Chapter Twelve
ANNIE’S NERVES WERE stretched almost to the breaking point.
She’d spent the last week acting her little ass off, hoping to provoke him into a reaction.
Hoping to provoke him into saying or doing something that showed he felt anything.
Anything other than a soul-destroying need for vengeance, at least. Anything other than hatred for her father.
And tonight, she’d seen that, but she had no idea what he was feeling, and the not knowing was making her stomach twist into billions of tangly knots.
They drove home in silence, like the calm before the storm, she’d presumed.
But even once they walked inside his luxurious mansion, he was still lost in thought.
So much for talking.
She went to their room and took a long shower, scrubbing her body with a loofah, hoping to bring about a sense of calm.
Or if not calm, at least familiarity. But everything was all twisty and knotty and so by the time she stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around herself, and walked into the bedroom to find Theo just unfastening the top button of his shirt, something inside of her snapped.
‘I thought you wanted to talk,’ she said, uncaring of the fact she was all but naked.
He turned to face her slowly, a look on his face she’d never seen before. ‘We need to,’ he agreed, but his tone was grim, and she had a feeling a lead balloon had been dropped right on top of her.
Or an executioner’s axe was about to fall.
She stared at him, waiting, her heart thudding against her ribs.
‘This isn’t working.’
‘Really?’ Her voice came out strangled. ‘Because if you wanted to upset my father, I’d say you’ve done an excellent job.’
His eyes narrowed a little and his lips flattened. ‘That is what I wanted. I thought it was what I wanted more than anything, but it turns out, the price was too high.’
‘Price?’
‘I can’t do this.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I won’t do this. To you, Annie. I won’t do this to you.’
Her heart stammered now, fast and irregular. What was he saying? ‘It’s already done. We’re married. We have a contract.’
‘That doesn’t mean anything.’
Her jaw dropped. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘We can change the contract.’
She felt weak enough to pass out. She’d wanted to goad him into a response, but she’d never thought it would be this. ‘Is that what you want?’
His eyes closed, and when he spoke, his voice was low and gruff, loaded with accusation. ‘What I want is to have never met you.’
‘How can you say that?’ she whispered, staring at him across the room, body trembling. It hurt so badly, she had to lift a hand and press it to her chest, to stop her heart from splintering through her skin. ‘What have I ever done to you, Theo? What have I ever done to deserve that?’
A muscle jerked in his jaw, but she was too angry now, too angry to even think about what she was saying.
The words just tumbled out of her, drawn by emotion.
‘All I have ever done, from the moment we met, is love you,’ she shouted.
‘I have loved you since I was eleven years old. I loved you when I was thirteen, fifteen, eighteen and begged you to kiss me—’
‘On a dare,’ he interrupted.
‘Yes, they dared me to do it, but that’s not why I asked. I wanted you to kiss me. I wanted you. Just like when I was twenty-one and begged you again. I have loved you always—’
‘You walked away from me.’
‘But I never stopped loving you,’ she roared, shaking all over.
‘I loved you even when I came to you in Sydney. When you suggested this marriage, I knew, deep down, that for me, it was something I actually wanted, because of how I felt about you. I couldn’t admit it to myself, not when you were so angry with my father, but every single day, I have come to understand my heart, and now, I see it.
I love you. And yet you stand there and tell me I am the bane of your life?
’ Tears ran down her cheeks but she refused to wipe them away, to say anything to him.
‘I never asked you to love me,’ he responded, his voice the opposite of hers—cold and calm.
‘You didn’t have to ask. That’s not how it works.’
‘I never wanted you to love me,’ he said instead.
‘Then what the hell were we doing back then, Theo? I fought with my parents over you, I fought for you. My mother had a heart attack in the middle of one of those fights. But I fought with them because I thought… I thought you loved me, too.’
He turned his back on her, his shoulders moving with the force of his breath.
‘You told me I was special.’
He whirled back to face her. ‘You are special. That has nothing to do with whether or not I love you, or want to be loved by you. We never had a future.’
Her jaw dropped and her knees felt impossibly weak. She moved to the edge of the bed and sat down, her knees no longer able to support her.
‘I thought you understood,’ he said, darkly. ‘And I thought we could play this game without either of us getting hurt. But I am hurting you, every day of this marriage, and knowing that is cutting me to pieces. I do not want to live like this.’
She blinked across at him, her heart shifting in her chest. ‘Cutting you to pieces?’
‘I’m not a total bastard, Annie. I don’t want you to suffer. Not because of me.’ He frowned. ‘Not because of anyone. I want you to be happy—I’ve always wanted that. Don’t you get it? That’s why I wish I’d never met you—I’m ashamed of what I’ve become. Ashamed of who I am to you.’
‘Are you hearing yourself?’ she demanded, standing up again and pacing across to him. ‘You hate seeing me upset, you want me to be happy. Yet you think you don’t feel something for me? You think you don’t love me?’
His eyes swept shut.
‘Do you really think you suggested this marriage just to get back at my dad? Or is it that deep down, it’s what you really want, too, but don’t want to admit to yourself?’
His jaw shifted as he ground his teeth. ‘I’ve never wanted marriage.’
‘You haven’t let yourself want it,’ she corrected.
‘You were bounced from pillar to post as a child. Nobody loved you. You never knew security until you came to live with the Georgiadeses, then they died, too. And even now, a grown man of thirty-one, you’re terrified to let yourself reach for happiness, in case it goes away again.
’ She bit back a sob. ‘I understand that, Theo. I don’t think anyone who’s lived through what you have would feel differently.
But at least take a second to think about what’s in here.
’ She pressed a hand to his chest. ‘Think about why it hurts you so much to see me hurting. Think about why you have been so angry at my father, for such a long time. Think about how it feels when we’re together, why your first thought when I came to you for help was to lock me into this marriage, and ask yourself if that’s really something you want to let go. ’
‘How it feels when we are together is like I’m holding a stick of dynamite, likely to go off at any moment, without warning.’
She frowned, not understanding the analogy.
‘I don’t know when this is going to end, but I know it will. All things do. Whether because you leave me, or your father makes you leave me, or because one of us dies, nothing lasts forever. I would rather control that, and I think it’s best for you, too.’
‘Don’t you dare be such a paternalistic jackass. I don’t need you deciding what’s best for me. If you want me to move out, I will, but you should know that’s your decision, not mine.’
‘What do you want, then, Annie? Do you want to stay here, living with me, like this, for another seventeen months of this godawful marriage?’
She flinched. ‘No. I want to stay living with you forever, in a wonderful, happy marriage, where we stop fighting everything we feel and accept that when I was eleven and you were fifteen, we met the loves of our lives, and our fate was sealed. I want you to accept that sex with us is never—and could never be—just sex. That every time we’re together it’s meaningful and beautiful, and special.
I want you to know that I will always be here for you, that you can relax with me—’
‘How can I after what happened last time?’
‘Are you hearing yourself? You’re making no sense. Two minutes ago, you told me that you never thought we were going to last. So why did it matter that I left you?’
‘It’s why you left me.’
‘Because I love my parents?’ she demanded.
‘Because I have spent a lifetime playing the part of a stabilizer to them, and I didn’t know how to stop?
You think you’re the only one who learned from that experience?
I love my father, and I want him to be happy, but it’s time for me to live my life, regardless of what he thinks and wants. And I choose you. I want you.’
A muscle jerked in his jaw. ‘This isn’t what I want.’
‘Well, I don’t believe you,’ she said, moving to the wardrobe and removing her nightgown. She dressed quickly, staring at him the whole time, hating that even in that moment, she could feel heat and need building inside of her.
‘This was a mistake.’
‘How we got married, yes. But not that we are.’ She put a hand on her hip.
‘I’m not leaving you, Theo. If you really want me out of your life, you have to leave me.
Divorce me. Announce it in the papers. Do whatever you have to do, but it needs to come from you.
I’m not going to walk away from you again. ’
‘There’s nothing to walk away from,’ he muttered. ‘This isn’t a relationship.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘You are completely delusional.’
‘Annie.’ He raised his voice. ‘Listen to me. Our marriage is over. I don’t want this. I don’t want you. I made a mistake, and now I’m fixing it.’
Each word landed against her with a heavy thud. She shook her head, needing to clear those words, needing not to hear them, but he just stared at her, no hint of doubt on his face.