‘Then where is she?’ Elliot asked, eyes narrowed. ‘I haven’t heard from her since my birthday party. I could tell she was annoyed with me, but she would usually have called me by now.’ The older man stood, then. ‘Where is my daughter? Where is my Annie?’
Theo flinched then, because the sound in Elliot’s voice was unmistakably worry, and yes, love. It might have been a love that was warped and shaped by his grief, but that didn’t make it any less valid or sincere. Even though he hadn’t been able to be the kind of father Annie wanted or deserved, that didn’t mean he wasn’t feeling concern for her now. He was a lot like Theo in that regard. They were married, and yet, Theo had been far from the kind of husband Annie had wanted or deserved. She’d loved him, and he hadn’t been able to love her back. He hadn’t been brave enough to let himself.
Ironically, he’d called her a coward at the beginning of their relationship, but if he forced himself to regard their relationship with honesty, wasn’t ithewho was afraid? He who was running? Heat flushed his skin.
‘She’s at my house,’ he said, his chest cleaving apart to imagine her there. ‘I told her she could live there as long as she wants, and I meant it.’
‘Take me to her,’ Elliot said, standing up. ‘I want her home, here, with me.’ He strode towards Theo then, his eyes laced with fury. ‘You never were good enough to even breathe the same air as her, much less touch her. But then, you came back, and married her, and a part of me actually thought maybe you understood how special she is? Maybe you saw it? But you don’t even love her, do you? You just did this to get back at me. And yet you can stand there, telling me I don’t value my daughter for who she really is. You’re a hypocrite, Theo.’
Theo wanted to say something to contradict that, to explain the complexity of his thoughts, to point out that many things could be true at once, but the words were strangled in his throat. All he could do was stare at the other man, his face an unknowing study in tortured contemplation.
Elliot, though, apparently didn’t notice the turbulent ruminations going on inside Theo. ‘How dare you? How bloody dare you? Take me to my daughter and then get the hell out of our lives, once and for all. She needs to get over you, you bastard.’
On that score, at least, they were in agreement.
Theo collapsed on the sofa, staring between his feet, his heart thudding heavily in his chest. There was no way of knowing when the note had been left, but a quick perusal of his security system showed that Annie had left the house an hour after him, the night they’d fought. The night he’d told her he didn’t love her.
The night he told her their marriage was over.
He’d watched the grainy night-vision footage of her pulling a small suitcase down the steps and hailing a cab, and felt like his insides had been acid washed. By then, he’d been at the airport, about to take off for the island where he’d tried to forget about Annie, but all the while imagining her in his home, consoling himself that at least he could picture her going about her life there. That at least he’d given her that.
And now he had no idea where she’d gone.
Elliot had left the house, furious and scathing, blustering about filing a police report and Theo should consider the matter closed, seeing as he clearly didn’t care for Annie anyway. Theo had wanted to shout at the older man to shut up, to stop saying things like that, but how could he deny it? If he’d cared for Annie, she’d have still been here. She’d have been safe in his house, safe with him, instead of God knew where.
He pushed up from his sofa, his heart thumping in his empty chest, as he paced the living room and tried to think. To imagine where she might go, where she could be living, who she’d be with. Friends? None that she was close to. She’d rarely travelled outside of Athens; as far as he knew there was nowhere she wanted to be, nowhere that called to her. Or if there was, he didn’t know it. He didn’t know where she’d turn to, in a dark moment of her life, and that gap in his knowledge physically hurt him. Suddenly, the idea that Annie was alive and he didn’t know something so vital about her, didn’t understand her well enough to know where she would flee to, was an impossible reality.
He couldn’t live with it. He had to find her.
Theo reached for his phone and tried calling Annie. Again, and again, with no response. Then, with a sense of dread, he finally accepted that it was time to call the police himself, never mind that Elliot had already done so. He filed his own missing persons report, then he called a private security firm and enlisted their help, too. But even then, he just couldn’t sit inhis home, waiting for news. He had to do something, and so he went out on foot, scouring the city he knew so well, courtesy of having grown up in the back streets. He went to the restaurants they’d eaten at, the bars, hoping that he’d catch a glimpse of her, somewhere.
Anywhere.
Annie had barely left bed since checking herself into her hotel room. She couldn’t say why she’d come back to it except that it had been the only thing she could think of, that awful night, when he’d ended their marriage. As though she could close this chapter of their lives just by coming back to where it had begun.
It hadn’t worked.
The chapter was open. The wound, too, weeping and ghastly, so she’d climbed into bed and curled up in the fetal position, eyes squeezed shut. It hadn’t helped to stem the tears, though. They’d fallen hard, almost saturating the pillow, but she’d just rolled over, onto the other side of the bed, and kept crying.
It was the most awful, heavy feeling, to finally have accepted how much she still loved Theo, and also accepting that he would never let himself feel that for her. Even if he did, in fact, love her, he wouldn’t admit it, and he wouldn’t act on it. It was futile and desperate.
Somewhere along the way, Annie lost track of the date. She eventually began to feel closer to human, to move from the bed to the small armchair and stare out at the city. To order room service that she would pick around the edges of, if not fully eat. At one point, she contemplated turning her phone on, but decided against it.
She didn’t really expect to hear from Theo, but at the same time, it was possible he might reach out to her. Perhaps when he realised she was no longer at the house they’d shared? He’dno doubt be relieved she’d left quietly, without trying to revive their conversation. He’d finally pushed her away, and this time, it would be for good.
But the thought of her life, spanning before her without Theo in it, was its own form of torture. Annie’s heart almost couldn’t take it.
She moved back to the bed and curled beneath the covers, tears welling in her throat as she tried not to think about Theo: wanting him, needing him to reach for her and knowing he never would.
Chapter Thirteen
THE ROOM SERVICEcame a little earlier than she’d expected, then again, she’d lost track of days and nights. It might have been a quiet Monday, for all she knew. She pushed out of bed, her limbs feeling heavy, and made her way down the carpeted corridor to the front door of her hotel room, pulling it inwards without noticing that the usual ‘room service’ announcement hadn’t been made.
And stumbled backwards at the sight of Theo on the other side of the door, his face a mask of barely contained darkness. Anger? Fury? Worry? What? She didn’t know. Only he was staring at her with those glittering eyes, his jaw clenched so tight it was practically squared off.
‘Do you have any idea how worried we’ve been?’ he demanded, striding through the open door and putting his hands on her forearms, holding her still so he could stare down at her face, as though needing to reassure himself that she was in fact standing right in front of him, alive and well.
Annie shook her head, shaking all over, unable to find any words.