‘And my flat just happens to be on his way home, I suppose?’
Lynda did not deny that either. She scanned Annis’s face, clearly concerned.
‘Darling—’
Annis was surprised at the gust of fury that whipped through her. Konstantin Vitale had disturbed her more than any other of Lynda’s offerings, though she could not have said why. She just knew that she hated it.
‘So he offers to drive me home and I’m supposed to say thank you kindly. And go out with him when he calls next week.’ She was shaking with anger. ‘Tell me, Lynda, have you given him my number already?’
In spite of a designer cocktail suit and several thousand pounds’ worth of discreet jewellery, Lynda Carew looked like a guilty four year old caught out in the playground.
‘Not to Kosta. But darling—’
‘Lynda, I love you very much. But will you just stop interfering in my life?’
Lynda looked shaken. Annis had never reacted like this before. All right, she did not usually go out with the men Lynda introduced to her more than once. But at least she greeted them with amused resignation. Lynda had never seen such passion in her level-headed stepdaughter. Or not about men.
She tried to sound airy. ‘But your father had these business types he really wanted to invite. So I thought, Why not?’ Her eyes were huge, blue and limpid. ‘Starting out on her own like that, Annis will probably be glad of a chance to meet some people who could put work her way.’
Annis stared. It was so close to what she had already claimed herself that Lynda might have been eavesdropping. Hoist with my own petard, she thought. In spite of herself, her lips twitched. She flung up her hands in surrender.
‘OK. I’m here to network. Let’s leave it at that.’ But she still looked at Lynda severely. ‘And I get to go home alone, right?’
‘Right,’ said Lynda relieved. She patted Annis’s sober blue shoulder. ‘I suppose you’ve come straight from work?’
Annis sipped the champagne. ‘How did you guess?’
‘You’re always scratchy when you’re tired,’ Lynda said frankly.
That was undoubtedly true. Annis, always fair minded, had to admit it.
Lynda sensed a softening. ‘I wish you wouldn’t make things so difficult for yourself, darling. Why don’t you just try to enjoy yourself for once?’
Annis closed her eyes briefly. ‘You’ve been saying that since I was fourteen.’
‘Then, it’s about time you gave it a try.’
Annis opened her mouth to retort.
‘What you ought to do is go upstairs to my room and freshen up,’ Lynda said coaxingly. ‘That will make you feel better. Borrow an earring or something. And then come downstairs and be nice to people.’
There was a shout of loud laughter from her father’s group at the fireplace. Lynda put a hand on her Annis’s arm. Her expression was suddenly serious.
‘Don’t spoil it, Annis,’ she said in a low voice. ‘It’s so long since he relaxed properly.’
Annis looked down from her five feet eleven into her diminutive stepmother’s exquisite face. Annis had given thanks for Lynda every day since she’d married Tony Carew and had taken his daughter under her wing. They were as different as two women could be but Lynda had given her unstinting affection, making no distinction between Annis and her own daughter Isabella.
What was more, she made Tony Carew laugh again. Under Lynda’s influence he came home from the office at night. He even took some notice of his neglected ugly duckling daughter and found, to his astonishment, that she was interesting. Found that she was not a sullen adolescent, just painfully shy. Found that he liked her.
So now Annis looked at Lynda, who would not remind her that it was she who had given Annis back her father. Annis knew herself beaten. Again.
‘Yes,’ she said capitulating entirely. ‘Yes, all right. I’ll paint my face and sing for my supper. Just no more throwing me together with your spare men.’
Lynda laughed and let go of her arm. ‘Take your drink with you.’
It was only when Annis was sitting in front of her stepmother’s enormous dressing table that she realised that Lynda had made no promises.
‘Outsmarted again,’ she told her reflection with irony, and, as she so often ended up saying after a tussle of wills with her sweetly accommodating stepmother, ‘When will you learn? You’ll walk straight back into the arms of tonight’s Mr Available.’
Only, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, Konstantin Vitale did not feel like Mr Available. Reflecting on that exchange downstairs, her eyebrows knit in puzzlement.
Of course, it was probably not his fault. It was even possible that he did not know that Lynda was matchmaking. Annis knew her stepmother very well. The most Lynda would have told him was that she needed a spare man to make up numbers and sit next to her clever stepdaughter. That’s what she had told the sculptor, the writer and the aspiring politician.
Lynda’s candidates were normally men with promising futures and a shortage of current cash. That was what made the idea of dating millionaire Tony Carew’s daughter rather attractive, no matter how scarred and difficult she might turn out to be. Annis wondered exactly what Konstantin Vitale did for a living. And if she had done enough to make him think better of the dating-the-unattractive-heiress scenario.
Annis found her reflection was frowning horribly. She leaned forward and smoothed her heavy eyebrows apart. ‘Borrow an earring,’ Lynda had said. Well, she could do better than that with the run of her stepmother’s resources. With the efficiency of long, long practice, Annis set about livening up her neat navy business suit.
She borrowed a silk scarf so fine that it was transparent, with the evening colours of an impressionist painting shimmering as she moved, and some long turquoise earrings that Lynda had brought back from Morocco. No time for elaborate make-up, thought Annis, who was no good at it, even at the best of times. So she just combed her hair forward to hide the scar, flicked damp fronds into place against her long neck and dusted a touch of rose to her full-lipped mouth.
Then she squared her shoulders and went back to face the battle.
Fortunately the first person she saw was not Konstantin Vitale. Not even another glamorous spare man. It was Lynda’s own daughter, Bella.
Isabella, at twenty-three as golden and charming as her mother, regarded Annis as one of her very best friends.
It was Bella who saved her now.
‘Annie,’ she screamed, rushing over.
A number of people looked up and smiled. Across the room, Annis saw, even Konstantin Vitale of The Look glanced up. For a moment the bored shell cracked. He looked almost intrigued. But then, thought Annis wryly, men usually did look intrigued when they first caught sight of Isabella Carew.
Tonight she was on top form, in a slip of a dress that was all shimmery curves and slipping straps, showing yards of perfect leg. She enveloped Annis in a bear hug.
‘Hi, Brain Box.’
Annis kissed her sister more sedately. ‘Hi yourself, Bella Bug. How’s life?’
‘Great. What—’
Lynda frowned her daughter down. ‘We can have a family chat later. There’s someone I want Annis to meet.’
‘Another one?’ said Annis incredulously.
Bella grinned. She was not hampered by any chivalrous feelings of obligation and she knew as well as Annis did what Lynda was up to. Only Bella was a lot better at heading off her mother’s matchmaking tactics.
‘Leave