Sally Wentworth - Runaway Fiancee

Her eyes grew troubled. ‘Sometimes at night—when I dream, I see places that I feel I know, but in the morning...’ She threw open her hands and made a blowing shape with her lips ‘...poof! They’re gone.’

‘Never people?’

Her mouth creased in amusement. ‘No, Englishman,’ she said in open mockery. ‘I have never dreamt of you.’

He wasn’t put out, instead smiling rather wryly. ‘I left myself wide open to that one, didn’t I?’ She didn’t return the smile, and after a moment he said, ‘Look, we’re going to see a lot of each other in the near future. I know you’re angry with me and you don’t want to do this, but couldn’t we try to be civil to one another?’

‘You are being civil to me.’

Again his lips twitched. ‘All right, do you think that you could please be civil to me, then?’

‘How?’

‘You could start by calling me by my name instead of “Englishman”,’ he suggested.

‘Very well, Monsieur Caine.’

‘My name is Milo,’ he reminded her.

Tilting her head, she considered the idea. ‘I don’t think I like it.’

‘Nor do I, but I’m afraid I’m stuck with it, and it would upset my mother if I tried to change it.’

‘You have a mother?’

‘Most people do.’

Her face tightened. ‘Do they?’

Reaching across, he took her hand. ‘Sorry. Would you like me to tell you about your family? You do have one, you know, Paige.’

So he was convinced that she was his girlfriend, and seemed convinced, too, that she had lost her memory. With a sigh, she said, ‘Are you always going to call me that?’

‘It’s your name.’

‘And you want me to be civil to you and use yours?’

‘Yes.’

She was suddenly angry. ‘Why should I be civil to someone who has turned my life upside down, who ruined my engagement party, who has taken me away from my fiancé’s side? You’re a fool if you think—’

But he interrupted by saying, ‘No, I’m giving you back the life you had. Filling in your past. You have the right to that. Even if you choose to reject it, you should at least have the right to choose.’

His words took her aback and she stared at him for a long moment before she realised that in his vehemence he had spoken in English.

Milo realised at the same moment and his eyes widened. ‘You understood, didn’t you? Didn’t you?’

Paige didn’t answer directly, but said, in perfect English, ‘How did you know where to look for me?’

‘It was the portrait. It was reproduced in an art magazine that I take. And it even gave the details of your engagement party.’ Sitting back, his eyes on her face, he said, ‘I would have known your eyes anywhere.’

CHAPTER THREE

‘WHY did you lie to me?’ Milo’s face was grim.

Paige shrugged. ‘Because I didn’t want to go back with you, of course.’

‘So you knew who you were all along. This amnesia thing is all a pretence, a ploy. My God, Paige, if you—’

‘No!’ She interrupted his growing anger fiercely. ‘The woman you talk about doesn’t exist for me. But I knew as soon as I saw the photographs you showed us last night that you were telling the truth, that you and I were—connected. I could hardly fail to recognise myself, could I?’ Her face shadowed. ‘But I was—afraid. The life I have is good. Why should I want to find out about a past that is wholly alien to me?’ Her eyes met his. ‘Why should I want to find out about you?’ Looking away, she shrugged. ‘So I pretended that I didn’t speak or read English. I hoped you would think you’d made a mistake. That you’d go away again.’

‘I’m not put off that easily.’

‘No, but I wouldn’t have come back with you if it hadn’t been for Jean-Louis.’

‘For his greed.’

She gave him an angry look. ‘What would you know about needing money, Englishman? You’ve always had more than enough all your life.’

‘How do you know that?’ His eyes were watchful.

She laughed. ‘You told me so yourself, when you quoted from that newspaper cutting. You said that my family had owned half the company and yours the other half. You said that I was very rich, so presumably this company is successful. So, I repeat, what do you know about being poor and hungry? What do you know about having to prostitute your art to make a living as Jean-Louis has had to?’

His voice mild, Milo said, ‘I didn’t think that artists had to starve in garrets nowadays.’

‘Don’t change the subject.’

‘All right. No, I’ve never been hungry—but neither would I push a woman into doing something she was against just to get money for myself.’

‘No?’ Paige’s eyebrows rose in irony. ‘But isn’t that just what you are doing? Aren’t you using me just as much as Jean-Louis is?’

His eyes grew guarded. ‘In what way?’

‘You say you were engaged to me. If we had married wouldn’t you have got all the shares, all the company?’

‘It wasn’t a financial arrangement,’ Milo replied steadily, holding her gaze. But he could see she didn’t believe him, so he added, ‘And, anyway, the question doesn’t now arise, does it? You will be giving all the money to Jean-Louis.’

‘And what if I do?’ Paige demanded belligerently.

‘It’s your money to do with as you like,’ he said with a shrug.

The train roared into the tunnel and they were silent for a moment, assimilating the change from natural light to that of fluorescence, from travelling on the surface to plunging deep beneath the sea. From openness to mystery, much as her own life had changed in the last twenty-four hours, Paige thought.

As if reading her mind, Milo said, ‘Wouldn’t you like me to tell you about your family?’

She sighed. ‘No, but I can see you’re determined to, so OK, go ahead.’

‘As I told you last night, your mother is English and your father was French. You have dual English and French nationality and passports from both countries. Presumably you travelled on your French passport when you ran away. You were also brought up to be bilingual. Your father insisted on that. But when your parents split up your mother remarried and you were sent to live with your grandmother. She saw to it that you had a good education and—’

‘Why?’ Paige interrupted. ‘Why didn’t I live with my mother or my father?’

Milo paused for a second then said without emphasis, ‘They had each formed new relationships. Your grandmother thought it would be best for you to have an uncomplicated life with her.’

‘And my parents had nothing to say against the arrangement? Neither of them cared enough about me to have me live with them?’

Milo was listening for bitterness in her tone but heard only curiosity. ‘It was—difficult. Your mother married an Argentinian and went to live there. Your father returned to his own country. They couldn’t both have you. And your grandmother is a very strong personality; it’s almost impossible to refuse her anything she sets her mind on.’

‘But they could have, if they’d really wanted to, if they’d cared enough?’

‘It wasn’t that simple, Paige.’

She looked at him for a moment, then gave a slow smile. ‘Life seldom is. Please go on.’

His grey eyes studied her face for a moment, but then Milo said, ‘Your grandmother kept you with her at her home in Lancashire until you finished school, then took you on a long tour of India and Asia that lasted for nearly a year. When you came back to England she brought you down to London to stay, and that was where we began our own relationship.’

‘We had never met before?’ Paige asked in surprise.

‘Yes, we’d met, many times, before your parents split up. But not for some years and not as adult to adult.’