DESTINY
How Annie and Jude met and fell in love


If, as some people believe, a single event can completely alter the course of a person’s life then the event which changed things for Annie Richards did not at the time come across as being particularly auspicious.

Annie was at rock bottom in her life on the night that it happened  She believed her husband Gregory to be dead and her fears that he had never really loved her had earlier been confirmed when, in his dramatic video-taped will, he left her nothing but a library filled with books on self-help.  She was living at the Richards Mansion at the time along with Gregory’s first wife, Olivia, and Olivia’s daughter Caitlin.  The other members of the household comprised of Caitlin’s husband Cole and a baby boy called Trey who, bizarrely, was the offspring of Olivia and her son-in-law.   The remaining occupant of the Richards Mansion was Amy Neilsen, a friend of Caitlin’s brother Sean.

Lonely, alone and unable to find anyone to pass the time of day with her, Annie decided that what she needed to cheer her up was a good night out.  There was a sense of destiny in the air as she got dressed up and headed off to The Deep, although what happened at the beginning of the evening can hardly be described as auspicious.  A strikingly attractive woman, Annie had not been in the bar for long before she began to attract male attention and within minutes someone had bought her a drink.  Unfortunately for Annie, the man in question seemed to want more than she was prepared to give in return for the drink, so after bidding him a terse farewell she got up and left.  But the man, who was not to be so easily dissuaded, followed her upstairs and when they got outside, he attacked her.

Annie did her best to fend him off but was overpowered.  Luckily for her, however, help was at hand in the form of another man who used his spectacular Martial Arts skills to dismiss Annie’s attacker.  This man, who Annie immediately noticed was exceptionally handsome, disappeared down the stairs into The Deep before she had a chance to even say hello.

Annie hesitated for a moment and then made a spur of the minute decision to follow him.  He was sitting at the bar as she arrived and did not seem remotely interested in making her acquaintance.  If anything, he treated her with an almost contemptuous lack of interest, causing her to form the view that he was arrogant and far too sure of himself.  The conversation which followed was more like a bizarre series of riddles, with Annie pretending that she had decided to spend the evening alone because she could not choose which of her many friends to be with, and the man not even condescending to tell Annie his name.  He did, however, make a rather pointed comment about her dress and one wonders whether he believed the story she concocted about her reason for being alone.  Their brief acquaintance came to an abrupt end when Annie, after splashing out on a bottle of The Deep’s best champagne, turned round and discovered to her exasperation that her mysterious companion had disappeared, leaving her to foot the bill for the bubbly.

If Annie’s fury was very much in evidence as she called her friend Maria Evans and asked her to come and pick up the tab for the champagne then there were also other feelings at work for when Maria arrived Annie couldn’t wait to tell her about the mystery man who had saved her from what could have been something unpleasant.  She described him as sexy and had a certain look on her face as she recalled the tale.

Annie pushed all thoughts of the mysterious man out of her head over the next few days and convinced herself that he wasn’t worth wasting mental energy on.  She wasn’t expecting ever to see him again and even if she did she could never tolerate his arrogance.  It therefore came as a complete shock to her when, several days later at a shareholders’ meeting at the Liberty Corporation, she came face to face with him again.  She was totally thrown when he was introduced as Jude Cavanaugh, the man who was to take Gregory Richards’ place as Managing Director of the Liberty Corporation. 

Annie had two reasons to feel disquieted by the announcement of his appointment.  Firstly, as the person now in charge he would have control of the company’s purse strings.  This came as a bitter blow to Annie, who was hoping to find a way to realise some of her worthless stock in the Liberty Corporation.  Secondly, Jude Cavanaugh had been hand-picked to step in to the position as the company’s new head by AJ Deschanel, the current lover of Olivia Richards, and a man with whom Annie’s previous relations had been anything but cordial.  To make matters worse, AJ welcomed Jude like a long-lost son and made no attempt to disguise how pleased he was to be able to welcome him to the company.  Annie’s misgivings were compounded when Ben Evans, a major shareholder, also endorsed Jude Cavanaugh’s appointment with wholehearted support.

If Annie had harboured hopes of being able to use her feminine wiles on Mr. Cavanaugh to wheedle money out of the company she was to be sorely disappointed, for Jude Cavanaugh was not to be wound around anyone’s little finger, especially Annie’s.  Whilst Annie had a certain reputation around town, he seemed to have formed his own opinion of her in a remarkable short space of time and was not slow in letting her know exactly what he thought of her.  On one occasion, after having caught Annie trying to help herself to the contents of the safe in his office, he invited her to look inside it having ensured beforehand that it was empty.  Time and time again he got the better of her and then added insult to injury by suggesting that, if she wanted money, she should work for it.  The two of them seemed to trade insults each time they met and whenever they were in a room together, sparks could be guaranteed to fly. 

By this time another revelation had occurred.  A new will of Gregory Richards’, which post-dated the video-taped one, had been discovered and in this new will Gregory had indicated a desire to have his estate administered by a distant uncle of his, Tobias, who lived in London.  Annie, never one to miss a chance, decided there was no time to be lost and made an immediate decision to cross the Atlantic in search of Uncle Tobias with a view to convincing him to name her as the executrix of Gregory’s will.  Hard up and desperate, she stole Jude’s wallet in an attempt to get her hands on some cash and then used his credit card to book herself a seat to London on Concorde.  Unfortunately for her, Jude was on her trail and made it clear that he would entertain no repeat of such behaviour.  He had drawn the line and Annie had crossed it.   His displeasure was very much in evidence and Annie somehow sensed not to push him any further.

But Annie was determined to get to London one way or another so when she arrived at LAX she robbed a stewardess of her uniform and crossed the Atlantic in the guise of possibly the most inefficient and bad-tempered stewardess that the airline had ever known.  She had high hopes of getting to Uncle Tobias and making him name her as executrix of the will but, unfortunately for her, Olivia Richards and Cole Deschanel, anxious to secure the estate for their son, had similar ideas and in the end all three of them were on the London-bound plane together with the Richards family’s maid Rose and little Trey.

When they touched down in London it was a mad dash to see who could get to Tobias first.  Annie schemed her way into pole position and managed to track Tobias down to a dingy basement museum where she found him surrounded by musty-looking artifacts.  She was on the verge of achieving her heart’s desire when Olivia and Cole burst in and blew everything sky high.  Tobias was treated to pleas from both Annie and Olivia, both of whom did their level best to get him to name them as the executrix of Gregory’s will.  In the end, seemingly unused to being in the company of bickering women who traded insults as soon as look at one another, Tobias decided that he would head back to Sunset Beach with them and make a decision as to who the executrix should be at a later date.

Annie’s troubles were not over once they arrived back in Los Angeles.  Her misdemeanour of stealing the stewardess’s uniform was about to come back on her in a big way, for she was taken into custody by airport security.  After being questioned she was told that someone had arrived to see her and much to her surprise in walked Jude Cavanaugh.  He led Annie to believe that he was the key to her release and after listening to her pleas for help he told her that she was free to leave.  When she angrily asked him why he had not told her that at the outset, he infuriated her by replying that he would not have wanted to miss all her grovelling.  He offered her a lift back to Sunset Beach but she threw his offer back in his face and thereby condemned herself to a ride on the bus instead.  Finding her waiting at the bus-stop, however, Jude told her to get in the car.  Annie obeyed.  On the way home Jude’s car developed a flat tyre and whilst he fitted the spare Annie allowed her thoughts to momentarily linger on what would happen if the two of them got stranded together.

She did not allow her thoughts to linger in that direction for long, however, as all she really wanted was to get back to Sunset Beach and make sure that Olivia had not dug her claws into Tobias.  Olivia and Tobias went out to dinner that night and when Annie tried to break them up she was prevented from doing so by none other than Jude who at one point locked her in a room whilst remedying what she had tried to do.  Infuriated,  Annie was once again beaten and yet more insults were traded.

Annie and Jude came together again the following day at the Liberty Corporation offices.  Jude had bad news for Annie; he had rescued her from the clutches of the airport authorities but in so doing had incurred very heavy expenditure on behalf of the Liberty Corporation.  He made it clear to Annie that he expected her to pay it back, every last cent of it.  When met with her protestations of poverty, he once again mockingly suggested she should work for a living.  Annie was not impressed.  It was possibly at this time - or maybe it was sooner? - that her relationship with Jude, always sparky, ascended to another level.  Jude was beginning to get the sort of look in his eyes which a man has when he starts to notice a woman and as much as Annie tried to hate Jude for always being one step ahead of her she couldn’t because he was so darned attractive.  There was certainly mutual attraction but would it ever be enough to overcome the differences between them?

A significant event which should not be overlooked at this time was the mysterious and untimely disappearance of Cole Deschanel.  He had been apprehended by British police after boarding the plane for the return flight to Los Angeles and then forced to disembark.  He subsequently went missing and Caitlin blamed her mother for his disappearance, believing that Olivia wanted Cole out of the way so he would have no part in raising Trey.  Whatever the reason behind Cole’s disappearance, the family was plunged into shock and Annie did not endear herself to any of them by suggesting that Cole’s past life as a jewel thief had caught up with him and that he was getting what he deserved.

Jude, who was present at the time, could see that Annie’s comments were unwelcome and inappropriate and decided to teach her a lesson.  It was quite a memorable lesson, for he picked Annie up and after slinging her over his shoulder he carted her off to his office at the Liberty Corporation.  Annie, who was fuming at having been treated like a sack of potatoes, might also have been rather excited by Jude’s masterful behaviour because the two of them ended up by giving in to their desires and making wild, passionate love in the office, making use of much of the office furniture in the process.  The overwhelming mutual attraction was too strong to deny any longer and their love-making was the inevitable consequence.  But if peace and harmony reigned whilst they were making love it was shortly afterwards to be shattered and this happened when Jude asked Annie to go home with him and spend the night with him.  This came as a surprise to Annie, who declared that he was the first man ever to have asked her to do this.  She was not, however, willing to commit herself any further at this stage and declined his offer, preferring instead to return to the Richards mansion for a very important reason.  Annie had hated Olivia Richards for as long as she could remember and was within reach of bringing about her destruction.  She had cunningly and wickedly administered a potion to Olivia which would make her crave alcohol and she wanted to make sure it worked.  Olivia had had alcohol problems in the past and although she was now on the wagon it was only a matter of time before she fell off it.  Annie’s potion, purchased for a large amount of money from a Haitian voodoo priestess, had worked and on the following day Annie believed that all her dreams were about to become true.  Olivia appeared at her own birthday bash with a drink in her hand and shocked and horrified everyone present.  Annie was convinced that Olivia’s drinking would dissuade Tobias from considering her as a possible executrix of Gregory’s estate and at one point it seemed that he was veering towards handing the much-coveted duty over to Annie.   

Jude, who had told Annie after their passionate love-making session that he expected to see her in the office for work bright and early the next morning, once again dragged her away from the Richards house, making it clear to her that they had no business being there whilst Olivia was in such a drink-sodden state.  It had not taken him long to guess that Annie was up to something and even though she told him that Olivia was a horrid woman who had ruined her life he did not seem altogether convinced.

Jude was puzzled by Annie.  He had developed feelings for her, of that there was no doubt, but he was perplexed by her complete and total worship of money and he made it clear to her that this was unacceptable to him as he was not made that way.  When she once pointed out to him that she was a wizard at mathematics, he responded by acknowledging that, whilst she may be a human calculator, she was also more calculator than human and he could go out and buy one of those for fifty bucks. 

The final straw came when Annie, invited out to lunch by both Jude and Tobias on the same day, chose to go with Tobias, hoping that he had decided to name her as Gregory’s executrix.  Jude lost no time in showing his complete and utter contempt of her over this.  He not only knew that she was trying to cozy up to Tobias but he also made it clear to her that he knew.  Shoving her aside roughly as he left the office, he told her that being with her had been a mistake and that he was over it.  Her worship of money above all else was nauseating to him.

Annie went out to lunch with Tobias, although not without pangs of regret about Jude, and learned to her bitter disappointment that he had decided to administer Gregory’s estate himself.  She had gone to the trouble of turning poor Olivia into a drunk and passing up a date with Jude all for nothing.  If she had been hoping for sympathy from Jude when she returned to the office three hours later, she was to be disappointed as he mocked her for her behaviour and then ordered her off the premises.  Prior to this she had asked him to telephone Tobias and put in a good word for her, but his reaction to this was to set fire to the note containing details of Tobias’s telephone number. 

Jude’s attitude softened a little later when, upon finding her in tears, he offered her a handkerchief.  He confessed to Annie, in response to her direct question, that he still had feelings for her and told her that she should put her talents to use in ways other than chasing after a rich husband or a dead husband’s estate.  Taking her hand in his, he told her that there were other things in life besides money and that one day she would find out what those things were.  The two of them were about to kiss when Amy Neilsen burst in and demanded to speak to Annie.  Jude reluctantly left the two women alone together and, unbeknown to Annie, made his way to the Richards Mansion. 

It would have shocked Annie if she had seen what took place there.  Firstly, the man who she and Olivia knew as Tobias was really Gregory Richards - who was very much alive - in disguise and, secondly, he was being assisted in his plan to get back what was rightfully his by none other than Jude Cavanaugh.  It then transpired that Jude was in Gregory’s paid employment and that he was motivated to help the head of the Richards household not only for money but also out of an intense hatred for AJ Deschanel, Gregory’s sworn enemy and the father who had ostensibly never acknowledged Jude as his son.

Annie, meanwhile, was having troubles of her own.  Amy Neilsen, herself a client of the voodoo priestess who had supplied Annie with the means to drug Olivia, had cottoned on to the fact that Annie was behind Olivia’s resurgent drinking and what was more she was threatening to expose Annie as a scheming, conniving liar.  In exchange for her silence she demanded that Annie bring Sean Richards (with whom Amy was in love) back to the country fast.  Sean, who had disappeared with his sister Caitlin and baby Trey, was at an unknown location in Europe where they had gone to get away from Olivia’s drunken behaviour.  Annie tried to dismiss Amy but the girl, desperate to see Sean again, refused to be bullied.  In the end Annie lead her to believe she would help.

Shortly after that Annie, possibly for the first time in her life, started to suffer from pangs of conscience.  Olivia’s drunkenness had begun to worry her.  She had not expected to be so moved by the sight of her rival in such a piteous state.  Moreover, Jude’s words about money not being everything were playing on her mind.  She thought about him a lot but was fearful that he would turn away from her in disgust if he found out about her past misdeeds.  Matters reached a head one morning when Annie went downstairs and found Olivia in tears over an ornament which Sean had made for her when he was a child.  In her drunken state Olivia had broken it.

Annie could stand no more of this and hastened off to see Mrs. Moreau, the voodoo woman who had sold her the magic potion.  In desperate need of an assurance that the potion would wear off in due course, she got what she wanted but had been followed to Mrs. Moreau’s address by none other than Gregory Richards.  He forced his way into Mrs. Moreau’s apartment and commanded her to tell him everything.

With the smell of victory in sight, Gregory (still convincingly disguised as Tobias) headed back to the Richards house and cunningly led Annie to believe that he had had a change of heart about her.  Annie interpreted this as his intention to make her the executrix after all and she unwittingly accompanied him to a disused power plant in a quiet part of town.  This power plant was the scene of Gregory’s unveiling as a killer by Annie and Cole at an earlier date and Gregory, no doubt, wanted this time around to make it the scene of his triumph.

Tormenting her with a tale of what he knew about her dealings with Mrs. Moreau, “Tobias” cruelly threatened Annie with a long jail term for what she had done.  His big mistake, however, was to pick her up and make as if to carry her off for in her attempts to escape from him Annie tore off his wig and revealed him as his true self - Gregory Richards, the husband she had believed dead.  Terrified and fearful at her grim discovery, Annie immediately rushed into the arms of Jude Cavanaugh, who had made a timely appearance in the doorway.  Convinced that he would protect her, she told him that Tobias was really Gregory and shakily asked him to get the police.  The moment which followed was truly dramatic, for Jude did absolutely nothing.  Annie, unable to understand why he was not jumping to help her, was completely shell-shocked at what followed, namely the discovery that Jude was in collaboration with her dreaded, far from dead husband.

Annie tried to escape but was prevented from doing so by Jude.  Gregory, who had laughed with delight at the sight of Annie’s face as she came to understand her betrayal, made it clear that she was about to be disposed of and it seemed that Jude would be the man to do it.  But Jude had other ideas.  He refused to make another move without confirmation that the money which Gregory had promised him was in his account.  The two men made phone calls and the money was sorted and Gregory then urged Jude to do what he had been paid for - to kill Annie.

Jude stared at a terrified Annie, who earlier had begged Gregory to spare her life.  In a totally unexpected twist, he then turned and floored Gregory with a couple of ferocious kicks which rendered the other man unconscious.  Annie, who still believed he was going to kill her, tried to escape but was restrained by Jude, who assured her that nothing would happen to her and that he was not going to hurt her.  More revelations followed as Jude revealed that he had been tracking Gregory for some time, that he knew all along that he was merely pretending to be Tobias and, much to Annie’s amazement, that he was really Special Agent Jude Cavanaugh, FBI - at her service.

Annie’s reaction to this, after she had picked her chin up off the floor, was to sock Jude on the jaw.  In typically tunnel-visioned fashion she voiced her anger at his duplicity and accused him of having not only exposed her to danger but also of having used her.  But Jude assured her that he had never used her and that him developing feelings for her had never been in the script.  He kissed Annie to prove it.  Behind them, however, Gregory had stirred into life and in a desperate attempt to salvage what was left of his tattered master-plan, he hit Jude over the head with a plank of wood, knocking him unconscious.

Gregory then turned his attention to Annie and although she was frightened, he told her that he would not be dealing with her there and then.  As he was about to bolt out of the door, he came face to face with Olivia who, unsurprisingly, looked as if she had seen a ghost.  Whilst Jude, unconscious on the floor, was being tended to by Annie, Gregory and Olivia looked at each other.  It was clear that there were still feelings between them, the upshot of which was that Olivia persuaded Gregory not to make a run for it.  Jude regained consciousness and led Gregory away in handcuffs.  Gregory told Annie that he had never loved her. 

Left alone with Annie, Olivia then confronted her about the potion she had given her.  Despite the fact that Annie told Olivia that she declined to give her one more dose of the potion - which, if administered, would have left Olivia an alcoholic for life - Olivia refused to forgive Annie for what she has done.  Jude appeared and Olivia left, leaving Annie and Jude alone together.  Annie then surprised Jude by telling him that she needed his help.

When we next saw them, it was in the intimate bedroom surroundings of Jude’s apartment.  Jude was making a telephone call and Annie was anxious to ensure that something which was obviously very important to her worked out.  It subsequently transpired that Annie had asked Jude to use his influence as an FBI Agent to arrange for Caitlin, Sean and Trey to return home to Olivia.  Annie and Jude were paid a visit later on by AJ and Bette and, whilst AJ (who, it transpired, Jude had pretended was his father in order to win Gregory’s confidence) was congratulating Jude upon nailing Gregory, Bette commented how Annie had changed and that she suspected Jude must have had something to do with it.  Annie responded by saying that she now realised how in the past she had always tried to make love happen whereas she should have just let it happen.  She added that she was going down a road she didn’t know too well and she didn’t have a map.  Later, as she and Jude were embracing again, she told him that reality was better than any of her old fantasies.  It was obvious that the connection which had always existed between Annie and Jude had deepened into something beautiful and special.

Later that day Annie made her peace with Meg Cummings, a woman with whom she had never seen eye to eye, and Jude paid Olivia a visit.  Olivia tried to thank him for bringing her children home to her but Jude would have none of it, insisting that Olivia hear the real reason for her children’s return.  With virtually the whole town due to attend the double wedding of Michael Bourne and Vanessa Hart and Ben Evans and Meg Cummings, Olivia met with Annie outside the church and thanked her for bringing her children home to her.  She told Annie that she had heard from Jude about how she confessed to Sean and Caitlin that she was the reason behind Olivia’s drinking.  The two women, sworn enemies for so long, celebrated their new-found friendship by entering the church together.

Inside the church, Annie and Jude sat close together, the bond between them very much in evidence as they witnessed the two couples exchanging their marriage vows.  It was a magical moment. 

****

 Annie’s Heaven Web Site, February 2000 

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