When Madison walked through the door, Alexis was nestled against Joel's side, playing lady of the house as she barked orders at the servants.
Joel heard the sound and lifted his gaze toward Madison.
"Starting today, Alexis is the woman of this house. Everyone answers to her." His eyes settled on Madison. "Including you."
His stare was ice. Not a trace of warmth.
Because she'd kicked Alexis's dog, he was using his so-called amnesia as an excuse again, handing her title as Mrs. Delgado to someone else.
He expected her to rage. To lose control. To break down and then give in, the way she always had. He expected her to still care.
But she no longer wanted to be Mrs. Delgado. And she no longer cared whether his amnesia was real.
Madison said nothing. She turned and headed for the stairs.
Alexis stepped into her path, eyes glittering with triumph and contempt.
"There's still so much I don't understand about running this house. I was hoping you could teach me, sis."
Before Madison could respond, Alexis grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward the bar counter.
Madison's custom coffee machine, the one she'd waited months to have shipped from Italy, had been wrecked beyond recognition.
Rage blazed through her. She wrenched her hand free.
"Who told you you could touch that?"
Alexis only smiled, smug and unhurried, lifting a steaming cup of coffee from the counter.
"You still think you're the high-and-mighty Mrs. Delgado? Joel stopped loving you a long time ago. You're nothing."
The words barely left her mouth before she hurled the coffee straight at Madison.
Scalding liquid hit her neck and slid beneath her collar. Madison flinched, her skin burning.
The bitter-sweet stench of coffee flooded her nostrils. Her stomach, already wrecked by morning sickness, revolted instantly. She clamped a hand over her mouth and doubled over, retching.
Everything in her stomach came up, all over Alexis.
Alexis froze for a few seconds, then let out a piercing scream.
Joel came running. He found Madison half-collapsed on the floor, dry-heaving, tears squeezed from the corners of her eyes by sheer reflex.
His body moved before his mind caught up. He rushed toward her, reaching out to help her stand.
Instinct. The kind carved into bone. For a split second, he forgot he was supposed to have amnesia.
Alexis watched him and felt her chest seize. She cranked up her sobbing.
"Joel, I only asked her how to use the coffee machine, and she threw coffee at me and vomited on me."
Her voice cracked into a pitiful whimper. "I know she doesn't like me. If she wants me gone, I'll go. But why does she have to humiliate me like this?"
Joel's brow furrowed. The concern drained from his face, replaced by cold disgust.
"Madison, you never learn. I told you she's the woman of this house."
Madison wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes. She looked up at him, and when she spoke, her voice could have cut glass.
"The woman of this house? Whose name is on the marriage certificate, Joel? Hers?" She held his gaze without flinching. "Did you forget how to read along with everything else?"
Joel went still. He had never seen this version of Madison before.
Alexis recovered first.
"Joel, she's deliberately provoking you. She doesn't respect you at all."
That hit the nerve it was meant to. Fury swallowed whatever was left of Joel's reason.
"Drag her outside. She kneels for one hour and thinks about what she's done."
Two bodyguards moved immediately, seizing Madison by the arms.
She struggled against their grip, staring at Joel's cold, indifferent face. It overlapped with the face in her memory, the one from before.
The Joel who used to hold her like something precious. Who stayed up all night at her bedside when she was sick. Who noticed every small thing about her.
Who once whispered, in a moment so tender it ached: "Madison, I'll love you until the day I die."
His love had been so brief.
Numbness and pain crashed through her in equal measure as the guards forced her to her knees outside the front door of the villa.
Then Madison raised her voice, sharp and clear, aimed straight at the living room.
"Joel Delgado. If you make me kneel out here, and your mother finds out how you've treated me, do you really think your little secretary will live to see tomorrow?"
Her voice wasn't loud, but every word landed with absolute certainty.
Joel's eyes narrowed. His mother had always taken Madison's side.
And the Delgado family's rules left no room for a woman like Alexis to set foot through the front door, let alone claim the house as her own.
The air went still. They stared at each other, neither willing to look away.
