Nancy Warren - A Very Fake Fiancée - The Fiancée Charade / My Fake Fiancée / A Very Exclusive Engagement

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.”