A Very Fake Fiancée: The Fiancée Charade / My Fake Fiancée / A Very Exclusive Engagement

Despite the fact that she absolutely did not want to get pregnant, the thought was oddly depressing, because it brought home the fact that as irresistible as the passion they had shared was, love had definitely not been involved.

It impressed upon her the need to stick to her resolve that there would be no more sex, because giving in would only signal to Gabriel that she would happily accept sex over love and commitment, that she didn’t require him to value her.

When the fake engagement was over, she could work on forgetting Gabriel. She had done it before; she could do it again.

As she bent to pick up her lace dress, which lay pooled on the floor, her fingers brushed Gabriel’s discarded shirt, which was lying next to it. Irresistibly tempted, she picked up the shirt instead.

The faint, clean masculine scent that clung to the fabric made her stomach clench on a zing of desire. Out of nowhere a shimmering wave of emotion hit her. If she’d had any sense she wouldn’t have done such a silly, sentimental thing as picking up his shirt, but now that she had, she didn’t want to relinquish it.

It was silly. She didn’t need a memento of their time together. She would see Gabriel again in just a few days when she started at Ambrosi Pearls, but by then their relationship would be back on a proper professional footing. Apart from the necessities of the charade, there would be no more intimacy, no more passionate kisses, no more snuggling in bed. And absolutely no more sex.

Although, it was a fact that the shirt would be a more practical piece of clothing to wear on Medinos in broad daylight than the sexy lace gown.

A rustling sound, Gabriel turning over in bed, made her freeze in place. She risked a quick look. He was now lying sprawled on his stomach on the side of the bed she had vacated. In the gray light slanting across the bed, the long line of his back looked muscular and sleek, his tanned skin exotically dark against the white silk. From the even tenor of his breathing, and his utter, boneless relaxation, he had simply turned over and was unaware that she had left the bed.

Letting out a silent breath of relief, Gemma padded quickly from the room. Minutes later, she had found her bag and retrieved her phone from Gabriel’s jacket pocket. She located a bathroom off the main living area. After using the facilities and washing her hands and face, she quickly dressed.

As she fastened the buttons of Gabriel’s shirt, she checked the effect in the large vanity mirror. Gauzy and white, the shoulder seams fell halfway to her elbows and the shirttails covered her to her knees.

She tried not to notice the wild tousle of her hair, or the fact that her mouth was faintly swollen and there was a faint red patch on her neck where Gabriel’s stubbled jaw must have scraped her skin.

A tinge of misery edged through her resolve as she rolled up the trailing shirt cuffs until they were bunched just above her wrists. The result wasn’t stylish, but it was acceptable. She could easily be someone who had gone for an early morning swim and had decided to use a shirt as a cover-up.

Her heart leaped in her chest as she checked her wristwatch and saw how much time had passed. She still needed to write her note. If she was going to get out of the house before Gabriel woke up, she would have to hurry.

Not bothering to finger comb her hair, she picked up her bag and padded to the kitchen. Finding a piece of notepaper, she quickly dashed off an explanatory note. She included her email and phone numbers, anchored it on the counter with a cup then padded to the front door. Remembering to turn the alarm off, she eased the door open and stepped outside. Her heart hammered as she gently closed the door. Simultaneously, her phone chimed.

Sending a brief prayer upward that she had gotten out of the house before Sanchia rang, she answered the call as she walked quickly, avoiding the drive and instead heading for the beach. The route to town was more direct and it would be easier on her bare feet.

The conversation was grounding. It was a relief to put her own needs aside and think of Sanchia’s instead, and for her daughter the equation was simple—she needed the security of her mother back in her life.

Gemma checked her watch again as she said good-night and ended the call. She then rang the airline and changed her flight. The extra cost made her stomach hollow out, but now that she had a job, she would be able to replenish her bank account.

A fifteen-minute walk to the hotel, and hopefully any press would still be in bed after the late night. She had an hour and a half until her flight. She had already done most of her packing, so all she really needed to do was pile the few things she’d left out into her case, zip it closed then catch a taxi. She would check in and board straight away.

Once she got to Sydney, she would sort all of the furniture and possessions she had left in storage, dispose of the things she didn’t need and have the rest freighted to New Zealand.

Number two on her list of things to do was change her appearance. The idea was extreme, but she was tired of the media sneaking around after her, and with her stylish clothes and red hair she was just too easy to spot.

As long as her welfare caseworker knew she was engaged, there was no need for a media circus. She was determined that the move back home would be a complete fresh start, in all ways.

Tears welled as she walked along the pristine beauty of the shore, waves curling into foam at her feet. Dashing the moisture away, she kept her gaze on the distinctive shape of the Atraeus Resort, midway along the misted curve of the beach, and resisted the urge to look back.

She’d had a wonderful night and had said her own private emotional goodbyes to the relationship, such as it was. The small kernel of hurt that not once had Gabriel mentioned any degree of emotional involvement was the most difficult thing to acknowledge. Maybe he felt he hadn’t needed to because it wasn’t as if it was the first time they had made love, but the lack mattered to Gemma.

It underlined the need to enforce her own rules on the situation, and one of those was that if they were going to be engaged for a week, then during that time Gabriel would have to play his part. He would have to value her as if he did love her.

It was a small point, but it was important to Gemma. A man valuing his fiancée meant a ring, flowers, dinner— all of the important elements of a courtship that he had happily bypassed both times because she had slept with him so quickly.

* * *

Gabriel woke with the sun on his face and the space beside him in bed empty.

The second his lids flipped open he knew that Gemma wasn’t just missing from his bed; she was gone.

He should have seen it coming, read it in the quiet way she had tried to distance herself from him in bed after making love. A distance he had obliterated by the simple expedient of wrapping an arm around her waist and drawing her close.

The first thing he saw as he climbed out of bed was her dress and shoes still on the floor. Padding through to the sitting room he noted that the canvas bag was gone, and the shirt he had tossed over the arm of a chair was missing.

He muttered something short and flat under his breath. After pulling on a pair of dark pants, he walked out onto the balcony. His jaw tightened as he noted the trail of footprints in the sand. Sliding his phone out of his pants pocket, he dialed the hotel and asked to be put through to security.

A brief conversation later, he hung up. He had thought Gemma might disappear for the day, but it was worse than that. She had just left for the airport.

Moving quickly, Gabriel walked through to the kitchen and found a note anchored to the counter. The message was simple, politely thanking him for the night together and stating the new terms of their relationship, which from now on, owing to Gemma’s status as his employee, would not include sex.

Gabriel’s fingers closed on the piece of paper, crumpling it. She had ditched him, close enough, and he hadn’t seen it coming.

Although, thinking back, it was not the first time. Technically, he had ended their last relationship, but Gemma had never at any point tried to cling to him or get him back. Six years ago she had seemed unruffled by the fact that he had no space for a relationship.

He smoothed out the crumpled note and reread it, frowning at the businesslike language, the small P.S. that stated that they would both have to play their roles as an engaged couple to the letter.

He frowned. What did that mean?

He was not exactly au fait with the whole process of getting engaged. As far as he was concerned this was just a sham that would facilitate his control of his company.

And keep Gemma in his bed until he could figure out just where the relationship was heading.

He finished dressing, not bothering with a shower and shave. By the time he accelerated away from the house, only fifteen minutes had passed since he had first woken up. Even so, he was certain he was going to be too late to catch Gemma.

As he drove, he dialed the airport. Precious minutes ticked away while the call was shuffled to someone more senior and manifests were checked. He had thrown his weight around and used every bit of influence he had, but by the time it was ascertained which of the international flights Gemma was on, the plane had been cleared for takeoff.

Pulling over onto the side of the winding coast road with its stunning views, Gabriel climbed out of the Maserati. Gaze narrowed against the glare of the sun, he searched the blue arc of the sky and saw the jet in the air.

The sea breeze whipped his hair around his jaw and flattened his shirt against his torso as he watched the jet for long seconds.

Despite all of the unanswered questions he had about Gemma, his unwillingness to commit, it was an out he didn’t want.

Too late to realize he should have cossetted Gemma more, treated her like a date instead of rushing her into bed. His approach had lacked finesse; it had lacked even basic good manners.

But the problem was, he wasn’t certain how much more he wanted from this relationship. All he knew was that Gemma had fascinated him six years ago, and she fascinated him now. They hardly knew each other, and both times the passion had been too quick, the situations pressurized. What they needed was the one thing they had never had: time together.

Although he had ensured that they would have that now.

Relief filled him that he had tied her to an employment contract. He had time on his side. After last night he was certain that, despite the odds, Gemma was emotionally involved. No woman could respond as she had and not be.

The addition to the note about playing their roles as an engaged couple slid back into his mind and a small, salient fact registered.

When he had flipped through the magazine in Gemma’s holdall during the night, he had noticed a large section on women being valued in relationships, with passages underlined in blue ink as if Gemma had read and reread the article, committing it to memory.

He had made love to Gemma, and now she wanted to be courted.

Sliding behind the wheel of the Maserati, Gabriel put the car in gear and drove back toward Medinos.

Now that he had some facts to work with, he could form a strategy. He was a little rusty with dating, and it was a fact that he had never courted a woman, but he had a major advantage. Gemma had slept with him twice, despite his utter lack of courtship, which meant that she had a definite weakness he could, and would, exploit.

Sexually, she couldn’t resist him.

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?”