Page 34 of Mistletoe Mistake
Although I had some curiosity about her ‘position’ and the aristocracy she’d been raised in, I didn't want to interrupt the flow of her story. Those questions could wait for later.
“We started 'dating', for lack of a better word, when I was 15 and he was 16. We'd go to society events together. He attended a boarding school out in the country, and he told me that he did see other girls there, but that it would never be anything serious. He told me he didn't mind if I did the same.”
“Did you?”
She smiled again, a smile tinged with regret. “I went on a few dates, but they were all pretty innocent. Edwin went to Cambridge for university and I followed him a year later. At that point, he decided that if we were serious about things, we should become exclusive. He proposed to me the day he graduated so that he could tell his parents when they attended his degree ceremony. It would prove to them that he had his life completely under control.”
“You had a very long engagement.” That had been my first thought when Nellie had told me about it, and I was curious to hear the reasons why.
“We did,” Gemma agreed. “Getting engaged made everyone happy, but whenever the subject of actually getting married came up, we'd always find a reason to put it off. Finally, last year, our parents started to get impatient, so we set a date.”
“And then he panicked?”
“I suppose. I don't know if I ever thought of it in quite those terms before, but yes, as soon as we had the date, things changed. Little things that hadn't seemed such a big deal before just got bigger. And the big things... well, they became mountains that we couldn't see over.”
She took another drink of her tea, looking down at the cup in her hands as if she was afraid to meet my eye.
“Did you... have you seen the show? The episode where he talks about me?”
Completely out of character, I reached out and put my hand on hers, pulling her attention back to me. “No. And I don't intend to.”
“I can understand if you want to...”
“No, Gemma.” I squeezed her hand as I cut her off. “I don't want to hear what he said. I want to hear it from you.”
For a moment, I thought her eyes might be watering, but she blinked and they were back to normal. “Well, the short story is that Annabel was a friend of mine. Not a close friend, but someone in my family's social circle who we saw regularly at events. When Edwin and I visited the venue where we were planning to have our wedding, she was there making arrangements for some kind of charity event. She and Edwin had known each other when they were younger too, though I didn't realize at the time exactly how well they had been acquainted. That day was the first time they'd seen each other in years, and while I stood there talking to the wedding planner about seating arrangements, Edwin and Annabel snuck off to a back room and had sex.”
My jaw clenched at the thought of anyone treating Gemma that way, but I knew the worst was still to come. The fact that it happened was bad enough, but the real problem was how publicly it happened.
“Annabel had just started filmingLadies of Knightsbridge,and the camera crew was there that day. They were filming her preparations for her event, and they caught enough on camera to make it clear exactly what had happened. Over the next couple of weeks, she and Edwin met regularly, to sleep together but also to talk about all the ways in which she was a better lover than me. All in front of the cameras.”
That all squared away with what Nellie had told me. “Did he realize that the footage would be used?”
She nodded, her face tight. “He signed a release.”
“And he didn't tell you in advance?”
“No. I only found out when the rest of the world did, but he obviously knew it was coming since he moved out of our flat the day before it aired.”
I exhaled loudly, trying to dispel the anger that filled me on her behalf. “Well, he's clearly a bastard. You don't need me to tell you that.”
A quick smile crossed her face at my words, but I could glimpse the pain that lay behind it. “I don't need you to, but it's always nice to get the confirmation anyway.”
We both fell silent for a moment, drinking our tea as I thought over what she'd said. "Are they actually in love?"
Gemma shrugged. "I guess so. They're still together, anyway. They had a sexual relationship as teenagers, and they just picked it right back up when they reconnected. Obviously, they're more attracted to each other than Edwin and I ever were. I might even have been able to be happy for them that they found each other, if it weren’t for the way they'd gone about it."
I had to agree. There were definitely good ways and bad ways to end an engagement, and that had to be one of the worst I had heard. It might even be worse than the way my own had ended.
“There's still one thing I really don't understand, Gemma.”
She swallowed, as if preparing herself for a challenge. “Sure. What is it?”
I leaned forward, looking straight into her eyes. “If he thought there was something wrong with you in bed, what the fuck is wrong with him?”
~Gemma~
Though I wanted to laugh in response to Cole's question, I couldn't. The heat coming off his stare told me he didn’t mean it as a joke. He looked deadly serious; he honestly didn't believe anyone could be unsatisfied with me, and the passion and the defensiveness in his gaze, defensiveness on my behalf, stopped my laughter before it could start.
