Chapter 14
Annabelle
Glancing at my phone again, I sigh. Ethan has been gone for half an hour, but it feels like days.
I have lost all concept of time. One day bleeds into another, and I just can’t tell which way is up and which way is down right now.
How I’m managing to hold down my job is a mystery for another time because the house feels wrong without him in it.
I sit on the edge of my bed with my phone in my hand and stare at the door like I can force him to walk back through it. My stomach is tight, the dinner he fed me sits heavily in my stomach. He told me he’d be an hour. It hasn’t been an hour yet. I know that. I still check the screen again.
No message.
I wonder why this happened so quickly. I want him back here so badly it hurts. He fills up the rooms, my thoughts and every stupid gap in my day so I don’t have to hear myself think.
The quiet starts pressing in.
I stand up too fast and cross to the window, pushing the curtain aside with two fingers. His car isn’t outside. Just the same sleepy street, the same hedge across the road that needs cutting, the same hanging basket outside number six that has nearly died in the heat.
My chest starts to hurt. What if he left me? What if I became such a burden for him that he didn’t want to stay? I press my palm to my chest and try to breathe through it.
He said an hour.
He said he was coming back.
So why does it already feel like abandonment?
My eyes drag to the bedside drawer before I can stop them. The blade sits under a tangle of old receipts and a dead lip balm, tucked away like a promise I never quite cash in.
I drop the curtain and back away from the window.
The room feels too small. My skin feels wrong.
Too tight. Too hot. I pace to the door and back again, then to the dresser, then to the bed.
I pick up my phone and unlock it. No new messages.
I open our texts, stare at them, then type before I can overthink it.
Where are you?
I stare at the screen for one second, then hit send.
Delivered.
My throat burns.
I sit down. Stand up again. I drag my hands through my hair and pull too hard. The silence digs at me. Every awful thought I had before him starts crawling back out of the dark.
He got what he wanted.
He was bored.
He saw what a mess you are and fucked off.
The thought slams into me so hard I fold in on myself.
He said he’d come back.
My phone buzzes in my hand, and I nearly drop it. It’s a phone call.
Ethan.
I slide my thumb over the screen and answer.
“Where are you?” I ask.
“I’ll be there soon.”
The breath leaves me in a rush so violent it almost makes me dizzy. I sink onto the bed hard enough to bounce. “You said an hour.”
“It hasn’t been an hour.”
“I know.” My voice cracks anyway. “I know, I just…” I close my eyes and press my fingers into my forehead. “It got loud.”
His silence is brief. Dangerous in a different way now. Controlled. Focused. “What did you do?”
I freeze.
“Nothing,” I whisper.
“Did you think about it?”
My throat tightens. Lying feels pointless. He would hear it. “Yes.”
A second passes. Then another.
“Listen to me carefully, Annabelle.” His voice drops further, all command, all certainty. “Stay in bed. I’ll be there soon.”
“I need you.”
“I’m here.” His tone softens by a fraction. “You messaged me. Good girl.”
My eyes sting. I hate how much those two words settle me.
“You answered when I called. That is exactly what you do from now on. You don’t listen to the bullshit in your head. You wait for me.”
I curl forward, pressing my free hand into my stomach. “Tell me what to do.”
“Are you still in bed?”
“No.”
“Then get back in bed and wait for me.”
“Okay,” I say and force myself to move. I crawl onto the bed and freeze. I hear a voice in the background. “Who was that?”
“No one.”
“I heard someone.”
“It was nobody,” he says.
I gulp and force myself not to ask again. I sound like a jealous freak.
“Annabelle?”
“Yes?” I whisper.
“I’ll be back soon.”
“Okay.” I hang up because I don’t have the strength to carry on this conversation.
My pulse is still too fast. I press both hands to my thighs and count my breaths. It does not help. Nothing helps except him, and that thought is so pathetic it makes my eyes burn.
I lie back down and pull the duvet up to my chin even though I’m roasting hot.
A car pulls up outside, and I shoot off the bed to the window, yanking the curtain back.
A black BMW has pulled up out front, and I watch as Ethan gets out.
Frowning, I stumble back. Another car? The Porsche is a second car. My Ferrari is in the shop. Family money. Investments.
He gets out wearing a white tee and pulls out a holdall. I move forward again. He was wearing black this morning. Then he was wearing white when he came to the library. He was wearing grey when he picked me up. Now he’s wearing white again.
People are allowed to change clothes, Anna. Stop being an idiot.
Right. Right. Of course, people are allowed to change clothes three times a day. Especially in this heat. I nod and move back to the bed, wanting to be where I said I would be when he walks in.
By the time his footsteps sound on the stairs, I am sitting in the middle of the bed with my hands twisted together so tightly they ache.
The bedroom door opens.
Relief hits so hard I nearly cry.
“Annabelle,” he says.
His voice is more intense, but less aggressive than earlier, more like it was at the library.
“Ethan… I… who was in your car when you called me?”
I hate myself for the question.
His eyes narrow. “I was stopped at a light. Window was down.”
“Oh,” I say, lowering my eyes. “Sorry.”
“Why are you apologising?” He hasn’t moved closer, and it’s unnerving me.
“Because I sound jealous. I have no right to be.”
“You do,” he says, finally coming closer. “You have every right. You know why?”
“Why?” My voice cracks.
“Because you are mine and I’m yours, Annabelle. All of me.”
“All of you?” I ask quietly.
“My life,” he says. “My time. My attention. You don’t get pieces of me, Annabelle. You get everything.” He puts the holdall down by the wardrobe and comes to the bed. His hand shakes when it cups my jaw. The panic in me eases so fast it’s humiliating. “What did I tell you?”
I drag in a breath. “To wait for you.”
“And what did you do?”
“I waited.”
“Good girl.” He brushes his thumb under my eye. I hadn’t even realised tears escaped. He drops his hand.
I stare at it for a long moment.
“What are you thinking?” he asks, taking a step back.
I force myself to meet his eyes. Somewhere deep in my gut, noise has started, but not just any noise. Questions. “You have a BMW?”
He nods slowly.
“What happened to the Porsche?”
“Nothing. It’s at home.”
“Home. Which is where exactly?”
He smiles slowly. “In the city, like I told you earlier.”
“What aren’t you telling?”
“Probably a lot. What do you want to know?”
“Sit with me.”
I can’t put my finger on it, but something is off about him. He isn’t the same attentive man who was here earlier.
He sits on the edge of the bed, but doesn’t get close.
“Can I see your place?”
“Of course.”
“Now?”
He smiles. “It’s late.”
“Not that late.”
“You want to get out of bed after you’ve been working all day and drive to my apartment?”
I lift my chin higher. “Yes.”
His intense gaze bores into me. I want to flinch, shy away, crawl under the duvet, have the bed swallow me.
But I don’t drop my gaze.
Something, somewhere, isn’t right, but I just don’t know what. Somewhere between him leaving, the phone call and seeing him get out of a BMW in a white shirt, something has sparked inside me that needs more answers than he’s giving me.
My palms sweat. My armpits are sticky. My lungs are about to give up altogether when he doesn’t say anything. I nearly choke when I try to swallow because my mouth has gone so dry. If he leaves me, I will die, but…
“Okay, then,” he says, standing up. “Get dressed.”
Relief and fear hit me at once. I stare at him for a second longer, trying to work out if I’ve just done something brave or terminally stupid.
Then I force myself off the bed.
He steps back to give me space, and even that feels wrong. Ethan doesn’t usually give me space. He takes it. He fills it. Tonight, he watches me like he is measuring every move I make.
I go to the dresser and pull out black jeans and a loose black top. My fingers fumble over the buttons. I can feel his eyes on my back while I strip off my sleep shorts and drag on clean clothes. I don’t turn around until I’ve shoved my feet into trainers.
I grab my phone and stuff it into my back pocket. When I turn, he is still standing by the wardrobe, expression unreadable.
“Ready?” he asks.
No. Not even slightly. “Yes.”
He heads for the door. I follow him downstairs, noticing everything because I suddenly cannot help it. The way he moves is familiar, but not exact. The rhythm is different. Earlier, Ethan moved through my house as if he owned every inch of it. This feels stilted. Like he’s uncomfortable.
“You seem stronger,” he says when we reach the bottom of the stairs.
I draw in a shaky breath. “I feel stronger.”
He nods and opens the front door.
He doesn’t touch me. He doesn’t help me. He doesn’t lead me the way he has done previously.
He barely even looks at me.
I walk out the door. The warm evening air hits me.
It’s thick and humid. He unlocks the BMW, and the lights flash.
I stand by the passenger door. He doesn’t open it for me.
He just gets in and starts the engine. My chest hurts with a fresh spike of anxiety.
I open the door myself and sit on the leather.
I look out the window as we pull away from the kerb.
I’m terrified. I’m losing the only thing that made me feel alive, and it’s all my fault because I pressed him for answers.
But this thing inside me, needling at me, won’t quit.
I need to know who the fuck he is when he’s not in my house.
My hands are tucked under my thighs to hide the shaking.
He drives steadily. He doesn’t drive too fast or take the bends too quickly.
He is methodical. He doesn’t take his eyes off the road.
He pulls into an underground garage of an apartment block in the city, and I see the Porsche parked next to a Ferrari.
I glance at him, but he isn’t looking at me.
He gets out of the car, and I follow, wondering if I should call this off.
He flashes a card at a panel on the smaller lift off to the side of a wider one, and the doors slide open.
He waits for me to get in first, and as the doors close, I know I’ve just made the biggest mistake of my life.