Accidental Engagement

by Green, Cally

  ‘It’s a good thing, really, isn’t it, Annabelle? Or should I call you Annalise?’

  Anna felt as though Serena had thrown cold water over her. Annalise. The name was terribly familiar. She felt a sudden frisson of panic, like the panic she had experienced when she had looked through her music. Annalise. Für Elise. For Elise. That was why the music had frightened her. It had reminded her of her real name. Not Annabelle, but Annalise. With Annalise being shortened, not to Anna, but to Lisa.

  Mark, just leaving the billiard room, saw Anna talking to Serena. There was a look of triumph on Serena’s face, but Anna was swaying. She looked like she was going to faint.

  Striding across the crowded room he was just in time to see her control herself and run out into the hall.

  ‘What did you say to her?’ he demanded, grabbing Serena by the shoulders.

  ‘My, my, we are in a state,’ she mocked. ‘And all because of that jumped-up little nobody. Really, Mark, I’m surprised at you, being taken in like that.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ His face was dark with anger.

  ‘You don’t know, do you? But then, poor boy, you’ve always been so easily deceived. Your concert pianist is nothing of the sort. She’s just a grotty little sales assistant. The nearest she’s ever come to being a concert pianist is working in a music shop. Oh, and by the way, her name isn’t Annabelle -’

  ‘Damn you, Serena.’ Being too concerned about Anna to listen to any more he thrust her aside and ran out into the hall, only to see through the open front door that Anna was leaving, in Alex’s car. Running out he climbed into the Porsche and started the engine, following them down the drive.

  Annalise. My name isn’t Annabelle. It’s Annalise.

  Anna, sitting in the passenger seat of Alex’s BMW as it pulled smoothly out of the Kettering’s drive and into the road, was feeling dazed. Too dazed to take in what had just happened to her. One minute she had been enjoying the party, feeling happy and strong. And the next minute she had been cast into the abyss. What was it Serena had said? It’s a good thing, really, isn’t it, Annabelle? Or should I call you Annalise? Such simple words. And so few of them. But they had turned Anna’s world upside down.

  The car pulled up at a set of traffic lights. Alex turned to her in concern. ‘It must have been something you ate,’ he said. ‘That must have been what made you feel ill.’

  She was glad he had agreed to give her a lift without asking any awkward questions, because she was too confused to sustain a conversation.

  Why did Mark lie to me? she wondered as she tried to slow her spinning thoughts and get a grip on her emotions.

  ‘Too much seafood,’ said Alex, obviously trying to be helpful. ‘That’s usually what it is. But don’t worry. I’ll soon have you home.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you,’ she managed to reply as the lights changed to green and the car moved forward again.

  The journey seemed interminable, but it was in fact not very long before Anna found herself back at Little Brook. She climbed quickly out of the car and, thanking Alex for the lift, she went in, thanking Providence that Emmy had entrusted her with a spare key. Thanking Providence, too, that Emmy and Claire had gone away. No matter how much she liked them she could not have faced their good-natured enquiries about her evening, or their surprise that she was not with Mark.

  Shaking slightly, she climbed the stairs to her room.

  The house seemed different, somehow, to when she had left. Then it had seemed like a place of refuge. Home. But now it seemed as fraught with difficulties as everything else in her life.

  She went into her room and switched on the light.

  She took a deep breath. Annalise. Yes. That was her name. Annalise.

  But Annalise what?

  She shook her head. She didn’t know. But it had started to come back to her, memories of her previous life. And with a shock she realised that that was what it felt like - her previous life. Not her real life. Because her real life was with Mark.

  Or had been. But that was before she had known he was lying to her.

  She shook her head in bewilderment. Why had he done it? She could think of no reason for his deceit.

  Pulling herself together, she went into the en suite and splashed her face with cold water. It freshened her and helped to calm her racing thoughts. And then she sat down to think things through.

  The first thing she did was to ask herself an important but unwelcome question: how much did she really know about Mark?

  She felt her spirits sink as she realised that she knew very little.

  And the next question was even worse. Because the next question was, could she really trust him?

  Only that afternoon she would have said an unreserved yes, but the things she had been so certain of only a few hours before now seemed to be in a state of flux.

  She shook her head. Suddenly she knew that she had to get away. She needed time to think and she couldn't do it here. She was too close to everything. Too close to Mark, and too close to the happy ten days they had shared. There were just too many memories.

  Memories! They were the root of all her troubles. She either had too many, or not enough.

  She needed to go somewhere neutral - a hotel - before she could think clearly and sort things out properly in her mind.

  Having taken the decision, she acted on it. She went over to the wardrobe and reached up for her case. She couldn’t quite reach it. Undeterred, she pulled over a chair. Using it to stand on, she took down the case and laid it on the bed. As she did so, she caught sight of the initials -

  And then she heard the front door open and slam shut. Footsteps were coming up the stairs . . .

  Chapter Eight

  ‘Anna!’ Mark was standing in the doorway. His bow tie was crooked. ‘We have to talk.’

  It was the second time he had said those words to her in one day. The first time, they had been followed by passionate lovemaking . . . She felt herself growing angry. He had taken advantage of the fact that she had thought she was his fiancé. He had used her, betrayed her.

  She made a determined effort to steady herself. Raising her chin, she said, ‘I agree. It’s time to bring this charade to an end.’ She took the ring from her finger and put it down on the night table. She closed her eyes momentarily, surprised at just how much pain the action caused her.

  At her words, Mark’s eyes became haunted. Until she had said it was time to bring the charade to an end he had still believed in her. His head might have told him that she was probably a fraud but his gut instinct had told him that she was intrinsically trustworthy. What a fool he had been.

  ‘Why did you do it?’ he asked. His eyes were no longer haunted, they were hard. ‘Was it for a taste of a life you’d never known? Was that really so important to you?’

  She looked at him uncomprehendingly. Having never been privy to his suspicions she could not follow his thoughts, and understood only his first few words: “Why did you do it?”

  ‘Why did I do it?’ she asked. ‘Don’t you mean, why did you? You knew I wasn’t your fiancée from the moment we met, so why did you pretend? To get me into bed?’ It hurt her to think that, whilst she had believed herself to be making love to her fiancée, he had only been interested in sex, but what else could it have been?

  ‘You were the one who claimed to be my fiancée,’ he said, his instinct for combat aroused.

  ‘I never claimed to be anything.’ Anger was beginning to take over from her misery, an anger fuelled by his hostility. ‘I had no memory of who or what I was. It was Emmy who said that I was your fiancée.’

  ‘Oh, so now you’re blaming Emmy,’ he said.

  ‘I’m doing no such thing. I know she would never have deliberately misled me. It was an honest mistake. But why didn’t you put her right? Why did you pretend that we were engaged?’

  ‘What else could I do? Admit that I’d lied to her? And don’t pretend you don’t know about that,’ he added harshly, seeing her lo
ok of confusion. ‘You know full well I’d invented a fiancée, which is why you turned up so conveniently and took her place.’

  ‘Are you saying . . . Are you saying,’ said Anna, trying to get her mind round it, ‘that I deliberately masqueraded as your fiancée? No. Correction. As your invented fiancée?’

  ‘Don’t play the innocent,’ he said, made more angry by the fact that she

  seemed to be trying to deceive him even now. ‘You turned up here a few days after I’d told Emmy and Claire about “Annabelle”, with a bag full of music and an initialled suitcase - or are you saying that your initials just happen to be A.C.?’ he asked nastily.

  ‘A.C.’ She gave a laugh, and there was a touch of hysteria in her voice. ‘A.C.’ She pulled herself together. ‘See for yourself.’ She stood aside to reveal the suitcase.

  Mark looked at her suspiciously, but walked over to the suitcase nevertheless. ‘A. . . . ’ He put his hand up to the back of his neck. The initials were raised and then gilded, but the gilding had come off the second initial. At first glance it looked like a C, but on closer inspection it proved to be an O. ‘A. O.’ Emmy’s eyesight. It had never been good, and just before Anna had arrived she had lost her glasses . . . He felt a twisting feeling inside. Was it possible . . . was Anna really innocent of any deception? ‘Annabelle -’

  ‘Annalise,’ she said bitterly.

  ‘Are you trying to tell me - what are you trying to tell me?’

  ‘More importantly, what are you trying to tell me? I’m not your fiancée, am I, Mark?’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘No. You’re not.’

  ‘And you’re telling me you invented me?’

  ‘No. Not you. A fiancée.’

  ‘And just why would you do that?’ she asked.

  He let out a deep sigh. ‘Emmy and Claire have always wanted me to marry. They want to see me settled, and I don’t blame them for that. But every time I came here they arranged a series of meetings with women they thought were suitable to become my wife. And every time it ruined my holiday. So this time, as I knew I would be spending at least six weeks in Nottingham for the opening of the new branch of Raynor Enterprises I decided to tell them I had a fiancée.’

  Unwillingly, Anna began to understand why he had acted as he had done - at least, to understand why he had invented a fiancée. Emmy herself had admitted that she and Claire had been too pushy in trying to arrange a match for him.

  ‘That still doesn’t explain why you claimed me as Annabelle.’ She wrapped her arms around herself as if for protection. She was suddenly feeling very vulnerable, and she had to fight an irrational longing to be in Mark’s arms. But he was the last person she could turn to, because it was Mark who was the cause of all this.

  He took a step towards her but she backed away.

  That one gesture showed him how much she meant to him, because it physically hurt him to find that she would not let him comfort her. ‘When I arrived from London, Emmy told me that “Annabelle” was here. I thought, at first, that you’d made the claim yourself. Then, when I realised that Emmy and Claire had pieced together your identity from the initials on your suitcase and your bag full of music I thought resentfully how clever you had been. You had managed to let them think you were “Annabelle” without having to lie.’

  ‘But the accident? Why would I fake an accident?’ she demanded. Until it dawned on her. Her voice was weary: ‘So that Emmy and Claire would take pity on me and would press me to stay,’ she said, answering the question herself.

  ‘I’ve been the victim of worse plots,’ he said with a shrug.

  ‘Didn’t it ever occur to you that the accident might have been genuine? That in fact it must have been genuine, or I wouldn't have lost my memory?’

  ‘Your memory loss seemed like just another part of the deceit. A convenient pretence. An easy way to explain why you didn’t know everything my fiancée could be expected to know.’

  ‘A deceit.’ Her voice went ice cold as she withdrew from his emotionally. It had been a torment to her not to be able to remember anything about her past. But he had thought it was deceit.

  How could I ever have felt I trusted this man? she thought bitterly. And, painfully, How could I ever have thought I loved him?

  ‘You wouldn’t go to the hospital,’ he said, defending himself against the imputation that he had just callously deceived her, instead of having good reasons for the way he had behaved. ‘Any normal person, losing their memory, would want to seek medical help straight away.’

  She shuddered. ‘I don’t like hospitals.’

  Standing there with her arms wrapped round herself she looked small and alone. Despite his anger he wanted to take her in his arms and hold her, tell her everything would be all right. But a barrier had grown up between them, and he knew she would not let him touch her. He found it difficult to believe that it was only that afternoon they had made love. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

  ‘Do you know why?’ he asked

  She shivered slightly. ‘No.’

  ‘Because of your father?’

  She shook her head uncertainly. ‘I don’t know. But I don’t think so. I think there was something else.’

  ‘How much do you remember?’

  There was almost a moment of rapport. He wanted to help her and she needed someone to confide in. But he had deceived her, betrayed her, and right now she had no place in her life for anyone she didn’t trust. Her face closed and the moment was lost.

  ‘I don’t think that’s any of your business,’ she said abruptly. She turned away from him and opened her case.

  ‘Don’t go.’ The sincerity in his voice gave her pause, but then she thought cynically that he only wanted her to stay so that Emmy and Claire wouldn’t discover that he’d deceived them.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said as she threw her clothes - but only the ones she had arrived with - into the case. ‘I won’t say anything to rock the boat. I won’t let Emmy and Claire know the whole thing was a lie. It shouldn’t be too difficult for you to think up some excuse to explain why I’ve gone away.’

  ‘That isn’t what I meant. I care about you, Anna. Is that so difficult to understand? I want you to stay.’

  ‘As what?’ She rounded on him, her anger a cover for her pain. ‘Your lover, perhaps? Or your mistress?’

  ‘Don't be a fool.’ Seeing that words were useless he closed the distance between them in two strides, then pulling her roughly towards him he kissed her. He put everything that he felt for her into the kiss, all his loving and longing and desire to be with her.

  And it almost worked. The suddenness of the action gave her no time to think and for one insane moment she believed in him, responding to his kiss. But then her doubts rose to the surface again.

  She had been badly hurt, and she would not allow him to hurt her again.

  With an effort she pushed him away. ‘No,’ she said fiercely. ‘I won’t be used.’

  He stood facing her across a chasm of hostility and pain.

  Used. The word cut into him like a knife. 'Since when have I used you?’ he demanded.

  ‘Since the moment you met me,’ she returned.

  A dangerous glint appeared in his eye. ‘So you think I was using you. Is that what you really think, Anna?’ He moved towards her and took her chin between his thumb and forefinger. His eyes locked onto her own. And then with unbearable tenderness he kissed her. His mouth moved so gently over her own that she could barely feel it.

  It was intoxicating. The touch of his lips sent a tingling awareness through her entire body, from her head to the soles of her feet. He tangled one hand in her luxuriant hair, his fingers tenderly twining it into twists, and his free hand dropped to her shoulder.

  ‘No!’ It took an act of will to push him away. ‘You’re trying to seduce me.’

  ‘Too right I am. Your mind might be rejecting everything we had together, but your body isn’t. We were made for each other. I need you, Anna. Listen to your
inner voice. You know that you need me.’

  She wanted so deeply to go to him, but she couldn’t. Because he didn’t love her. He needed her. And love and need were two very different things.

  It was inflaming her senses just to have him near her, making her long for his touch, but she couldn’t give in to her feelings. Because what he was offering her wasn’t enough. She had given herself to him because she had loved him and because she had thought he loved her. And because she had thought they were engaged to be married. But she would never have let him take her in his arms, let alone into his bed, if she had known that the satisfying of a need was all she had meant to him.

  She turned to her suitcase, her emotions a mass of searing pain. She closed the lid and fastened the buckles across. ‘I have to go.’

  He threw his hands up in a gesture of anger and frustration. He ought to let her go, but he couldn’t. He had to try again. ‘You can’t walk out on me now, Anna. You can’t throw all this away.’

  ‘All what?’ She turned on him, her anger covering her pain. ‘All this deception? All this pretence?’

  ‘So that is how you see it. That’s all the past ten days have meant to you.’ He didn’t want to believe it but she had spelled it out for him.

  There was a moment of total silence.

  And then his eyes changed. They lost their burning intensity and became distant. Remote. His voice changed, too. It was no longer rich with undertones of emotion, but was cold and clipped. With what seemed to Anna like terrible detachment he said, ‘If you want to go, then go. But not tonight. It’s late. You’re in no fit state to go anywhere.’

  She felt an icy wave wash over her. He was no longer the man she had shared so much with. Instead, he was cool and polite. He wasn’t her lover, he was the perfect host, showing an obligatory concern for the welfare of his guest.

  She felt her last remaining energy rush out of her like the air out of a deflated balloon, and felt suddenly bereft.

  She was tired. Bone tired. The emotional upheaval of the last few hours had left her drained. She didn’t want to admit it, even to herself, but Mark was right. She was in no fit state to do anything.