Fiancee By Mistake Read online

  Deliberately she echoed his own phrase, adding an extra edge of sarcasm to the words.

  'Would that have been a carrot you could dangle in front of her nose? Are you so arrogant as to believe. That no woman could resist the chance to be with TV's hunk of the year?'

  The scathing look he turned on her seared such contempt over the length of her body that she almost expected her clothes to scorch in its wake. It was then that the memory of the way she had been prepared to let him believe precisely that about her own behaviour returned to haunt her, adding another painful twist to her already hopelessly tangled feelings.

  But Sean didn't deign to honour her question with an answer.

  'I told you—Pete could ask anything of me.' It was a simple, emotionless statement, and one she found herself believing implicitly.

  'But now you won't have to.'

  'No,' he conceded. 'Now I won't have to. Unless, of course, you decide to take the story to the press.'

  Indignation had her sitting up straighter in her chair, her eyes flashing defiance.

  'What sort of a louse do you think I am? I don't even read the scandal press, let alone supply them with sordid tittle-tattle for their copy!'

  'It would make a great exclusive— "TV Hunk Kidnapped Me and Took Me to Hideaway Love-Nest".' His mouth curled around the words in evident distaste. 'They'd pay pretty well.'

  This was even worse. Leah bridled at just the thought.

  'I don't need any money! I have a good job that pays a pretty decent salary.'

  'Doing what?'

  'I'm the manageress of a travel agency in Wimbledon, if you must know. So you see, I wouldn't need any handouts.'

  'Everyone could do with a little bit more money.'

  It was tossed at her over his shoulder as he got up to refill his glass. But then he seemed to lose interest abruptly, putting it down again and flexing his broad shoulders tiredly.

  'If I don't have that shower now there won't be time before the meal's ready.'

  His casual disregard of her righteous indignation riled Leah further.

  'We haven't finished talking!'

  Half-turned towards the door, Sean froze at her tone. Slowly he swung back again, looking down at her with a look in his eyes that turned her blood to ice.

  'I have,' he declared curtly. 'I've explained—'

  'You've explained? Leah echoed bitterly. 'The bare facts—that's it!'

  'What else is needed?' It sounded almost weary, like a father whose patience has been overstretched by explaining matters to a stubborn child.

  'Quite a lot, really. An apology, for one!'

  'An apology? For what?'

  Suddenly Leah wished desperately that she wasn't sitting down. His size and strength were awesome enough when she could look him in the face; from her current position he seemed to tower over her unnervingly. But a worrying sense of uncertainty about whether her legs would actually support her kept her unwillingly in her seat as she responded.

  'For the way you treated me. For bringing me here under false pretences—for...'

  The words shrivelled on her lips as she saw in his face the changes she was already beginning to recognise as danger signs: the narrowed eyes, the drawing together of those dark brows.

  'An apology,' he repeated in an ominously different way, one that made her shiver as if a finger as cold as the snow outside had trailed down her spine. 'Let's see—I apologise for mistaking you for someone else. But even you admitted that that was a coincidence no one could have foreseen.'

  'I—'

  Leah opened her mouth to protest but he ignored her, continuing in a coldly controlled way that made all the tiny hairs on her skin lift in fearful response. 'But should I apologise for bringing you here when to leave you would have meant abandoning you to a very cold, uncomfortable and possibly dangerous night stranded in your car? Should I be sorry that I offered you a roof over your head for the night, together with warmth, food...?'

  'For trying to seduce me!'

  There, it was out. But Sean's reaction was not at all what she had anticipated. His short, harsh bark of laughter brought her gaze to his face in a rush, seeing the glitter of cynical amusement in the denim-blue of his eyes, the smile that was a travesty of any real expression of humour.

  'For seducing you?' he echoed, emphasising the word sardonically. 'Oh, no, my darling Leah, I don't apologise for anything that felt so right, so necessary. And, to be perfectly accurate, I didn't try to seduce you. If anything it was mutual; we seduced each other. You were a willing partner in all this, and I'm certainly not sorry about any of it. As a matter of fact, I would very much like to try it again some time.'

  As he spoke he took a step towards her, that smile growing wider as she glared at him furiously.

  'Oh, no, you don't!' she flung up at him, refusing to let him see how the way he towered over her made her feel small and weak—not a sensation she was used to at all. 'It'll be a cold day in hell before I let you touch me again!'

  She expected anger, nerved herself to face the onslaught of his black fury, but to her surprise it didn't come. Instead, she was subjected to another of those hard, humourless laughs as his eyes raked over her, from her shining dark head to her small bare toes as they curled on the rug.

  'Is that a fact?' he drawled lazily. 'Well, in that case I'd better make sure that I have a very cold shower instead of the hot one I had planned on. Are you sure I can't persuade you to join me?'

  Leah didn't deign to honour his question with an answer, turning her head away mutinously rather than meet the cruel mockery in his eyes. Another of those hateful laughs had her gritting her teeth against an unthinking and potentially dangerous response, her slim body held as taut as a bowstring until she heard him leave the room.

  As the door closed behind him she relaxed at last, letting go of the breath she had been holding in and slumping weakly back against the cushions. She was breathing fast and shallow, her heart racing inside a chest that felt raw and tight, and now it wasn't just her head but her whole body that ached.

  What was she going to do? She couldn't stay here. The prospect of sharing such a confined space with a man like Sean was enough to bring her out in a cold sweat just thinking about it.

  In a rush of panic she thrust her feet into her dilapidated shoes and stood up, snatching up her bag and heading for the hall. Her mind full of thoughts of escape, she flung open the front door and then stopped dead, a moan of defeat escaping her.

  “Oh, no!'

  The scene that met her eyes killed all hope as effectively .as if it had been buried under the frozen blanket that covered everything for miles.

  Snow. Inches deep. It was all that she could see to the right or left, smooth and impassable, heavy drifts having blown across what had been the road up to the cottage. Even the car, parked only so very recently, was buried under a thick coating of the stuff, and it was clearly not going to move again in the near future.

  She would be risking life and limb if she was foolish enough to try venturing out, even if she had any idea of which direction to take. But every landmark, every clue to the way back to her car or the nearest village had been obliterated by the thick white coating. It was like some space landscape, alien and dangerous.

  And quite honestly she didn't feel well enough to try. Miserably she recalled the way almost the entire staff of the travel agency had gone down with a vicious virus at some point over the previous couple of weeks. Only that morning Melanie had joked that it would be Leah's turn next.

  'Oh, please, no!' she prayed now. 'I've enough to cope with, without that as well.'

  She had no option but to stay put. With a despondent sigh Leah closed the door again.

  The chill from outside seemed to have invaded right to her bones, and she hurried into the living room, huddling close to the fire once more in a vain attempt to get warm. From upstairs she could hear the sounds of the rush of water in the shower and Sean's movements in the bathroom.

&nbs
p; Sean. Who was he? What was he? Oh, she knew all the superficial things, like how old he was, what he did for a living. Anyone who watched television had to be aware of that. But what did she really know about the man she was now trapped with, forced to share this small cottage with for God knew how long?

  She had felt so happy, so relieved when he had first appeared. Then he had seemed like a knight in shining armour, coming to her rescue at just the right moment. And the fact that his face was familiar, if only from her TV screen, had added to that unreal feeling, knocking her off balance emotionally.

  'Off balance indeed!' she muttered aloud. 'You said it, girl!'

  So off balance that she had behaved in a way that was totally at odds with the person she had believed herself to be. A way that bad clearly given Sean quite the wrong impression of her from the start, just as his role as rescuer had distorted her own judgement badly. That and the fact that he was the most devastatingly attractive man she had ever met.

  Face it, kid; he knocked you for six.

  Six! More like a dozen, if she admitted to the truth. Her heart twisted on a pang of distress as she admitted that her feelings had been based only on deceptive appearances combined with her own naivety.

  What was it Sean had said?

  Don't confuse the fictional character he played with reality?

  But stupidly, crazily, she had done just that. And the worst of it was that even now she hadn't faced the full truth. He was even more shallow, even more arrogantly selfish than she had let herself think.

  Because wasn't it true that even when he had believed that she was Annie, that she was engaged—to his brother, for Heaven's sake!—he had still come on to her, and would have made love to her right there and then if she hadn't put a stop to it.

  And then he had had the nerve to blame her for what had happened!

  Upstairs, the sound of the shower had been shut off. Heavy footsteps crossing from the bathroom to the bedroom brought Leah up sharp, reminding her that in a very few minutes Sean would be coming back down and she had no idea how she was going to behave towards him.

  It was foolish, it was downright pathetic, but she couldn't hold back a sharp pang of regret for the loss of the knight errant she had believed had come to her rescue. In his place she now had to put—what?

  A man who had come to her rescue only because he'd believed she was his brother's fiancée. A man who had been prepared to do anything at all to get that fiancée into his house and keep her there.

  A man who, once she was in the house, had not been able to resist attempting to seduce her. A sexual opportunist who, even when he'd found out that she was not who he believed her to be, hadn't shown even the tiniest trace of conscience over the way he had treated her.

  'You were a willing partner in all this...' Sean's voice echoed inside her head. 'If anything it was mutual; we seduced each other.'

  Oh, God!

  With a groan of despair Leah buried her face in her hands, knowing it was impossible to dodge the truth. Since the moment of the crash she hadn't even recognised herself in the way she had behaved.

  She had become some other, alien person, a wild, sensual wanton who had responded to Sean in a way that went against all her previously held—securely held, she would have asserted—beliefs about morality, self-preservation and basic common sense. She didn't know how it had happened, but it seemed that Sean Gallagher had the power to strip away the woman she'd believed she was and reveal another, very different person in her place.

  And the worst problem was that she no longer knew which of those characters was the real Leah. She only knew that with her calmer, more rational self back in control the prospect of revealing the other side ever again was one that made her nerves twist in panic. She didn't dare to contemplate the possible consequences if that Leah got free again—which was a distinct possibility as long as she stayed in this house with this man.

  But she had no alternative. She had to stay; there was no way out.

  Which was a thought guaranteed to tie her stomach into tight, painful knots as she heard footsteps descending the stairs. Drawing a deep breath, she nerved herself to face Sean once again.

  CHAPTER SIX

  'YOU haven't eaten very much.'

  'I'm not hungry.'

  Major-understatement, Sean told himself. In spite of her enthusiasm earlier, she'd hardly eaten a damn thing, just picked at her food as if she suspected him of having poisoned it

  In fact, on a couple of occasions since he'd come back into the room, he'd seen her looking at him as if he was the poisonous one, some sort of deadly snake about to strike. It wasn't a situation he was used to, and he didn't like being made to feel like an intruder in his own home.

  'You can relax, you know.' He saw her wince as the deliberate sarcasm caught her on the raw. 'I'm not about to pounce on you.'

  The look she turned on him was frankly sceptical.

  'I thought that was precisely what you had in mind.'

  'I—'

  About to launch into a furious attack, Sean suddenly thought the better of it and closed his mouth with a distinct snap. Like it or not, he had to spend time with this woman until the snow cleared. They could at least try to be civilised.

  'I never "pounce",' he declared tautly. 'And believe me, I've never forced a woman yet. I don't intend to start with you.'

  He wouldn't have to force, an insidious little voice whispered at the back of his mind. All he had to do was to take her in his arms, press his mouth to her warm, sensual lips, kiss her until she made that soft little sound of surrender...

  Hell and damnation! What was he doing?

  Looking across the table, he saw that those amazing eyes had widened at his muttered imprecation, almost as if she knew just what had been going through his mind.

  Suddenly it was impossible to sit opposite her any longer without touching her in some way. Pushing back his chair with a violent movement, he stood up hastily and reached for her half-empty plate, banging it down on top of his own.

  'I'll clear these away, then. I take it you don't want anything else?' he added over his shoulder on the way to the kitchen.

  'Not for me, thanks.' Her voice was strangely distant. 'But don't let that stop you. You go ahead.'

  'I never eat puddings. My mother always said I was born without a sweet tooth. Coffee, then?'

  Dumping the plates on the draining board, he swung back to see her getting to her feet.

  'That would be nice. Can I help—?'

  'No!'

  It came out too sharply because his nerves were still tingling from the sensations that had coursed through them only seconds before. He had had to suppress those feelings so violently that he felt raw from the effort.

  He couldn't watch as she came into the kitchen, moving swiftly to switch on the kettle.

  'I was brought up never to let a guest do anything in the house.''

  'And my parents taught me always to offer to help,' she said, with a smile that threatened his already shaky grip on his composure. 'Besides, I don't really think that I could call myself a "guest".'

  'So how would you describe your situation?'

  He had meant his growled 'guest' to be off-putting, and so was thoroughly disconcerted when, having glanced towards the window where the snow flurries were still beating against the glass, she turned back with another of those gut-wrenching smiles.

  'Right now I feel like the man in the Bible story who had been left by the side of the road and no one would help him until the Good Samaritan came by.'

  'You make it sound as if I'm a candidate for sainthood! And you're forgetting that I picked you up because I thought you were Pete's fiancée.'

  The kettle boiled as he spoke, and, grateful for the interruption, he snatched it up. Hastily pouring it into the waiting cafetière, he looked round for the lid which he had discarded somewhere.

  'Is this what you want?'

  Leah picked up the missing lid from the worktop and handed it to him
.

  'So are you saying that if you hadn't thought I was 'Annie, if you'd known I was someone else entirely, you wouldn't have offered to help me?'

  'Don't be stupid! What sort of a brute do you think I am? I wouldn't have left a dog out in that blizzard, let alone a woman—any woman.'

  Even Marnie? The question slid into his mind while his guard was down.

  Yes, damn it, even Marnie! After all, hadn't that been the problem from the start? He'd given her a second chance, believed in her lies, her smiling declarations of understanding, and look where that had got him.

  'I'm sorry.'

  There was a new note in her voice now, a sudden quaver that made him wonder whether she had somehow picked up on his innermost thoughts, if he had let them show without meaning to.

  'Look, couldn't we start again? Act as if we'd only just met, as if we were complete strangers?'

  A touch of urgency mixed with—what? Hope?—lit in her eyes.'

  'As if nothing's happened.'

  But something had happened, something Sean knew he could never forget. And he damn well didn't want to forget it either.

  'You ask for a lot, lady,' he began gruffly. But the way the light in those pansy eyes dimmed at his tone caught on something raw, deep inside him, and he hastily adjusted his attitude.

  Dumping the cafetière on a tray already laid with cups and a milk jug, he picked it up with an uncharacteristically jerky movement.

  'Complete strangers it is.'

  Shouldering the door open again, he led the way back into the sitting room, where the fire now blazed so brightly that he didn't bother to switch on the lights, leaving it instead in half-shadow.

  'So, Miss Elliot...'

  Busy pouring the coffee, he noted how, like him, she avoided the settee, choosing instead to sit in the chair opposite his, so that they faced each other across the fireside rug. She didn't relax back into it, but sat stiffly on the edge of the cushion, her back upright, knees primly together.

  Tell me about yourself. Like—how you want your coffee, for a start.'

  'Just milk, please, no sugar.'