She had done a cooking course a couple of years ago and relished the art of preparing ingredients into a nutritious meal. Andreas’s kitchen was well stocked with fresh and store-cupboard ingredients so it was relatively easy to prepare a rich beef casserole with vegetables and a passionfruit flummery for dessert.
The telephone rang just as she was trying to find a place in the refrigerator for the dessert, so she left it on the bench and reached for the extension.
A woman’s voice spoke on the other end in a sexy purr, ‘Hi, Susanne. Is Andreas about?’
‘This is not Susanne,’ Gemma said stiffly.
‘Oh? Who are you—a new housekeeper?’
Gemma felt herself bristling. ‘No, I’m Andreas’s wife.’
There was a short silence at the other end.
‘Can I take a message for you?’ Gemma finally asked. ‘My husband is not at home at present, but will be back shortly.’
‘No, I’ll speak to him personally when he gets here,’ the woman said with grating confidence. ‘We’re having dinner together this evening—didn’t he tell you?’
Gemma felt like throwing the passionfruit dessert at the nearest wall. ‘He mentioned something about some tedious business matters he had to see to,’ she responded with a bitchy tone she abhorred using, but something about the woman’s attitude irked her immensely.
‘So you are the infamous Gemma Landerstalle,’ the woman said. ‘I’ve heard all about you. I must say it didn’t take much for Andreas to get your fiancé to change his mind about marrying you.’
Gemma felt her skin begin to prickle all over. ‘What do you mean?’
The woman gave an amused chuckle. ‘Andreas paid him to jilt you at the last minute. Didn’t he tell you? He offered him three times what you were offering and your fiancé took it.’
Gemma felt as if something cold and hard had just been dropped into her stomach. It was all she could do to remain in control as her whole body began to shake with anger. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘No, I guess not, but you have only to ask that new husband of yours. It’s not as if he has to keep it a secret any more. He’s got what he wanted. You’ve promised him the hotel, haven’t you? That’s all he ever wanted and he was prepared to marry you to get it.’
Gemma could barely think, let alone speak, but somehow she managed to get out through stiff lips, ‘Whom shall I say called?’
‘Ah, I hear him now,’ the woman said. ‘He’s just arrived. Looks like you will have to take second place tonight. But then in Andreas’s mind business always comes first, but then he knows all about pleasure as well. I know it from personal experience.’
Gemma wanted to have the last word but the phone call was cut off before she could get the words past her tight, aching throat.
Anger rushed through her like a hot red tide. Not only had Andreas bribed Michael into letting her down so he could swoop in for the kill, he also had a mistress. He was with the woman now, so soon after sleeping with Gemma.
It was the cruellest betrayal of all. She had revealed her vulnerability to him. She had told him she was starting to fall in love with him and he had gone from their union to another woman’s bed as if her confession had meant nothing to him.
It did mean nothing to him, she reminded herself painfully. What she had always suspected was true. He was after revenge and he had surely achieved it. She had let her guard down for the first time in her life and he had exploited her in the most despicable way possible.
It didn’t matter that a part of her felt she deserved it. It hurt too much to consider he had the perfect right to inflict a portion of the hurt she had inflicted on him.
She loved him.
Nothing could change that.
It was an immutable fact.
She loved him in spite of how he had exacted revenge, but she knew he would have to work very hard to keep that hurt a secret from him.
Gemma heard him come home in the early hours of the morning, the jangle of his keys hitting the hall table before he moved up the stairs with his unmistakable tread.
She wanted to fling herself out of the spare bedroom and throw every burning accusation she had been rehearsing for hours, but instead she lay stiffly in her bed, her eyes clamped shut, her body in a tight ball as she heard him move through the house.
She heard him stop outside her door, but he didn’t knock on it or open it. After a few moments she heard him move away again and she let her breath out in a ragged stream that scored her chest.
When she woke the next morning after a fitful sleep Andreas had already left for work and Susanne was cleaning the kitchen, sending Gemma a caustic look as she came in.
‘If you must play in my kitchen in future please clean up after yourself,’ Susanne said. ‘It’s taken me the best part of an hour to get this place back in order.’
‘It’s not your kitchen,’ Gemma shot back.
The other woman’s lip curled. ‘It’s not yours either, or at least it won’t be for any longer than six months. That husband of yours won’t take long to see you for who you really are. The honeymoon is already over as far as I can tell.’
Gemma was almost speechless with shock at the housekeeper’s words. But then she recalled how many times in the past she had made cutting remarks about the staff, including Susanne, and realised she would only make things worse by entering into a no-win sparring match.
She pushed what remained of her pride to one side and met the housekeeper’s blistering glare with a humble, beseeching look. ‘Mrs Vallory…Susanne…I realise I have been a horrible person in the past…I have no excuse for my behaviour. I know you won’t believe me when I say I’ve changed, but I have. I want to apologise for the hurt I have caused you, I know I was rude to you on more than one occasion, as indeed I was rude to most of the staff. I have many regrets about the way I have behaved. It was selfish and immature and caused everyone unnecessary hurt and I’m deeply sorry.’
There was a heaving silence.
Gemma searched Susanne’s face for a softening of attitude, but it seemed as if one apology was not going to be enough. The housekeeper gave her a disparaging look and continued scrubbing the bench.
‘We’ll see,’ she said, her lip still curled disdainfully. ‘It was a very pretty little apology but words are not what count in my book.’
‘You’re right, of course,’ Gemma said. ‘Actions speak so much louder. I have a lot of work to do to repair the damage I’ve caused…some of it I can never undo and I have to live with that. My biggest regret is I didn’t say what I needed to say to my father. I never told him I loved him, but I did—desperately. I guess that’s why I was always trying to get his attention, to make him notice me.’
Susanne looked up from her scrubbing for a moment. ‘Your father should have spent more time with you,’ she acceded gruffly. ‘I’m divorced now but I have a daughter of fourteen. The one thing she craves is time with her father and it’s the one thing he won’t give. Too busy with his new partner and work and so on.’
‘What is her name?’ Gemma asked as she pulled out a kitchen stool to sit on.
‘Joanna,’ Susanne answered with a proud maternal set of her shoulders. ‘She’s a spirited little thing, but far too sensitive for her own good.’
‘I know how that feels,’ Gemma confessed with a sad little sigh. ‘It’s all an act, you know, the brash exterior to cover the inner insecurities.’
There was another tiny silence.
‘Would you like me to make you some breakfast?’ Susanne asked. ‘I can whip up some pancakes or an omelette?’
‘Oh, no…please don’t bother. I’m not hungry anyway.’
Susanne gave her a reproving look. ‘Didn’t your mother ever tell you how breakfast is the most important meal of the day?’
Gemma’s mouth twisted sadly. ‘I guess I must have been too young to have heard her say it…’
The housekeeper’s hand came down over Gemma’s on the bench and gave it a ti
ny, almost imperceptible squeeze. ‘I’m sorry, that was insensitive of me. I forgot you lost her so young. A ten-year-old girl needs her mother to prepare her for womanhood. It’s no wonder you had a hard time coping.’
‘You’re not the one who should be apologising to me,’ Gemma insisted.
‘There are always two sides to every story,’ Susanne said. ‘I can see that now.’ She offered her hand across the bench. ‘Truce?’
Gemma took Susanne’s hand and grasped it firmly. ‘Truce.’
Susanne’s face broke into a friendly smile. ‘I was impressed with that dessert you made, by the way. You must give me your recipe. Where did you learn to cook like that?’
‘You mean you didn’t throw it out?’
Susanne gave her a sheepish look. ‘I seriously considered it, but it looked too delicious to toss away. Besides, you’ve saved me a couple of hours’ work on tonight’s meal. The casserole you made will be all the tastier now the flavours have matured.’
Gemma’s mouth turned downwards. ‘That’s if Andreas is free tonight.’
‘Look, Gemma, since we’re being honest here, I don’t know what Andreas’s motives were for marrying you, but he’s a good man. Your father liked him immensely. I know you suffer from memory loss since your accident, but Andreas was in love with you ten years ago. He was totally besotted with you. He would have walked around the world a hundred times to claim you as his own. We all thought it was terribly sweet at the time. He was so young and a bit wet behind the ears, if you know what I mean.’
‘I treated him appallingly.’
Susanne’s forehead wrinkled in a puzzled frown. ‘But he told me you didn’t remember him, that you didn’t even remember what you’d said about him that last day.’
‘Um…I—I don’t.’ Gemma hated lying but knew she had no choice. ‘But I assumed from your reaction the other day and things he’s said that he didn’t escape my atrocious behaviour.’
‘Well, he must have forgiven you, otherwise why would he have married you?’
For revenge. Gemma almost said the words out loud. ‘He has a mistress,’ she blurted instead. ‘I spoke to her last night.’
‘Then you’ll have to try even harder to convince him you’ve changed,’ Susanne advised. ‘He’s not going to allow you to get another chance to hurt him. Men hate being made vulnerable, especially men like Andreas.’
‘I know,’ Gemma said with another sigh. ‘I didn’t realise loving someone could hurt so much.’
‘You love him?’
Gemma nodded. ‘As soon as he kissed me something inside of me shifted…I’ve never felt anything like that before.’
Susanne took her hand again and gave it another gentle squeeze. ‘You really have changed, haven’t you?’
Gemma met Susanne’s motherly gaze and felt something warm and liquid seep into the cold loneliness of her body. ‘It’s taken me a long time, but, yes—I have.’
‘Then all you can do is be yourself and hope that Andreas falls in love with the new, reworked version of Gemma Landerstalle.’
Gemma gave her another crooked smile. ‘I’m still a work in progress. It could take me years to perfect it.’
‘You are perfect just as you are,’ Susanne said, unwittingly giving Gemma the biggest compliment of her life. ‘You have a heart, Gemma. I didn’t think you did, but you have.’
But it’s very likely to get broken beyond repair, Gemma reminded herself as she took the cup of coffee the housekeeper had poured for her.
‘To second chances,’ Susanne said as she clinked her mug against Gemma’s.
‘To second chances,’ Gemma responded. Even if I don’t really deserve them…
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘WHAT do you mean there’s a problem with the estate?’ Andreas asked his business manager, Jason Prentice. ‘I thought the will was straightforward.’
‘It is more or less, but there are some last minute complications.’
‘What sort of complications?’
‘Marcia Landerstalle is contesting her husband’s will,’ Jason informed him. ‘The legal eagles won’t release the funds to Gemma until the courts have thrashed it out.’
‘But Gemma has been named the principal heir,’ Andreas said. ‘And she has so far fulfilled the terms laid down by her father.’
‘I know, but you know what lawyers are like—they like to prolong these sorts of things so they can extract as much money as they can from their clients. Even if you engage the best legal team you can Marcia Landerstalle has enough family money of her own behind her that could make this go on for months, maybe even years. Contestations of wills often do, so much so that there’s often very little left of the original estate when a final decision has been made. Mrs Landerstalle has engaged one of Sydney’s top lawyers and, believe me, with the reputation he has, the fight could get very dirty. I know wills are generally hard to contest, but the way this one is written is open to all sorts of interpretations. And it certainly doesn’t help Gemma’s cause to have been estranged from her father for over five years.’
Andreas let out a hissing breath. ‘Gemma is not going to like this.’
‘No, I guess not,’ Jason said. ‘But what surprises me is why Marcia Landerstalle didn’t start this earlier.’
Andreas rubbed his jaw as he thought about it. ‘She probably did not think Gemma would ever marry. Besides, we kept it from the press. Marcia may have only just heard of it.’
‘Mmm, that makes sense, I suppose,’ Jason said. ‘Anyway, I would suggest you pay off your wife’s debts for the time being and wait until the lawyers thrash it out. A man of your means can surely cope with a few credit-card statements.’
‘Gemma wants to sell the hotel to me.’
‘Really?’
Andreas nodded.
‘For what price?’
‘She’s leaving that up to me to decide.’
‘Well, she hasn’t the authority to sell it to anyone until it is officially declared hers.’
Andreas drummed his fingers on the desk for a moment trying to get his head around this new development. Gemma had only married him to access her father’s estate and now that access might not occur for months on end, perhaps even years. He hadn’t intended staying married to her for longer than a year, eighteen months at the most. He’d told her he wanted a child as a test to see how far she was prepared to go to achieve her ends, but knowing Gemma as he had ten years ago she would willingly hand the infant over if he offered her enough money. Money was the language she’d grown up with. Why else was she so determined to have her father’s estate? She hadn’t spoken to her father in over five years, but it hadn’t stopped her going to extraordinary lengths to gain access to his fortune.
‘Is there anything else I should know about?’ he asked his business manager.
‘Yes,’ Jason said, ‘but good news this time. The property you were interested in on the central coast is available. The vendor has agreed to accept the offer you made. The development can go ahead once we get planning approval.’
‘Anything else?’
‘No, just the usual paperwork,’ he said, running a hand through his sandy-blond hair. He glanced at his watch and added, ‘This lot is going to keep me away from my wife’s parents’ anniversary celebration.’
Andreas lay a hand on his shoulder as he made a move to leave. ‘You have done a good job as usual, Jason. Go home and relax. I am sorry I had to put all this on you at short notice but with this trip back to Italy I had no choice. I need to leave you in command.’
‘It’s no problem,’ Jason said. ‘The thought of spending three or four hours with my in-laws wasn’t all that attractive anyway.’
Andreas smiled. ‘Call me if you need me. You can reach me at any hour on my mobile.’
‘I hope it goes well with your trip, Gemma meeting your family and all.’
‘I am sure my family will adore her instantly,’ Andreas said.
‘I’m sure they will,’ Jason s
aid. ‘She’s a beautiful-looking woman, or at least she was when I last saw her.’
Andreas frowned. ‘You’ve met Gemma before?’
‘Yeah, didn’t I tell you I worked at one of the nightclubs near The Landerstalle a few years ago? I’m not sure if it was the same time you were in Sydney or not. Gemma had a bit of a party-girl reputation back then. Then all of a sudden she pulled out of the social scene completely. Became a sort of recluse, I heard.’
‘Maybe she just grew up,’ Andreas suggested.
‘Yeah, well, we all have to some time, I guess,’ Jason said, picking up his folder of paperwork.
‘Yes…yes, we do,’ Andreas agreed as he followed his manager out of the office and closed the door with a little frown setting between his brows.
‘Where’s Susanne?’ Andreas asked as he came into the kitchen later that evening where Gemma was keeping a careful eye on the reheating of the casserole she’d made the day before.
‘I gave her a couple of hours off.’
Andreas raised his brows. ‘And she agreed?’
‘Yes.’
His eyes went to the meal she was assembling. ‘What are you doing?’
‘What does it look like I’m doing?’
‘I employ Susanne to prepare my meals. I do not expect you to do so.’
‘No, I’m just the woman you sleep with as a one off before you head off to your mistress,’ Gemma said through tight lips.
She saw him stiffen, his jaw so tight that his lips looked white-tipped at the corners.
‘Would you care to explain that comment?’ he asked after a tense silence.
‘I don’t see the need to do so,’ she returned. ‘You can do what you like with your private life, which means of course so can I.’
‘I do not have a mistress.’
‘Then perhaps you should remind the woman who called yesterday evening asking to speak to you. She was under the impression she was your current lover.’
‘What was her name?’
Bedded and Wedded for Revenge Page 13