Bedded and Wedded for Revenge Page 7

  But she had to marry him and stay married long enough in case Rachel and Isabella needed more funds.

  She suppressed a tiny shiver as she boarded the train.

  Six months of marriage to Andreas Trigliani.

  Six long months of more secrets and lies…

  Andreas waited outside for Gemma to answer her door later that day but the minutes ticked away and he couldn’t help worrying about her. He’d spoken to her on the telephone earlier that afternoon suggesting they have dinner again to discuss the financial details that such a union as theirs involved. There were pre-nuptial agreements to sign, for her protection as well as his, and both of them needed to make a new will to incorporate their change in circumstances.

  ‘Come on, Gemma,’ he said out loud, leaving his finger on the buzzer. ‘I know you are in there.’

  Eventually he heard each lock being released and the door cracked open, but he was totally shocked by the little pale face that peered bleary-eyed from around the frame.

  ‘S-sorry, Andreas…I don’t think I can make dinner tonight. I’m not feeling all that well.’

  Andreas pushed open the door once he was sure she was out of the way. ‘Che cosa ti succede?’ he clipped out.

  She looked at him blankly. ‘Sorry, didn’t understand a word of that. Can I have it in English?’

  He let out a muttered curse and closed the door. ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’

  She put her hands to her head. ‘I have a monumental headache…I get them from time to time.’

  ‘What can I do?’ His expression was full of concern, his eyes dark with worry.

  ‘Nothing.’ She shook her head then wished she hadn’t as it sent a quiver of arrows through her head. ‘I just need to lie down in a dark room.’

  Andreas led her to her bedroom and helped her back into her rumpled bed where she had obviously spent most of the afternoon. The blinds at the windows were down and the air was warm. He could see she hadn’t had the strength to open the windows to let fresh air in.

  Once she was lying down and covered with the thin sheet on her bed he went over to the window and, as quietly as he could, opened it so some air could circulate.

  He stood and looked down at her white face lying against the pillow, the drawn look of her features striking a note of unease in him.

  He wondered if he should call a doctor. She looked so ill he was sure it was warranted.

  ‘Gemma,’ he said softly, approaching the bed. ‘What is the name of your doctor? I think you should be attended to. You look very unwell.’

  She flapped her hand at him in protest, but there was no real energy in the action. ‘No…please…I’ll be fine. It’s just a headache. I get them all the time. I’ve taken some strong painkillers. They’ll start to work soon. I just need to sleep…’

  He watched as her eyelids fluttered closed, her lips softening on a sigh as the medication started to take effect.

  ‘Gemma?’

  ‘I’m so tired…’ She yawned like a small child and buried her head deeper into the pillow as her lashes came down, another little sigh escaping as her body finally relaxed.

  Andreas waited until he was sure she was asleep before he approached the bed. He stood for a long time looking down at her, her face like an angel’s, her blonde hair splayed out on the pillow like spun silk. He wanted to run his fingers through it and it took all of his self control not to reach out and disturb the slumber she needed so much.

  ‘Non ti ho dimenticato mai,’ he said, and then softly translated it in case some part of her subconscious could hear him. ‘I have never forgotten you.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  GEMMA woke during the night with a raging thirst, but thankfully the worst of her migraine had gone. She cracked her eyes open to reach for the bedside lamp, freezing in fear when she saw a shadowed figure sitting in a chair beside her bed.

  Her heart leapt upwards, her throat closing in shock, her instinctive scream blocked by sheer terror. The hand she had poised over the switch of the lamp was shaking so much she was too frightened to draw it back in case it knocked something off the bedside table and alerted the intruder to the fact that she was now awake.

  The dark figure suddenly moved and she let out a strangled shriek, throwing herself off the mattress in an effort to escape and landing heavily on the floor on the other side of the bed.

  ‘Dio!’ Andreas’s voice spoke out of the darkness. He turned on the lamp and came over to where she was lying in a crumpled heap, fear making her eyes so wide they looked like blue-black pools of terror. ‘Gemma, what are you doing to yourself?’

  Gemma had trouble getting her voice to work. Her throat was tight with residual fear and her heart was still leaping all over the place. She opened her mouth once or twice but her lips were trembling and she felt as if she was going to faint.

  He bent down and scooped her up as if she weighed nothing and placed her gently on the bed in a sitting position, crouching down in front of her so his eyes were more on a level with hers.

  ‘Mia piccola…did I frighten you?’ he asked, his features softened with remorse.

  She finally swallowed the restriction in her throat and answered in a scratchy whisper, ‘Yes…I didn’t know who you were.’

  ‘Do you not remember me calling on you earlier this evening?’

  She put a still-shaking hand to her head. ‘I had a headache…a migraine…yes…of course I remember…but I didn’t know you had stayed…’

  ‘I was worried about you,’ he said. ‘I didn’t like to leave you on your own. I thought you might need me during the night so I brought in a chair and sat by your bed. I must have drifted off to sleep.’

  Gemma looked into his dark eyes, surprised by the gentleness she could see reflected there. There were shadows beneath his eyes, indicating his sleep had not been particularly refreshing. That he had stayed with her moved her deeply. It showed a generous and kind side to his nature she had not thought possible given her treatment of him in the past. It made her feel all the more ashamed of how she was deceiving him now. She felt very tempted to confess her real motives for marrying him right there and then, telling him the truth about her infertility, but something stopped her at the last minute.

  What if he didn’t go ahead with their marriage because she had lied to him? He would think she hadn’t changed, that she was still the selfish, stuck-up young woman of the past, out to humiliate him all over again.

  She couldn’t risk it, not after offering Rachel such hope. If Andreas took it upon himself to renege on the deal now everything would be lost; Isabella’s only chance would be gone.

  Maybe once they were married she could tell him about the little girl’s situation, but not yet. Not until she had the money she needed to bring about the miracle she had prayed so hard for.

  ‘Can I get you something?’ he asked. ‘Something to drink or eat?’

  ‘I’d love a drink. My mouth gets really dry from the painkillers,’ she said, wincing at the pain shooting down her leg when she tested it by moving it.

  ‘I will get you some water.’ He straightened and went towards the door.

  ‘Andreas?’

  He turned around to look at her. ‘What’s wrong, Gemma?’

  She gave him a rueful grimace, her cheeks going a delicate shade of pink. ‘Can you give me a hand to get up? I…I need to use the bathroom. I gave my leg a bit of a hammering when I fell on the floor.’

  He came back over and gently eased her to her feet, his arm around her waist as he led her step by painful step towards the small bathroom across the hall. The warmth of his hand on her body made her remember the kiss they had shared and his gentle touch.

  ‘I’ll be fine now,’ she said, leaning against the basin, her face now white and looking pinched all over again.

  ‘Don’t lock the door,’ he cautioned. ‘You could fall and I would have to break the door down to rescue you and then what would the neighbours say?’

  ‘All righ
t…I won’t…’

  ‘Promise me, Gemma.’ His gaze was determined. ‘No locked doors.’

  ‘OK…no locked doors,’ she said, wishing she’d thought to lock the door to her heart a little more securely while she’d still had the chance.

  Once he’d gone to get her water she looked at her face in the mirror above the basin and wrinkled her nose in distaste at her appearance. Her hair was mussed up from sleep and the make-up she hadn’t washed off before she’d gone to bed was smeared beneath her eyes like bruises, and the scar just below her hairline stared back at her with its white line of accusation.

  ‘Please don’t break on me,’ she addressed the mirror wryly. ‘I know this is about as bad as it gets, but the last thing I need right now is another seven years’ bad luck.’

  Andreas came back to the bathroom just as Gemma was coming out. ‘Feeling any better?’ he asked.

  ‘I might not look it, but, yes, I do,’ she said, taking the arm he offered.

  ‘You look fine to me,’ he said as he escorted her in the direction of the kitchen. ‘A bit fragile, but that is understandable.’

  ‘I don’t look fine, Andreas. You’re just being a gentleman. But, thanks, I appreciate it.’

  He pulled out a kitchen chair for her and helped her onto it, before handing her a glass of water. He watched her drink it thirstily, her small, slim throat moving up and down like a little child’s. ‘More?’ he asked when she’d finished it.

  She shook her head. ‘No, that was all I needed.’

  ‘What about something to eat?’

  ‘No, I couldn’t.’ She visibly winced. ‘The thought of food makes me nauseous for a few hours after a migraine attack.’

  Andreas took the chair opposite. ‘How often do you get these attacks?’

  ‘Not so often these days,’ she answered. ‘At first…after the accident I got them nearly every day, but they gradually lessened over time. This is the first one I’ve had in quite a while.’

  ‘What do you think brought it on?’

  She gave a little shrug. ‘Who knows? Stress, probably. The thought of losing my father’s estate to my stepmother is enough to trigger a month of migraines.’

  He gave her a long and thoughtful look. ‘You really hate her, don’t you?’

  Gemma met his eyes for a nanosecond before staring down at the empty glass on the table. It was a hard question to answer. She thought she had always hated Marcia, but now she couldn’t really remember when it had started. Had she hated her before or after the accident? Gemma knew she had been a difficult stepchild for anyone to handle, and, to her credit, Marcia had at least tried in the beginning to establish some sort of relationship with her. Her stepmother’s patience had however worn a little thin and it hadn’t been long before things had gone downhill.

  ‘Have you always hated her?’ Andreas prompted.

  Her forehead wrinkled slightly. ‘I’m not sure…I guess so…’

  ‘The stepmother role is a hard one,’ he pointed out. ‘I have a cousin who married a man who had two children from a previous relationship. They have made her life a living hell. They are older now but they have never really accepted her as their father’s partner.’

  Gemma understood perfectly; the acting out desperately unhappy children did to get attention. She saw it all the time at the women’s refuge—children who were out of control in response to the emotional and physical trauma they had suffered in their lives.

  She had been no different. The loss of her mother so young hadn’t helped. Her father had been so absorbed in his own grief and guilt he had thrown all his energy into his work, often leaving Gemma to the care of a nanny or babysitter, even in the evenings when she would have given anything to be comforted by him.

  When she had been old enough to go to one of Sydney’s most prestigious boarding schools for girls, her father had sent her off without even bothering to disguise his relief that she was now off his hands so he could get on with his life with his glamorous new young wife.

  Gemma had reacted to his rejection by deliberately causing trouble both at school and on her weekend visits home. She’d still been locked in that cycle of self-destruction when she’d met Andreas the year she’d finished school.

  She had been at the hotel bored and restless for the summer holidays and festering with anger towards anyone and everyone. She had sniped and snarled at staff, even on a couple of occasions guests—which had sent her father into a totally uncharacteristic rage. He had threatened to disown her for being so irresponsible, and as she’d yelled back at him, calling him all sorts of names, he had finally lost control and told her he wished she had never been born, that she should have died instead of her mother. He had later apologised but it had been too late.

  The damage had been done.

  He had confirmed a belief she had carried like a heavy weight on her back all of her life.

  Gemma became aware of the stretching silence and looked up to see Andreas’s steady dark gaze focused on her. She tried to conceal her reaction to his quiet scrutiny, but it was clear he wasn’t fooled.

  ‘Sometimes I wonder if in some deep part of your brain you still remember me,’ he said. ‘I see it in your eyes, a flicker of something every now and again, like a brief flash of recognition.’

  Gemma could feel her heart begin to race as she forced herself to hold his penetrating gaze. ‘I don’t remember you. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Would you like me to tell you about our…’he deliberately paused over the word ‘…association of ten years ago?’ he asked. ‘You never know, it might trigger a memory or two.’

  ‘Um…I’m not sure it would do any good…’ She looked down at her hands, agitatedly beginning to pick at a rough edge of one of her fingernails. ‘The doctors said it wasn’t a good idea to try and force things. They said it could be…er…dangerous.’

  ‘I imagine it could be quite distressing to hear things that you might not want to hear,’ he surmised, ‘even without suffering from amnesia.’

  ‘Yes.’ She didn’t look up but she was almost certain if she had she would have seen that little enigmatic smile playing about his mouth.

  ‘It is very late,’ he said as he got to his feet. ‘You should go back to bed, and I need to go home and have a bit more sleep, this time in my bed instead of sitting slumped in a rickety chair.’

  ‘Thank you for what you did tonight,’ Gemma said as he came around to help her back to her room. ‘It was a kind gesture. I really appreciate it.’

  ‘It was no trouble,’ he said, slipping his arm around her waist. ‘I only feel remorseful that I caused you such a shock.’

  ‘It was a knee-jerk reaction. I’m a bit nervous living on my own.’

  ‘So that is why your front door and every window resemble a maximum security prison?’

  ‘A girl can never be too careful,’ she said. ‘This is a fairly quiet neighbourhood but no one is immune to a break-in.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you are right. But to put your mind at ease my house at Balmoral has the best in high-tech security so you will have no need to be nervous living there. You will be completely safe.’

  Not safe at all, Gemma thought as he helped her to her bed. All the locks in the world wouldn’t keep her safe from the danger Andreas represented. There was danger in every touch he gave her, every probing look he sent her way, and every warm smile that melted the armour around her heart like a blowtorch on butter.

  ‘I will pick you up in the morning if that is convenient,’ he said as he pulled the sheet over her. ‘We have some legal things to see to before Friday.’

  ‘Fine,’ she said, ‘I’m not scheduled on at the shelter until next week. I thought since we were getting married it would be best to leave myself some time to prepare.’

  ‘Are you sure you are all right? I can stay if you would like.’

  ‘No, please go home and get some sleep,’ she insisted. ‘I’m used to being on my own.’

  He gave her another one of
his long, studied looks. ‘When was the last time you had someone in bed with you?’

  Gemma could feel her cheeks heating, but his compelling gaze wouldn’t release hers. ‘I hardly see that is any of your business.’

  ‘On the contrary, I think I have a right to know the recent sexual history of the woman I am about to marry; do you not agree?’

  ‘I could ask the same of you, of course,’ she said. ‘That is if I was the least bit interested, which I’m not.’

  His dark gaze glinted with a spark of anger at her pert tone. ‘I do not require a performance report of each of your partners, just how long it has been since you have slept with someone.’

  She moistened her mouth and answered, ‘It was a fair while ago.’

  ‘Have you had any recent medical tests performed?’

  ‘Tests?’ She disguised a nervous swallow. ‘What sort of tests?’

  ‘The usual ones you have done when you change partners. I thought I should assure you I am all clear. I had tests done recently and it would be a good idea for you to do so too, especially given the terms of our agreement.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said, relieved that it was at least partially true. She’d been tested for STDs after that fateful night seven years ago. She had been so terrified she might have contracted something, but she had been given the all clear then and on the repeat tests performed three months later. It seemed ironic that she had been so worried when in the end it was the accident that had ruined her chances of normal motherhood. The internal bleeding had damaged her fallopian tubes beyond repair. The doctor had delivered the news as gently as she could, suggesting the options of IVF and adoption, but Gemma had been too devastated to take much notice. She didn’t feel like a real woman any more and as far as she was concerned no medical miracle technology was going to bring back what she had lost.

  ‘Are you currently on the contraceptive pill?’ he asked.

  ‘No. I’ve been taking a break.’