A Gift to Remember

by Melissa Hill

  For a car. Her head was well and truly spinning. ‘Yes, I think I’m just about getting some answers,’ she added politely.

  ‘Aidan Harris is the man who bought Miller’s ’66 Shelby last week,’ said Stephanie, and Tabitha’s face lit up with recognition.

  ‘Ah. And this is the same guy you ran down with your bike, is that correct?’

  She nodded mutely.

  ‘Well, Darcy, I’m awfully sorry for not being able to clear this up when you met me at Elizabeth Arden, but as you can see, I wasn’t involved in the deal. To be honest, I can’t keep up with my husband and his dealings in any case. Boys and their toys, eh?’ she tittered pleasantly. ‘But I do know Miller was very pleased to see it splashed across the papers in LA last week though. That Will Anderson seems quite a showman. Well, I’d better go and leave you to it – busy busy!’ she trilled. ‘But it was so nice to see you again – you too, Nate.’ With that Tabitha Kensington left the room but Darcy barely noticed her go.

  ‘Will Anderson, the thriller author?’ she repeated. The one her aunt had tried to set her up with before. Now Darcy was seriously confused. Chaucer’s sold dozens of Will’s books per week. Right now, their front window display featured the movie tie-in edition of his first novel Thrill Seeker . . .

  Suddenly, something else clicked into place.

  ‘Yes,’ Stephanie said. ‘I couldn’t understand why Aidan was so desperate to secure the car, but then he explained all about how Will wanted it in time for the movie premiere in LA.’ When Darcy remained silent she continued, ‘If you read the Thrill Seeker books, I’m sure you know that Max Bailey drives a ’66 Mustang Shelby. Aidan said Anderson was desperate to roll up to the première of his own movie in it.’

  ‘Like James Bond and his Aston Martin?’ Nate raised an immaculate eyebrow. ‘I must admit I’ve never read the books, but it sounds like the guy has style.’

  ‘Oh, you really should,’ Stephanie said. ‘Max Bailey is amazing.’

  Darcy was dumbfounded. And yet, little by little, things began slotting into place: the name of the company – Thrill Seeker, after Will Anderson’s series of super-successful books. And then . . . Bailey. Named after Max Bailey, the action hero star of those same books?

  But then how did Aidan come into it all? Was he an author too, a friend of Will’s who worked under a pseudonym maybe?

  The discovery was very exciting, and completely fit with Aidan’s apparent fixation on literature, and of course his wonderful book collection, Darcy thought happily.

  He truly was a kindred spirit.

  ‘I know Aidan was really delighted to have secured the car in time, though relieved too, I’d imagine,’ Stephanie said before Darcy had a chance to say anything further. ‘Will Anderson has a reputation for being . . . difficult, and I’m guessing an egotistical multi-millionaire author isn’t the easiest person to work for. I don’t envy your friend’s life. Not for one minute.’

  Chapter 39

  The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Oscar Wilde

  Afterwards, Nate offered to travel back in the taxi to Chaucer’s with Darcy, lending her his ear and letting her talk through her confusion about all that she’d just learned.

  ‘So Aidan works for Will Anderson? I can’t believe it.’

  Stephanie Everly seemed 100 per cent certain that Aidan was Anderson’s assistant, business manager, fixer and general dogsbody. ‘All of the usual things people like us are employed to do,’ she’d explained with a patient smile.

  Darcy’s brain was reeling with the implications of the discovery.

  ‘No wonder there was never any improvement in his memory,’ she said, feeling truly idiotic now, ‘when I constantly fed him the wrong information. Bringing him things that didn’t even belong to him, and insisting that he was filthy rich and lived in this amazing— oh no!’ she gasped as the thought struck her. ‘The brownstone must be Will Anderson’s house and Aidan had the keys simply because he is Will’s assistant. And not only is the house not Aidan’s, but Bailey must not be his dog either.’

  ‘Unless he decided to name his dog after Anderson’s fictional character?’ Nate suggested. ‘Anderson might be his boss but Aidan could well be a big fan too.’

  ‘No, definitely not,’ Darcy insisted. ‘I’m pretty sure Bailey must be Will’s, which is why he led me to the house in the first place, and—’ Remembering something else, she leaned forward to talk to the taxi driver. ‘Slight change of plan – can you take me to Seventy-Seventh and Park, please?’

  She turned to Nate, panicked. ‘I dropped Bailey off at the brownstone this morning, leaving him to wait for Aidan to come home from hospital.’

  Oh Christ, this was such a mess. As far as Aidan knew, he lived in the Park Avenue house, and was probably there now trying to figure things out. Darcy could only imagine the poor guy’s reaction when she had to explain that all of the information she’d been giving him over the last few days was completely wrong, that the house and the dog really belonged to someone else, and that ultimately she didn’t have the first clue about Aidan’s life – his real life.

  She thought about Nate’s description of him being a general dogsbody. Would this have extended to his literally walking Will’s dog too?

  Why else would they have been together on that fateful morning, and why was Bailey the only thing that Aidan could remember when he came to after the accident? And then there was the gift . . .

  There were so many things that Darcy still couldn’t get her head around, and she struggled to figure out what to do next.

  ‘Well, just drop me off at the end of Fifth then,’ Nate said, patting her arm. ‘And try not to worry; I’m sure Aidan is fine. With the way things happened you couldn’t have known that the house wasn’t his, and you were only trying to help the guy, after all.’

  ‘Yes, and look what an almighty mess I made of that,’ Darcy said, biting her lip. In trying to reconstruct Aidan’s life for him, her imagination had completely run away with her and had created something a million miles from reality.

  ‘Like I said, I’m sure Aidan will understand,’ Nate soothed. ‘It was an easy mistake to make. It’ll all work out for the best and everyone will live happily ever after.’

  Easy mistake? Darcy just hoped Aidan felt that way when she had to break the news to him that he wasn’t after all a super-wealthy millionaire.

  She then thought about how she herself felt upon discovering the truth about the man she had become quite close to over the last few days, and realised that for her at least, the new information didn’t change anything.

  True, she knew for sure that Aidan was smart, handsome and well-read, but she’d also assumed that he must be sophisticated, go-getting and worldly, based on his house, hobbies and possessions. Darcy definitely didn’t care about the money aspect; that was something that wasn’t even on her list of attributes the way it might be to some women, and she’d grown to be much more interested in Aidan as a person, what made him tick, his likes and dislikes.

  But she couldn’t escape the fact that in the midst of creating her own fairy tale, she’d overlooked many aspects to the story that were still unaccounted for, some now glaringly obvious pieces in the jigsaw of Aidan’s life that she couldn’t decipher.

  Why for example had nobody come looking for him over the last few days? Granted Will Anderson was away in LA and busy with his film première all week, which might explain why Aidan’s boss hadn’t missed him, but what about others, especially the intended recipient of the gift? And if he didn’t live in the Upper West Side house, then where did he actually live? As the taxi snaked its way through the traffic along Fifth Avenue, she heard her phone ring.

  Her heart pounding as she caught sight of the display, she answered it quickly and immediately launched straight into conversation. ‘Aidan, are you OK? Have you reached the house yet?’

  ‘I’m really sorry to bother you again, Darcy, but this is weird,’ he said, sounding confused. ‘I’m actually in
Long Island. The hospital ordered a cab to drop me home and then I notice the guy brings me straight out of town – so I check my ID and funnily enough . . .’

  Darcy’s mind raced. She remembered the doctor talking about how they’d got Aidan’s address from his ID, which would of course, she realised now, have shown his real address.

  Long Island, the Mets keyring – it all made sense.

  But because Bailey had been so insistent about taking her to the brownstone, and the fact that Aidan had keys to it, she had never once queried his address or thought to double-check it on his ID. Notwithstanding that people’s addresses weren’t always up to date in any case; not everyone made it a priority to inform the authorities every time they moved.

  ‘OK,’ she said to Aidan, trying not to betray her anxiety. ‘Tell you what, can you ask the driver to come back to Manhattan? I’ll meet you somewhere, say . . .’ Darcy racked her brains trying to figure out a place nearby where she could sit down and try to explain everything, somewhere quiet but not too quiet, just in case Aidan didn’t take the news so well. Nate nudged her and she looked out the window to where he was pointing further down the road. The Plaza Hotel. ‘The Park,’ Darcy said, shaking her head. Nate was rolling his eyes but there was no way she was going to break the news in a place like that, which would merely serve to remind Aidan of all that he had lost. Or rather never had. ‘I’ll meet you at the corner entrance across from the Plaza Hotel, right in front of the carriages?’

  Aidan chuckled a little. ‘I don’t know – I’m not sure I have enough cash on me to make it back.’ And Darcy winced afresh as she remembered how she’d practically cleaned out his wallet in order to get him that prepaid phone. ‘Well then, the subway,’ she blurted out, thinking on her feet. ‘Travel back in the cab as far as you can and then take the subway from there, OK? Just be sure you have the phone with you too and I’ll meet you outside the Park subway entrance.’

  ‘OK, thanks – are you sure it’s convenient for you? I know you’re probably at work. Look, Darcy, I’m really sorry to be such a pest again; I still don’t really know what happened. Is Bailey all right?’

  She wanted to cry. How on earth was she going to explain to this lovely trusting man that she’d completely fabricated a life for him, one that seemed a world away from the actual truth?

  He thought he lived in an amazing house with an incredible library, had travelled all over the world and seen exotic places, had his pick of gorgeous women and Bailey . . . how on earth Darcy was going to break the news to Aidan that his beloved Husky wasn’t actually his dog was beyond her. And she felt fleetingly annoyed at Bailey for allowing the confusion to happen at all, let alone allow it to continue. If he was smart enough to lead her to his house then surely he should have been smart enough to lead her to the truth. So much for the Lassie comparison.

  ‘He’s fine,’ she said evasively. ‘See you soon.’

  Having said goodbye to Aidan, she sent a brief text to Joshua, apologising for her absence and saying that she’d be back at the store as soon as she could. He replied almost immediately telling her to take her time and that everything was under control. At least something was.

  She took a deep breath and sat back for a moment, relieved at least that her colleagues were so generous and easy-going. She wondered what Will Anderson was like to work for. Darcy only remembered him briefly from that time a year or so ago when Katherine introduced them at that party, but there was no denying that he was arrogant and completely in love with himself. She hoped he wasn’t too hard on Aidan.

  The day had become blustery and the wind had picked up, swirling the snow flurries around the car. Traffic was becoming slower and heavier as they inched alongside the Park on Fifth Avenue.

  Darcy jumped as once again the phone buzzed in her pocket. She worried that Aidan had since got into some kind of fix or another, but it was a private number.

  ‘Darcy? How are you? It’s Jenna from the Apple Store.’

  ‘Oh hi Jenna,’ she replied tiredly, not really able to cope with the young girl’s perky approach right then.

  ‘Just to tell you that Head Office have since authorised a replacement iPhone for Mr Harris so we’re ready to do the data transfer if you’d like to bring in the old handset.’

  ‘OK – great, thanks.’ Darcy had forgotten to leave the broken phone at the brownstone that morning, which had turned out to be a stroke of good luck. If she went to Apple now and did the data transfer, it should be much easier to break the news to Aidan, having to hand his information, photographs, et cetera – all the details of his life that had proven so far elusive. ‘How about I call in now, in the next five minutes or so? I’m in the area and I have the phone with me. Or do I need to make an appointment?’ She groaned inwardly at the thought.

  ‘No, it’s fine; I’ll slot you in. The transfer should take just a few minutes anyway. See you then!’

  ‘Great,’ Darcy said dully, disconnecting the call. At this point, she felt like her brain was going to explode and wasn’t entirely sure if she could actually handle one more piece of information about Aidan or his life – his real life – today.

  She already had too many loose ends that she didn’t understand. Still, it looked like today was truly the day for finding answers, and she thought about what Nate had said earlier about happy endings.

  But life didn’t always result in happy endings, this Darcy knew well. And when it came down to it, reality usually trumped fiction.

  Chapter 40

  Saved by the bell. Stephanie Everly had come through at the last minute, thank goodness.

  Granted I had to offer a little more than I’d hoped to secure the car and to arrange immediate delivery to LA, but thanks to Nate Cleaver-Parks and his reliable contacts network, Thrill Seeker Holdings was now in possession of a beautiful Special Edition ’66 Mustang Shelby.

  It was an amazing vehicle and no doubt would soon be resold once it had outlived its initial usefulness, but for the moment it was Will’s new toy, and a fitting way to mark the occasion and all the excitement surrounding the movie release in LA.

  Sipping coffee, I glanced at the heavy snow falling outside the window this morning and wished I’d accepted the invitation to go out west for last night’s première, but then remembered how much was still going on here. I checked my watch, knowing I’d better get a move on if I wanted to make it on time, but (at least for the moment ) my work was done and today was my own.

  Not to mention that I would have felt terrible going to LA and leaving Bailey in doggy care. Admittedly another famed ‘prop’ related to my employer’s fiction (a grey Husky featured in the second Thrill Seeker novel, spurring a short-lived obsession and subsequent purchase), but I knew he was loved. It was just that Will’s day-to-day lifestyle simply didn’t afford dedication to such an energetic creature, and being a longtime dog-lover I was more than happy to take Bailey’s care upon myself. It was the reason I’d been here all week at the townhouse and would be for most of next until Will returned home on Christmas Eve in a blaze of glory.

  And although I loved taking the Husky round the city with me on various errands, there were some places I couldn’t take him – which was why today I’d have to drop him off at day-care. Just for a few hours, and I knew he loved the interaction with the other dogs, to say nothing of all the attention he got from the girls there. First, I’d bring him for our regular walk through the Park before heading on down to the usual place just off Eighth Avenue.

  Feeding Bailey and pouring another cup of coffee for myself, I sat in the kitchen and switched on the laptop, immediately bringing up TMZ and its red-carpet coverage of last night’s event.

  Will and the car were everywhere. The elaborate stunt had worked, and based on the coverage the event had got across many of the entertainment websites, my boss was now the hottest ticket in Hollywood.

  People could say what they liked about Will Anderson but he knew how the entertainment business worked. He knew that if y
ou wanted to make it in either books or movies, then you needed to create a persona for yourself that was even bigger than the ones you wrote about.

  People liked to pass him off as a mere peddler of pulp fiction, but every day I witnessed first-hand the blood, sweat and tears that went into not only the writing but the marketing of his stories, and knew that he took his work, like most things in his life, very seriously indeed.

  As was evidenced by the rapid rise in popularity of the Max Bailey books over the last four years and now, no doubt, the movie franchise too. A tough taskmaster, Will brought the same energy and dedication to his work as he did to his leisure pursuits, like the various high-endurance marathon races he’d put himself through over the last few years.

  I sometimes wondered if he had a death wish, such were the high-octane activities he signed up for, like death-defying skydives, cave jumping, deep sea diving – all for the sake of personal improvement. I guess in that way he embodied his character Max Bailey’s thrill-seeking spirit.

  Flicking through the online entertainment reports, I gave a crooked smile. If I had thought the last couple of years had been busy, I wouldn’t know what hit me once the movie side really took off and I had to start jumping through hoops for producers in Hollywood as well as publishers on Park Avenue.

  Still, it had to be said that I was more than recompensed for my efforts and the perks of the job were second to none. Yes, Will drove me crazy sometimes with his more bizarre requests (especially the last-minute ones like the Mustang – a case in point) but I loved being involved in the business as well as the creative side of Thrill Seeker, and wouldn’t change it for the world.

  Any profession that allowed me to be surrounded by books made me a very happy man. The job had given me a chance to dig deep, and had helped me to overcome the big changes and disappointments in my personal life over the last few years. And while some might argue – like Ciara – that my dedication to the cause may have been partly to blame, my belief is that some things just aren’t meant to be. In any case, life is pretty good these days, and Mel and I have never been closer.