Chapter Three

Fancy That

"Thanks so much for doing this Gabs," her sister-in-law Holly said as Gabriella's niece Morgan trooped into her immaculately clean entrance hall. Gabriella held onto the door handle and using the door for support, she could tell today was going to be a long day.

"It's fine" she said, her lips forming a half smile which to Holly looked more like a grimace at the thought of having a child in her house. She slowly watched Morgan prancing around on the tile floor, getting quite close to the front table with a small glass sculpture.

"You're a star" Holly smiled as she hugged Gabriella, kissing her cheek. "See you later Morgy" she called. Walking over to her daughter, she laid a kiss on her cheek. Instinctively, Morgan wiped her cheek with a look of disgust across her face as her mother turned to leave.

As the door slammed shut, Gabriella leaned against it, once again, letting out a huge sigh. What was she to do with Morgan all day? What did kids these days like to do?

As Gabriella walked into the living room, she saw Morgan unpacking her back pack, a wide array of Polly pockets spread across the carpet. She saw a smile peer across Morgan's face as she looked her aunt's way, dear god, how was she going to get out of this activity?

"Will you play with me Aunt Gabby?" she asked, flashing that angelic childlike smile, the one that she knewGabi couldn't resist.

Gabriella crouched down by Morgan, cursing under her breath as she trod on one of Morgan's Polly pockets.

"I can't right now sweetie, I have some work to do, but you can watch the TV okay, do you how to work it all?" Even though she loved her nieces and nephew, she made sure that time over her house was limited; hence, she had no clue how this was going to go.

"Uhuh" Morgan giggled, climbing onto one of Gabriella's Chocolate Brown leather sofas. She let out a sigh, hoping that a quiet activity like TV would make the afternoon go more smoothly.

Gabriella switched the TV on and handed the remote to Morgan. As she walked in her office and cracked the door open, she could still hear the Barney theme tune.

"I can't believe they're still making Barney" she chuckled to herself. While a moment of quietness to herself in the office, a sudden strike of hunger hit her stomach. She was about the head to the kitchen when the sound of her front door chimes pulled her into the entrance hall. Hoping it was Holly back to collect Morgan early, she opened the door. Her hopeful spirit was quickly dashed when she realized that it wasn't her sister-in-law on the other side, but seeing who it was, she realised she was more than happy to greet them.

"Taylor!" she beamed, pulling her best friend into a hug.

"Oh and look! You brought Kyla!" she smiled, picking up the small girl and planting a kiss on her cheek. Kyla giggled, grabbing Gabriella's face with her hands and kissing her nose.

"You have no idea how pleased I am to see you right now". She again hugged Taylor, but with her one free arm this time.

"No…" Taylor said slowly. "But I hope you're going to share as you're scaring me slightly" she laughed.

"I have my niece Morgan here for the afternoon, I'm sure she'd love to play with Kyla. Come through, I'll introduce you". She beamed as she handed Kyla back to Taylor.

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"Can we go to the park?" Morgan asked, coming into the kitchen where Gabriella and Taylor were having a cup coffee each.

"Um… Sure" Gabriella smiled. She was silently panicking about the designer clothes she had on going anywhere near a park. "I'll just go change" she decided, racing up the stairs.

She scraped her hair back and pulled an old pair of sweats from her closet. At least if they got dirty it wouldn't matter too much.

She arrived back in the kitchen 10 minutes later, heading to the refrigerator and pulling out a bottle of water.

"You look more like you're going to the gym than going to a park" Taylor laughed.

"It's not like I'm going to see anyone, who else do I know who has kids?"

"Pretty much no-one?" Taylor guessed.

"Exactly!"

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"How about we go get ice-creams" Taylor suggested, Kyla laying sleepily in her arms. "Vanilla all round?"

"Sounds good to me" Gabriella said, putting her shades on as she relaxed in the sunshine. No sooner had she closed her eyes, did a voice she faintly recognized pulled her back to reality.

"Twice in one week? Must be my lucky day" Troy chuckled, sitting down beside Gabriella on the park bench. He was wearing a tight blue top, accentuating his muscled body. She sighed, dear god, of all the places and people.

"Do you bring your daughter to the park much? Colby and I come every Saturday". He seemed to make himself pretty comfy on such an uncomfortable bench.

She sighed… again. Hadn't they already gone over this? "She's actually my niece and no I don't come much, I'm not a huge fan of parks".

"Oh but I thought..." What this his idea of flirting? If it was… not working, and oh, side note, he needs to get some better pick up lines.

"You thought wrong". She felt horrible for being so sharp with him but she didn't feel in the mood to make conversation with some father with a kid in first grade. "I'm a lawyer; my father owns Schwartz and Montez in town. I'm going to take it over in a couple of years"

"Impressive" Troy nodded, watching Colby and Morgan across the park. After a long silence, Gabriella decided making conversation would be the polite thing to do. She had hoped that he would sense she didn't want to talk to him and go away, but with no such luck, she began to speak.

"What about Colby's Mom? She work at weekends?" To her, the question seemed fairly innocent, by Troy's sudden change in posture, she got a feeling that this was anything but simple.

"Actually…" he began, an uncomfortable look gracing his face, matching the same emotions that his posture did. "She left when Colby was 8 months old, we haven't heard from her since".

As Gabriella sat and listened to him talking, she felt sorry for him, but even more sorry for his young daughter.

"Not even birthday cards? Christmas presents?" She couldn't wrap her head around such a concept. She never had to go through that kind of thing herself, actually, her childhood was pretty sheltered, one full of family, laughter, and simplicity.

Troy shook his head sadly. "Nothing. Not even a phone call. It's Colby I'm worried for, who knows what effect this is having on her".

"She seems happy enough" Gabriella observed, seeing her laughing with Morgan across the park.

"She's okay now. But what about when she's a teenager? I dread to think about that to be honest…" Troy ran his hand through his brown hair, she had to admit, he wasn't that bad looking.

"Vanilla ice-cream for you, and … Who's this?"Taylor beamed, giving Gabriella a questioning look as she handed Gabriella her ice-cream.

"I'm good" Gabriella replied, holding her hand up. "Let the girls have them and this is… erm… this is…" she felt embarrassed that she couldn't even remember his name.

"Troy" he said, smiling at Taylor as he held his hand out. She shook it, smiling back at him. Taylor shot Gabriella a quick side look, even though Taylor was married, she herself silently admitted how good looking the man actually was. While Taylor's attention was on Gabriella, Troy glanced at the watch on Taylor's wrist.

"Is that the right time?" he asked, an air of panic in his voice.

"Uhuh" Taylor said, checking her watch. Troy seemed to all of a sudden be in a rush, trying to quickly wrap up the conversation.

"It was nice to meet you, and nice to see you again urrghh…" He rubbed the back of his neck, not knowing what her name actually was.

"Gabriella"

"Nice to see you again Gabriella" he smiled as he called Colby over.

"Maybe I'll run into you at the next school play" he waved as he and his daughter headed out of the park. Little did they know they'd be meeting again a lot sooner than they planned.

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A/N

Thanks for reading, please leave us your thoughts in a review, next chapter up soon

Love Helena x x

A/N: Hey everyone, its Nicole here. Helena did a great job on this chapter. Way to go Helena! Anyway, we hope you all enjoy it and hopefully the next chapter will be up soon!

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