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

Taking a steadying breath, Gemma did her best to shake off her oversensitive reaction. Unnerved by the direct eye contact, she placed her half-full champagne flute on a side table. Neatly changing direction, she almost walked into a waiter with a loaded tray.

Blushing and mumbling an apology, she sidestepped the waiter and threaded her way through the suddenly overheated, overperfumed room. A little desperately she noted that there was still no sign of Zane, who she was hoping would have been here early so she could get this whole situation resolved one way or another.

As she walked she was unbearably aware that, even though she could no longer see Gabriel, he was still watching her.

Her stomach clenched on an uncharacteristic burst of panic.

She had known Gabriel could attend, so it shouldn’t have been such a shock to see him. She just wished that her perfect record of avoidance hadn’t ended tonight of all nights.

A knot of guests parted and Zane finally appeared, striding directly toward her.

Nerves strung almost to breaking point, she noted the three studs in Zane’s lobe, which she had always privately thought were a little over the top, unlike Gabriel’s sleek tailored suit, which conferred a quiet, rock-solid power.

Calling on all of her acting skills, she tried to project her usual bright, outgoing persona.

The quick hug, which was punctuated by the intrusive flash of a camera, was not unusual between friends, but in that moment, hugging Zane felt horribly fake.

She was the problem, Gemma realized. Until she had seen Gabriel, her decision to try to shift her dating friendship with Zane into a regular relationship and enlist his help in getting Sanchia back had seemed viable. Now, in the space of just a couple of minutes, everything had changed.

Seeing Gabriel had unnerved her in ways she couldn’t have imagined. One piercing look from him and she felt guilty about choosing Zane, as if in some subtle way she was betraying Gabriel, which was ridiculous. While it was true he was Sanchia’s biological father, that was all he ever had been, or could be.

It was a relief when Zane, who appeared as distracted as she, didn’t respond in a positive way to her labored attempt to catapult their friendship into more intimate territory or show any desire to linger.

When he turned down her suggestion that they should go out onto the terrace, so she could launch into the very private conversation she needed to have with him, unnerved, Gemma made for the nearest exit. As she hurried out, her spine tingled with the knowledge that Gabriel was in the room and that he had witnessed her hugging Zane.

In that moment she saw her actions from Gabriel’s viewpoint and she didn’t like the needy picture that formed.

Anger stiffened her spine. For the first time in her life she was attempting to lose the strong independent streak that had been ingrained from childhood and ask a man she liked if he would consider having a relationship with her.

Gabriel could disapprove all he liked, but it was a fact that he had stepped out of the picture six years ago.

Plan A had failed. Now, unfortunately, she would have to resort to Plan B.

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

Gabriel refused the glass of champagne a waiter offered him. His dark gaze swept the crowded reception room. A knot of gray-suited Japanese businessmen shifted and he was rewarded with another clear view of creamy skin, flame hair and black lace.

Constantine Atraeus lifted a brow. “Gemma O’Neill. Girl’s going places, or was. She’s just had to resign, a personal commitment.”

An instant replay of Gemma stepping into Zane’s arms made his jaw tighten. Then Constantine’s statement about Gemma resigning because of a personal commitment sank in.

His gaze sliced back to Constantine, with whom he’d been closeted earlier in the day, during which time he had agreed to oversee the start-up of a new Ambrosi Pearls venture in Auckland. However, he’d been unable to commit to a loan from the Atraeus Group because Mario was a significant shareholder and would instantly veto the deal. He could raise the amount Gabriel needed personally, but it would take time, which Gabriel currently didn’t have. “She’s finally gotten engaged to Zane?”

“Zane?” Constantine looked surprised. “As far as I know they’re friends, and that’s all. It’s not public yet, but Zane is on the verge of getting engaged to Lilah Cole. Although, an engagement is probably exactly what Gemma needs at this point.”

Gabriel frowned at Constantine’s reference to another tabloid story he had found online, that Gemma was having custody difficulties with her small daughter.

Constantine’s wife, Sienna, a gorgeous blonde, joined them, ending the conversation. The next time Gabriel searched out Gemma, she had disappeared from sight, and so had Zane. Jaw tight, he excused himself and went outside.

The large stone terrace, with its spectacular view across a deceptively smooth stretch of sea to the island of Ambrus and the clear, star-studded sky, was empty. The tension that hummed through him loosened off a notch. Walking to the parapet, he gripped the railing and stared at the line of luminescence on the far horizon, the last soft glimmer of the setting sun.

He didn’t know what he would have done if he had found Gemma and Zane locked in an intimate clinch. His reaction to the situation so far had not been either considered or tactical, it had simply been knee-jerk.

Gaze still caught and held by the purity of sky and sea, he let the soft chill of the night settle around him. An image from the past, of dark red hair across his chest, Gemma soft and warm against him, filled his mind, blotting out the night sky.

In the midst of the grief and betrayal of his father’s death there had been no time for the passion that had hit him like a thunderbolt.

But that was six years ago. Since then the situation had changed. His family had recovered from the double blow of his father’s death and the resulting scandal. The bank’s financial performance had been brilliant, thanks to his careful management and his younger brother, Kyle’s, flare for investment. The only fly in the ointment was Mario and his machinations, which had recently begun to stall business.

The raw relief he’d experienced when Constantine had said Zane was about to get engaged to Lilah Cole, a high-profile designer for Ambrosi Pearls, replayed itself.

His fingers tightened on the parapet as he recalled the earlier sight of Gemma with her arms around Zane’s neck. It was clear that she didn’t understand she had lost Zane to another woman.

The fact that Zane hadn’t had the courage to inform Gemma he was going to marry someone else made his jaw tighten. If he wasn’t mistaken, Gemma was about to be badly hurt.

It wasn’t exactly a repeat of the situation that had thrown them together six years ago, but it was oddly close.

The thought that, after years of careful control, utter focus on his work and family life, he could step into the maelstrom of passion that had swept him away in Dolphin Bay tightened every muscle in his body, but the desire to do so was tempered with caution. He couldn’t forget the power of the obsessive passion that had ensnared his father. There was no way he could abandon himself to desire, and suddenly he had his plan.

Gemma needed relationship stability in order to establish custody of her child. With Constantine unable to guarantee the loan he needed within a forty-eight-hour framework, he could use a believable fiancée, on a strictly temporary basis, to cut through the legal clauses preventing him from taking full control of his company.

A fake engagement would provide the solutions they both needed and in his case, a safe, controlled environment in which to explore the passion that coursed through his veins.

Satisfied, he left the terrace and strolled back into the Castello and the ornate reception room. Gemma was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Zane.

He would find Gemma, it was just a matter of time. Thanks to boyhood holidays spent running wild on Medinos, he knew every nook and cranny of the Castello. He only hoped he didn’t find Zane with her. If that was the case, he decided coldly, he would deal with the situation in the time-honored way, down on the beach and without an audience.

* * *

Gemma walked quickly down a small corridor and stepped into an anteroom that was currently used to hold coats and wraps. Closing the door behind her, she leaned on it for long seconds, allowing her breathing and her heart rate to steady.

Pushing away from the cold, dark wood of the door, she searched amongst the jumble of bags to find the canvas bag she had stashed in the room earlier.

Relief flooded her as her fingers closed over the strap. Hauling it from out of the expensive collection of designer handbags, she placed it on an ornate carved table that had probably been in existence for centuries and was no doubt worth an obscene amount of money.

The fact that the Atraeus family could put an heirloom antique in a room that was little more than a storage room underlined the yawning abyss between their lives and hers. Zane was not a typical Atraeus, which was another reason why she had found him so easy to get on with. Even though he bore the name Atraeus, he hadn’t come from wealth originally. He understood what it was like to be poor.

Fingers shaking with an overload of adrenaline, she checked the black lace negligee and a bottle of champagne that was rapidly losing its chill. At the bottom of the bag she had also stowed a glossy magazine she’d found with an article titled “How To Seduce Your Man in Ten Easy Ways.”

After careful thought, she had chosen the birthday surprise scenario, with her as the surprise. Nervous terror clutched at her just at the thought of actually having to resort to that tactic. Even viewing it as a scene she was acting, she wasn’t sure she could go through with it.

At the last minute, she had also slipped into her evening bag an envelope of melt-your-heart snapshots of Sanchia.

Plan C. Just in case she couldn’t go through with the seduction plan.

* * *

Gemma hurried down a corridor lined with cold fortress stone and archaic-looking brass lamps that glowed a soft buttery gold in the dimness. Mouth dry, she opened the door to Zane’s private quarters, using the spare key she had obtained from the cleaner’s office downstairs, and stepped inside.