. Something that seems to have snuck inside me like a thief in the night, replacing the darkness with a glowing ember. An ember that Ivy stokes every day.

"You are poisoning me." I toss the knife onto the floor, and it skitters away. My fingers wrap around her face, hard, and she mirrors the action with her own fingers on my jaw.

"Accept it," she bites out. "Quit fighting what you feel."

"I have no feelings."

"You're a liar."

I don't know who moves first. One second, we're ready to strangle each other, and the next, our lips are colliding. She's dragging up her nightgown as I pick her up and stumble over to the entry table with a decorative vase on top. I plant her ass on top of it, spreading her thighs open, baring her pussy to me as she fumbles with my belt and zipper.