A constriction formed in her throat, making it hard to swallow. She nodded quickly, then took a sip of her drink. It was sweet and sparkly. ‘She’d been sick for six months, though. I hoped she’d get better, but at the same time, I was prepared that she wouldn’t. She wasn’t the same after the first heart attack.’
Theo’s eyes narrowed. He knew the timing of it. Annie had told him, the morning she’d ended things. She’d explained that her mother was so devastated by the idea of their being together she’d had an actual heart attack.
‘You understand that it was not your fault?’ Theo asked, echoing something he’d said at the time. Only back then, he’d grabbed her arms and pulled her to his chest, his face lined with passion, with a need to make her understand. Now he was the opposite, cool and calm, asking almost like he didn’t care one way or the other.
‘We’d argued,’ she whispered, pressing her fingertips to her temple, reliving that awful night. ‘They’d insisted we break up, I was blindsided. I mean, I knew you weren’t who they expected me to be with, but they’d never been so overt in telling me what to do.’ She shook her head, oblivious to the way his eyes narrowed, and his lips formed a compressed line of disapproval. ‘I was surprised and I probably overreacted.’
He made a sound of disapproval. ‘You were twenty-two years old.’
‘But you know, the situation with Mary,’ she whispered. ‘Ever since she died, they spent every ounce of energy protecting me, carving out the life they thought I should lead, to keep safe.’
‘What point is life if you do not actually live it?’
She’d lived it with Theo. For that one perfect year, Annie had felt as though she were brimming with vitality. As though she had a purpose beyond standing in for Mary, was seen as someone other than a poor replacement.
‘They had my best interests at heart.’
‘How can you say that, even now?’
‘It’s true. I know it must seem over-the-top to you, Theo—’
‘To anyone with eyes or a brain.’
‘Thank you for that.’
He leaned forward, surprising her by putting a hand on hers. ‘You were right to stand up to them. If only you’d had the courage to see it through.’
She bit on her lip, looking across at him, her heart racing wildly. She ignored the condemnation in the way he’d accused her of lacking courage—like he had any idea how strong she’d had to be, all her life—and focused instead on his implication. ‘And what would have happened, if I had?’ she asked, toying with her napkin.
She sensed his withdrawal, even before he removed his hand and returned it to his glass. ‘I don’t deal in hypotheticals.’
‘Indulge me,’ she rebuffed.
‘For what reason? We’ll never know what our future might have been had they not interfered. Had you felt that our relationship was important enough to fight for.’
She looked across at the Acropolis, but for once took no solace in the ancient, familiar stones.
‘You have no idea what my life was like,’ she said, unevenly, toying with her napkin.
‘I knew you.’
‘No, I’m starting to think that’s not true.’ Her brain was shifting from one spark to another, connecting dots, so when she looked at Theo now, it was with a dawning comprehension. ‘You hid yourself from me, you know. Anytime I asked about your childhood, your life before you came to live next door, you would change the subject.’
His nostrils flared.
‘But maybe I did the same thing,’ she pondered, lips pulled to the side. ‘I mean, I told you Mary died, but I didn’t tellyou what that did to me. What it did to my parents, and how they treated me. I didn’t explain to you that I spent my entire life knowing that they wished our places had been reversed. Or that my intrinsic value wasn’t in me, personally, but in being their last surviving daughter. My mother would say to me, every night, that she couldn’t handle it if anything ever happened to me. That I had to stay safe and stay alive, just for her. Do you have any idea how terrified I was to even cross the street, Theo? The pressure of it, their expectations—that’s been myentirelife.’
He was watching her with an expression that gave nothing away, but Annie wasn’t really seeing him, anyway. ‘I love them, so much, but I also…it’s hard to forgive them, for how they were with me. And how they were with you,’ she admitted.
‘And yet you still do his bidding.’
‘With the company, you mean?’
‘You were so desperate to save it, for your father’s sake, that you agreed to marry a man you profess to hate.’
‘The company is all he has left.’
‘He has you.’