Chapter Five
THE FEELING OF satisfaction he’d been hoping for never came.
Ever since she’d agreed to marry him, he’d expected that the wedding would ease the strange heaviness in his chest, but if anything, seeing her dressed like a bride had tugged at something deep in his gut.
A memory he’d refused to examine since they’d parted ways.
There had been a time when he’d fantasised about this future with Annie, for real. A time when he’d not only imagined but simply accepted as fate a future life with her constantly by his side.
For someone like Theo, who’d been let down by everyone he’d ever known, who’d learned from a very young age that he was the only person he could rely on, the way she’d slipped into his life without his realising it, becoming a part of him without his consent, had been shocking.
Accepting their breakup had been a little like leaping off a tall building—he’d had to scrape himself up and rebuild himself, piece by piece, without her at the centre of his being.
And, he had done it. He had excised her from his thoughts with sheer strength of will, had cut her from his mind, and from his heart, where he had begun to understand she’d taken up the most shocking residence.
With time and perspective, he’d realised that caring for Annie had weakened him, and made him vulnerable, in a way he never intended to be again.
Whereas life on the streets, his whole damned childhood, had made Theo tough, carved him like granite, something about Annie had eroded that.
Or threatened to. He hadn’t liked it—not once she’d ended things, and he’d realised how much of an impact she was having on him.
He’d been relieved they were done, so he could go back to his solitary, diamond-tough existence.
And yet, he still did care. Not for her, in the same way he once idiotically had, but about her.
Despite every shred of anger he felt for her snobby parents, and for the fact she’d so easily fallen into their plans, he hadn’t enjoyed seeing her today.
When she wouldn’t notice, he had watched her.
He had seen the tension in her features, the worry in her eyes as she’d sought out her father, to reassure herself he was okay.
This, though, had been a promise he’d made himself, that very morning they’d broken up.
Part of rebuilding himself had been knowing he would one day get his own revenge.
He had thought it would come just from his success.
Her parents hadn’t believed he was good enough for Annie?
Then he would become the most successful, lusted-after man on earth, the kind of man ambitious parents would give their left arms to have their daughters marry.
He’d spend a lifetime with women like Annie’s friends between his sheets, and he’d make sure everyone saw that.
He would wave his success—and his womanising—in their faces. Yes, Annie’s, too. He’d relished the thought of her seeing those photos. Every woman he went out with, and paparazzi snapped images of, he imagined her seeing and regretting the decision she’d made.
It had been a childish, stupid anger—totally beneath him—but there it was.
It would never have gone beyond making himself this, the very image of unquantifiable wealth and success, but for the fact Annie had turned up in his life and handed him revenge on a silver platter. How could he say no?
He’d acted on instincts, but now that they were actually legally married, he couldn’t help wondering if he’d made a rare mistake.
He’d acted on the assumption that he could easily control his feelings for Annie this time around—and that included the powerful desire that flared between them.
But just a few minutes in her company had left his insides zinging—with physical need, yes, but with something else, too.
A confusing array of uncertainty, and a lack of clarity when it came to his plan.
With frustration zipping through him, and a need to refocus on his goals here, he changed into shorts and a shirt and made his way into the gym. A run would help—or at least burn off some of the energy that had a stranglehold on his body and wouldn’t let go.
Annie wanted, with all of herself, to go to the bedroom and get this over with.
Not because she wasn’t looking forward to it, but because she was.
She wanted him so badly it almost hurt, and the thought of making love to Theo filled her with adrenalin.
She hated that it was so, but there was no sense pretending otherwise, at least to herself.
The first time would be strange, though, because everything was so different to back then, when she’d thought they were in love and going to spend the rest of their lives together.
Then, she’d been desperate to sleep with him, to know the pleasure of his body, the togetherness of making love.
It had been as much about their emotional connection as anything else, whereas now, it was sheer chemistry.
Just like their kiss at the wedding, when a different kind of passion had hummed between them. Something far more adult and overwhelming. Exhilarating, and exciting…she couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like to be with him now.
Yet, she stayed in her seat, stubbornly refusing to go back to the bedroom, even when he’d issued a lukewarm invitation for her to join him.
Pride died a slow death, and Annie knew she would need to hold on to hers, in this marriage, which meant the only way they’d end up in bed together was if he pursued her.
She wasn’t going to show him how much she wanted that, even when it was something she’d tacitly agreed to on the day he’d suggested this arrangement.
He didn’t come back out to her until the plane was beginning its descent—and for Annie, that was a hair-raising enough experience as to leave her distracted by the perils of landing on an island in the middle of the sea to barely give him so much as a passing glance.
It was late at night, and the island was indistinguishable from the ocean—just a big patch of black that the plane was steadily careening towards.
As they drew closer, however, she saw the runway lights guiding the pilots in to land, and in the distance, a gold glow which she presumed to be his house.
Curiosity then had her leaning forward in her seat to get a better view from the portal window, but she couldn’t make out anything besides what looked to be a thickly lush amount of greenery on either side of the airstrip.
The plane touched down with a bump and she startled, glancing at Theo to see if he’d noticed, but he was once more absorbed in his newspaper.
She smothered a wry smile. So much for a honeymoon.
The house was definitely not what she’d expected.
Oh, it was huge and modern and clearly very expensive, perched as it was right on the edge of the beach, with three walls being made almost solidly of glass.
But it was the open plan nature of it that she hadn’t expected.
As in, no walls, except for the bathroom.
Despite being more than large enough to accommodate dozens of actual rooms, there were no partitioning walls.
There was a massive kitchen and living area, with a grand piano and a flat screen TV the size of a cinema screen, several sitting areas, all plush and fashionably chic, and then, there was a bed.
Just one bed. It was towards the back of the large room, but it was right there staring back at her, inviting her, demanding to be lain in and used for making love.
Heat flushed her cheeks as she dragged her gaze away to the blackness beyond the windows.
In the morning, she would see the ocean in all its daytime glory, but for now, there was just a hint of silver foam, frothing atop the waves that rolled towards them, the cacophony of their crashing to the sandy shore rhythmic yet not at all reassuring.
If anything, it formed a drumbeat of need, echoing the thundering of her pulse, making her want more than she wished to.
‘This is it?’ Her voice emerged squeaky and high-pitched. She swallowed, trying to tamp it down.
‘Do you have a problem with it?’ he asked, in a way that was almost completely blanked of emotion, and yet she heard it anyway—because she knew him too well to miss it. Smugness. He wanted to unsettle her. To make her uncomfortable.
She turned to face him, her eyes wide, but she shrugged, like it was no big deal. ‘It’ll do,’ she said, moving through the room, running a hand over the shiny top of the grand piano, then pressing a few keys. ‘Do you play?’
‘No.’
She sat down on the stool and held her fingers to the keys, closing her eyes a moment before she began to move her fingers, to play Pachelbel’s Canon in D, the song that she’d walked down the aisle to.
‘I forgot you learned,’ he said, his voice close by, so she opened her eyes to find him standing just in front of her, to the side of the piano, watching her with an intensity that made her blood fire.
She ignored the insult buried in those words—the fact he’d forgotten she’d learned, when she couldn’t forget anything about him.
Bastard.
‘All my life,’ she said. ‘Well, until I was nineteen, anyway.’
‘Why did you stop?’
‘I guess I’d learned enough.’
‘Do you still play for pleasure?’
Her lips twisted to the side. She hadn’t played since her mother had died.
In the six months between her first and last heart attacks, she’d played for her often.
Her mother had loved to hear Annie’s music—it had reminded her of Mary.
Mary, who’d been a brilliant pianist, who’d taught herself by the time she was three to play Mozart.
Mary, who’d been a legitimate prodigy, and left Annie to follow after her, never as good, of course, no matter how much she practiced.
That didn’t matter, though. By the time she was proficient enough to play Mozart, her parents could close their eyes and pretend, for a little while.