Chapter Three #3
‘Not a thing,’ he responded without hesitation, yet the answer left her cold. It reminded her of the conversational no-go zone that his childhood had always been.
She knew the basics. He’d been bounced between foster homes, had run away multiple times, and finally ended up with the Georgiadeses next door.
But how he’d come to be with the childless older couple, had always been a mystery.
Though Annie and Theo dated for a year, he had been carefully guarded with biographical details, always brushing her off with a half answer, or occasionally giving just enough information to satisfy her without really telling her anything.
Yet something in the way he answered so readily now made a flick of sympathy stir in the pit of her belly.
The Georgiadeses loved him, she knew that, but she hoped that before them, there’d been at least someone. Everyone—even Theo—deserved love.
The silence in the room was like a form of static electricity, buzzing and humming, creating a sense of cotton wool filling her ears. Finally she spoke, just to cut through the tension. ‘I spoke to my father this afternoon. I told him about us.’
Theo’s eyes landed on hers. ‘And?’
‘Would you like me to tell you he bawled his eyes out? Begged me not to marry you?’
Theo’s brow lifted. ‘Did he?’
‘I wouldn’t say he’s jumping over the moon about it, but he accepts it’s happening. I think.’
His eyes gave nothing away. ‘And the contracts?’
‘With the lawyers.’
‘I presume your father has to sign for the company?’
‘The company passed to me legally on my twenty-fifth birthday. That was always their plan.’
Theo frowned. ‘Yet you still refer to it as “your father’s”.’
‘It’s always been his. I never wanted it, truth be told.’
He nodded. ‘No, you were going to own an art gallery, if I remember.’
She ignored the warmth that spread through her at his recollection of that small fact. She’d gone on and on about her dreams back then, and he wasn’t stupid. Naturally he remembered.
‘Just a childish fantasy.’ She waved it away like it was meaningless.
‘It didn’t have to be. You could have opened the gallery at any point.’
‘No, I couldn’t.’
‘Why not? You had money, time…’
She sipped her champagne and turned away from him, walking towards the bed and sinking down onto the edge of it, staring at the small kitchenette opposite rather than looking at Theo.
She didn’t want to explain any of this to him.
To tell him what her life had been like after he’d left and she’d been all alone.
And then, with her mother’s death, the new reality that had faced her.
It had been such a difficult time, made all the harder for how much she wanted the one thing she couldn’t have: Theo.
‘I gave up on childish dreams,’ she said, instead, her voice heavy even to her own ears.
‘Good.’ He walked towards Annie then, standing right in front of her, before pressing a finger lightly to her chin and tilting her face upwards to meet his gaze. ‘Realism is a better outlook, Annie. There’s less room for disappointment.’
She could almost believe the advice came from a place of kindness, but then, Theo wasn’t kind, and he certainly wasn’t kind to her. She flinched her face away from his touch, grinding her teeth, and was rewarded by a mocking smile.
A moment later, he reached into his pocket and removed a black velvet box. ‘This is for you.’
He handed the box over with no fanfare, no romance, nothing.
Not that she’d have expected anything from Theo along those lines now, but the Theo she’d once loved, or thought she’d loved—oh, how she’d fantasised about this moment a thousand times back then.
She cracked the velvet lid open and pulled a face at the monstrosity inside.
This was a ring that screamed ‘look at me’, and it was the very last thing Annie would ever have chosen.
‘And here I thought you hated elitism,’ she murmured, pulling the giant diamond solitaire ring from its home and squinting at the brightness as the brilliant cut speared thousands of little light prisms across the room. ‘I mean, I’m going to stun someone with this thing.’
‘I thought it would be what you’d like,’ he said, shrugging. ‘Certainly what your father would want—an ostentatious show of “love”, the kind of thing a “suitable” aristocratic fiancé might gift you.’
‘Tacky and garish? How well you know me,’ she said, sliding it onto her finger and trying to guess whether it was fifteen or twenty carats.
‘At least no one will miss it,’ he said, and she glanced up at him again.
‘You’re enjoying this.’
‘Yes.’ He didn’t attempt to deny it, nor to hide his pleasure. ‘But there are other things I’m going to enjoy far more about marrying you, Annie.’
And despite everything she knew she should feel, a slick of moist heat, of delicious, desperate warmth, flooded her body, and a pulse began to throb between her legs, so she glanced away sharply and then quickly stood up, almost bumping straight into him.
Damn him for still being able to do this to her.
Damn him for being the only man she’d ever felt anything like this for.
How she hated him for that! Hate was good, though.
Hatred and rage were excellent protective mechanisms, though Annie didn’t stop to wonder why she should think she needed to protect herself.
Once bitten, twice shy was her mantra—no way would she let Theo in again.
Not now she knew what he was capable of.