“I heard you the other night,” I finally utter the only words running through my mind.
“What do you think you heard?” Her voice is cold, calculated.
“That it would degrade you to marry me.” I gulp down the words, each cutting cleaner than a knife.
She doesn’t respond. Maybe it was wrong of me to linger, to listen, but I can’t help myself. Not when it comes to her.
“I promised you once that I would always be here for you.” I close the distance between us. My boots scrape against the rocky path, sending loose stones skittering toward the precipice.
“You’re not exactly known for keeping promises,” she spits, turning to shoot me a look over her shoulder. Her lips curve in that infuriating, intoxicating way they always do, as though she’s both amused and utterly unbothered by my presence.
“And yet, here I am,” I slip a wisp of her raven hair between my fingers. Annabel is many things—unpredictable, impetuous, magnetic—but she’s also fragile, in a way she’d never admit. “It’s dangerous up here,” I say, nodding toward the jagged rocks below. “If the wind shifts, you could?—”
“Fall?” She cuts me off, laughing as she steps back from the edge. Her hair whips around her face, a wild halo against the storm-darkening sky. “Don’t worry, Jonathan. I’m not planning on making you a witness to anything so dramatic. At least, not today.”
Her words hang in the air, sharp and unsettling. I clench my fists, wishing I could say the right thing to anchor her, to pull her back from whatever invisible brink she’s teetering on. But Annabel is a force unto herself, as untouchable as the tide.
“Why did you come?” she finally says.
“I had to see you–had to know if you meant what you said. You speak like I’m nothing to you.”
Her dark gaze hangs with mine then. “I tell him what he needs to hear.”
My eyes narrow on her soft features. One look from herbreaks my heart. She haunts my waking moments and my dreams. “So it was a lie?”
“I meant it in the moment,” comes her soft confession, the words land like a dagger in my heart.
“Do you want me to leave? Never come back? I will if you say the words.” I growl.
She doesn’t say anything, but I see emotion welling in her dark eyes.
Anger bubbles up inside of me then. “Why do you do this? Why do you keep us both on a string? You know the slowest way to kill someone you love is never loving them enough, that’s what you’re doing to me, Annabel. You’re fucking killing me one word–one moment–at a time.”
She shakes her head, tears flowing from her eyes. “No, please don’t say that.” She wipes at her cheeks. “I just–can’t bear the thought of a life without you in it.” She turns to face me fully. Her eyes, dark and inscrutable, search mine for a beat too long. “Sometimes I need to talk to someone who isn’t him.”
“Why? What’s wrong with the perfect, incomparable Calum Vey?”
“Everything,” she says softly, her voice almost lost to the wind. She wraps her arms around herself, though I can’t tell if it’s the chill or her thoughts she’s trying to ward off. “Nothing. I don’t know.”
“Annabel,” I press, stepping closer. “You can’t just say something like that and leave it hanging. If he’s hurt you, if there’s something I can do?—”
“He hasn’t hurt me,” she interrupts, her tone sharp but not unkind. “Not the way you’re thinking, anyway. It’s just… Calum expects so much. From himself, from me. I can’t live up to it.”
I’ve never been able to hide my emotions where she’s concerned, and now is no exception. The relief at her admissionis immediate, a flood of light in the shadowy recesses of my mind. “You don’t have to live up to his expectations with me,” I say, the words tumbling out before I can second-guess them. I reach for her hand, and to my surprise, she lets me take it. “You could walk away. You could start over.”
She looks down at our hands, her brow furrowing slightly. “Walk away and go where? To you?”
“Yes,” I say, the word a vow, a lifeline. “You don’t have to be anyone but yourself with me. You know that.”
Her lips part, and for a moment, I think she’s going to agree. But then she pulls her hand away, her gaze flicking to the horizon. “You’re sweet, Jonathan. And I care about you. I really do. But it’s not that simple.”
“It could be,” I argue, desperation creeping into my voice. “You don’t owe him anything, Annabel. You deserve to be happy.”
She shakes her head, a bittersweet smile curving her lips. “Happiness is overrated. What I need is someone who can challenge me. Someone who makes me feel alive.”
“And you think Calum does that?” The bitterness in my tone surprises even me. “He’s so consumed by his own ambition he can’t even see you for who you really are.”
“And you can?” she counters, her eyes flashing. “You think you’re the only one who understands me? That’s your problem, Jonathan. You see me as some idealized version of myself. Calum makes me feel safe, but you make me feel free. And I…” She trails off, her voice catching. “I don’t know what I need.”
