"Nothing." I drag my hand through my hair, frustration coiling tight in my chest. "He's gone to ground somewhere we haven't thought to look yet."
Annie leaves the tea bags to steep, crossing the kitchen to me. She's wearing another one of my T-shirts and a pair of leggings, her copper hair pulled back in a messy bun. Even dressed casually, even with the fading bruise still visible on her cheek, she's beautiful. And she's my wife.
The thought still sends a jolt through me every time I remember it.My wife.The words feel both impossibly right and impossibly temporary.
"You'll find him," she says, coming to stand beside me at the table. Her shoulder brushes mine, and I feel the contact like a brand. "You always do."
I want to believe her faith in me is justified. But the truth is, I'm running out of ideas and running out of time. Ronan called me twice today already, his voice getting more strained each time. His suspicions of me are growing, I know it. The way he pauses before he speaks, the questions that dig just a little deeper than they should.
How much longer can I keep lying to him? How much longer before he figures out I've been hiding his sister, that I married her, that I've been doing things that are going to earn me a slow, painful death?
The thought should be enough to make me stop all of this. But somehow, it’s fucking not.
Annie's hand comes to rest on my arm, and I look down at her. There's something in her eyes I haven't seen before, something that makes my heart stutter in my chest.
"Elio," she says quietly. "Can we talk?"
The words send a spike of unease through me. Nothing good ever starts withcan we talk. But I nod, because I can't deny her anything, even when I know I should.
She takes my hand and leads me to the couch, pulling me down to sit beside her. For a moment, she doesn't say anything, just looks at our joined hands, her thumb tracing circles on my palm. The touch is almost unconscious.
"These past few days," she starts, then stops and takes a breath before trying again. "Being here with you, being married to you, even though it's not real?—"
"Annie—"
"Let me finish." She looks up at me, her teeth sunk into her lower lip. "It's made me realize something. Something I think I've known for a long time but was too scared to admit."
My heart is pounding now, a sick dread mixing with something that feels dangerously like hope. I know what she's going to say. I can see it in her eyes.
"I love you, Elio."
The words hit me like a physical blow. I feel as if I've been physically stunned, my lungs suddenly too tight, my skin too small. She loves me. Annie O'Malley loves me.
I knew it, and I didn’t, all at the same time. I could tell her that I love her, too. It would be the fucking truth.
It also wouldn’t change anything.
"Annie, you can't—" I start, but she cuts me off.
"I can and I do." Her voice is steady now, certain. "I've loved you since we were teenagers. I loved you then, and I love you now. And I know you feel the same way."
She's right. God help me, she's right. I've loved her for eleven years, through every woman I tried to forget her with, through every night I lay awake thinking about what might have been if I'd been born into a different family, a different life. If I’d been someone who could have stood tall in front of Padraigh O’Malley and asked to court his daughter, whose father could have arranged a marriage between us.
But loving her doesn't change anything. It only makes this worse.
"It doesn't matter how we feel," I say, and my voice comes out rougher than I intend. "This marriage was never meant to be real, Annie. It was a solution to a problem. A way to keep Desmond from getting what he wants."
"But it could be real." She shifts closer, her free hand coming up to cup my face. "We're already married. We've already—" She breaks off, a flush creeping up her neck. "We've already consummated it. Multiple times. Why can't we just make it permanent? We could talk to Ronan when we get back. We could?—"
"Ronan would never allow it," I say flatly. "Even if we wanted to make this real, even if we went to him and told him the truth, he'd be furious. He'd see it as the ultimate betrayal—me going behind his back, fucking his sister, marrying her without his permission."
She flinches at the wordfucking. "He'd get over it—if I asked him, if I explained, if we explained?—"
"He'd kill me, Annie." I pull away from her touch, needing the distance to think clearly. "You don't understand. It's not justabout you and me. It's about loyalty, about trust, about the fact that I've been lying to his face for days while he's been tearing himself apart looking for you. When he finds out—and he will find out—he's not going to care that we have feelings for each other. He's going to care that I betrayed him. And he’s going to seeeverythingin a different light. Including how I took his offer to come home. He’s going to think I planned all of this. And even if he believes us about Desmond, he’s going to think I hid you so I could seduce you and convince you I was the only option to keep you safe. He’s going to lose his fucking mind, and he’s not going tobelieveeither of us. More than likely?—"
I take a deep breath. “More than likely, he’ll kill me out of anger, and then, too late, he’ll realize what that’s going to do to you. It’ll drive a wedge between you forever. You’ll never recover from it. And neither will he. All of this… everything we’ve done because you want to protect him? It’ll all be for nothing, and the consequences of this will be a thousand times worse. Our deal was that this was temporary. It’s the only way this was ever going to work.”
Annie's face crumples, and I hate myself for putting that look there. But she needs to understand. This can't happen. It was never going to happen.
