A Very Fake Fiancée: The Fiancée Charade / My Fake Fiancée / A Very Exclusive Engagement. Nancy Warren
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stretch of sand. Further out dark clouds blotted out the stars. A gust of wind, a forerunner of the distant storm, sent strands of hair drifting around her cheeks and raised gooseflesh on her bare arms.
In the instant she felt cold, Gabriel’s jacket dropped around her shoulders, the weight of it deliciously warm, a hint of his clean masculine scent clinging to the fine dark weave.
Grateful for the warmth, she resisted the urge to meet his gaze and succumb to that particular madness again. She’d gone to the Castello tonight needing a knight in shining armor. Instead, she was here on an ancient watchtower balcony with the fascinatingly dangerous Gabriel Messena, the last man she had thought she would ever be alone with again.
Worse, she was feeling every one of the tingling symptoms of attraction that she had tried to feel for Zane, and failed.
Desperate to break what was becoming an uncomfortable silence, Gemma checked her wristwatch and quickly texted Sanchia. She knew it was late on Medinos and that Gemma could possibly be asleep, so she wouldn’t be too worried if Gemma didn’t call back right away.
She tried for a bright, relaxed smile as she hugged his jacket around her, soaking in the warmth. “Thank you. I guess I’m still acclimating.”
Gabriel crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the parapet, looking sleek and muscular and as graceful as a big cat. With his dark hair blowing around clean-cut cheekbones, he looked utterly at ease in the stark Mediterranean landscape. “If you want to know why I helped you, it’s because I saw a piece about you and Zane in a newspaper. I felt responsible, since I was the one who originally recommended you for the job.”
Gemma frowned at Gabriel’s alleged involvement in her landing the Atraeus job in Sydney four years ago. Originally, it had been for a PA position in one of the Sydney hotels. She had thought at the time that it had been a minor miracle that she had beaten off a number of better-qualified applicants but she would never in her wildest dreams have imagined that Gabriel had helped her out. “I thought it was Elena Lyon who put in a reference.”
Elena was a girlhood friend, also from Dolphin Bay, and well known to the Messena family, since her aunt had been the housekeeper who was supposed to have had the affair with Gabriel’s father. Although Elena swore black and blue that the affair was nothing more than supposition and media hype.
Gabriel lifted his shoulders. “Maybe she did, but Constantine approved the appointment on my recommendation.”
Gemma firmly suppressed a surge of pleasure that Gabriel hadn’t forgotten about her altogether, that he’d cared enough about her to ensure she obtained a good job. “In that case, thank you, but I still don’t understand why you thought you had to intervene then or now. I’m well used to looking after myself.”
Gabriel was silent for a beat. “I’m sure you are. But what about the father you need for your child?”
Gemma froze. Her first thought was that he knew Sanchia was his, but then the way he had referred to her registered.
He had said “your child,” not his child. Which meant he had probably read one of the gossipy snippets of information the tabloids had recently printed. Snippets which had implied that Zane was the father and thankfully hadn’t included any real details about Sanchia, such as her age. The reporters had been more interested in repeating known facts about Zane rather than far less interesting facts about either herself or her daughter.
For a few taut seconds, the urge to confess to Gabriel that Sanchia was his was strong enough that she actually opened her mouth to speak, but the caution that had gripped her ever since the last nanny had accused her of being an unfit mother reasserted itself.
The custody situation was difficult enough without introducing the complication of Sanchia’s biological father. “That’s why you intervened? Because you thought Zane wouldn’t be interested in fatherhood?”
Gabriel frowned. “I intervened because I was the one who put you in a situation where you came into Zane’s sphere of influence in the first place.”
Gemma gripped the lapels of Gabriel’s jacket, hugging it more closely against the wind, although that was a mistake, because the movement released more of his clean, masculine scent.
She went back to the issue of just how she had gotten her job. “What makes you so sure I wouldn’t have gotten the job purely on merit?”
“Constantine wanted someone who could be trusted with confidentiality. I told him you could.”
If Gemma had felt chilled before, she was warming up fast. Gabriel probably thought he was pouring oil on troubled waters, but as far as she was concerned it was more like pouring gasoline on a smoldering fire. “You mean I got the job because I kept quiet about sleeping with you?”
Her throat had automatically locked against the phrase one-night stand. Maybe it hadn’t been special for him, but she had been caught up in the fairy-tale magic of the night, the indefinable feeling that the gorgeous man who had come to her rescue was special.
He shrugged. “A lot of people are affected by wealth. They have an agenda. That didn’t seem to be the case with you.”
She frowned at his summation of her character, even though it was on the positive side. Maybe it was simply that his view of her was so objective. She couldn’t help thinking that if he had ever been even the tiniest bit in love with her, he wouldn’t have seen her in such a cold, impersonal light.
Like an employee.
It highlighted an aspect of Gabriel’s character that she had suspected had always been there. That in his heart of hearts, Gabriel valued control and slotting people into neat boxes more than he valued spontaneous love and affection.
It explained why his mother had thought he would accept a marriage to a well-connected, suitably rich and beautiful girl.
Suddenly, the idea that Gabriel could judge her for possibly wanting to make a good marriage, when it was obviously standard practice within the Messena family, made her bristle. “So you thought I had an agenda, as in trying to marry the boss.”
His gaze narrowed warily. “It happens.”
“And sometimes the agenda works the other way. There are plenty of employees who get sexually harassed.”
“Point taken.”
The piercing look Gabriel gave her made her feel distinctly uncomfortable and she hastily decided that it was time to drop this subject. He was referring to the relationship he thought she’d had with Zane, but the last thing she wanted him to do was remember back to what had happened six years ago and figure out that he could be the father. “Why should you care, anyway?”
He crossed his arms over his chest, and she had the distinct sense that she had been neatly maneuvered. “Because I have a proposition for you. You need a fiancé to get Sanchia back, and as it happens, I need one to short-circuit a clause in my father’s will.”
In clipped phrases he explained the glitch with the will that his uncle was presently exploiting in order to pressure Gabriel into a marriage he didn’t want.
An absurd sense of relief gripped her at the explanation that Gabriel wasn’t in love with some beautiful, perfect woman, but was trying to avoid an arranged marriage. It also cast a new light on his pursuit of her tonight that made a depressing kind of sense. He wasn’t after her because of passion, but business.
Gabriel shrugged. “To cut a long story short, if you’ll agree to be my fiancée for the period of time it takes me to gain full control of the bank, in exchange I can offer you an apartment, a job and whatever else you need to get your daughter back.”
The offer was riveting, but tempted as she was to grab it, she couldn’t ignore the danger of getting too close to Gabriel. “How long would you need me to pose as your fiancée?”