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

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 (#ue314a0d7-f5ba-5014-8563-e9063c8a61c4)

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.

Impatiently, he skimmed the occupants. His younger brother, Nick, who was due in from a flight from Dubai, had requested an urgent meeting with him here.

Five minutes and half a cup of dark espresso later, Gabriel glanced up as Nick strolled in, looking broad-shouldered and relaxed in a dark polo and trousers. Dropping into the seat next to Gabriel, he flipped his briefcase open.

Gabriel took the thick document Nick handed him, a building contract for a high-rise in Sydney, a thick sheaf of plans and a set of costings. “Good flight?”

Nick grunted and gave him a “you’ve got to be kidding” look, then transferred his attention to the newspaper Gabriel had set down on the coffee table with its glaringly bright photograph. “Zane.” Amused exasperation lightened his expression. “In the news again, with another woman.”

For reasons he didn’t want to examine, Gabriel folded the newspaper and placed it on the floor beside his briefcase.

He had read the article again on the flight. The journalist hadn’t gone so far as to say the child was Zane’s—the details supplied had been sketchy and inflammatory—but the inference was clear enough.

Turning his attention back to the document Nick wanted him to look over, he forced himself to concentrate on his family’s most pressing problem. An archaic clause in his father’s will, and his elderly uncle and trustee, Mario Atraeus, which together had the power to bankrupt them all if he didn’t move swiftly.

The situation had been workable until Mario had started behaving erratically, refusing to sign crucial documents and “losing” others. Holdups and glitches were beginning to hamper the bank’s ability to meet its financial obligations.

Lately, Mario’s eccentricities had escalated another notch, when he had tried to use his power as trustee to leverage a marriage between Gabriel and Mario’s adopted daughter, Eva Atraeus.

In that moment, Gabriel had understood what lay behind Mario’s machinations. A widower, he was worried about dying and leaving his adoptive daughter alone and unmarried. In his mind, steeped in Medinian traditions, he would not have done his job as a father if he hadn’t assured a good marriage for Eva.

Gabriel, as the unmarried head of the Messena family, had become Mario’s prime matchmaking target.