Runaway Fiancee

‘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.’

Her eyes widened then grew amused. ‘How old are you?’

‘I’m thirty-two.’

‘And how old am I?’

‘Twenty-one. Nearly twenty-two. Your birthday is next month, on the seventeenth.’

‘And when did this so passionate relationship begin?’

‘You came to London about two years ago.’

With a mocking twist to her lips, Paige shook her head at him. ‘When I was only nineteen? Perhaps I preferred older men—a father figure. Tell me, did I fall head over heels in love with you?’

She was needling him deliberately but he didn’t rise to it, instead saying, ‘Maybe one day you’ll remember.’

Suddenly she was all French again, pouting her lips and crossing her legs as she sat back in her seat. As she did so her legs brushed against Milo’s knees and Paige glanced at him from under her lashes but he didn’t react. ‘Somehow I don’t think so,’ she said shortly. ‘And my loving parents, are they still alive?’

‘Your mother is. She still lives in Argentina.’

‘And does she own part of the company? What did you call it—Chandos and Caine?’

‘Caine and Chandos,’ he corrected her. ‘No, the shares she inherited were all transferred to you when she remarried. Your grandmother insisted on it.’

‘She sounds a formidable old lady.’

‘Yes, she is.’ Milo’s mouth twisted wryly. ‘And not one to whom I would have entrusted the upbringing of a sensitive young girl.’

Paige frowned for a moment, then her eyebrows rose. ‘You mean me? I was a sensitive young girl?’ Her rich laugh rang out, making the other people in the carriage glance round. ‘How quaint.’ Her eyes taunted him. ‘I’m no longer any of those things.’

‘But you are still young.’

She gave a small smile. ‘Oh, no; somehow I think that I’ve become very wise for my years.’ Adding deliberately, ‘And very experienced.’ Seeing his mouth tighten, Paige leaned forward and said on a soft but compelling note, ‘You would do well to forget that girl you talk about, forget her as I have done. Because she no longer exists and you can’t bring her back.’