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“Tell me about that night.”
“You’re going to listen?”
“Tell me.”
“After your friend came to talk to you, I walked around for a little bit, then went into the chapel. I wasn’t going to hang around your sister or mingle. That’s where I met Colette and offered to swap shoes with her. She’d taken hers off and had been walking around barefoot. They must have been so uncomfortable, especially considering the pregnancy. Anyway, we stayed there talking until the first gong went off. She had to rush back, but I didn’t want to, so I found a bathroom and hid there for a while. I knew I couldn’t hide out forever, though, especially after the second gong, but when I tried the door, it was locked. I mean, it locks on the inside, so it wasn’t so much locked as barricaded I guess. I don’t know. I called out, but no one heard me, and then someone screamed. I think it was Mercedes. I’m sure, in fact. And then I could open the door, and well, you were lying on the ground.” I feel myself waver, remembering that moment. Remembering him like that. “And then the man—”
“Judge.”
I don’t repeat it. I don’t care about his name. I never want to see him again. “He knocked me out, and when I woke up, I was in that awful place.”
“Bring me the shoes you were wearing.”
“What?”
“Colette’s shoes. Go get them.”
“I don’t have them. I guess they got lost somewhere between the gala and the cellar. I—”
“Mercedes had them sent to your room.”
I pause. “No, she didn’t. I don’t have them.”
His face becomes stone-like, and I swear I can see him thinking, trying to make sense of things. His jaw is tight, body tense. Before I can ask why it matters, he storms out of the office and down the corridor. I rush after him as he hurries up the stairs to my bedroom. By the time I get in there, he’s in the closet, and when I get to it, I see him inside, pulling clothes off hangers, opening drawers, and shoving things aside wildly.
“Santiago?”
With a roar, he knocks a whole shelf of shoes clear off, and I jump backward. He turns to me, and the rage I see in his eyes is nothing like I’ve seen yet.
“Where are they?” he demands.
“Not here. I told you!” I back away into the wall. “You’re being crazy!”
“Where the fuck are they?” He slams his fist into the wall, and I jump, letting out a scream.
He shakes his head and storms out of my room to barrel down the hall to Mercedes’s bedroom.
“Mercedes!” He bangs his fist against her door, and when he finds it locked, he rams his shoulder into it so hard I hear wood splinter. It takes only two times for the door to crash open.
“Santiago, stop!” I rush in after him and am glad for his sister that the room is empty.
But then he begins to tear her closet apart, and when he doesn’t find what he needs there, he destroys her bed, then her desk, pulling out the drawers, dumping their contents, and smashing a beautiful antique lamp against the wall.
“Santiago, what are you doing?” I scream as I try to pull him away, try to make him stop, but he just shakes me off. “Santiago, stop!” I grab his arm and cling tight, but it’s a mistake. He’s out of control, and when he next shoves, I go flying backward and crash against the large, heavy armoire, slamming the back of my head so hard that for a moment, time stands still.
“Fuck! Ivy!”
I blink, sway on my feet as the room spins. When my knees give out and I reach for something, anything, he catches me, big arms wrapping around me, sweeping me up just as consciousness slips away.
21
Ivy
His smell is all around me. I breathe it in, but when I turn my head, pain makes me hiss.
“Shh. Just relax,” Santiago says, fingers gentle on my face.
“She’ll be all right. Probably have a headache, though,” says a vaguely familiar voice.
I open my eyes to find Santiago and Dr. Hendrickson standing over me.
“There she is,” the kind doctor says, smiling as he tucks something into his bag.
I look from him to my husband, who looks absolutely tortured, and I remember what happened. Colette and Jackson coming over, the shoes in the security footage that will exonerate me. The brief relief followed by Santiago’s madness.
Does he think Mercedes has somehow betrayed him? No. I can’t believe that. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that Mercedes loves him. She’d do anything for him. He must know that.
The moment I try to sit up, Santiago’s arms are around me, hands lifting me, pushing a pillow behind my back.
“You’ll need to take it easy today, but it’s just a bump. Santiago will keep a close eye on you to be sure there’s no concussion, but I don’t think so.”
