‘I did some background work—yes, but only because time was short,’ he said. ‘I know you are short of money, that you have lived more or less from hand to mouth recently, surviving on a meagre pension from the government when a simple telephone call to your father would have solved your financial difficulties.’
She gave him an embittered glance as she resumed walking. ‘You are assuming, of course, that my father would have come to the rescue. How do you know he wouldn’t have told me to take a running jump?’
‘Your father loved you, Gemma.’
‘Yeah, well, as I said to you the other day, he had a strange way of showing it.’
‘You are perhaps so like him you fail to see the impossible situation he was in,’ Andreas said. ‘You were coming between his wife and himself. You had done so from the first and he had to make a choice.’
‘Well, bully for him. Let’s hope he made the right one.’
‘Your stepmother is devastated by the way the will has been written,’ he said.
Gemma stopped again to look at him. ‘You’ve been in contact with her?’
‘I have spoken to her a number of times.’
A cold trickle of apprehension spilled into her veins as she stood before him. ‘What did she say to you?’
‘Just that she thought your father would have left something for her. She didn’t expect him to give her everything, she recognised you are his only child and the rightful heir, but she was married to him for close to fourteen years, seemingly happily so. But it seemed your father was intent on a you-against-her showdown in the end.’
Gemma frowned as she considered her father’s motives. Could it be he had at the last minute changed his mind about his wife? He had never believed Gemma’s accounts of Marcia’s behaviour towards her in the past. He had dismissed every account as nonsense and told her to grow up and get over her childish jealousy.
Her memories were fragmented, but she recalled enough to know her stepmother had eventually given up trying to be nice and instead had done her very best to undermine Gemma’s relationship with her father. Marcia had been incredibly subtle about it, leaving her taunts and undermining comments until they had been alone. She had intruded on Gemma’s privacy, reading her diary on more than one occasion and relaying the contents to her father with a few extrapolations of her own, making Gemma out to be a promiscuous little tramp when in fact nothing had been further from the truth. In a fit of rebellion Gemma had gone out and lost her virginity to the first boy who had shown an interest, but it hadn’t been a particularly pleasant experience, and indeed nor had her other sexual encounters been anything she wanted to remember with any degree of fondness.
There had been other occasions when her stepmother had cruelly criticised her appearance, constantly suggesting she needed to lose a few pounds, which had sent Gemma into a downward spiral of self-abuse in the form of an eating disorder that had taken years to get under control.
Emotional abuse, someone at the shelter had called it.
In some ways as damaging as physical abuse, but the scars were mostly hidden.
‘So why did you come to my rescue?’ Gemma asked after a long silence. ‘Why not side with Marcia? After all, she has by all accounts not been the bitch you intimated I was.’
Andreas’s eyes moved away from hers to look out over the view across the water. ‘I wanted to see you again. To see if you had changed.’
‘And what is your verdict?’ Gemma asked, wishing her tone hadn’t sounded quite so apprehensive.
He turned to look at her, his expression revealing nothing. ‘I haven’t quite made up my mind. I sometimes feel you are hiding the real you from me just as you did in the past.’
She had to hide everything from him, that was the problem, Gemma thought. If only she could tell him the truth about her past, how she regretted her treatment of him, how she had come to have feelings for him, how she admired him for rising above their past history to come to her rescue the way he had. Sure, she suspected his motives were centred on revenge, but she knew he was still attracted to her and that gave her a thin sliver of hope that she could somehow turn things around. She couldn’t give him what he wanted, or at least not naturally, but she could love him with a love that knew no bounds. Surely that would compensate for her other inadequacies?
It had to!
It was all she could offer him—herself.
‘We should go back and have some dinner,’ he said after a short silence. ‘You look as if that sea breeze is going to break you in half.’
Gemma fell into step beside him, her limp slowing them down, but if it bothered him he didn’t show it. He reached for her hand and she didn’t pull away as his long fingers curled around hers.
The house was like a refuge from the stiff sea breeze that had whipped up the ocean into a million galloping white horses intent on reaching the shore.
Gemma brushed her wild hair out of her eyes as Andreas closed the front door. ‘Phew! It looks like autumn is on its way.’
‘Do not be fooled,’ he said. ‘You know what Sydney’s weather is like. It could well be in the high thirties tomorrow. But next week we will be in Italy where spring will be in full force.’
Gemma wanted to ask for more time before she met his family, but it seemed as if he had everything arranged. Instead she found herself discussing their flights and where they would stay as if they were any other normal married couple.
‘You will get on well with my sisters,’ Andreas said as they sat sharing a meal prepared by the housekeeper and reheated in the microwave oven. ‘They are very excited about meeting you.’
‘What have you told them about me?’
He smiled as he reached for his glass of red wine. ‘Not much, only that you are the most beautiful woman I have ever met.’
Gemma lowered her gaze to her glass of water. ‘Then they will be very disappointed when they meet me face to face.’
‘I do not think so.’
‘Have you told them I have a limp and a scar?’
He met her defiant look with equanimity. ‘I did not think it necessary to describe you in such terms.’
‘How did you describe me—as a poor little rich girl with an attitude a mile wide?’
‘No.’
His single-word response threw her. She sat pondering over what he had told his family, wondering if it had been flattering or closer to the truth.
‘Gemma—’ his voice brought her gaze back to his ‘—you have no need to be nervous about meeting my family. They will welcome you with open arms.’
‘They will suspect our marriage is a sham.’
‘Not from me,’ he assured her. ‘If you choose, however, to give them that impression, then I can hardly stop you, although I would advise against it. My family will draw much-needed comfort from believing I am happily settled.’
‘I will do my best,’ she said. ‘I guess I owe you that at the very least.’
‘You do not owe me anything, Gemma. No one forced me to marry you. I have done it most willingly.’
Her brows met over her eyes. ‘I still don’t quite understand why.’
‘You do not need to understand. You are my wife and that is all you need to concentrate on at present.’
Gemma could think of nothing else. She was his wife and within the next hour or two would be sharing his bed.
As if he could read her thoughts Andreas met her eyes across the table. ‘Would you prefer to spend this first night of our marriage alone?’
She ran her tongue over the dryness of her mouth, her stomach feeling hollow in spite of the meal she had just forced past her lips. ‘W-would you mind?’ she said, knowing she sounded pathetically grateful but unable to prevent it.
‘Not at all,’ he answered. ‘As I told you before, I am a patient man.’
She looked down at the tablecloth. ‘It’s not that you’re not attractive…you are…it’s just that it’s been a long time since I’ve…slept with someone.’
‘You are attracted to me, cara?’ he asked softly.
She met his eyes once more. ‘It would be pointless denying it when every time you kiss me I feel like…like…’
‘Like what?’
She let out a little sharp-edged sigh. ‘Like I’m alive for the first time in my life…really alive…’
Andreas got to his feet and came around to her side of the table, helping her out of her chair. He stood looking down at her beautiful face, his insides feeling as if someone had just rearranged them bit by bit. He felt empty and full all at the same time.
‘If you remembered me from ten years ago perhaps you would not feel attracted to me at all,’ he said after a little pause.
Gemma searched his face, wondering if he suspected her deception, but apart from a little wry smile playing about his mouth there was nothing to suggest he saw through her curtain of lies. But how could she be sure?
‘Go to bed, Gemma,’ he said. ‘I will see you in the morning.’
‘But what about the dinner things?’ She indicated the remains of their meal. ‘I’ll help you clear up.’
‘Leave it,’ he said. ‘You are looking pale and tired.’
‘Where…where will I sleep?’ she asked, tying her hands in knots in front of her.
‘Wherever you like,’ he answered. ‘My house has six bedrooms—choose the one you are most comfortable in.’
She shifted from one foot to the other. ‘Goodnight, Andreas.’
‘Buonanotte, Gemma.’ He stepped forward and pressed a soft kiss to the top of her head before moving past her, the warmth of his body brushing hers as he left the room, taking her heart with him…
CHAPTER ELEVEN
GEMMA woke several times during the night, her leg ached and she couldn’t seem to get comfortable no matter what she did. Eventually she gave up and, slipping on a bathrobe, made her way out of the room she had chosen to use the bathroom down the hall.
She rummaged for some mild painkillers in the cabinet beneath the twin basins but without success.
There was a knock at the door. ‘Gemma? Is everything all right?’
She straightened from the cabinet and limped over to the door and opened it. ‘I couldn’t sleep. I was looking for some paracetamol. Do you have some?’
‘I have some in my en suite,’ he said. ‘Is your leg causing you discomfort?’
‘Just a little.’ She tried not to stare at his bare chest or the black underwear he was wearing, which left very little to the imagination.
He led her to his room, instructing her to sit on his bed, which by the state of the bed linen looked to her as if he hadn’t had a particularly restful sleep either.
He came back out of the en suite with a glass of water and two tablets. ‘These should do the trick.’
She took the tablets from the palm of his hand and swallowed them with the water. ‘Thank you.’ She handed him back the glass and made to get up, but he placed a hand on her shoulder.
She looked up at him uncertainly. ‘I should go back to my room.’
‘No, do not go,’ he said, his voice sounding husky. ‘I too have had trouble sleeping. Stay and talk with me for a while.’
‘I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.’ She moistened her lips nervously.
‘Do you not trust me, Gemma?’
I don’t trust myself, she felt like saying. ‘I’m not a good conversationalist, Andreas. I would probably bore you within minutes.’
‘Which is exactly what I need to help me sleep,’ he said. ‘It is either that or count sheep. I have already counted several thousand to no effect.’
She couldn’t help a tiny smile. ‘I once counted to fifteen thousand and thirty-one, or was it thirty-two…? I can’t quite remember.’
‘That must be some sort of record, surely?’ He smiled back as he stretched his long frame on the bed close to where she was perched, his head supported by one of his hands.
‘It was when I was in hospital after the accident,’ she found herself confessing. ‘I was frustrated at being there for weeks. I hadn’t realised what noisy places hospitals are, even in the middle of the night. I think that’s why I have a problem sleeping now. It must have permanently disturbed my circadian rhythms or something.’
‘Have you tried medication?’
She shook her head. ‘No…I thought it best not to go down that path.’
‘It must have been very confusing to find yourself injured in hospital with no memory of how you came to be there.’
‘It was terrifying.’ She turned to glance at him, and, after a small hesitation, repositioned herself on the bed so she could maintain contact with his warm dark gaze. ‘I was so frightened. One of the police officers who interviewed me treated me like a criminal. I found out later he had lost a son in an accident so I guess that’s why he was so harsh…’ She caught her lip momentarily before adding, ‘Not that I didn’t deserve it, of course.’
‘Accidents happen where it is no one’s fault,’ he pointed out.
‘I was charged with negligent driving. It was my fault. There’s no escaping that.’
‘Michael Carter appears to have forgiven you. Is it not time you forgave yourself?’
‘I’d like to be able to move beyond it one day…but I don’t see how I can without remembering what led me to drive so dangerously. I wasn’t even wearing a seat belt, nor was Michael, which was unusual as I am so fussy about that sort of thing normally.’
‘Have you talked to your stepmother about that night?’ he asked. ‘Wasn’t she the last person you spoke to before you left the hotel?’
She gnawed at her bottom lip again for a moment. ‘Yes. I spoke to her some months after the accident. After her first visit to the hospital I refused to see her again, which of course made my father furious. I’d asked her what we had been arguing about, but she insisted we hadn’t been arguing at all.’
‘But you did not believe her?’
She let out a long heart-felt sigh and began to pick at one of her reddened cuticles. ‘I don’t know what to believe any more. It’s all like a thick fog inside my head. Sometimes I worry I might have got things horribly wrong. I read this article about Repressed Memory Syndrome, where the power of suggestion in some untrained therapists was enough to implant memories in patients which had not really occurred in real life. It worries me that what I remember is what I want to remember and not really what happened at all.’
Andreas gently eased her hand away from the damage it was doing to her cuticles and enclosed it safely in the warmth of his. ‘Is that what you fell out with your father about?’ he asked, his fingers moving over hers in a caressing motion. ‘Your account of that night, which evidently clashed with Marcia’s.’
‘Yes and no.’ She stretched out her legs and lay on her side, her head like his propped up by one of her arms, her other hand still entwined with his. ‘We’d always had a difficult relationship. We were both a little headstrong and I guess we both felt guilty about my mother dying.’
‘You were only a ten-year-old child—surely you do not need to blame yourself for her death.’
‘I know…but it’s hard not to. I think of how demanding little kids can be. My mother probably put off seeing a doctor out of concern for me. I was spoilt and at times difficult to handle so finding a babysitter wasn’t easy. She didn’t have family close by, her parents had died and because of my father’s heavy business workload she didn’t have many close friends. I suppose I took my own guilt out on my father. I was a terrible daughter. I was a terrible person. My father gave me every material thing I asked for, I guess to compensate for the loss of my mother, but it wasn’t what I was looking for. Looking back now I can’t believe I acted so selfishly.’
‘But you have changed now,’ he observed, looking at her intently. ‘You are almost unrecognisable from the young woman of ten years ago.’
A small silence began to tighten the air around them.
‘Do you have any regrets about your li
fe, Andreas?’ she asked softly.
He released her hand and reached out and coiled a strand of her hair around his finger, tethering her to him in an intimate touch that lifted the fine hairs at the back of her neck.
‘I regret not kissing you ten years ago when I had the chance,’ he said, his gaze dipping to her mouth.
Gemma felt the deep thud of her heart as his gaze slowly came back to hers. ‘Wh-why?’ she breathed the one-word question.
He came closer and cupped her face with his hands, his thumbs rolling over her mouth until she could barely think.
‘Because if I had kissed you when I first wanted to I do not think you would have said and done the things you eventually did.’
A troubled frown wrinkled her brow. ‘I wish I hadn’t hurt you. If I could take back the words I…’ She paused in an effort to mentally screen her words in case she inadvertently revealed how much she remembered ‘…the words you said I said to you, I would do so in a moment.’
‘You have already apologised; there is no need to do so again.’
Gemma lifted a hand to his face, her palm moving along the roughness of his unshaven jaw. ‘You are a beautiful person, Andreas, a gracious, beautiful person.’
‘What are you saying, cara?’ He looked deeply into her eyes, his own glinting with something she couldn’t quite identify. ‘That you are falling just a little bit in love with me?’
‘Maybe just a little bit,’ she admitted, shivering in reaction when he kissed the side of her mouth.
The smile he gave her flipped her stomach. ‘You are the most beautiful woman I have ever met,’ he said just above her mouth, his weight balanced on his elbows, his legs moving to wrap around hers.
Gemma felt herself melting. She could hardly believe how much he affected her. Even the sound of his voice stirred her senses, let alone his touch. ‘I want you to make love to me,’ she said in a soft, breathless whisper. ‘I want to be a real wife to you.’
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