Читать книгу A Very Fake Fiancée: The Fiancée Charade / My Fake Fiancée / A Very Exclusive Engagement - Nancy Warren, Andrea Laurence - Страница 17

Ten

Five days later, Gemma walked toward the plush ground-floor offices in Newmarket, Auckland, for her first day of work at the newest Ambrosi Pearl House.

Gleaming glass doors slid open, flashing back the conservative new image—she hesitated to call it an actual disguise—that she was still adjusting to.

Alarmed by the attention of the press when she had arrived in Sydney, and their interest in the fact that she was now, apparently, having a hot affair with Gabriel, she had made a beeline for her hairdresser and changed the color of her hair to a low-key sable brown.

Once she had made the initial breakthrough of changing her hair color, she had distilled the reinvention process down to rummaging through good quality secondhand shops for shoes and clothing in neutral shades. It had been a productive exercise because she had found a number of exquisitely cut, designer-label items for very cheap prices. Evidently, this season no one wanted to be seen dead in either oatmeal or beige.

Today, instead of her normal clear, bright colors and fun lace and ruffles, she was wearing a biscotti suit. She refused to call the color beige. Fake glasses and her hair smoothed into a prim French pleat added to the office look.

But as boring as the color of the suit was, it wasn’t as low-key as she would have liked. The jacket cinched in at the waist, emphasizing the fullness of her breasts and the curve of her hips. The skirt was also a little on the short side, making her legs look even longer. She had added high heels to the outfit, because she had made a judgment call and balanced the need to start her new job incognito against looking frumpy.

So far her new image had worked like a dream. No one had hounded her at the airport or tried to photograph her, and it was no wonder. When she had checked her appearance in the mirror that morning, she had barely recognized herself.

A workman wearing a faded gray tank, tanned, muscled biceps on show as he painted a wall, grinned at her and clutched at his heart as she strolled past.

Gemma found herself grinning back as she headed for the elevators and the second floor, where the offices were based. She just bet the guy was married with children—they all were—but the harmless bit of fun was soothing and exactly the lift she needed.

Boring in designer neutrals, but not dead in the water...yet.

Aware that she had almost veered into forbidden territory in thinking sexually about Gabriel, she refocused in a more positive direction.

Just that morning she had bought Sanchia a tiny hot-pink tutu and a pair of ballet slippers. She was going to give them to her once she had gotten the all-clear from the welfare caseworker and was able to move Sanchia back in with her. Now that she had a guaranteed income, she could afford the ballet lessons Sanchia wanted.

She pressed the call button on the elevator then stepped inside as the doors swished open. The sound of a firm tread behind her signaled that someone else had just entered the building.

She heard the low timbre of a masculine voice as the doors closed and froze, certain it was Gabriel.

On edge, she exited on the second floor and walked to the front desk. The receptionist, an elegant blonde called Bonny, was expecting her. Gemma glanced around as she followed Bonny through a smoothly carpeted corridor, amazed at the speed with which the new Ambrosi Pearls venture had been put together.

By the time she had reached Sydney, the employment contract had already been in her email in-box. All she’d had to do was print it out, sign it and fax it to the number supplied. Within an hour of doing so, she had received a flight ticket, which had surprised her, as there had been no mention that her travel expenses would be paid. The following day, she had received the lease to her new apartment in the mail, and had sent a certified copy off to her welfare caseworker.

Bonny introduced her to another very efficient older woman called Maris, who took her through to Gabriel’s large, sleek office, which was dominated by a large mahogany desk. Although the most notable feature by far was that one wall contained a collection of computer screens flashing up nonstop financial information.

Maris indicated she should take a seat while she fetched coffee, but Gemma, her gaze glued to the screens, was too wired to sit.

Moments later, Gabriel, larger than life and broodingly attractive in a dark suit, a pristine white shirt and a red tie knotted at his throat stepped into the office and closed the door behind him.

Despite coaching herself for this moment, her heart slammed in her chest and a highly inappropriate image of Gabriel naked and sprawled in silk sheets popped into her mind.

“How was your flight?”

Before she could reply, his brows jerked together. “What have you done to your hair?”

The sudden switch in topic threw Gemma even more off balance. “I needed a change.”

He was close enough now that she could see the fine lines fanning out around his eyes, the dark circles beneath, as if lately, like her, he’d been losing sleep.

“And it’s not just the hair.” His gaze raked over the biscotti suit. He frowned at her glasses. “Since when did you need glasses?”

She drew a breath at his proximity, the sheer energy of his presence, the knowledge that, just days ago, she had woken up in his bed. “Since last week.”

Knowledge registered in his gaze. “The story in the press.”

The one that very wrongly stated that she had jumped out of Zane’s bed, but had unfortunately got it right by saying she had jumped straight into Gabriel’s. “I got tired of being a target.”

“So this is a disguise?”

“I prefer to call it a reinvention.”

His frown deepened. “If you needed protection, you should have asked me. I could have made sure you got home without being bothered.”

Gemma’s fingers tightened on the strap of her handbag. “The only reason I get ‘bothered’ is because of my connection to your family.”

“That’s regrettably true.” Reaching out, he wrapped a finger around a tendril that had escaped the French pleat, his attention once more diverted by her hair. “How long will the brown color last?”

“Sable,” she corrected.

The heated patience in his dark eyes told her he didn’t care about the shade. “How long?”

For a split second, caught in the blatant possessiveness of the demand, as if he had a right to know intimate details about something as personal as her hair color, she was spun back to the night on Medinos. His intense focus on her then had been utterly seductive—the possessiveness of his touch, the way he’d held her after they had made love, even in sleep, as if he truly hadn’t wanted to let her go.

Although that had been a sham. After she had left, Gabriel had not contacted her except in an official capacity, which had proved that their night of passion hadn’t really been important to him. “Does it matter?”

“It does to me.”

She drew a sharp breath, the proximity of his closeness, his intense focus weaving its spell as her breasts tightened against the fit of her jacket and the slow ache of arousal shimmered to life. Her jaw firmed as she cleared her mind of any crazy romantic illusions. Gabriel’s attitude toward her appearance was purely about image. With her appearance toned down, she no doubt didn’t quite fit his vision of a fiancée. “Well, it shouldn’t.”

He shrugged, let the strand of hair go and strolled around behind his desk. “Then I guess we should talk about what’s really important. Why did you walk out on me on Medinos?”

She blinked. There it was again—the illusion that he was her lover, that he genuinely cared. “I left a note.”

“I read it.”

Heart tight in her chest, she rose to her feet, too tense to sit, and found herself staring blindly at the bank of screens flowing with financial data. “I can’t have a relationship with you and work for you at the same time.”

“But that’s exactly what you agreed to do.”

She frowned. “We both know I agreed to a pretense, not—”

“Sex.”

She threw Gabriel an irritated look, but his face was oddly bland and devoid of emotion. “That’s right.”

A heavy silence descended on the room. Out in the next office she could hear a phone buzzing, and farther afield she could hear the blare of a car horn, the hum of city traffic. Suddenly Gabriel was close enough that she could feel his heat all down one side.

“You did agree to be my fiancée. We can’t do that without touching.” To illustrate, he picked up one hand and deliberately threaded his fingers through hers.

A new tension flooded her. She drew a deep breath and tried not to respond. “I’ve got no problem with appearing to be close in public.”

“Good. And you’re going to need to dress a little more—” His gaze skimmed the biscotti suit again as if something about it displeased him intensely. He shook his head. “Where did you get that suit?”

She snatched her hand back. “Does it matter?”

“Not really.” He had his cell in his hand. He pressed a number to speed dial. A quick conversation later and he hung up. “I’ve just rung one of the twins, Sophie. She has a designer boutique at the Atraeus Hotel. She should be able to help us.”

Gemma blinked at the fact that Gabriel was actually involving a member of his family in the charade. “What do you mean, ‘us’?”

His expression was oddly bland. “‘Us’ as in an engaged couple. We’re going shopping.”

A brief tap on the door cut through the thickening silence that had followed Gabriel’s pronouncement.

Gabriel clamped down on the edgy impatience that, lately, seemed to have become a defining characteristic as Maris walked in with a tray and set it down on the coffee table.

Gemma accepted one of the paper cups that Maris must have sourced from a nearby café as Maris chatted cheerfully. Jaw locked, Gabriel picked up the remaining coffee and stoically waited out the interruption.

Gemma, looking irritatingly unruffled and disarmingly sexy in her secretarial outfit despite the boring color, fielded Maris’s superficial questions with a smooth expertise that reminded him that she had been Zane’s very competent PA for some years.

As Maris left, he deliberately strolled to the bank of windows that overlooked the street, forcing himself to ease back on the pressure.

Before Gemma had arrived, he had done a standard security check on her. It had been simple enough, given that, courtesy of this temporary position as CEO of Ambrosi Pearls in Auckland, he had access to the Atraeus personnel database.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise to find out that she had a degree in performance arts. He could see her creative flare in the scenario with Zane on Medinos and now in this morning’s performance.

Finding out that Gemma was trained to act had cast a new light on the impression he had received that she could walk away from him easily. The knowledge that Gemma hadn’t slept with anyone since she’d gotten pregnant told him that she didn’t give her affections lightly. Put together, those two pieces of information suggested that the fact that he had gotten her back at all was significant.

Cancel significant. He was almost sure that beneath the brisk, professional facade Gemma was still in love with him.

It was the only thing that made sense of her allowing him to make love to her on Medinos.

Every instinct told him that if he messed up now and she walked out, he wouldn’t get another chance. On Medinos he had blundered in, locked into his own need and been determined to get his way.

This time, he was determined to keep her close. For a week, maybe longer, he had carte blanche to spoil Gemma, and he intended to do just that.

He finished the coffee and dropped the cup in the trash can beside his desk. He began to outline what would be involved with the temporary engagement. “A week, at least—”

“You said a week on Medinos.”

“It could take longer.”

There was a small silence as Gemma digested his pronouncement.

Gabriel decided the best tactic was to continue on as if the gray area didn’t exist. “Tonight we’re having dinner with Mario and Eva. She’s a wedding planner—”

Gemma’s head came up. “Eva Atraeus? Is she the one your mother and Mario want you to marry?”

Gabriel logged the look of horror on Gemma’s face that his family was lobbying for a marriage between first cousins.

The whole idea was archaic, dynastic, downright Machiavellian in his opinion, and despite the tension amusement tugged at him. “Mario’s pushing that one. I think my mother could be looking outside the family.”

When Gemma appeared outraged rather than amused, he shrugged and gave up on the joke, although a part of him was loving it that Gemma was mad on his behalf. “Now you’re beginning to see what I’m up against,” he murmured. “High maintenance doesn’t cut it with my family. But, to put your mind at rest, Mario’s not trying to sell his daughter into an incestuous marriage. Eva Atraeus isn’t a blood relative, she’s adopted.”

Her gaze flashed. “I’m relieved. If that’s the case, I don’t know why you didn’t ask her—”

“No.”

Gemma was silent for a long drawn-out moment, as if trying to gauge whether there was any flexibility in the one short word he’d used. “So why, exactly, do you need to take me shopping?”

Gabriel dragged at his tie, feeling suddenly way out of his depth. “Both Mario and Eva will expect you to be wearing designer clothes and jewelery.”

Gabriel frowned as Gemma extracted a small diary and pen from her purse and made a note, as if she was an efficient employee following instructions. “What time is dinner, and where?”

“Eight. I had planned to cater the dinner at my apartment.”

She frowned behind the glasses and he had to control the urge to pluck them off the delicate bridge of her nose.

“We’re not going out to a restaurant?”

“Not tonight.” He watched as she made another small, very efficient note. “Did you want to go out?”

“What I want isn’t at issue.”

The coolness in her voice informed him that he had made a mistake. It occurred to him, too late, that he had somehow blundered into what his twin sisters, Francesca and Sophie, termed “value” territory. “Mario’s old. I didn’t want to present him with a fait accompli in a public place.”

Instantly, her expression softened and Gabriel found himself relaxing at the hint of approval.

Gemma placed the pen and notebook in her handbag. “What happens if you can’t remove Mario as trustee?”

Back on familiar ground, Gabriel propped himself on the edge of his desk. “Mario can’t interfere in the day-to-day running of the bank. His power of veto applies to big-ticket investments, which is affecting some of our biggest clients and almost every member of my family. If Nick can’t obtain his financing for a big development, he’ll have to pull out of the bank and go elsewhere. Both Kyle and Damian have large projects on hold until Mario agrees to release funds.” He shrugged. “Their loyalty to me is hurting them.”

“So this is hurting your family.”

Something relaxed inside of him at Gemma’s insight. Family was big with both the Messena and the Atraeus clans, which was the reason he had been reluctant to remove Mario with a psychological evaluation. He was old, but he was family, and until the past six months, he had been an asset. “That’s right.”

Setting her coffee down, Gemma rose to her feet and walked over to the windows, ostensibly more interested in what was going on down in the street than the tension that vibrated between them. After an interminable few moments, she turned. “Okay. I can do the shopping thing. But I get to choose what I wear.”

“Just one proviso. No beige.”

Gemma looked faintly disconcerted, as if she’d forgotten their conversation about her new repressed look. “No problem.”

Her phone chimed, and Gabriel tensed as she fished her cell out of her bag. The call went through to voice mail and he wondered grimly if it had been Zane she had just ignored, or worse, some other man he didn’t know about.

As annoyed as he was, Gabriel didn’t make the mistake of pressuring her about the call, sensing that if he pushed too hard she could change her mind about the engagement. “As part of the remuneration package the bank can offer you a loan on any business you want to start.”

The quiet way she turned and met his gaze told him that he had just made a further mistake with the offer of finance.

“I don’t want a loan, but thank you for offering. All I’ll accept is the salary agreed to in the contract I signed and the apartment, since that’s part of the remuneration package.”

His jaw tightened at her insistence on sticking strictly to the terms of the contract, and the new, quiet distance. In that moment he realized that since Medinos, something had changed. In the few days since she had left his bed, Gemma had become as closed down and crisp as the disguise she was wearing.

He didn’t know what, exactly, had changed, but he was determined to find out. “The job itself isn’t temporary, just the engagement. The position of PA is real. Maris works for me at the bank. Once Ambrosi Pearls is up and running, and I install a new CEO, she’ll come back to the bank with me. Plus there are other positions in the design department and in retail management opening up. With your background with the Atraeus Group, you would be perfect for any one of them.”

Her gaze brightened at the possibilities, although he decided he couldn’t be sure about what had cheered her up the most: the possibility of her pick of a number of jobs, or the fact that he would soon be leaving.

Gabriel checked his watch and slid his phone out of his pants pocket.

He could sense the conflict that pulled at Gemma, the mystifying factor that constantly saw her applying the brakes to what she so obviously felt for him. But the fact that she had emotions she needed to control was key.

Something shifted inside him, settled.

One week, maybe two.

It wasn’t long enough, but it was a start. Despite all the ploys, Gemma did still want him. And when she came back to his bed, like the night on Medinos, he was pretty sure there wouldn’t be a lot of conversation involved and that the passion would be the same: searingly hot and mutual.

He punched a speed dial on his phone. The clerk in charge of the bank vault picked up the call. A brief conversation later, and Gabriel set the phone down and extracted his car keys from a desk drawer. “If you’ll come with me now, I’ve arranged to get a ring out of the bank vault, then we’ll drop by my sister’s shop.”

Gemma, in the process of slinging the strap of her handbag over her shoulder, froze. “A ring?”

Gabriel paused at the door, riveted by the combination of uncertainty and pleasure on her face. “I read your P.S. on the note you left in Medinos. Your condition was that we would both have to play our roles to the letter, and in my book that means a ring. Besides, Mario will expect to see one. So will the lawyers.”

Before Gemma could argue, he opened the door, which brought Maris into view and earshot.

Pale but composed, Gemma walked past him on a waft of the warm perfume that still had the power to stop him in his tracks. Despite the horrible color, the tight little beige suit was distractingly sexy, and the short skirt made her long legs seem even longer.

His heart slammed against the wall of his chest as he strolled beside Gemma to the elevator. With every moment that passed, he was more and more certain that she cared for him in a deep, meaningful way. It explained the dichotomy of her behavior, the way she’d avoided him at first, but then had melted in his arms.

Relief mingled with a fiery elation coursed through his veins. She hadn’t been able to resist him; they hadn’t been able to resist each other. He would bring her around. It would take time, but time was a commodity he now possessed.

As he stepped into the elevator with Gemma at his side, a curious feeling swept over him.

For the first time in his life he realized he was approaching a point where he could commit.

Somehow, he had finally ended up in relationship territory.