The untouched plate of food sat on the table, a silent accusation between them. Cathleen's eyes, sharp as the knives she wielded in court, cut towards it and then away. She wouldn't touch anything Xavier had touched—not after his venomous words had burned her trust to ashes.
"Are you going to starve yourself to death, then?" Xavier's voice, cold and flat, betrayed none of the anxiety that knotted his insides.
"Better than risking whatever spite you've cooked into that meal," she spat back, her tongue a whip he'd felt many times before, though never like this—never when she was so vulnerable, confined to the confines of her wheelchair.
Her eyes fell to her own hands, useless for the moment, and her legs were a betrayal beneath her. The thought of needing help with something as intimate a
