‘Why are you so against marriage?’ she asked, keeping her voice devoid of emotion.
‘Not all marriages,’ he quipped with a grin, gesturing from him to her.
‘I meant, genuine marriage.’
That lessened his grin, for a moment turning it into a hint of a frown. ‘It’s not marriage so much as the idea of love,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I saw how my dad treated Mum, how he treated us, and I guess it just solidified for me how bad an idea it was to care too much for someone.’
‘Why? What happened between them?’
‘Nothing. It was a whirlwind affair. She got pregnant. He didn’t want kids so he got on with his own life, leaving her in total poverty to raise two boys.’
Annie’s stomach turned over. Everything began to fall into place. ‘I see.’
His eyes narrowed, and he nodded tightly. ‘Yes. Just like I left you.’
Her gaze softened. ‘You didn’t know.’
‘That changes nothing about how much you’ve been struggling.’ His lips tightened with self-condemnation. ‘My father saw no intrinsic value in Zach and me until he got married again and my stepmother couldn’t have children. She badly wanted them and so he brought us here to Singapore. Our mother was devastated.’
Annie gasped. ‘How could he do that to her?’
‘He didn’t care about her at all,’ he said succinctly. ‘Theirs was a brief affair and it meant nothing to him. He never thought of her again.’
Annie found it impossible to look at him. She spun her face away, pain wrenching through her, because those exact same words could have applied to her relationship with Dimitrios.
‘It’s not the same as us,’ he said thickly. ‘I have thought of you many, many times since that night, Annabelle.’
Something shifted. Hope. The absence of pain. ‘Oh?’
‘I pride myself on always being in control. I have never done something I regretted, something I felt happened beyond my control, except for that night with you. After I’d promised Lewis I’d look after you, I did that.’
Her eyes swept shut at that admission. ‘That’s not thinking of me, that’s thinking of yourself—and your own perceived failings.’
‘It’s thinking of you, and wondering what it was about you that drove me over the edge of sanity. Lewis’s little sister.’ He shook his head. ‘What power you held over me.’
A rush of something like pleasure expanded in her chest but she ignored it—there was no power here, no victory. He was talking in the past tense and, even if he hadn’t been, it was obvious he resented whatever he thought her source of power was.
‘I think it was just shared grief,’ she said simply.
‘That was definitely a catalyst,’ he agreed, moving closer still. ‘But you’d wanted me long before that night.’
Her lips parted at the statement, her cheeks growing pink. ‘You looked at me as though you thought I was the second coming. What red-blooded man wouldn’t have responded to that?’ he asked.
‘I was too young to know how to respond to you,’ she said with a soft exhalation. ‘I’d never met anyone like you.’
‘It was a long time ago.’ His fingertips found the thin strap of her singlet top and pushed beneath it, h
is exploration so soft and gentle that it was almost as if he didn’t realise he was doing it. ‘You’re more experienced now.’
Her cheeks glowed with more warmth. ‘Am I?’
She didn’t need to look at him to know that he was frowning. ‘I presume so.’
‘More experienced with men?’
‘It’s been seven years.’
‘More than six of which I’ve spent single-handedly raising a child,’ she pointed out, her defensiveness making the words sound more caustic than she’d intended.