“Precisely.” He didn’t smile back. His eyes were bright and ruthless. “Or were you lying earlier? Perhaps you were hoping I’d want you back in my bed?”

Annoyance swarmed through Gemma. Quickly, she veiled her gaze before he glimpsed her ire. “I never imagined you’d want that. And nor do I. I’ve told you that already.” Gemma drew a steadying breath. She had to be very careful; she could mess it all up with one careless mistake.

“I thought you might be hankering after the style to which you’d become accustomed.”

God, he was arrogant. Gemma spun around on the plastic stool and glared up at Angelo. He was so tall, he positively loomed over her. “You make me sound like a sycophant. I worked for you, as well.”

“You consider sharing my bed for half a year work?” The look he gave her stripped her naked of the silky slip and told exactly how little respect Angelo had for her.

Again, she fought the urge to cover her breasts, to check that the silky material didn’t reveal the outline of her dark nipples. Supremely self-conscious now, she rose and crossed to the corner of the room where a small closet held several outfits.

Gemma peeled the dress she intended wearing tonight off its hanger. Keeping her back firmly to Angelo, she slid on the sleek crimson tube covered with winking sequins that should have clashed terribly with her hair but didn’t.

The electrifying quality of the silence behind her flustered her. Gemma swivelled. The expression in Angelo’s eyes made her breath catch. She became aware that the dress hugged her curves like a lover, that the neckline was low, provocative. That she and Angelo were totally alone.

Hurriedly she said, “My career has always been important to me.” And fame had been important, too, she supposed.

“If you say so.” He gave her a strange, intent look. “I say that changed once you got what you wanted…”

“And what do you think I wanted?” Then wished the words unsaid as tension sparked in the air between them. Suddenly Gemma didn’t want to know the answer.

A frown drew his surprisingly dark brows together. “A man wealthy enough to pander to your every whim. A gold card with no ceiling…clothes, jewellery…” His gaze dropped pointedly to the gold ring set with a large showy topaz on the little finger of her left hand. “You chose that after we visited Monaco for a weekend. Remember?”

“I’m afraid I don’t.” She grabbed a pair of gloves out the closet and, with an ease born of practice, pulled on the long, black lace gloves embroidered with dark red roses and covered the ring. Outside the door, Mark Lyme, the manager of the entertainment centre called her name. Gemma moved towards the door. “I must go, I’m due on stage.”

“Wait, you’re not running out on this conversation.” Angelo flung his hands out wide. “Of course you remember. That night we attended the Rose Ball, and you wanted to go partying afterwards. You flirted with every man who glanced your way.”

Men? She hesitated. What men? “No-”

“Were there so many men that you cannot remember the one from the other?” Angelo’s eyes glittered.

“I don’t remember-”

“Oh, please, don’t feed me that. You’re wearing that 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 crisis averted, he exited the entertainment complex, searching for Gemma’s distinctive dark flame hair under the lamps in the wide paved piazza.

About to veer off to where the staff units were located, he spotted a lone figure walking towards the deserted beach. Hunching his shoulders against the rising wind, Angelo quickened his pace. With her give-away hair, not even the fact that she wore jeans and a bulky sweater could hide that it was Gemma.

He came up behind her. “If I give an employee an order I expect it to be obeyed.” The deceptive softness of his tone didn’t hide his anger-or his frustration.

Gemma’s shoulders tensed and she came to a halt. Then she turned. In the dim light of the lanterns that lined the promenade, he saw her eyebrow arch. “I thought it was an invitation,” she said with soft irony. “One that I never accepted.”

“Or refused.”

She considered him, her head on one side. “Give me one good reason why I should have joined you.”

He blinked. Women usually thronged to his side. Hell, he didn’t need to issue invitations. Women gate-crashed celebrity functions to meet him. “Because I wanted to speak to you.”

“What about?” Her tension was tangible.

“Your memory loss.”

“Not true. You invited me for a drink before you knew about that.”

She had him there. What he really wanted to know was why she had come back to Strathmos. It had to be about more than money. His gut told him it had something to do with her amnesia. He wasn’t about to admit that what pricked his ego was the fact that she didn’t remember him. Or was it a ploy? Was her amnesia nothing more than a sham designed to avoid facing up to her treachery three years ago? Or a last-ditch effort to recapture his interest? At last he said, “You’ve forgotten carrying on with every male under the age of eighty at the Rose Ball? You don’t remember about me…us?”

She closed her eyes at the sheer incredulity in his voice. “Is that so hard to accept?” she asked warily. “I have amnesia.”

“How convenient.”

Gemma opened her eyes and met his narrowed gaze. She tried to speak but her voice wouldn’t work. So she simply shrugged and let her arms fall uselessly by her side.