‘You disappeared, Annie. You disappeared. We had no idea where you were.’
She pulled away from him then. Moments earlier, she’d been facing the reality of how desperate she was to be held by him, to feel his strength one last time, but now, it was the cruellest thing, because it meant nothing.
‘I’m fine,’ she lied, moving into the hotel room and looking around with a grimace. At least it looked tidy—she’d barely unpacked, much less touched anything besides the bed.
‘You look—’
She didn’t want to think about how she looked. She whirled around, trying to cling to anger instead of the spasming pain inside of her. ‘I wasn’t exactly expecting company or I might have gone to a little more effort.’
‘Annie,’ he groaned, and he dropped his head, pressing his hands to his face, so she stopped whatever tirade she’d been about to dredge up and looked at him properly. Saw his stance for what it was—desperation. Misery. Relief.
With legs that were shaking, she moved to the bed and sat down, needing the support.
‘I have spent the last week imagining you—I don’t know. I had no clue. It was only that your father remembered an old credit card, thought you might have been using that, that led to you being discovered.’
Her stomach dropped. ‘My father? Tell me he doesn’t know about any of this.’
Theo strode towards her, crouching between her legs. ‘Why did you run away, Annie? Why did you try to hide from me?’
‘I didn’t run away,’ she said, hollow. ‘You ended our marriage, I simply left, as I said I would.’
‘But you didn’t use normal bank accounts. You have been hiding here.’
‘I have been taking some time,’ she said, sniffling. ‘And why is this your business? You made it very clear that you didn’t want any part of this marriage.’
‘Yes, I did,’ he said, a muscle jerking in his jaw. ‘And do you have any fucking idea how much I have wanted to take those words back ever since? How much I have wanted to fix what I broke? How much I have needed to see you to make this right?’
She sucked in an uneven breath.
‘Annie, you were right. Everything you said was right. When I met Paul Georgiades, it felt like I knew him before, like I had no choice but to go with him, to keep going back to him, but it was never really about Paul and Stephanie, as much as I respected and cared for them. It was always about finding my way to you. My other half. My beautiful, perfect other half, my reason for being, my reason for everything.’
She shook her head then, tears slipping down her cheeks, landing heavily on her thighs.
‘I spent a long awful week on the island, and you were there, in my bloodstream, whispering your love to me, making me wake up and realise what I wanted. And then, I knew I had to fix this. I had to start by facing up to my hatred for your father, by trying to fix that, because you cannot live in a marriage where your husband and your father are sworn enemies.’
She sucked in another breath, the sound a wrenching half sob.
‘How did you try to fix it?’
‘By admitting the truth to him. But a strange thing happened. In telling him what I thought was the truth, I realised I’d been wrong all along. All I wanted, from the minute you walked into my life, was to keep you right here, with me, where you belong. I made it sound like it was about revenge, when in reality, it’s always been this. It’s always been you.
‘When we were seeing each other, before, I felt as though I had been given the greatest gift known to man. Losing you was agony. I suppose I have been trying to insulate myself from that risk, to handle this on my terms, but I’ve been so wrong. So wrong. Even now, I stand before you begging you to come home to me, to tell me I’m not too late, that you can still love me after what I’ve done, when there is a huge part of me that wants to let you go, because I don’t deserve you. Because I could never deserve you.’
‘You’ve always had to protect yourself, Theo. I know that.’
‘Yes, but that’s no excuse.’
‘Isn’t it?’ She caught his face with both hands. ‘I don’t need you to be perfect, Theo. I don’t need you to get it right all the time. I didn’t.’
‘You?’
‘Do you think you’re the only one with regrets? Breaking up with you was the worst decision I ever made. I know why I did it. At twenty-two, with my mother in hospital having suffered a heart attack, I was desperate to fix everything. That’s how I’d been raised. But I was young, and I didn’t understand the ramifications of that decision. It’s not one I would make now.’
‘You were acting out of love for your family. Your decision was born of decency and goodness, of caring for someone else. Mine was purely selfish.’
‘You’ve been through more than one person should ever have to in a lifetime, Theo. It’s okay to want to take care of yourself.’
‘Please, don’t be so forgiving. I deserve to feel this guilt.’