ring I bought and paid for. Did I buy you so much jewellery that you can no longer remember the occasion of each purchase? I’m sure you remember every moment of the time we spent in bed afterwards.”
Gemma’s stomach turned. Outside, Mark called again. Gemma wrenched open the dressing-room door. “That’s just it,” she cut in before Angelo could interrupt again. “I don’t remember. Nothing about that night at the Rose Ball. Nothing about you. Nothing about our time together. I’ve lost my memory.”
Gemma bolted out onto the dimly lit stage, the vision of Angelo’s stunned expression imprinted on her mind. She stared blindly out at the audience. She had to get a grip. She had to thrust the disturbing scene in the dressing room with Angelo out of her mind.
The chatter stilled and the cutlery stopped clinking. By now most of the patrons had finished their meal. Being Friday night, the supper theatre was packed. Gemma paused. Clouds from the smoke machine swirled around her, coloured by red and blue lighting and adding to the moodiness.
For a moment the familiar nervousness swept her. Then she embraced it and stepped forward to the waiting crowd. This was a space she cherished, a special place where her voice and mind and body all flowed into the music.
It was at the close of the second song that she spotted Angelo through the feathers of smoke. He sat alone at a table, casually propped against the wall, his arm along the back of the chair. The narrowed gaze focused on her revealed nothing. And the table in front of him was empty of food or drink.
Gemma quaked at the prospect of joining him for the drink he’d invited her for. The memory of how her skin had prickled when he’d touched her and the blind fear that had followed, swept over her.
Ripping her attention away from him, Gemma worked to make the crowd smile…and sigh. As her voice died after the final held note of the last song there was a moment’s silence, then clapping thundered through the theatre. Gemma blew them two-handed kisses and sank into a bow, her unruly hair sweeping forward. She straightened and flicked her hair back and the clapping evolved into stamps and whistles.
“All right, one more, an Andrew Lloyd Webber composition, a personal favourite,” she agreed. Her voice reverberated and the cacophony subsided. “If you’ve ever lost a loved one, this one is for you.”
Gemma launched into “Memory.” Her voice cut through the theatre, sharp and pure. She barely noticed that the audience seemed to hold its collective breath and when she reached the last line she let the final notes slide into silence.
This time the crowd went mad.
Smiling, Gemma waved to them. But she couldn’t stop her gaze seeking Angelo’s. The lyrics lingered in her mind. A new day. For a long moment their eyes held, the connection taut, and her smile faded.
There would be no new day for them. The past lay between them like an unassailable barrier.
Gemma was trembling with reaction by the time she reached the dressing room. She felt as if she’d been two rounds with Rocky Balboa. Lucie had returned from her act and lay sprawled along the length of the two-seater couch, dressed in funky street clothes that suited her spiky blonde hair and wide eyes.
“Boss wants to see you,” she said, tossing a slip of paper into the trash basket as Gemma sat down.
“Mark?”
“No, the big fish, Angelo Apollonides.” Lucie’s green eyes were curious. “A reminder that you’re to join him for a drink at his table. You didn’t say anything about that invitation.”
Gemma should have known that he wouldn’t let her get away. That he’d want to know more about the bombshell she’d dropped before she had rushed out.
“It happened just before the show.” Gemma wasn’t confessing that Angelo had been here, in the dressing room. And she’d never told Lucie anything—thankfully no one had commented on the past affair. Perhaps most of the entertainment staff had only been there less than two years. “I’m too dog-tired to cope with Mr. Apollonides,” Gemma muttered. The fatigue was not physical. It went soul-deep. She felt raw and emotionally drained. And she couldn’t face Angelo right now.
The memory of how she’d reacted to his touch had spooked her. The last thing she needed was to feel desire for Angelo Apollonides. She needed time to come to terms with that unexpected complication. When she confronted Angelo it would be in her space, on her terms, not in the dark smoky intimacy of the supper theatre.
At Lucie’s look of blatant disbelief, Gemma added, “And you can tell him that I’m passing for now.” Rejection would do Angelo the world of good. Make him more eager to see her again.
“Gemma, you’re being stupid. In the eight months I’ve been working on Strathmos he’s never once invited an employee for a drink. And you refuse?” Lucie jumped up and started pacing the small space. “I just don’t get you. He didn’t even bring a woman with him to Strathmos this time, rumour has it that he ended it with—” she named a well-known model “—last month. Why not try your luck?”
Gemma didn’t answer. She picked up a bottle of makeup remover and a packet of face wipes and started to clean her face with quick, practised moves. Soon Angelo would come looking for her, and she had no intention of being here.
After a moment Lucie gave a snort of disgust and stalked out of the room, muttering something about being the messenger of bad tidings and that some people had all the luck.
But Gemma knew Angelo’s demand to join him had nothing to do with luck. His reaction on the beach had made it clear he was less than happy about her appearance on Strathmos.
She had to play this very, very carefully. For a year she’d been trying to get close to him. She’d finally been granted a four-week chance when the performer who was originally booked had pulled out. Gemma’s agent had scrambled for the booking. With only eighteen days left to discover what she wanted and find a way to make Angelo pay for the grief he’d caused her, she couldn’t chicken out just because her senses had been set on fire by the touch of a single finger.
Two
Gemma had stood him up!
And she hadn’t even bothered to tell him herself, she’d sent a messenger to deliver the unwelcome news. The anger that had simmered within Angelo since he’d that discovered Gemma was on Strathmos, living and working in his resort, took on a new edge.
Gemma claimed that she’d lost her memory. How had that happened and what did it have to do with him? And why had she returned to Strathmos?
Angelo found himself glaring in the direction where the maddeningly capricious Gemma had vanished from the stage, while the bare skin of her back and that provocative red dress remained imprinted on his vision. He hated the sneaky realisation that he hadn’t stopped thinking about her since he’d arrived back on Strathmos. And now she’d deliberately left him cooling his heels.
Angelo rose to his feet, abandoning the bottle of Bollinger he’d ordered—Gemma had always had a taste for champagne—and, jaw set, stalked out to find her.
She was not in the dressing room. But a comprehensive scan took in the red dress hanging in the closet. Clearly, she’d already been and gone. Nor was she to be found in the row of bars and coffee shops that flanked the theatre. Angelo barely slowed his long strides as Mark Lyme hurried over. Two minutes later, with the next potential
