The knife he had been holding, a silver fruit knife, slipped from his fingers onto the marble table, and then he picked it back up, and when I looked at his eyes, they were completely dead, empty of everything I had once loved.

“Did you put your hands on her?” he roared.

“No!” I said.

And behind him, Selina, sensing exactly how close she was to the thing she wanted, delivered her final, poisonous line with false reluctance.

“Please, Julian,” she whimpered.

“Just leave it alone.

I don’t want you two fighting over me.” It was, I would understand later, precisely the wrong thing to say to stop him, and precisely the right thing to say to push him over the edge, which is exactly why she said it.

Chapter 3 — He Stepped Over Me