Page 3 of The Fiancée Farce
This was a nightmare.
Whispers traveled from the fringes of the room.
Is that who I think it is?
The prodigal daughter returns, someone sniffed.
Gemma van Dalen? I thought she was still living in New York.
I didn’t know she was going to be here.
Look at Madison’s face. It doesn’t look like she knew, either.
I heard Gemma was in town, but I figured it was for the funeral.
No, she’s been back since March. My sister’s best friend’s cousin’s girlfriend saw her eating on the patio at Carmine’s.
A real shame, someone said with a sigh.All that wasted potential. Poor Victor must be so disappointed.
Van Dalen?Van Dalen?No, no. Tansy’s stomach sank like an anchor dropped off the side of one of the yachts tethered right outside in the harbor. She needed to sit down. It didn’t matter that she wasalreadysitting down; she needed to do it again. Better yet, she needed to lie down. Under the table, maybe. Preferably somewhere far, far away, where she could pretend this wasn’t really happening.
Maybe itwasn’treally happening. Maybe she’d heard incorrectly?Van Dalencould’ve beenVan Something or Other. Or perhapsnoneof this was really happening. What if she hadn’t somuch caught Madison’s bouquet as gotten knocked out by it and this was all some elaborate nightmare, her subconscious playing on her guilt at having lied about dating someone in the first place?
Gemma West couldn’t possibly be an alias of Gemma van Dalen, Tucker’s estranged cousin. The idea was preposterous.
Tucker had mentioned his cousin in passing—never often, but enough for Tansy to have picked up the basics: that she was older by two years and had attended some boarding school on the East Coast, followed by a stint at Columbia, and that there was no love lost between the two of them. But she couldn’t—the woman standing in the ballroom... her name was GemmaWest. She wasn’t—shecouldn’t.
Tansy sank down in her seat, the space under the table still calling her name. As long as no one else put two and two together, she—
“Hey, Tansy.” Jackie nudged her with a knee. “Isn’t that your girlfriend?”
Tansy smothered a whimper. Damn it, Jackie.
“Tansydating Tucker’s cousin?” Ashleigh slumped back in her chair with a snort. “You’re hilarious.”
With her eyes, Tansy begged Jackie to drop it.
Jackie blinked back at her and frowned. “I don’t... you showed me her picture.”
No, she hadn’t. Jackie simply had no understanding of boundaries and believed it was perfectly acceptable to swipe to the next picture in someone’s gallery without permission. Tansy’s only mistake—fine, one of several—was being stupid enough to have saved a picture of Gemma West, er,van Dalento her camera roll. Stupid enough to have saidyeswhen Jackie had asked if it was a picture of her girlfriend.
Katherine couldn’t have looked more delighted. “A Van Dalen?”She clasped her hands together below her chin. “Tansy, that’s wonderful.”
A sound that was half laugh, half sob, one hundredpercent a cry for help slipped past Tansy’s lips. Wonderful, her ass.
“Well, isn’t this perfect?” Ashleigh dropped her cold compress and stood, chair legs squealing against the ballroom’s two-tone herringbone wood floor. “I, for one, amdyingfor you to introduce us.”
Dread darkened the edges of Tansy’s vision, her knees going weak when she tried to stand, her feet losing feeling. She fell back in her chair and tugged on the skirt of Ashleigh’s dress in a dire last-ditch effort. “Ash, don’t, come on—”
“Gemma!”
Tansy sank farther in her seat, praying for the floor to swallow her whole.
Gemma’s head swiveled in their direction, a tiny furrow forming between her brows as she squinted curiously before setting off across the ballroom, Tucker and Madison hot on her heels. Tansy’s stomach wobbled like not-yet-set Jell-O.
“How do you know my cousin?” Tucker demanded, barely reaching the table first, and only because he’d added a burst of speed there at the end.
“I’m sure my reputation precedes me.” Gemma’s left cheek rose, the corner of her mouth with it, her lashes fluttering shut in an effortless, cheeky wink.
