Fiancee By Mistake Read online

  For a second or two she studied the portrait, a faint smile curling her own lips as if in response to its subject's laughing expression. But then she turned, and his heart seemed to slam hard against the walls of his chest as he anticipated the inevitable explosion.

  He had thought that he knew exactly what she was going to say. He could almost hear her words inside his head already, and so he was unprepared for what actually happened until it rocked his sense of reality.

  'He looks nice,' she said quietly. 'Who is he?'

  CHAPTER FIVE

  'WHO is he?'

  Just three simple words. A polite question, no more. And yet, Leah told herself, anyone would have thought it had been something much more dangerous, terribly ominous. Watching Sean's expression change, she knew she had never seen someone react so violently to something she had thought totally innocuous.

  His face was suddenly white with tension—or anger. She couldn't decide which. His skin was drawn tight over his carved cheekbones, making the livid scar stand out in harsh relief against his pallor, and those vivid blue eyes seemed to blaze with cold fire.

  'Who is he?' he echoed, as if doubting the accuracy of his own hearing. 'What sort of question is that?'

  'It was just a polite enquiry! I was interested!'

  For a second the words seemed to come from miles away, heard as if through a cloud. But when her muzzy thoughts cleared again a new realisation hit home. There was another, very different possible interpretation of his words.

  'Oh, I'm sorry! You don't want me prying into your life.'

  Another very different expression told her that she was still on the wrong track.

  'Then what...?'

  'You know! Why the hell do you ask when you know only too well who he is?'

  'But I don't!'

  Leah had to struggle against an urge to put her hand to her head to support it. She felt as if her brain was clogged with a mixture of porridge and damp cotton wool, not a combination that made clear thinking at all easy.

  She shouldn't have had that glass of wine. It had obviously not agreed with her when combined with exhaustion and the after-effects of shock. She had the beginnings of a headache too, gathering ominously like storm clouds on the horizon.

  'I wouldn't have asked if I'd known! Is he—?' He couldn't be, could he? 'He's not your partner?'

  'Don't be ridiculous!' The force of his retort would have convinced her even if she had really harboured any doubts. 'You at least should know that I'm not gay!'

  Which of course she did know. Only too well. 'Then who...?'

  Looking back at the photograph, she noticed one or two things she hadn't spotted at first.

  'Is he your brother?'

  A surprisingly grim nod was Sean's response, but then his finely shaped mouth curved sardonically.

  'And are you going to claim that that was just a lucky guess?'

  'What else would it be when I've never seen him before in my life? But if you must know, there was nothing lucky about it The difference in colouring threw me for a minute, but he's got your eyes, the same mouth...'

  But these blue eyes were warm, alight with laughter. They weren't cold and hard, as if formed from the ice that had crystallised on the window panes. The lips, unlike the grim slash of a mouth that spoke so eloquently of Sean's dark mood, were stretched in a wide grin of delight.

  At this moment Leah couldn't help wishing that it had been the other, obviously younger brother who had come to her rescue in the dark, snow-filled lane.

  'Never?'

  It had an odd intonation, one she found it impossible to interpret. But the next moment his expression had changed, becoming one of scathing contempt.

  'Come off it, Annie!' he scorned. "That trick won't work.'

  'What trick? And just who is this Annie?'

  Suddenly something struck her, bringing her head up sharply. A memory hazed by shock and the events that had overtaken her since then. A question she had meant to ask him when he had first come to her beside her car. Was it really only a few hours ago?

  'And while I'm asking the questions, just how did, you know my surname?'

  'Elliot?' His voice had more conviction now, that odd moment of uncertainty having vanished. 'Isn't it obvious? Pete told me, of course."

  'Nothing about this is obvious to me at all! For one thing, Pete—I take it this is Pete?'

  She waved the photograph in the air, directly under his nose.

  Another grim-faced nod was his only response.

  'Well, then, Pete couldn't have told you a damn thing about me because he wouldn't know me from Adam—or Eve, for that matter. We've never even met, not once! At least, not to my knowledge. And if, just supposing, he has seen me somewhere, then he got my name wrong. Because I'm not Annie Elliot, or Annie anything—'

  A sudden thought struck, making her break off sharply.

  'Oh, Lord! He's not Annie's Pete, is he?'

  Sean's glare in response to her question felt as if it might have the power to shrivel her into ashes where she stood.

  'Of course he's Annie's Pete—your Pete. As you—'

  'No, my cousin Annie!' Leah inserted sharply. 'She's engaged to a Peter...'

  'Oh, very clever!' Sean scorned. 'You're a quick thinker, I'll grant you that. But you're forgetting that you've already responded to the name Elliot.'

  'Of course I have. Annie's father and my dad were brothers—well, half-brothers to be exact. Dad's mother was my grandfather's first wife; Uncle Joe's was the second and very much younger one. My surname is Elliot true, but I was christened Leah—Leah Jane!'

  'What sort of game is this?'

  He hadn't raised his voice, but the question had the sort of deadly intensity that was more frightening than if he had actually shouted.

  'No game!'

  Leah couldn't match his control, and immediately regretted the sharpness of her tone—not least because of the way it made him draw his dark brows together ominously. But she was also disturbed to find that her reply hurt her head, which was beginning to ache quite dreadfully.

  'Believe me, I'm not playing at anything!' she went on more carefully, adjusting the volume downwards. 'And I can prove that quite simply. Wait here!'

  Not giving him a chance to argue further, she marched out of the room and back up the stairs to the bedroom he had allocated to her. Snatching up her handbag from where it lay on the bed, she hurried back, rummaging inside it as she went.

  'Right, this should clear things up!'

  He didn't appear to have moved, seeming to be standing in exactly the same position as before. But he had obviously drained his wine. The empty glass now stood on the dresser beside the photograph of his brother.

  There was a new tautness about the long, powerful body, a strange tension, as if he suddenly anticipated something that he knew he wasn't going to like at all. His eyes had darkened almost to indigo with suspicion as he looked down at the driving licence she thrust under his nose.

  'Leah Jane Elliot—see! Or, if you want further evidence, here's my chequebook—credit cards! So now what do you say?'

  Nothing. He said nothing at all, but simply stared at the items she had forced into his hands as if they were some deadly poisonous snake about to strike.

  At long last he drew a deep, uneven breath and raked one hand roughly through his hair.

  'I think perhaps we'd better start again. I seem to have made something of a mistake.'

  "The understatement of the year!' Leah retorted, retrieving her property and stuffing it back in her bag. The concession seemed to have been dragged from him. 'Just who did you think I was? Is my cousin your brother's fiancée?'

  'Ex-fiancée, seeing as she just walked out on him. You didn't know that?" he questioned, when Leah's expressive face showed surprise and confusion.

  'I had no idea. But then Annie and I aren't very close, never have been. Our fathers couldn't be more unalike—the proverbial chalk and cheese. As a result they don't see much of
each other.'

  The mention of her father brought to mind her mother, sitting alone at home. She could only be grateful that she had not paused on her drive north to let the older woman know she planned on arriving early. At least this way her mother would be spared the worry caused by her non-arrival.

  'I only heard Annie was engaged last week, and then only because I had to phone her about the car.'

  A sudden change in Sean's expression alerted her to the fact that she had just said something that disturbed him.

  The Renault was Annie's car until last week. I bought it off her and her brother drove it down to London for me. Has that got something to do with all this?'

  'You could say that! Look, why don't we sit down? This could take some explaining, so we might as well do it in comfort.'

  'Comfort' wasn't exactly the sort of feeling she associated with being with Sean Gallagher, Leah reflected wryly. Simply being in the same room as him made her feel as if she was suffering from a permanent electric shock, both physically and mentally.

  But she would be glad to sit down. Her legs, already shaky from the after-effects of the accident, now seemed close to total collapse. Probably the dash upstairs had just been the last straw. Her head ached abominably too, making thinking clearly decidedly difficult. With a faint sigh she sank into one of the fireside chairs.

  'More wine?' Sean asked. 'You look as if you could do with it,' he persisted when she shook her head.

  'What I could "do with" is the explanation you promised.'

  Any more alcohol would only aggravate the already cloudy feeling in her head, and she needed to keep as clear a mind as possible for what was to come. The situation since their arrival in the cottage had been difficult enough to start with. Now it seemed to have become even more complicated than ever.

  'All right.'

  Sean had refilled his own glass, and now he moved to sit opposite her on the other side of the fire.

  'As you already know, Pete is my brother—my younger brother. At twenty-five, he's nine years younger than me. About three months ago he met a girl at a party.'

  'Annie?' Leah interjected, when he paused, staring down into his wine as if seeking inspiration in its burgundy depths.

  A slow, distracted nod was Sean's response. 'Your cousin Annie. My brother is a true romantic. He took one look at her and fell head over heels in love. And apparently she did too.'

  'You don't sound as if you believe either of them,' Leah put in, reacting to the deep cynicism of his tone.

  'I don't,' he returned bluntly. 'Love at first sight—at any sight—is just a myth—a fantasy for purple-prised novelists or adolescents with stars in their eyes and too many hormones throbbing in their bodies. It's not for mature, rational adults.'

  'Amongst whose number you obviously count yourself.'

  That earned her a swift, narrow-eyed glare, the frown that drew those dark, straight brows together obviously in response to the deliberately satirical emphasis she'd placed on her words.

  'Are you telling me that you don't agree?' he questioned, his expression and the searing contempt in his tone making her heart lurch uncomfortably.

  'I'm saying that it's never happened to me, but until it does I'll reserve judgement.'

  'So you don't love this fiancé of yours? I take it there is a genuine fiancé?'

  'Of course there is! And of course I love him!'

  Was it only in her own ears that her voice sounded too shrill, too nervously emphatic? Did it reveal the guilty conscience that reminded her of the fact that she hadn't even spared a thought for Andy until it was too late?

  And she hadn't been strictly truthful in claiming him as her fiancé. He had asked her to marry him, true, but she hadn't said yes. Instead she had asked for time to think.

  The engagement she had used as a defence earlier, when things had gone too far, too fast, didn't actually exist. It had only been called on in a moment of desperation. But she didn't want Sean to know that. It was probably much safer for him to continue to believe she was committed to someone else.

  'But we're not talking about me. I'm still waiting to know why you should believe I was your brother's fiancée. I take it something went wrong with this magical relationship?'

  Sean inclined his dark head in agreement.

  'Not at first. Then it was all sweetness and light. But then—things happened that meant Pete couldn't put their relationship first for a while. It seemed he was lucky, Annie was prepared to wait until his time was his own again, and from then on they were like love's young dream. Within a week they were engaged and the wedding was to have been in the New Year—they said they couldn't bear to wait any longer. But today he rang up in one hell of a state.'

  'She'd broken it off?'

  Leah felt saddened by the thought that the story had an unhappy ending. Annie had sounded so full of things when she had spoken to her the week before, and she would have liked her cousin and her fiancé to prove that true love did exist, if only to spite Pete's cynical older brother.

  Again Sean nodded. 'She said there was someone else. Gave him back his ring and just walked out.'

  Leah frowned. "That doesn't sound like Annie.'

  'It's what happened.' Sean shrugged off her interjection. 'Pete was in a real state about it. It hit him very hard.'

  'So how did you get involved in all this?'

  'Annie was driving home for Christmas. She would have had to pass through Appleton on her way and she usually called in at the Night Owl Café en route. I was supposed to try to talk to her, or at least hold onto her until Pete could get here. Instead I found you.'

  'But didn't you know...?' Leah's voice was constricted. She was thinking back over the events of the evening, piecing them together in her mind.

  'That you weren't Annie? How could I? I've never actually met the woman. AH I knew was that I was looking for a gorgeous long-haired brunette in a silver Renault. So when I found precisely that, naturally I assumed you were her.'

  'Naturally,' Leah echoed sardonically, refusing to let that 'gorgeous long-haired brunette' register in her thoughts. It would only distract her far too much if she did. 'It strikes me that you've made rather too many assumptions all along.'

  'Sean's head came up sharply, a dark frown settling on his handsome features at her critical tone.

  'Well, what odds would you have given for there being two dark-haired women, with the same surname, driving the same car?'

  'True,' Leah was forced to admit. 'And it is Annie's car—or was.'

  He had called her Miss Elliot and, dazed and in shock, she hadn't asked how he'd known her name, she acknowledged. Perhaps if she had then it might not have come to this. It was impossible not to wonder how different things might have been if his brother had never phoned him, and Sean had come across her simply as some complete stranger, not thinking she was Annie.

  'Annie only offered me the Renault because she'd got a new job with a company car,' she said slowly. 'If she hadn't, I'd have been in my old blue Mini.'

  And, if she had, then how would that have changed things? The question wasn't an easy one to contemplate. She didn't even know how she wanted it to have been.

  Tm not really used to it yet. I suppose that's why the accident happened.'

  "That, and the most atrocious driving conditions for a decade,' Sean put in drily.

  'You're right about that.'

  Leah shivered at the memory, then found that the cold, creeping sensation wouldn't leave her. Edging her chair a little closer to the fire, she held out her hands to the blaze and was shocked to find that they were shaking quite badly. Her head hurt so much that it was an effort to think clearly.

  'You must care a lot for your brother if you were prepared to go out in such weather.'

  'I do,' Sean declared abruptly. 'His happiness means a lot to me. He was there when I needed him, so it was the least I could do.'

  'So much that you'd risk your...' The words faded as she realised the truth. 'Your acc
ident! That was it, wasn't it? I mean, that was why Pete and Annie couldn't be together at first. He was looking after you!'

  'You're very perceptive.'

  The words themselves had no bite, but the way he snapped them out, the far from complimentary intonation, warned her that this wasn't a subject he was prepared to let her pry into further.

  'So, even though you don't believe in love, you were prepared to go out into a blizzard, kidnap Annie and bring her back.'

  It was crazy that it mattered, foolish to feel the lift of her heart at the thought that he could at least do that.

  'Not kidnap,' Sean reproved. 'After all, you came willingly enough.'

  And she had had cause to wonder on more than one occasion just how stupid she had been to do so. But she had needed help, and she wasn't the wayward fiancée he had believed her to be. It was impossible not to speculate what might have happened if she had been Annie Elliot.

  Would that passionate encounter still have .taken place then? Or was she simply chasing rainbows to believe that Sean's response had been for her alone? Wasn't it possible that, working in the world of acting, with its notoriously fickle approach to relationships, he was perfectly capable of making up to any presentable woman he met?

  Just recalling the emotions and physical sensations that had overwhelmed her in those few brief minutes made Leah's body temperature swing from icy cold to boiling hot in the space of a heartbeat. Suddenly desperately uncomfortable, she shifted awkwardly in her seat, edging away from the fire she had sought so eagerly just moments before.

  'But you didn't say you were Pete's brother, which...'

  'I've explained that Annie and I have never met. And Pete hasn't told her that he's related to the Sean Gallagher. He knows how much I want to keep my family life private, so he was waiting until I went up there for the New Year before he let on.'

  'But you were prepared to go public if it meant getting her to come back here with you? Tell me, did you reckon on that as your ace card? If Annie had refused to come for Pete's sake, then did you think that the thought of being alone with “the'' Sean Gallagher...'