Fiancée For The Cameras (Mills & Boon Modern)

CHAPTER THREE

A PPARENTLY , ABUNDANCE WAS the name of the game today when it came to Mr. Valentini’s choice words for her.

Monica tried to take the pills out of his hand without touching him unnecessarily, resulting in the two red pills dancing off his palm onto the bed. With a curse, he flushed them out, picked up the glass of water and said, “Open.”

Feeling like a child who’d gotten in more trouble while actively trying to avoid it—the story of her life—Monica swallowed the protest at his manner and opened her mouth. The faster she could get him out of here, the better she could wallow in her misery.

But it was impossible to follow her head’s warnings when his fingers gripped her chin in a firm grasp and her nostrils were full of that dark clove-and-pine scent of his, and the corded column of his throat and his angular chin and that thin slash of his mouth filled her hazy gaze. And then there was the scar that ran from his temple to the side of his mouth, somehow adding to his appeal as a grumpy beast of a man.

Monica shivered again and it had nothing to do with whatever fever the chemicals from the dress had induced in her.

He noticed that, too. “The doctor said the aloe was a good idea until he can give you a stronger steroid. He recommended we air out your skin as much as possible. So, lie down so that I can—”

“That’s not necessary at all,” Monica said, trembling from head to toe now at the thought of his fingers on her bare flesh.

And there was the second part of the thing she’d missed.

There was a reason she’d always avoided anything even remotely nearing forced intimacy with Mr. Valentini—not even risking a nightcap in the confines of his office after thirteen hours of constant negotiations resulting in a deal last year; not a ride in his car after a long day to the apartment she shared with four other women—and she was becoming aware of the why of it only now.

Shame burned through her chest, adding to all the other burns currently attacking her tender flesh and battered heart. Had she convinced herself that Francesco was it for her because of how out of control her life felt with her boss’s alleged upcoming engagement? How long had she been attracted to him without even being aware of it?

It took Mr. Valentini’s hand on her wrist to realize she’d started crawling away from him, the sheets now tangled around her legs. The frost of his gray eyes should have been enough to cool down her burning flesh in an instant. “There’s no one else to tend to you here and I would rather not move you tonight. If you prefer Romeo to me, I can call him. Only then he’ll insist on missing his physiotherapy session and remain here with you. Your choice.”

“That’s not a choice at all,” Monica whispered in a small voice, knowing that she was making it worse by stretching this out. For both of them.

“Lie down,” he said in that firm voice, and her body automatically began to obey him. “It’s nothing I’ve not seen before, Ms. D’Souza. And maybe this will teach you to not act so prideful when Mama offers you a present once in a while.”

Halfway through her turn, Monica straightened and glared at him. “I can’t accept monetary gifts from Flora any more than I can accept them from you.”

“I’ve not offered you any,” he said, something flickering in his gaze.

Monica wondered how she wasn’t going up in smoke at all the embarrassment she was causing herself. “I know that. And I wasn’t hinting that you should,” she said, feeling more and more flustered by the second. “I’m just saying it would be the—”

“Please, continue...enlightening me about how your mind works.”

“I know what you think of Romeo’s friends who come to him for his clout and his wealth. I know what you think of your cousins who are forever asking you or Flora for handouts. I know how easily people fall in your esteem and how ruthlessly you cut them out of—”

“I did not realize you held my opinion in such esteem,” he said, frowning. “ Dio mio , why would I count you as one of those leeches if you accept a frivolous dress or a handbag from Mama? What’s the big risk if you accept it?” His frown morphed into a thunderous scowl. “You’re afraid I will take your job away? You should trust in—”

“What? Of course not. You would never do anything so unethical. I just...” She hesitated, feeling as if she was baring herself to him on more than one level. “Please, just forget it.”

She was about to turn around when he arrested her once again. This time, his fingers spanned more of her flesh, her shoulder to be specific. Her bare shoulder.

Monica could feel the ridged abrasions of each of his fingers like a divot on her flesh. As if the mere touch was stamping her Property of Andrea Valentini. And the worst thing was that she didn’t even mind the feverish jumps her imagination was taking. What the hell was wrong with her?

Her attempt to stop jerking away made her do a weird convulsion on the bed, pulling her closer to his hard body. She wiped at her damp lip and wondered what she’d done wrong in this life to receive such torment. “You trust me in a professional setting, then?”

“Of course, I do. In a personal setting, too. Because you operate it with the same principles.”

He pulled back as if he needed a wider view of her, and his mouth—why was she looking at his mouth constantly?—lost that annoyed set. “Then what is it you fear would happen if you accepted Mama’s gifts? If say, you had let her buy you a nice wedding dress instead of this chemical-soaked death trap that has caused you so much pain? If you had let her meet Francesco a few times and make sure he was right for you?”

Monica blinked back a new spurt of tears. When he put it like that, when she thought this all could have been avoided, she truly felt pathetic. “I have gotten so used to all the time I spend with Flora and Romeo. I like having them in my life. I adore meeting her for dinner every Wednesday. I adore playing chess with Romeo and practicing Italian with him and just...being around him. I have never had such wonderful people who...cared about me in my life before. I don’t want to do a single thing that would jeopardize that.”

“And my second question?”

“I...” Monica met his gaze and then skittered away. Clearly, he wasn’t going to let go until she admitted what a fool she’d been. “Francesco was desperate to meet Flora. And Romeo. And you. Especially after I confessed how sweet it was that Flora wanted to buy me jewelry for the wedding. Then there was that one time when you picked me up in the middle of our date and demanded that I find that communication with the Japanese company... He was elated that whole day. I think because he realized how much you valued my work.”

In retrospect now, Monica could see that Francesco had proposed soon after that. He’d also been unbelievably annoyed until she agreed to bring him to the Valentini estate sometime to meet them all. “Something about his eagerness didn’t...sit well with me.”

“And yet you chose to bury that instinct?” Mr. Valentini sounded so angry that Monica felt herself shrink under his gaze. But enough was enough. She’d already let one man treat her like garbage.

She looked up, meeting that gray gaze straight on. “He is an orphan, like me. Wanting shiny things like a new car or nice clothes or wanting to use my connection to you to establish himself in his life is not wrong, Mr. Valentini. Not all of us are born into wealth and a loving family.”

A curse escaped his mouth, the contempt in his eyes deepening. Monica swallowed at the intense reaction, fighting the need to fix it.

“So you think he was right to use you like he did?”

“Not if he loved me a little and thought it was an advantage we could use to build our future. Not when I’ve worked hard to build that reputation with you. Not when life is...hard and unfair. But he didn’t love me at all and he thought I was a foolish girl with outdated ideas. He’s made that clear.”

His rough fingers lifting her chin sent Monica’s pulse skittering across her body like an unearthed wire. If she’d expected to see tenderness in his eyes, she’d have been disappointed. “Whatever you do or don’t do in the future, it would be impossible to separate Mama and Romeo from you, Ms. D’Souza. Even if I wished it. Neither of them will stand for it. Trust me in that, too, si ?”

“Si,” she said, trying to not drown in the warmth that promise drenched through her.

“Once your fever goes down, you’re moving to the estate while you recover.” He pressed a finger to her parted lips before she could protest. “Let Mama look after you. Spend more time with Romeo. He’s always complaining that I work you too hard. Si ?”

“Si.”

“Mama thinks of you as her daughter and wants to spoil you, just a little. With me and Romeo, she does not have a chance to indulge that side of her. So next time, when she begs to buy you a little something, just for her own pleasure, let her, si ?”

Monica licked her dry lips. If he asked her in that tone, she was afraid she’d agree to anything. “Si.”

Something hot and feral sparked in his eyes and was shut down before she could even be sure she’d seen it.

Andrea Valentini was not attracted to her, no. Not at all. Never in a million years. He was too old and experienced and sophisticated and cynical and gorgeous and way too out of her silly, safe, secure sphere to like her like that. God, she couldn’t even say it right in her own head.

This wasn’t a relationship she would ever mess up by forcing her own stupid romantic ideals on it. Never. Her fever was clearly making her hallucinate.

“Now, lie down and let me finish this.”

“Si,” she said automatically and plopped, facedown, onto the bed.

There were two different fevers going on in her body, she thought with a near hysterical giggle trapped in her throat. One was caused by the rash on her back, and the other made her nipples pinch deliciously against the cool sheets, her entire body thrumming in anticipation of his touch.

His sudden laughter exploded into the space between them, running down her spine like a warm, delicious trickle that was both comforting and arousing. Just the husky, deep sound of it did things to her belly and lower, more effectively than Francesco ever could have. She burrowed her cheek into the cool pillow, grateful that he couldn’t see her face right now. The last thing she needed was for her expressive face to give away her...arousal.

“You are dangerous, Ms. D’Souza. A man could get used to hearing all those yeses from such a mouth.”

Monica tried to stay stiff, even as his words filled her with a delicious ache.

No, he wasn’t flirting with her. Not at all.

“Surprising that you think it might go to your head, Mr. Valentini,” she said, fighting the urge to catch his gray gaze, “when you’re unused to hearing anything but yes from the whole world.”

“You’re not as malleable and lacking in spine as you think you are,” he said gruffly, after a beat of silence that crackled with tension. “I definitely do not remember you blindly agreeing to anything I proposed. In fact, your meteoric rise through the company to my side has to do with how well you stand up to me, even as you act like a scurrying mouse.”

Monica blinked back the surge of grateful tears and wriggled against the sheets, feeling an ache between her thighs. “Mouse, huh? That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.” Feverish or not, those words of affirmation out of Mr. Valentini’s mouth made pleasure skitter through her. “Maybe what I have is a praise kink and not this crazy attraction to him,” she said into the pillow, not realizing she’d spoken aloud until it was too late.

Behind her, she could feel Andrea still.

God, please, don’t let him have heard .

“I’m ready,” she said loudly, desperate to get this over with.

She stayed stiff and unmoving when the cool, soothing gel landed on her back.

She somehow kept her breath steady as his fingers spread the cold gel over the rash, skating nearly to her buttocks and upward, his touch incredibly gentle, as if he was an experienced skier in full control of his path.

When his fingers moved up and around to spread the gel to her side boob and to the back of her neck, and when the bed shifted and groaned under her when he leaned forward to reach her other side, and when she felt his breath on her back and his scent filled her nostrils, Monica could do nothing about the dampness that bloomed between her thighs. Or the sudden, painfully alive ache that pulsed at her core.

So much for Francesco calling her prudish and unresponsive. His touch, his kisses, just hadn’t done it for her, because he wasn’t the one she really wanted.

Especially when she’d spent most of her life trying to downplay her body, dressing in frumpy clothes, wary of attracting the wrong kind of men. In the end, she’d started believing that she wasn’t much of a sexual creature to begin with. At twenty-three, she’d never felt the need to try sex. Even with her fiancée, she hadn’t been eager.

And yet, apparently, all her boss had to do was breathe in her direction and she was ready to go up in flames. It was knowledge she could have done without.

For the first time that miserable day, she cursed Francesco for putting her in this position, even though she was beginning to understand that he wasn’t really to blame. For proposing to her. For making her buy this shitty dress. For making it all gray and confusing and yet... deliciously right. For putting her in a situation where she knew without a doubt that Mr. Valentini’s touch made her shiver, always had, because she was unbelievably attracted to him.

She was attracted to her ruthless, grumpy boss, and if she so much as betrayed the fact, it didn’t bode well for her future with his company, or with his family.

Andrea had never been in this place where desire thrummed through his veins in a sluggish beat, slowing down the world itself around him. The only time that came remotely close had been when he’d tried a cannabis brownie with Romeo because his brother’s pain had been unbearable and he hadn’t wanted to do it alone.

Never again , Andrea had promised himself when all it had done was intensify his feelings around the loss of his father.

Not even as a twenty-year-old who’d been deep in the throes of lust with Chiara and had been determined to win her at any cost, had he felt this delicious heaviness in his limbs.

Now, as he covered his assistant’s bottom with a sheet and applied the goopy gel to her back, it felt like he was charting the dips and valleys of her smooth, golden-brown skin. As if he was compiling a database of how she reacted to what kind of touch.

Her soft groans of relief shouldn’t tighten his own muscles so much that he wanted to send his fingers on further exploration of her unmarred skin, of the tight cinch of her waist, of the swell of her hips...until she knew his touch everywhere. And it wasn’t just the physical hunger he felt for her.

It was an inexplicable, overwhelmingly possessive urge to fix all the wrongs that had been done to Ms. D’Souza, to give her everything she’d ever dreamed of in her life.

Cristo , the woman’s back was red and angry and she was literally in pain, on top of the humiliation she’d endured today. And still, some invisible spark she’d set off banged against the outer shell Andrea had covered himself in over the years.

It was her vulnerability—as raw and visceral as the rash on her back. He found it...tasteless, and yet it clung to him, making him wish he could pull something over to cover them both from his sight.

Maybe because it reminded him of how he’d once felt. How the accident had left him raw and aching with loss and fear. He never wanted to be at the mercy of such fear again.

And truly, something had been cauterized in him with his father’s death. He had gone from a wild, incessant partygoer who cared about nothing but soccer and women to a responsible businessman whose duty was to his family overnight. But something more had been lost, too.

And he didn’t regret that loss just as he didn’t regret the loss of that wild lifestyle. Only that his father had never had a chance to see how responsible and capable Andrea could be, that he had died terrified for Romeo and for his family.

Ms. D’Souza’s face when she’d revealed how important his mother and brother were to her and how she never wanted to lose them...that kind of attachment would only set her up for pain and disappointment and loss. And yet, he had made the foolish promise that she would not lose them.

He jumped off the bed, wiping his hands on the end of a sheet. He needed to get out of here and figure a way out of Chiara’s father’s ridiculous ultimatum. He hated being manipulated like she and her father were doing. Didn’t like being pushed into a corner.

And now there was this...headache, in the form of this innocent, naive creature lying down in front of him. With whom he spent more time than he did anyone else in a given week. The last thing he needed was this attraction messing up a perfect professional relationship. If it was simply lust, he wouldn’t give a damn about it. But he had a feeling it wasn’t.

It was...more. Even admitting that stuck in his craw, but he wasn’t a man who thrived on delusions. He’d rather face the problem and fix it than drape himself in lies.

“When you come back, we’ll find you a position with a different department. Maybe you can go back to the CFO. Maria has been bitterly vocal that I stole you from her.”

Her silence told him he had hurt her. But Andrea couldn’t afford to care. She needed toughening up to begin with and she had failed in not communicating to him that Chiara had acted like they were already married. Her usefulness had been defeated by this...inconvenient attraction, on his part, and her awe of him.

“It will be the same designation and pay,” he added, wanting to clarify that he wasn’t punishing her.

After tense moments of silence, she shifted a little on the bed, clutching onto the sheet as if it were a lifejacket, and hissed out a pained breath before she faced him.

Her eyelids were swollen, and the tip of her nose was flushed pink. Sweat made silky tendrils of hair stick to her forehead and she dug her teeth into her lower lip, making it glisten a dark pink.

But it was the expression in her eyes that caught him. There was so much there, too much that he didn’t want to see. She released her lip and sighed. “That’s for the best. Although—” a small smile blossomed “—you might have to tone it down a bit if you want to keep an assistant. Not everyone is as...”

“Brave as you are?” He raised a brow.

“I was going to say efficient .”

“So you’re not upset about it,” he said, wanting to poke and prod a little. Dio mio , why was he being so contrary?

She shrugged and the sheet slipped a bit to reveal the curve of a plump breast. Andrea had to look away, though he couldn’t ignore the jolt of lust tightening through him. “You’ve never hidden how much you loathe the personal crossing over into the professional. Flora’s...fondness for me would have put us at odds sooner or later. This way, at least I haven’t...” She trailed off.

“Haven’t what, Monica?” he said, insulted and injured, like a young cub trying to prove himself. Apparently, working for him had less hold for her than her attachment to his mother.

“Made a fool of myself.”

“What do you...” His curiosity disappeared when his gaze landed on the scar that was the length of his hand span on her waist. The scar she’d acquired when she’d saved his mother.

Andrea felt as if he was suddenly drenched in a cold bucket of water. He could have lost his mother if not for this foolish, brave woman’s rash actions. Cristo , she hadn’t even been a woman but a mere girl of nineteen, jumping to a stranger’s rescue. And in return, she’d gotten a blade to her belly, nearly cleaving her waist in two.

A rush of shame swamped him. How had he not made it a point to learn how badly she had been hurt? How had he just shrugged off her injury as if it was a minor inconvenience, a small price to pay for his mother’s safety? How had he thought her unwillingness to accept cash in return an irritability?

“Turn to the side,” he said, unable to even modulate his tone toward a request.

“What? Is it the sheets? I will wash them and make sure—”

“Forget about the damned sheets. Turn to the side, Monica,” he repeated, his strides eating up the distance to the bed.

Slowly, looking like a frightened rabbit, tugging the sheet higher between her breasts, she followed his command.

He couldn’t help it, even if he tried. And he didn’t try that hard to stop himself.

He rubbed a finger over the scar that inched from front to back on her right side, at the tight, tiny juncture of her waist, as wide as the span of three of his fingers together and reaching back.

The gash must have been deep to leave such a scar, despite the fact that Mama had had her transferred to the best doctors immediately. All he had cared about was that his mother was unharmed.

“I didn’t realize you were hurt this badly,” he said, in a thin voice that shivered with anger and fear that felt as fresh as it had when he’d first learned of the mugging incident. And yet, the source was different. The source of those thorny emotions was new.

“I don’t even remember that it’s there anymore,” she replied in a muffled voice, and he realized the painkillers had finally kicked in. “Sometimes, though, when I leave work after dark, and you know that street behind the bus depot, I get a flash of like...fear. And you know the weirdest thing? The scar burns then. I know it sounds ridiculous because as you can see, it’s all healed but—”

“Just because the burn is not real doesn’t mean you don’t feel it.”

She sighed, her body trembling and then settling. “Francesco said I was being a scaredy-cat.”

“Do me a favor, Ms. D’ Souza. Stop telling me about all the foolish, idiotic things that man led you to believe.”

“I think that’s a fair ask,” she said.

“If you would like, I’ll take you to see a specialist. We can get rid of the scar,” he said, running his finger again over the thick pink-white scar tissue. “It mars your beauty.”

She laughed into the pillow, the sound half-muffled and half-airy, as if she couldn’t get enough breath into her lungs. “My so-called beauty has never done me any favors. And honestly, I don’t care about the scar. I’m only glad Flora remained unhurt that awful day.”

Andrea ran his hand one last time over the scar, knowing that he was crossing a line she and he had both clearly demarcated between them. But the damned thing was that he wanted to touch the scar again. He wanted to press his mouth to it, lick it, take away whatever phantom pain it had left behind and make it mean something else for her. Make it a source of pleasure.

He wanted to lie down beside her and turn her to face him, until her breathtaking features lit upon him. Until she bared herself to him willingly, until she stretched into his touch. Until she begged him to explore this...prickly heat between them. Until she of the generous smiles and the gushing compliments and brave little heart was all his to do with as he wanted.

Oh, how he would play with her and tease her and taunt her until that shyness faded and she came to him, ready and brave, willing putty in his hands.

He jumped off the bed as though he was the one scalded, as though it was his back that was on fire.

Cristo , she was twenty-three and naive and not for him. In any way. Not even for a single night, he told himself, crushing the wicked whisper of desire.

“Andrea?” she whispered when he was almost at the door.

He turned to find her watching him, a sudden alertness to her drowsy gaze. “Si?”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Si.”

“Are you angry with me?”

“Yes,” he said, letting his irritation flare. “You know how much I don’t like unnecessary headaches in my life. I know way too much about you that I didn’t need to.”

“I won’t fight the transfer but you...you won’t let this change—”

“ Si , Monica. Now, sleep.”

She giggled then and it made him still. When he looked back, one more time , her eyes were closed, the thick, long lashes casting crescents onto her cheeks in the shadows as he closed the automatic blinds. Her nostrils flared, and a small secretive little smile split her mouth. “You also said yes three times. A girl could get used to that. A girl could feel heady with the power of hearing so many yeses from Andrea Valentini. Any girl. Even silly, stupid, pathetic me.”

Then she snored and drifted off to sleep and Andrea knew he had to stay away from her. Completely.

Before the little good sense that was left in him was consumed by raw want. Before he gave in and did something his father would have been appalled by. Before this inappropriate lust for a woman under his protection turned into something more dangerous that would only end in hurting her.