Chapter 2

Tabitha's hands clenched into fists. Her first instinct was to refuse, but after three years of swallowing everything Jordan threw at her to compensate, her body moved before her brain could catch up.

By the time she realized it, she was already sitting obediently at the dining table.

Seeing her sit down, Jordan didn't immediately start in on her. Only Caroline's chirpy voice filled the space, with Jordan indulging her every word.

The food came out quickly, filling the whole table. They were mostly spicy Serran dishes. They were right up Tabitha's alley, but she hadn't touched spicy food for the last three years—all so she could nurse Jordan's stomach back to health.

When he didn't come home, she still cooked every day and had someone deliver the food to his office. She couldn't be bothered to make a second meal when she was alone at home, so she ate whatever he ate.

"Tabitha, try this. The chef's Serran dishes are amazing—Joe specially brought him in just for this." Caroline enthusiastically piled food onto Tabitha's plate as she spoke. In no time, the plate was full. "Go on, try it."

"Ms. Sutton, I can serve myself," Tabitha said.

"She's being nice and serving you. What's with that attitude?" Jordan snapped.

Tabitha was long used to Jordan's attitude. She didn't bother to argue and just scooped up a piece of chicken.

The moment it hit her tongue, she knew something was off. The texture wasn't quite like chicken, but she couldn't tell what it was.

Right then, the chef walked out from the kitchen with another dish and set it on the table. "This last dish is an exotic specialty—spicy rabbit leg. Please enjoy."

Tabitha's gaze landed on the rabbit leg that had just been set in the middle of the table. Her hands began to shake uncontrollably, and her cutlery slipped from her fingers, hitting the table with a sharp clatter.

A horrible feeling rose in her gut. What had she just eaten…?

"Where did the rabbit come from?" Her voice shot up without her meaning to.

Jordan and Caroline didn't seem to catch on.

"What are you making a scene for now? Carrie knew you liked spicy food, so she specially—"

"I asked you where the rabbit came from."

Caroline blinked innocently. "From the yard, of course. It was so fat and clingy. It kept rubbing against me, but I'm allergic to rabbit fur. That's why I asked the chef to add it to the menu."

Tabitha's pupils blew wide. Her stomach flipped hard, and she lurched to her feet so fast the chair legs screeched across the floor. She staggered toward the bathroom. "Urgh—"

Acid burned its way back up with everything she'd just swallowed, searing her throat on the way out. She braced both hands on the sink, her knuckles white with strain. The face in the mirror was chalk-white and drained of color.

Tufty, the rabbit kept in the yard, was one Tabitha had found three years ago in the villa's garden. Back then, she hadn't wanted to go on at all. She'd even tried to end her own life to "make up" for what had happened.

Arnold had found her in time and saved her. He'd told her that real atonement wasn't about trading one life for another.

Jordan had lost the people closest to him. Taking care of him for them was the best way to make things right. Even something as small as making his meals or asking how his day was went further than just dying and calling it done.

Helena and Margaret had risked their lives to get Tabitha out alive. It wasn't so she could throw hers away. If she died just like that, how could she face the people who had fought tooth and nail to get her to safety?

Afraid she might try something stupid again, Arnold had suggested Tabitha stay with the Gills for three years—whether to make amends or to fix what was broken.

If, after three years, Jordan managed to move on and they reconciled, all the better. If he couldn't, then the papers were already drawn up. Arnold would send her away, and the Gills and the Rhodeses would call it even.

By the time Arnold brought Tabitha to the marital home, Jordan had already moved into a place under his own name. The entire villa felt like a tomb.

Every time she closed her eyes, all she saw was Helena and Margaret shoving her into the emergency exit on the cruise ship, their final, desperate shouts for her to run echoing in her ears.

Tabitha hadn't wanted to live, but she had to.

Things had changed one night, when she'd found a little white ball of wet fur huddled in a corner of the garden in the middle of a thunderstorm. A small rabbit with an injured back leg had somehow made its way in, covered in mud but completely unafraid. It had stubbornly butted its head against her.

She'd carried the rabbit inside, bandaged its leg, fed it, and named it Tufty.

Tufty was a total dummy—he could choke on a lettuce leaf and end up hiccuping—but every night, he would hop onto the bed and curl up by Tabitha's pillow.

On nights when she lay awake until the wee hours, she would reach out and touch that small, warm ball of fur. She would breathe in the faint grassy smell on him and somehow manage to snatch a few hours of broken sleep.

Three years. For three whole years, Tufty had been the only living thing she willingly spoke to. Looking at him reminded her that at least one small creature in this world needed her to stay alive.

Without Tufty, Tabitha would never have made it this far. And now, he had been turned into a plate of spicy rabbit leg. The leg sat dead center on the table with shining, delectable grease clinging to the perfectly roasted skin.

That morning, when she left the house, he'd still been perfectly fine. He'd still been nudging her calf with his head. Now… there was nothing.

"Joe, why is Tabitha freaking out like that? Maybe you should go check on her," Caroline said.

Jordan's impatient voice came from outside the bathroom door. "Are you done? It's just a meal. Do you really need to puke your guts out over it?"

Was Tabitha so disgusted by him that sharing a meal with him made her physically sick?

He kicked the bathroom door open.

Tabitha didn't look up; her voice was so hoarse it was barely audible. "That rabbit was mine. His name was Tufty."

Jordan froze for a second.

"I had Tufty for three years." Tabitha slowly pushed herself upright, gripping the sink. Her eyes were bloodshot in the mirror. "I fed him every day. He waited for me to come home every night."

She turned to look at Jordan. Whatever was in her gaze made him instinctively take a step back. His Adam's apple bobbed, but he couldn't get a word out.

Caroline's voice drifted in from the living room, thin and aggrieved. "I really didn't know it was Tabitha's pet. My allergies were killing me, so Joe told the chef to handle it… I'm sorry, Tabitha. I swear I didn't know."

"You let her cook him?" Tabitha let out a short, bitter laugh, her eyes burning with raw hatred.

Jordan flinched at the look in her eyes, then folded his arms over his chest and looked at her imperiously. His tone held no shred of remorse. "So what if I did? It was just a dumb animal. Sign the papers like I told you to, and I'll buy you ten more."

For the first time in three years, Tabitha felt like she didn't recognize the man standing in front of her. The Jordan she knew had been kind. He would always stop to feed strays on the street. He would never have been this cold and cruel.

Her palm cracked against his cheek, sharp and clean. "Jordan, you make me sick."

She knew she shouldn't have slapped him, but she simply couldn't stop herself.

Jordan pressed his tongue against the inside of his cheek, ignoring the blood at the corner of his mouth. His brows lifted slightly. He looked her over, and the corners of his lips even curled upward, as if amused.

"Tabitha, how could you hit Joe?" Caroline rushed over like a mother hen defending her chick, throwing herself between them and shielding Jordan behind her. "It was just a rabbit. Are you saying a rabbit matters more than a human life?"

She'd dragged the whole thing onto the moral high ground in one sentence.

Tabitha laughed, the sound hollow.

If Caroline was allergic, she didn't have to go near Tufty. The villa took up nearly 10,000 square feet and somehow didn't have room for one rabbit?

Tufty was a pure Angora, wearing a little sweater, his fur brushed out. Everything about him screamed that he was a pet. Caroline obviously just wanted him dead—she wanted to put Tabitha in her place.

Sure, Tabitha owed Jordan. But she didn't owe Caroline a thing, and she certainly wasn't obliged to put up with her.

The second slap landed just as hard as the first. Caroline was so shocked that she actually forgot to cry. She clutched her face and shrank into Jordan's arms, stunned.

Hadn't everyone in their circle said Tabitha was utterly obedient to Jordan, that she did exactly what he wanted, like some emotionless machine? Since when had she learned to fight back?

Then again, the fact that she'd snapped was even better. Caroline had been provoking her on purpose, just to make Jordan hate her more.

Tabitha shook out her stinging palm, trying to get some feeling back. "Try collecting some good karma for your baby."

"You've gone too far, Tabitha!" Jordan raised his hand.

Tabitha didn't even flinch. She simply looked at him. She'd hit first and had dealt two slaps at full force. Even if his slap landed, she figured she still wouldn't be losing out.

But the slap never came. Jordan's hand clenched into a fist midair, his veins standing out along the back of it. In the end, he forced it back down.

"If you don't wanna eat, then nobody eats!" His roar shook the room. "Grab her!"

The bodyguards immediately closed in on Tabitha. They pinned her arms and kicked in the back of her knee. Her leg buckled, and she dropped to her knees in front of him, caught off guard.

Jordan settled Caroline on the couch. Then he turned, grabbed Tabitha by the throat, and slammed her delicate face down against the coffee table where the divorce agreement lay.

"You've got some nerve, Tabitha, hurting what's mine to my face. You're asking for it!"