The Little Stranger

chapter Fourteen

In all her previous jobs, the one thing Gemma had valued most, had been able to have that emotional distance with her employers, and not getting too personally involved, even whilst she was living amongst them, and looking after their children.

But that had been impossible with Jake. It had been one of the reasons she had been uneasy about the whole situation in the first place. The more she tried to keep that distance, the more he had been determined to eradicate it. Having her with him on the last week of his tour, it seemed he had succeeded, Gemma realised with slight dismay.

After the incident in the plane, she knew she had crossed the line, and whilst it bothered her, Jake seemed to think it was the best thing that could have happened. Gemma wasn't sure how she was going to get through the next few days in his company. After the Gig in Dublin, they still had to do Belfast, and then back across to England, for the last two shows in London.

But she wasn't even thinking about the tour or the concerts or their surroundings any more, just about what he had admitted about his relationship with Caroline, and some awful secret about them, that he was going to tell her, when the time was right.

She was trying hard not to be preoccupied by what it could be, or when he was going to tell her, then almost despising herself, for even caring so much.

Thinking back over the whole incident, and how it had started, she was still a little baffled how they had ended up talking about her personal life in the first place. But then it finally dawned on her, that it had to do with Tom.

Surely it couldn't be a coincidence, that after she had informed Tom, she had no interest in getting involved with him romantically, then the next thing, Jake was asking her about her love life? He must have got wind of what had been going on between her and Tom. It made her realise she had made the right decision were Tom was concerned. Part of her had hoped she had nipped it in the bud, before Jake found out about the whole thing, but now she knew that was not the case.

She lay tossing and turning in her bed that night, still wondering how she had managed to get herself so emotionally tangled up again with Jake, when it had been the very thing she had been trying to avoid.

Then realised it had all started when she had become carried away with being his VIP guest, and all the attention he had been paying her lately, making her let down her guard.

And as much as she chided herself for her foolishness, she realised whether she liked it or not, there was no going back to even attempting to a professional distance between them now. So, she wasn't sure how the next few months would play out until her time as Ellie's Nanny, finally came to an end

Jake had no intentions of keeping Gemma in the dark for long, now he had more or less admitted to her that all had not been right with Caroline and their whole relationship. He wanted to get it out of his system. It was a secret he had kept too long to himself. Caroline was no longer around to be hurt, or scared, about other people knowing, so he felt it was the right time.

But most of all what he wanted out of this, was for Gemma to understand the crazy situation he had been left in back then, and how it has messed his head up so much, that it had been partly responsible for why he ended up neglecting his relationship with her, over the following years.

Lately, he had been tormenting himself with the 'what if's?' and the regrets.

If he had never met Caroline and got involved with her? If he had trusted in his heart and himself and his feelings for Gemma, that he could have made her happy, instead of running away from that possibility, then things might have been so different for both of them. He just hoped it wasn't too late to repair the damage, and that he could get Gemma to trust not only him, but her heart again, but he reckoned that was going to be the hardest part of all.