Fiancée For The Cameras (Mills & Boon Modern)

CHAPTER FOUR

I N THE FIRST two weeks that Monica was at Flora Valentini’s house—their family home in a postcard-like village near Lake Como—Andrea hadn’t come to see her once.

No, not to see her, but to visit with his mother, Monica modified in her head. The fact that in two weeks, Andrea hadn’t visited Flora and Romeo once was kind of alarming.

If there was one thing she knew about him for sure, it was that he was devoted to his mother and brother.

Was it because she was here? Because after all the drama she’d inadvertently started, he couldn’t stand to see her pathetic face?

Monica had resisted the idea of staying at his home—his high-handed order—for the first two days. But under Flora’s gentle care and with Romeo’s cheerful company, she had decided not to fight one of the few favors life had handed her. It wasn’t like she caused an imposition to either of them.

Flora was exactly the kind of mother she’d have chosen in any universe, if she was given the chance. And learning that the older woman thought of her as a daughter was a gift Andrea had given her. The one gift she didn’t resent, when she was already buried under obligation for all the favors he’d done her.

Monica had cried a lot the first two weeks. Some of it had been tears of pain and relief because the doctor had told her that Andrea’s immediate intervention and having seen her the very day she had collapsed had staved off infection and scarring. Some of her tears had been for this new consuming awareness of a man who was so out of her sphere. To think she’d nearly married a man she didn’t even love just to escape the pain of being thrown out of his life...

But she also reminded herself that, if not for Flora, Mr. Valentini would have no interest in her personal life. He wouldn’t have noticed if she had dropped dead that day at those steps. Until she was absent from his life and it fell apart without her brisk efficiency, Andrea Valentini wouldn’t have taken note of her absence any more than he’d taken note of her presence over four years.

So yes, while she’d recovered and screwed her head on straight under Flora’s gentle care, she wasn’t going to read anything into the sudden flare of heat that had arced between them that afternoon. Any woman would feel discombobulated when seeing a man like him—gorgeous and smoldering—attend to her personally. And she had already been under such shock and in pain, had been vulnerable and desperate for a small kindness.

The little hope she’d nurtured the beginning of the third week that she could slowly transition out of his life and into her new role with the CFO was blown to bits when Romeo shared the little clip of her and Andrea that had gone viral. Of him cutting through the dress and then carrying her to his car, while she was half-naked and delirious and the accompanying narrative the press had spun around it. If he’d thought her a nuisance before, he probably actively hated her now. When she’d called Mr. Valentini yesterday, she’d been unable to reach him.

Then he arrived suddenly the next evening, like the storm clouds that had suddenly gathered, threatening a downpour. Romeo and she had just finished an invigorating chess game that she had lost, yet again, sitting in the small garden that separated the manicured lawns from the thick orange groves and dense woods beyond.

A prickling at her nape was the thing that intimated Monica of her boss’s arrival, as if there was now a chip sewn under her skin, programmed to detect his proximity. She looked up to find him standing on a wide balcony off the second floor, kissing Flora’s cheek while the older woman animatedly greeted him. His gray gaze was, however, intensely focused on Monica.

Even across the field separating them, she could see the pinch of his eyebrows because he didn’t want his mother to know of his thunderous mood. Unable to hold his gaze any longer, Monica swallowed and looked away. Butterflies took flight in her belly, making it impossible to sit still. Her muscles called for action, either to run toward him or far away, into the woods maybe.

“What was that?” Romeo asked from across the small table, his gaze switching between her and his brother.

“What was what?” Monica asked, trying a fake casualness with all her might.

“That look in your eyes. Monica, are you scared of my brother?” he asked, reaching for her hand across the table.

“What? No,” she said, warmth cresting her cheeks. At Romeo’s unconvinced expression, she sighed. “Maybe a little, yes. Especially after this...episode I’ve caused.”

She pulled his hand forward and draped it across her cheek. All her life, she’d been starved for touch. And Romeo was one of those very few men on the planet, in her limited experience of them, who seemed to need it as much as she did, without thinking it somehow decreased his masculinity. When he cupped her cheek, she pressed herself into it. “I’m a coward.”

He tsked and she looked up. His gray eyes—so much like Andrea’s, except tempered with natural kindness and constant pain—gleamed with warmth. “You’re the bravest person I know.”

She scoffed. “Is it open season on me, then?”

“Or maybe the wisest?” He scrunched his nose. “Very few people on this planet understand my brother’s moods.”

“Yes, that,” she said, jumping on the lifeline he offered. “I know An— Mr. Valentini’s moods better than anyone. Right now, you might imagine he’s simply listening to your mother talk a mile a minute at him, but he’s in a foul mood. And obviously, it’s to do with me.”

Romeo looked at his brother and then back at her. “Perhaps, but not in the way you imagine, cara. ”

“You’re just having fun at my expense, you scoundrel.”

He picked up her hand and kissed the back of it, a sudden unholy glint to his gaze. “You never told me what happened that day, after he brought you home. The fact that my sainted brother hasn’t visited in three weeks to check on Mama and me is...shocking. Something must have happened to keep him away so thoroughly.”

Monica shrugged, her mouth suddenly dry, her heart palpitating at a dangerous rate. By the time he’d left, she’d been out of it. Had he made the decision to transfer her because she had said something she shouldn’t have? Had she betrayed her stupid attraction? “He took care of my back, told me what a nuisance he considered me, declared he was transferring me to another department and left.”

“And yet, you have been helping smooth over things these last two weeks, si ?”

“Just some knowledge transfer,” she said dismissively. But at least, in this, she could feel pride in a job done well. While she had left behind systems to deal with everything he worked on, no other person could come close to understanding him.

“Oh, come, don’t downplay your virtues, bella . I bet Andrea can’t do without you. And that dark scowl he’s wearing is because he has realized that, too. If there’s one thing I know about my brother, it’s that he hates needing anyone.”

Her gaze finding Andrea unerringly, Monica mulled over Romeo’s insight into her boss. “What about Mrs. Rossi, then?” she asked, before she could curb her tongue. The question had been burning a hole through her for three weeks. Every morning, noon and evening, she expected to see the sophisticated woman walk in and declare that she was Andrea’s fiancée and throw her out. Or at least express her satisfaction that he had already moved Monica to a different department. Even though he’d told her the engagement wasn’t happening.

She had literally stood in front of a mirror every night and practiced the facial expression she’d put on when she congratulated the happy couple. She was determined not to betray her own tangled thoughts on the matter, nor the belated feelings of righteous resentment that Chiara Rossi had no right to talk to her like she had.

“ Even you can’t believe that Andrea marrying Chiara would have anything to do with needing her. My brother is incapable of the particular emotion you walk around looking for.”

“Now you’re beginning to sound like him,” Monica said, hearing the unspoken ache in Romeo’s voice.

She reached for his hand again, her heart aching for this man who had become such a good friend to her in the past four years while his brother had remained a fascinating mystery. And he needed to remain one. While the transfer had hurt, Monica realized now that it was a blessing in disguise. She needed to stay away from Mr. Valentini, far away.

Turning, she focused on her friend. “Now, how about we leave Mr. Valentini to his brooding and you tell me about that waitress who begged for your number at that restaurant last week?”

“What will you do? Andrea?”

Andrea had to tear his gaze away from the scene being enacted out in the garden, no doubt on purpose, by Romeo. A part of him was delighted that in Monica’s company, Romeo was rediscovering the fun-loving, outgoing, stunt-per-day rascal that he had been as a teen before the accident had bound him to the wheelchair. Papa had been driving in a dangerous snowstorm, while Andrea had been screaming at him like a thwarted toddler, leading to the accident that had stolen him from them.

Another part of him, the part that he’d unsuccessfully been trying to beat into submission, roared like some low-cognitive-capacity Neanderthal watching his woman being chummy with another man.

His woman... Madre de Dio , where was this uncivilized possessive streak coming from?

Maybe because he hadn’t spent a single day since the accident doing one thing for himself, he told himself now, searching for some rational explanation. Those first few years, he’d simply functioned on autopilot, running himself ragged between stopping a hostile takeover and getting Romeo everything he needed, and relieving Mama whenever he could at his brother’s side so she could rest and grieve losing the man she had loved.

After that, after they’d learned to live with the gaping hole his father had left behind, after Romeo had made peace with the fact that he might never walk again, Andrea had still continued in the same way.

Even now, as he watched, Romeo pulled Monica into his lap and hummed some melody that Andrea could just barely hear. With one arm thrown around his neck, one clasped in Romeo’s, Monica was laughing.

He could hear that inelegant snort that came at the end of her laugh, see the way her whole body shook, and he could just imagine how she would smell of sun and vanilla, a strange, erotic scent he associated with her now.

With his other hand, Romeo was wheeling the chair forward and backward, moving their clasped hands. When Monica bent down to kiss his cheek, her long dark hair fell forward like a curtain, covering them both in whisper-thin darkness. As if to taunt him.

“Andrea? What will you do about—”

“Is he more than fond of her? Romeo?” he asked, suddenly remembering the frantic call Romeo had made, right after Mama had, demanding that Andrea do something about Francesco and the sudden wedding.

Andrea had known they were both fond of her, but this possibility... A sick feeling twisted in his stomach. If his brother really liked Monica, when Andrea had just discovered such deep... It didn’t bear thinking. Out of the miasma of confusion, a selfish, primal, competitive want roared.

“Of Monica?” Mama said, an instant smile teasing her mouth. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if he were? She is such a lovely girl, Andrea, and she does make him laugh like before...the accident and that business with that girl.” His mother pursed her mouth and sighed. “I know Monica might be open to trying something but I also know it is not fair to her. His heart and mind are not yet in a good place.”

Andrea grunted. Everyone she came across, at work or in personal life, whether it lasted a day or a week or a moment, Monica seemed to win them over. He found it both infuriating and fascinating. “She just got dumped at city hall at the last minute, Mama. How are you so confident that she would welcome Romeo’s advances—” he had to inhale with a conscious effort “—whatever they might be?”

“All Monica wants is family and security and to belong somewhere, and she fits so well already into our family and we all like her, even you, and...”

Whatever she saw in his face, her words trailed off.

Andrea turned just in time to see her gaze widen, her mouth fall open with a soft gasp. As if she’d just seen a tiger setting its target on a doe.

Cristo , he was a thirty-four-year-old man. The last thing he needed was his mother to know he lusted after his very capable, very young, assistant and that it had him thrashing around like a randy teenager. Or that he wanted to act on it, forgetting all his own personal ethics. “Mama, do not—”

“She’s too...young, Andrea. And so pure at heart,” she finally said, a thread of outrage in her tone.

He laughed and pulled her close, loving her a little more for being so protective of the stranger in their midst. Though he wasn’t at all surprised. The Valentini name had always stood for ethics and sound business morals, and his father had made loyalty the highest badge of honor. His mother’s warning only reminded him of his father and all the values he had tried to instill in him and Romeo, beginning with the fact that power and privilege shackled a man as much as they liberated him.

“And now this...media scandal about that video...” his mother said, bringing him back to the present. “I demand to know what your plan is.”

“I have no plan, Mama. This has already blown up beyond my control.”

“So marry Chiara, bring Monica back to work for you and all this...speculation is over. You wanted a future with her once, Andrea.” She turned completely and studied him. Her voice softened as she cradled his cheek. Andrea marveled at how little she did that with him these days. All her softness and her maternal instincts were limited to Romeo. And Monica , he thought, without an ounce of rancor. “Chiara is sophisticated and smart and she will make you a good wife.”

“I am not the same man I was ten years ago.”

“Then it is good that she has matured, too, no?”

“It doesn’t look like that, given she’s letting her father trot her out like some show horse, attached to this merger. If there’s one thing I know, it is that Chiara wants power and prestige more than anything. I have nothing against her wishes for her life. But I will not play her games.”

His mother looked alarmed, as if she couldn’t imagine so much scheming. The simple soul she was, he wasn’t surprised. Still, she persisted, taking his hand in hers. “Is it simply wounded pride that she picked a different man over you a decade ago that drives you to say no now?”

“Pride has nothing to do with it. And believe me, I’m grateful that she didn’t accept my proposal then. Because now, I’m not that young, prideful buck who needed to prove himself by gaining the biggest prize around. Now, she or marriage...have very little appeal to me.”

It was both relieving and sad that his mother did not push him harder toward matrimony or hold the Valentini legacy over his head like some hanging sword. Maybe because she knew where his opposition came from. She had once known the real thing and the loss of it had nearly shattered them all. Once you were witness to something as holy and real as his parents’ marriage had been, it felt like blasphemy to enter one that was nothing but a mocking illusion of it. Neither did he think he was made for the real thing, even if it was available to him.

He had lived through enough pain such love wrought on one.

“She and her father are playing a dirty game, threatening to pull back from the merger at this critical point when so many livelihoods depend on its success. They need to learn that I will not bow.”

“So you will use Monica?”

“Use her? She’s not a doll, Mama, to arrange wherever you or I please. This situation was not of my making and if I twist it to my own advantage, it will be because there is no other choice left. I have my reputation and Valentini’s to protect.”

Before his mother could further lecture him, Andrea turned around toward the stairs. He had tried to stay away. He’d already had her moved to a different department, though that had only seemed to blow up in his face because Monica was the linchpin for so many matters that came through to him.

But the video circulating on the internet and the story that the media had already woven around it besmirched the Valentini name. The very name his father had given a new meaning to. Andrea could not let it continue. So he would take care of two birds with one shot.