The Fiancee Charade, page 2
She dumped a glistening silver milk jug and sugar bowl down next to the teapot and swiped at an errant droplet of milk that marred the once pristine tablecloth.
Not that she had an issue with doing a good job, but it was a fact that she wasn’t waitstaff. Just like she was no longer the gardener’s daughter on the Messena estate.
She was a highly organized and well-qualified PA with a degree in performing arts on the side, and she was still trying to come to grips with the fact that by some errant trick of fate, she had ended up once more in the role of employee to a Messena.
Serene and perfectly groomed, Luisa looked exactly as she had when Gemma had last seen her in Dolphin Bay, New Zealand. The friend accompanying her, though casually dressed, looked just as wealthy and well-groomed; her dark hair smooth, nails perfect. Unlike Gemma’s hair, which she’d been too tired after a near-sleepless night on the phone to New Zealand to do anything with except to coil the heavy waves into a knot.
As she placed the crowning glory of the afternoon tea setting, an exquisite three-tiered plate of tiny cakes, scones, pastries and mini sandwiches, in the center of the table, she caught a glimpse of herself in a wall mirror.
She wasn’t surprised that Luisa hadn’t recognized her. The housemaid’s smock she was wearing was at least a size too large and an unflattering pale blue, which leached all the color from her skin. With her hair pulled back into a severe knot, she didn’t look either pretty or stylish.
Definitely not the gorgeous hothouse flower who by all accounts had been reserved for marriage to Gabriel, despite the fact that Gemma had borne his child.
The thought was overdramatic and innapropriate, and she regretted it the moment it was out.
She had cut her losses years ago, and from the snatches of conversation, Gabriel was practically engaged. If that was the case, then she was certain the manner in which he had selected his future bride had been as considered and measured as the way he managed the multibillion-dollar family business.
What had happened between her and Gabriel had been crazy and completely wrong for them both, a combination of moonlight and champagne, and a moment of chivalry when Gabriel had saved her from the groping of a too-amorous date.
By the time she had realized three months later, despite a couple of skimpy periods, that she was in fact pregnant, the decision to not tell Gabriel had been a no-brainer.
From the brief conversation that had taken place when Gabriel had told her he wasn’t interested in a relationship, she had known that while he had been prepared to look after her and a baby if she had gotten pregnant, all he would have been doing was fulfilling an obligation. On that basis alone, she had chosen to take full responsibility for Sanchia. But there had been another driving force to staying silent about the baby.
Bearing a Messena child would have entailed links from which she would never have been free. She would have remained a beneficiary of Gabriel’s family for the rest of her life, forever aware that she was the employee Gabriel Messena had made the mistake of getting pregnant but who hadn’t been good enough to marry.
In the quiet solitude of her pregnancy, with the hurt of Gabriel’s defection fading, Gemma had made the decision that in order to avoid more heartache, Sanchia would be hers and hers alone. Keeping her daughter’s existence a secret had just seemed easier and simpler.
She straightened a cake fork. She guessed the part that made her hot under the collar about Gabriel’s pending engagement was the idea that he had been waiting for his bride to become available. If that was the case, it meant that Gemma had never been anything more than a diversion, a fill-in, while he waited for the kind of wife he really wanted.
More memories cascaded, distracting her completely from her final check of the table setting.
The pressure of Gabriel’s mouth on hers, the way his fingers had threaded in her hair…
Another pang of annoyance that Gabriel had given up on them so easily, that he was shallow and superficial enough to select a wife rather than fall passionately in love, started a sharp little throb at her temples. She wheeled the trolley with a little more force than was necessary to the door, clipping the side of a sofa in the process.
Luisa Messena, who was just walking in off the terrace, threw her a puzzled look, a frown pleating her brow, as if she was trying to remember where she had seen her last.
Bleakly, Gemma parked the trolley by the door and hoped Luisa didn’t recall that it was the summer six years ago when she had thrown caution and every rule she’d lived by for years to the winds, and slept with Luisa’s extremely wealthy son.
Jaw taut, in a blatant disregard for etiquette, Gemma didn’t offer to pour the tea. Smiling blankly in the general direction of Luisa, she opened the door and pushed the trolley out into the hall.
Closing the door behind her, she drew a deep breath and wheeled the trolley toward the service elevator at the other end of the corridor, stopping short when her cell chimed.
Worry at the recognizable ringtone clutched at Gemma.
Checking that she wouldn’t be overheard, she lifted the phone to her ear. Instantly, the too-serious voice of her five-year-old daughter filled her ears.
The conversation was punctuated by a regular squeak-squeak sound, which instantly translated an image of Sanchia clutching an old bedtime toy, a fluffy puppy with a squeezy sound in its tummy.
Gemma frowned, hating the distance between them when all she wanted to do was hug her close. Sanchia had clung to the toy as a baby, but these days she only ever picked it up if she was overtired or stressed.
Always precocious and older than her years, Sanchia had a familiar list of demands. She wanted to know where Gemma was and what she was doing, when she was coming to get her, exactly, and if she was bringing her a present.
There was a brief pause, then Sanchia’s voice firmed as if she had finally reached the whole point of the conversation.
“And when are you bringing home the dad?”
Two
Gemma’s heart sank. She had suspected that her daughter had overheard the discussion she’d had with Gemma’s younger sister, Lauren, which had been half frivolous, half desperate. Now she had her proof.
The reference to “the dad” was heart-rending enough, as if obtaining a husband, and father for Sanchia, was as straightforward as shopping for shoes or a handbag.
Needing privacy even more now, Gemma walked down a short side hall while she tried to figure out what to say next.
Normally, she was composed, focused and highly organized. As a working single mother she’d had to be.
Although, lately, ever since disaster had struck in the form of a nanny who had left her daughter locked in the car while she gambled at a Sydney casino, Gemma’s focus had undergone a quantum shift. A passerby had seen Sanchia and had called the police. Gemma had managed to explain her way out of the situation, but it hadn’t helped that in the same week Gemma had also gotten caught up in a media scandal, courtesy of her connection with her ex-boss, Zane Atraeus.
To add insult to injury, when Gemma had dismissed the nanny, the woman had then turned around and sold a story to the papers claiming that Gemma was an unfit mother. The story, a collection of twisted truths and outright lies, hadn’t exactly been front-page news, but because she had once worked for Zane, the gutter press had locked on to the story and run with it until another more juicy scandal had grabbed their attention.
Thankfully, the media attention had died, but the pressure from both Australian and New Zealand child welfare agencies hadn’t, despite a number of interviews.
When she had tried to leave Australia with Sanchia for Medinos and her new job, the situation had taken a frightening turn. She had been accused of trying to escape before the welfare case was concluded and both she and Sanchia had been detained. Her mother had flown to Sydney to provide a stopgap answer by taking temporary custody of Sanchia and taking her home to New Zealand. But, to complicate matters, shockingly, her mother, who did not enjoy good health, had then had a heart attack and now required a bypass operation.
In the interim Sanchia had been fostered out, which had utterly terrified Gemma. She had barely been able to sleep, let alone eat. She had been desperately afraid that once the authorities had Sanchia in their grasp, she would never get her back, that no matter how much evidence she supplied to prove that she was a good mother, she would lose her baby girl.
Luckily, Lauren, who had a houseful of kids, had managed to convince the welfare caseworker to release Sanchia into her care until Gemma could get back into the country. Although Lauren had stressed to Gemma that it was a one-off favor and the situation couldn’t go on for too long. With four children of her own, she was ultrabusy and on a shoestring budget.
Gemma had broken into her savings and transferred a chunk of money to Lauren, but there was no getting past the fact that she was out of luck, and almost out of time.
After all of these years of struggling as a solo parent, she was on the verge of losing her baby. She now had one imperative, and one only: to convince the welfare agency that she was a suitable mother for Sanchia. After racking her brains for days, she kept coming back to a desperate but foolproof solution. If she could establish that she was in a relationship with a view to marriage, that would instantly provide the stability they wanted.
Her only believable hope for marriage was her ex-boss, who she had dated for the past couple of years. Despite being a bachelor with a wild reputation, Zane fulfilled a lot of the qualities on her personal wish list for a husband. He was gorgeous, honorable and likable, and most of all, he loved kids. She had often thought that when she was ready to fall in love again, it should be with Zane.
He also happened to be the man whom the tabloids had claimed she’d had a series of on-again, off-again affairs with. It wasn’t true; so far they really were just friends, but it was also a fact that whenever Zane had needed a date for a business or charity function, he had consistently come back to her.
For a man who was as wary of intimacy as Zane, that was significant. Gemma had poked and prodded at the issue until she was tired of thinking about it. In the end she had decided that if Zane really did nurture a secret passion then he was obviously waiting for a sign from her, or a situation, that would allow him to declare his feelings.
If they got engaged, in one stroke the untrue claims of both the nanny and the tabloids would be discredited. The “notorious affair” would instantly morph into a relationship and the notoriety that had been attached to Gemma would be discredited because it was a well-known fact that the tabloids sensationalized everything. The fact that Zane was currently here, on Medinos, had set the plan in concrete.
The only aspect that worried Gemma was that Zane was Gabriel’s cousin. If she married Zane, that would put Sanchia into Gabriel’s orbit.
The silence on the other end of the phone line was punctuated by another squeak, squeak. “I heard you say to Aunty Lauren you’ve got someone in mind.”
The verbatim piece of conversation made Gemma frown. Smoothly ignoring Sanchia’s insistence, she changed the subject and asked her about her cousins.
“The wallflower lady came to visit us today—”
The welfare lady. Gemma’s heart pounded at the cutoff statement, the brief rustling sound as if someone else had taken the phone. A split second later, her sister came on the line.
“Gemma? It’s okay, it was just a routine visit. She wanted to check your arrival date and luckily you had sent me your flight details, so I gave them to her.”
Gemma could feel her anxiety level rising. “They didn’t need to bother you. I emailed them my itinerary days ago. Plus they know the reason I’m not back in New Zealand yet is because I’m busy trying to fulfill their stipulation that I have a stable job.”
Gemma’s fingers tightened on the phone. Before everything had come to pieces she had accepted an appointment as a PA on Medinos to the Atraeus Resort’s manager. She had hoped that by coming to Medinos, the Atraeus Group’s head office, instead of resigning over the phone, she might be able to arrange a transfer to one of the Atraeus enterprises in New Zealand.
There was a small awkward silence. “Maybe whoever received the details didn’t pass it on. You know what government departments can be like….”
Gemma took a long, deep breath and forced herself to sound light and breezy, as if it didn’t matter that the welfare case worker was sneaking around, checking up on her. Trying to take Sanchia. “Sorry, you’re absolutely right. I’m just a bit stressed.”
“Don’t worry.” Lauren’s voice was crisp. “No way will I let them take Sanchia again. Just get back soon.”
“I will.” No pressure.
Once she had gotten the dad.
Gemma hung up. Collecting the trolley, she made her way to the service elevator and stabbed the call button. The stainless-steel doors threw her image back at her as she waited, the shapeless smock that swamped her slim frame, cheeks now flushed, dark eyes overly bright.
She frowned. The emotion that kept clutching at her chest, her heart, was understandable. She missed Sanchia and she was ultrastressed about having to prove she was a good, stable parent. Plus it had been a shock to run into Luisa Messena and find herself plunged into the past. Into the other area in which she had been deemed not good enough.
Grimly, she switched her thoughts back to her small daughter. With her straight black hair and sparkling dark eyes, Sanchia was a touchstone she desperately needed right at that moment.
Gemma might have made mistakes, and as a single mother she’d had to make a lot of sacrifices, but everything she had gone through had been worth it. Sanchia was the sweetest, most adorable thing in her life.
Although she was now far from being a baby. Like most of the O’Neills she had been born precocious, and she had grown up fast. The only difference was that unlike her red-haired cousins, Sanchia was dark and distinctly exotic. Just like her father.
The doors slid open. Blanking out that last thought, Gemma stepped inside and hit the ground-floor button.
Gabriel was going to marry.
She frowned, wishing she could stop her overtired brain from going in circles. The news shouldn’t have meant anything to her. Years had passed; she was over the wild schoolgirl crush that had dominated her teens.
Drawing a deep breath, she tried to make an honest examination of her feelings. Dismay, old hurt and the one she didn’t want to go near. The thought that somewhere, beneath all the layers of common sense and determined positive thinking, she might still harbor a few unresolved feelings for Gabriel.
Chest tight, she tried to distract herself from that possibility by watching floor numbers flash by. When that didn’t work, she took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes closed for long seconds, trying to neutralize the emotion that had sneaked up on her.
Despite her efforts hot moisture leaked out from beneath her lids. It was stress and tiredness, nothing more. Using her fingers, she carefully wiped her cheeks, careful not to smear her mascara.
The doors slid open onto an empty corridor. Relieved, Gemma pushed the trolley into the service area and left it near the door to the kitchens. Head now throbbing with a definite headache, she walked to the sleek office that should have been officially hers as of next week, if the child welfare authorities hadn’t changed her priorities.
Instead of settling in her new job on Medinos and bringing Sanchia over to live with her here, she was now flying home on the first available flight. This office, and the job she had been about to start, would now be someone else’s.
Collecting the resignation she had written earlier, she walked briskly through to the manager’s office. It was empty, which was a relief, and she just placed it on his blotter. He was probably personally conducting other VIP guests, all here to attend the launch party of Ambrosi Pearls the following evening, to their rooms.
With her resignation now official, Gemma felt, if not relieved, at least a sense of closure.
As she turned to leave, she noticed a typed guest list for the Ambrosi Pearls party. It was being held at the Castello Atraeus, but resort personnel and chefs were handling the catering.
She flipped the list around. Gabriel Messena’s name leaped out at her.
She felt as if all the breath had just been knocked from her lungs. He would be here, on Medinos, tomorrow night.
An odd feeling of inevitability, a dizzying sense of déjà vu, hit her, which was crazy. With an effort of will, she dismissed the notion that fate was somehow throwing them back together.
Gabriel appearing on the scene right now, when she was trying to cope with a long-distance custody battle for Sanchia, was sheer coincidence. He was about to get engaged. There was no way on this earth she should ask for his assistance despite the fact that he was Sanchia’s biological father.
She needed to stick to her plan.
If Zane truly did want her, and they could cement their relationship in some public way, all of her problems would be solved. The welfare people could no longer claim she was an irresponsible “good-time girl,” the nanny’s lies would be discredited and her financial situation would no longer be a problem.
Although, scarily, to get them to that point, she was going to have to take the initiative and somehow jolt them off the platonic plateau they had been stranded on for the past two years.
It was possible that Zane felt constrained by the fact that she worked for his family company. But as of today, she was a free agent. The specter of an employer/employee relationship was no longer an issue.
Three
Gabriel checked his wristwatch as he walked off his flight to Medinos and into the first-class lounge, which was filled with a number of businessmen and groups of gaudily dressed tourists.
