‘You were a mistake. You were always a mistake. She’ll see that eventually.’
‘Yes.’ Theo dropped his head forward, the words piercing his soul. ‘Our marriage was a mistake, you’re right. My mistake, not hers.’ The weight on his chest grew heavier. ‘Annie married for love. I married for revenge.’ He turned then, dark eyes glittering with ruthless anger, and saw the way Elliot had to brace himself against the desk. ‘She married out of a love for you, and, I believe now, a love for me. Perhaps she hoped she could love us both enough to get beyond how much hatred you and I share for one another. One thing has become very clear to me, though. Our marriage will destroy her. Loving me will destroy her. You were right about that.’
‘What do you mean, you married for revenge?’
Theo hesitated for the briefest moment, before forcing himself to admit what he’d come here to say. ‘Annie needed my help with a professional matter. I gave it on the condition of this marriage.’
Elliot cursed loudly. ‘You blackmailed my daughter?’
‘Yes.’ What was the sense in hiding it?
‘For what possible reason?’
Theo compressed his lips.
‘To get back at me,’ Elliot groaned. ‘Because I made her leave you back then. Are you really so petty and broken, that you cannot let bygones be bygones? Are you so damaged that you couldn’t see Annie would be the one you hurt with this? Annie, who stood up for you until she was blue in the face. Annie would probably have walked out of her home for good that night, rather than lose you, if it hadn’t been for her mother.’
Theo absorbed those charges with no small measure of hurt.
But Elliot was not finished. Face puce with anger, he shouted, ‘Good Lord, what in God’s name have you done?’
‘Done?’ Theo ground his jaw. ‘I’ve let her go, Elliot. Just like you wanted me to. She’s free. Annie and I will be getting divorced. It turns out, you win, after all.’
Elliot sat down in the chair behind his desk, staring at the wall opposite. ‘You really are a fool, Leonidas.’
Theo made a scoffing noise of surprise.
‘I never thought much of you, but at least you showed yourself to have good judgement. Are you telling me you’ve ended things with my daughter?You’vebroken up withher?’
A muscle jerked in his jaw as he heard the older man’s shock. Hell, he could even understand the reasoning for it. What man in his right mind would walk away from Annie without a gun to his head? Even then…
‘If you’ve hurt her—’ Elliot said, the words ringing through the room.
Theo paced to the desk and pressed his fingertips against the inlaid leather surface. ‘Isn’t that a little like the pot calling the kettle black?’
‘What the devil does that mean?’
‘Annie came to me hurt. She came to me broken. Because of you. Because of how you treated her—because of how you pushed her, her whole life, into Mary’s shadow.’
The older man paled immediately, his lined face showing surprise and indignation, as well as something else. Something like guilt. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘I know that woman deserved better than to feel like a substitute for someone you loved more.’
‘Ilove my daughter.’
‘Perhaps. But loving someone doesn’t always go hand in hand with treating them well.’ The words fell like stones against him, thudding into the emptiness of his chest cavity in a way that he knew would leave permanent scars.
‘I have always protected her, and tried to do what was right for her—’
‘You’ve done what was right for you. You’ve spent your life trying to turn Annie into the person you thought she should become, rather than appreciate the woman she is.’
‘This is none of your business.’
Theo opened his mouth to dispute that, to say that anything that concerned Annie would always concern him, but that would have been a lie, wouldn’t it? Annie was not his wife in anything but name, and even that would soon be dissolved.
‘If you’ve hurt her, Theo, so help me God—’
He narrowed his gaze, his gut rolling with acid waves. ‘I wouldneverhurt her.’