Heroes Are My Weakness: A Novel

Chapter Thirteen

TAKE OFF MY CLOTHES? You’re delusional.”

Theo stepped around the cat. “Am I? After last night, we don’t seem to have anything to lose. And you’ll be happy to know that your cottage is now fully stocked with condoms. Every room.”

He really was the devil. She looked around her bedroom. “You put condoms in here?”

He inclined his head. “The top drawer of your bedside table. Right next to your teddy bear.”

“That,” she said, “is a Beanie Baby collectible.”

“Apologies.” He was cool, easy, a man with nothing more complicated on his mind than seduction. “I also put them in the studio, the kitchen, the bathroom, and my pockets.” He let his eyes skim over her. “Although . . . Not everything I’m thinking about doing to you requires a condom.”

Her nerve endings sparked, and her imagination took off on a pornographic expedition just as he’d intended. She pulled herself back to reality. “You’re assuming an awful lot.”

“Like you said. There’s plenty of winter left.”

This was a bogus seduction, his pathetic attempt to put a stop to her questioning. Or maybe it wasn’t. She tightened the sash on her robe. “The thing about me is . . . Without some kind of emotional intimacy, I’m not interested.”

“Remind me of what kind of emotional intimacy we had last night . . . because you seemed very interested.”

“That whole episode was an alcohol-induced aberration.” Not completely true, and he didn’t look as though he was buying it, but it was true enough. Hannibal pawed at the trash basket again, threatening to turn it over, and she picked him up. “Knock it off and tell me why you came to Peregrine instead of going someplace more pleasant.”

His silky seductiveness vanished. “Stop prying. It has nothing to do with you.”

“If you want me to take off my clothes, it does.” She actually managed something close to a purr. Was she really trying to use sex as currency? She should be ashamed of herself, but since he wasn’t falling over laughing, she didn’t even flush. “Sex for honesty. That’s my offer.”

“You’re not serious.”

Not one bit. She stroked the cat between his ears. “I don’t like secrecy. If you want to see me naked, you’ll have to give me something in exchange.”

He glowered at her. “I don’t want to see you naked that badly.”

“Your loss.” Where had she gotten this confidence? This feistiness? Here she stood in all her messy glory, wearing too-big men’s pajamas, a ratty old bathrobe, and—not to forget—possibly pregnant. Yet she was acting as if she’d just sashayed down a Victoria’s Secret runway. “Hold your cat while I take care of our dearly departed friend,” she said.

“I’ll handle it.”

“Suit yourself.” She lifted the cat until they were nose to nose. “Come on, Hannibal. Your daddy has another corpse to get rid of.”

She swept from the room, cat in her arms, satisfaction warming her heart. She hadn’t learned much, but she’d somehow managed to even the playing field. As she set the cat down, she mulled over what he’d said about her independence not being a false facade. What if he were right? What if she weren’t as much of a wreck as she believed herself to be?

It was a new idea, but she’d been so beaten down lately that she automatically rejected it. Except . . . If it really was true, she’d have to readjust her whole view of herself.

“Backbone, Antoinette. That’s what you’re lacking. A sturdy backbone.”

No, Mother, she thought. Just because I’m not you doesn’t mean I don’t have plenty of backbone. I had enough to give you everything you needed before you died, didn’t I?

And now she was paying the price.

The kitchen door opened and closed. A moment later he came into the living room. He spoke so softly she almost missed what he said. “I couldn’t write. I had to get away from everyone.”

She turned. Alert.

He stood by the bookcase, his hair a little tousled from his trip outside to dispose of the mouse. “I couldn’t stand all the pity coming from my friends and all the hatred coming from hers.” He gave a brutal laugh. “Her father told me I might as well have pushed those pills down her throat. And maybe he was right. Have you heard enough?”

As he turned away and headed for the studio, she went after him. “The thing is, if you wanted to get away, why didn’t you go someplace you didn’t hate? The French Riviera. The Virgin Islands. God knows, you can afford it. Instead you came here.”

“I love Peregrine. I just don’t love Harp House. Which made it the perfect place to start writing again. No distractions. At least not until you showed up.” He disappeared inside the studio.

That made sense, but something was missing. She followed him through the door. “A couple of weeks ago, I saw you coming out of the stable. It was bitter that day, but you took your sweater off. Why did you do that?”

He studied a scratch on the floor. She didn’t think he was going to answer. But then he did. “Because I wanted to feel something.”

One of the classic signs of a psychopath was an inability to experience normal emotions, but the pain etched into the lines of his face testified that he felt everything. An uneasiness came over her. She didn’t want to hear more, so she turned away. “I’ll leave you alone.”

“We were happy at first,” he said. “At least I thought so.”

She looked back at him.

He gazed toward the wall mural, but she had the sense he wasn’t seeing the painted taxi crashing through the storefront window. “After a while, she started calling me more frequently from work. I didn’t think anything of it, but before long, I was getting dozens of messages every day—every hour. Texts, phone calls, e-mails. She wanted to know where I was, what I was doing. If I didn’t reply right away, she’d fly into a rage and accuse me of being with other women. I was never unfaithful to her. Never.”

He finally looked at Annie. “She quit her job. Or maybe she was forced out. I’ve never been sure. Her behavior became more bizarre. She told her family and some of her friends that I was screwing around on her, that I’d threatened her. I finally got her to a shrink. He put her on medication, and things were better for a while until she stopped taking her pills because she said I was trying to poison her. I tried to get her family to help, but she was never at her worst with them, and they refused to believe anything was really wrong. She started attacking me physically—punching and scratching. I was afraid I was going to hurt her, and I moved out.” His hands fisted at his sides. “She killed herself a week later. How’s that for a real-life fairy tale?”

Annie was appalled, yet everything about him rejected pity, so she kept her cool. “Leave it to you to marry a psycho.”

He looked startled. Then his shoulders relaxed. “Yeah, well, takes one to know one, right?”

“So they say.” She glanced over at her puppets resting on the shelf, then back at him. “Remind me what part of this is your fault. Other than marrying her in the first place.”

His tension came back, along with his anger. “Come on, Annie. Don’t be naive. I knew exactly how sick she was. I should never have left her. If I’d stood up to her family and gotten her into a hospital where she belonged, she might still be alive.”

“It’s a little hard to get anyone committed these days who doesn’t want to be.”

“I could have found a way.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Hannibal brushed against her. “I had no idea you were such a sexist.”

His head jerked up. “What are you talking about?”

“Any rational woman married to a man who was abusing her the way your wife was abusing you would have gotten out, gone to a shelter, whatever it took to get away. But because you’re male, you were supposed to stick around? Is that how it is?”

He seemed momentarily confused. “You don’t understand.”

“Don’t I? If you’re determined to go on a guilt trip, do it for a real sin—like not making me dinner tonight.”