Chapter Eleven
FROM THE MOMENT they walked into the party, Annie could feel the whispers.
The speculation. And yes, the jealousy, from all the women who looked at Theo, saw his beauty and his wealth and wanted a piece of it, wondering how she, Annie Langley, had secured the hottest bachelor in Athens.
Though their wedding had been widely publicized, and was well-known in these circles, this was only their second time out and about, in public together, and she fully expected her family’s ‘friends’ to descend like hawks.
As for Theo, the change in his behaviour gave her whiplash. In the car, he’d been so calculated and businesslike, inflicting pain on her without appearing to care, so it had taken a monumental effort not to give in to the tears that she’d felt stinging behind her eyes.
Now, in the throng of the party, he was a study in attentive husbandry, one hand on the small of her back the whole time, his fingers stroking the base of her spine, his body so close to hers she could feel his warmth—even though it did little to thaw the ice in her heart.
‘Darling,’ her father’s greeting, when they arrived, encompassed her alone. He pressed a kiss to her cheek, then said, ‘Thank you for coming.’
‘We wouldn’t have missed it for the world,’ Theo responded, drawing Annie even closer to his side, and moving the hand from her back to her hip, possessively holding her to him. ‘Would we, erota mou?’ My passion.
The term of endearment was not one he’d used before, and though she might otherwise have liked it, the knowledge that he’d employed it purely to sting her father took any pleasure out of his huskily spoken words. As did the kiss he planted on the top of her head.
Elliot Langley did then look at Theo, and with such undisguised contempt Annie shivered. ‘I wasn’t aware you were coming.’
‘My wife and I are inseparable,’ Theo said, dropping any pretense of warmth. The words were, if anything, an arctic challenge. ‘A wise man would know better than to try it.’
Annie glanced up at Theo, and opened her mouth to warn him, to scold him, anything, but the look he threw her held a warning, and she remembered what he’d said in the car. Any diversion from the role she was supposed to play, and the wedding would be off.
‘A wiser man would know trying is unnecessary,’ her dad surprised her by saying, but his own voice was just as frigid and unyielding as Theo’s had been.
‘You two have unfinished business, I can see that. But sooner or later, my daughter will realise that she can do so much better than this—Annie has a lot of potential to reach for, and a street kid from Athens isn’t it. ’
‘Please, Daddy,’ Annie said, her heart dropping to her toes, hating the words he was saying, hating the scene they were going to create if they didn’t take care. ‘Not now, not here.’
Elliot’s lips were grim. ‘You shouldn’t have brought him.’
‘Annie would not have come without me. Not knowing that I was unwelcome,’ he said, and guilt flicked through her, because that’s how she should have felt.
Wasn’t it? Knowing that her father had invited her, and not Theo.
That he’d organised a big party and tried to exclude her husband.
At the time, she’d been glad: she didn’t want her father’s birthday to ruin the status quo she and Theo had established. Except…
She looked up at Theo and now her heart sank for a different reason.
She’d betrayed him, five years ago, by breaking up with him because her parents had insisted, but had tonight been another betrayal?
Another failure to stand up for him, and do what was right?
When had Theo ever had anyone in his corner?
If theirs had been a real marriage, she would have done just what he said. Come hell or high water, she would have stuck by him this time. But knowing that his sole objective was to pain her father, she’d been trying to do the right thing by everyone.
‘Theo,’ she said, softly, her words weakened by confusion. ‘Let’s go and get a drink. I’m parched.’
‘The bar is by the pool,’ Elliot muttered. ‘Try not to fall in.’ The last rejoinder was for Theo alone.
When they were at the bar, she looked up at her husband and said, ‘I’d apologise for his behaviour, but I suspect you’re delighted to have been able to goad him like that.’
Theo looked anything but delighted though, which only made her feel worse. His dark eyes glinted with disapproval when they locked to hers. ‘I’m starting to remember why I hate these people so much.’
‘You’re the darling of these people. I swear half of these women, at least, are staring daggers at me.’
‘I will never be a darling to these people,’ he contradicted swiftly, turning away from her to order their drinks—a scotch for himself and a champagne for Annie. ‘They know as well as your father does—I don’t belong.’
‘I don’t know why you have such a chip on your shoulder.’
He sent her a look that spoke volumes. ‘Just as well. You do not need to know. You just need to act the part.’ And to cement that, he dropped his mouth and claimed hers, in full view of anyone who cared to look their way.
Pleasure ripped through her, but it was a heavy weight of intensity, too, a sadness and grief at the way he’d relegated anything she might feel, putting the focus purely on the physical.
She didn’t need to know anything too deep about him: it wasn’t relevant.
All he cared about was this newlywed act.
Knowing the kiss was for show, feeling the hurt of that lash through her, didn’t change the effect it had on Annie.
It didn’t change the way her pulse went haywire and her whole body seemed to catch fire, so that she very quickly forgot where they were and fell against him, her whole self surrendered to him, and the pleasure he could dole out, whenever he wanted to.
He pulled back, looking down at her with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. ‘You’re an excellent actress, Annie. Perhaps you missed your true calling.’
And her heart, battered and splintered as it already was, exploded into a billion tiny shards that would be, so far as she knew, impossible to stitch back together.
‘Keep it up and I might have to think of a way to give you a bonus.’
‘Go to hell,’ she said, pasting a smile to her face even when she felt like sobbing. ‘You really are a complete bastard.’
His eyes glinted and she could have sworn she saw relief on his face. ‘Yes, I am. Don’t forget it again.’
He knew the futility of hatred, yet he couldn’t stem it.
Or perhaps it was just that he was seeking refuge in it.
Like the more time he spent with Annie, and the closer she got to pushing out of her little box again, the more Theo leaned into his anger.
Anger was familiar. Anger was useful to him. Anger had never betrayed Theo.
Elliot Langley had torn shreds off Theo five years ago, unconsciously reviving every single stroke of pain Theo had been handed in his life, making him feel worthless, useless, as though he were a complete waste of skin.
He’d hated the older man for a long time, but until Elliot took to the stage to thank his guests for coming, Theo hadn’t fully grasped the extent of his hatred.
The thank-you speech started with an acknowledgement of how many people had shown up—and Theo had silently, cynically mused on the likelihood that the full guest list probably had something to do with the exceptional quality of the open bar, and the fact several journalists were circulating, taking photographs for tomorrow’s papers.
But then the speech had moved on, to pay tribute to those who couldn’t be with him: his wife, and his daughter, Mary.
He spoke for at least twenty minutes about the older sibling, and all the while, Annie stood at Theo’s side, still like a statue, a polite smile frozen on her face.
He listened to descriptions of Mary’s prodigal piano playing, her kindness, how she’d brought such meaning to their lives, and he waited, and waited for anything of a similar ilk to be said about Annie.
Finally, at the end, he finished with, ‘But at least, I still have Annie. My Annie.’ Except, when his eyes had slid sideways to Theo, Elliot’s lips had tightened in a dismissive line, and any further adoration he might have deigned to offer had been swallowed up by obvious disgust. ‘Enjoy your night,’ Elliot had concluded, to a round of polite applause.
Theo had turned to Annie, wanting to say something to placate her, to offer sympathy, or at least show that he understood, but Annie simply turned that ghoulish smile on him and said, ‘I’m not in the mood, okay?’
‘Annie—’
‘Am I allowed to go to the bathroom on my own, or will you take that as some kind of failure in my play-acting?’
Now he knew what was twisting at his gut.
Shame. It seemed to take over his whole body, and he hated the feeling.
He didn’t want to overthink it, to analyse why he felt like he’d followed a road he thought would lead to salvation and now instead suspected might pave the way to hell.
He tightened his shoulders, tamping down on his self-doubt and said, voice calm, ‘I’ll be here. ’
‘And I’ll be right back—’ and then, for good measure, she added, with obvious disgust ‘—erota mou.’
Theo swallowed back whatever he’d been about to say in response, and the knowledge that he’d done something tonight he would never be able to undo, even if he wanted to.
He watched her walk through the guests, head held high, with the sense that once upon a time, practically another lifetime ago, he’d held something very, very precious in his hands, and he just hadn’t known how to keep a hold of it.
All this time he’d blamed her for breaking it off, for being weak under her parents’ snobbish pressure, perhaps even for feeling as they did about him, but maybe the problem had been Theo all along.
Maybe he hadn’t really understood her life.
Her pressures.