Annie compressed her lips in a gesture he was intimately familiar with: contemplation. She was trying to make sense of his statement. ‘Thisis what you wanted.’
And she was right. This had indeed been what he’d originally envisaged, back in Sydney, when she’d come to him for help. And he’d responded by blackmailing her. His chest seemed to compress, as though a cement truck had dropped its entire load on him. So much had changed since then, not least of all his certainty that this revenge plan was wise. ‘Now I want the island.’
Her lips pressed together again, harder, so her mouth was white-rimmed, and her eyes showed something a lot like panic. ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea.’
‘Are you saying no?’
‘Am I allowed to say no?’
That cut right through him, and he felt almost as though he couldn’t breathe, as though he were drowning. The last thing he wanted was for her to feel trapped. ‘Annie…’ He leaned forward. ‘No one forced you into this. No one is forcing you to stay.’
Desperation contorted her features. ‘Really? If I asked to leave, wouldn’t you just point out that we have an agreement?’
He hated that she was right. He hated that she evidently felt trapped. But most of all, he hated the fact that if he were to invoke their agreement to get her to stay, he knew now that it had less to do with the terms they’d reached and more to do with him just wanting her in his life a bit longer. Acknowledging that to himself was like leaping off the edge of a building. It was a warning, and in an instant, his whole mindset shifted. Theycouldn’t go back to the island. They couldn’t do anything that would strip away their barriers, and draw them closer together. He refused to weaken where Annie was concerned. Never again.
‘Are you saying you want to leave?’ His voice was grim, and already he was preparing for the reality of that. She’d walked away from him once, and he’d known she’d do it again. Was he really surprised?
‘Please, let’s not do this here.’ She smiled tightly, for the sake of the audience, but he couldn’t wipe the stern insistence from his own features. ‘We still have the bar to go to,’ she reminded him. ‘I don’t want to fight.’
‘I’m not fighting.’
‘Nor am I.’
‘You’re implying that you don’t have any autonomy in this marriage. That’s not true.’ He had to hear her deny it. He had to hear her agree that she’d walked into this with her eyes open.
She pulled a face. ‘I told you, not now.’
And the fact she couldn’t give him the reassurance he suddenly needed was like a storm cloud breaking over his world. Everything seemed different, seen through that lens. ‘Then let’s go home. I’m not in the mood to preen around in some bar so we can get our photo taken.’
She flinched. ‘I thought that’s exactly what you wanted.’
‘No. All of Athens knows we’re married, including your father. Job done. Let’s go.’ He scraped his chair back abruptly, dropping some money onto the table and holding out a hand to her. She stared at it for a long time and his heart dropped at what he felt to be yet another rejection: not touching him.
‘Annie.’ His voice was meant to be a plea, but he supposed it could also have sounded vaguely like a warning, if she was intent on seeing him as some kind of monster—and why wouldn’t she? Her fingers trembled when she put them in his palm. He closed his own around them, in an effort to bring stillness, and whenshe got to her feet, he pulled her close to his body. ‘We need to talk.’
He didn’t know what he’d say, but with every single fibre of his intuition, he knew this was no way to live—even for eighteen months. He was not going to subject her to it, not for all the revenge, or all the money, in the world. Even when he desperately wanted her to stay, it wouldn’t be like this. It couldn’t be.
Chapter Twelve
ANNIE’S NERVES WEREstretched 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 doingsomethingthat showed hefeltanything. 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.’