Fiancée For The Cameras (Mills & Boon Modern)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

L IFE MOVED AT an insane pace for Monica over the next two months as Andrea’s novelty fiancée. And she definitely was a novelty, she realized with increasing wariness.

For his family, because Andrea seemed to play the role of a possessive, protective fiancé with an easy aplomb they hadn’t expected. More than once, she’d seen a shadow pass across Flora’s eyes but the older woman, sweet as ever, never gave voice to whatever doubts she had. Thankfully, neither did she ask Monica much about their “fake relationship,” treating her with the same kindness as always, and that was enough for her.

For his friends, colleagues and extended family, all of whom orbited Andrea for some sort of help, she was the “poor orphaned American woman” who had caught Andrea’s fancy. Temporarily was implied but not said. Most of them, though, were smart enough to play nice with her since she did have his ear. The smart ones even understood that she not only knew every big business matter that passed his desk but that he also trusted her.

More than once, their casual attitude toward using his wealth and reach for their own benefit, as if he owed them that due to his meteoric success, rankled Monica. There were one or two people who wanted his friendship for no other reason than that he was a dynamic, witty person to be around. But Andrea did not allow that closeness.

One of them was her earlier boss, the CFO for Valentini Luxury Goods. While he trusted Maria, Andrea kept it purely professional with her, even though Maria had known him for years.

For the rest of the world and the media, she was a novelty because, once they had decided to believe Andrea’s version, their affair was nothing short of a fairy tale coming true.

Having never spent a moment as the center of attention at any stage of her life, Monica struggled with it at every party and gala and public event, where she was cast as the beautiful American upstart of unknown origins, the woman who had stolen the gorgeous, powerful bachelor that all of Milan adored. Wherever she went, on Andrea’s arm or with Flora and Romeo, she was besieged with questions about their relationship, as if they wanted to decipher how she had landed the uncatchable Andrea Valentini.

But for every second that she cringed at the invasive questions, flinched at camera flashes going off in their faces and tried to hide behind Andrea’s broad frame like a scared rabbit, she enjoyed the glimpse she was getting into how fun and charming and utterly seductive he could be.

Romeo kept reminding her that the fake engagement suited his brother, that she was good for him, that he hadn’t seen Andrea this lively and fun in a long time. Monica tried not to let it go to her head, though there was more than a grain of truth to Romeo’s assessment. Hijacking her gelato-making date had been only the start.

She blushed profusely even now, remembering how Andrea had surprised her that evening when they had arrived at the world-class restaurant kitchen. It had been only them and the chef. All the other participants had been highly compensated to attend a different session, because Andrea Valentini wanted to learn how to make gelato with his media-shy fiancée in private, and the world had better arrange itself accordingly. For once, his high-handedness and his refusal to parade them in front of an audience had worked out for her.

It had been one of the best evenings of her life. From the sheer pleasure of spending hours in Andrea’s company—his lips and hands constantly touching her in a hundred little ways, as if he couldn’t help himself—to how he’d distracted her with whispered promises that her tiny batch of gelato had turned out awful while his had been mouthwateringly perfect, and the end of the night where they had barely made it back to his penthouse, full of delicious pizza and gelato and wine, and he had taken her against the wall just barely inside the elevator.

Even then, he’d first made sure she wasn’t still sore, with his fingers. When it had been clear she was just as eager as him, he had picked her up, held her against the wall, pulled her sundress up and thrust into her with one hard stroke that had had her banging her head against the wall.

It had been fervent, frantic, near-frenzied, how they’d clawed at each other.

And in the weeks since that night, their frenzy had nowhere near calmed. Not hers, and definitely not his.

Monica almost wished their fake relationship only centered around the very real passion and chemistry that seemed to imbue every touch and caress. Then she could have firmly told her increasingly invested heart to stay out of the whole matter. She wanted to believe that at some point in her life, she would have met a man who would have disabused her of her hang-ups and fears about her body and her sexuality. Because she’d weaved them all into place to protect herself against a harsh world. She wanted to convince herself that that man just happened to be her boss, whom she’d trusted beyond any other man she’d ever met.

Andrea, at every turn, proved all the things she tried to tell herself to be lies.

It wasn’t just the phenomenal sex or the incendiary chemistry between them that made Monica feel as if her life was simultaneously rushing fast like a river rapid and grounding to a halt like the rich earth under.

Because there were moments where it seemed, impossibly, marvelously, that he cared about her, that he enjoyed her company as much as her body and her kisses and her wild, deep need for him that drove him to his own edge.

That, however, was a slippery slope of wishful thinking because she wanted to truly live her life this time, take each day as it came with Andrea, however many she got, instead of making it fit into some childhood template of a dream life.

What she really wanted was to take initiative in their personal life. Not that she had a problem with following whatever Andrea decided—in the two months of their roller-coaster, fake and yet somehow real relationship, she had done more fun, adventurous things, had laughed more, had explored her own sexuality at his patient hands, had understood her own needs and wishes better than ever before.

She had lived in these two months more than she had her entire life. And she wanted to believe that it was the same for him, too.

He did seem livelier and more relaxed, more prone to spontaneity and taking time off work, since she’d resumed working for him. Still, wary reluctance was a knot in her belly anytime she wanted to cross a line that really wasn’t there. So when that particular day approached that Andrea would not work, Monica ensured his schedule was clear and made plans to make herself scarce.

It was the day more than a decade ago when they had lost their father. Everyone, even at work, knew that Andrea disappeared that day. Not even Romeo or Flora knew where he went or how he spent it. As his new assistant two years ago, Monica herself had been witness to the change in his demeanor even a week ahead of that day each year, of how the shadow of grief ravaged him.

But...a small part of her desperately wanted to talk to him this time. To spend it with him, even if in utter silence. To provide a little solace and companionship to him on a day when he retreated from the world, and even his family.

She was still mulling over how she could do it without crossing a boundary when Andrea entered and closed the door to the office behind him. Monica looked away from her screen and rubbed at her gritty-feeling eyes.

It was eight in the evening on a Wednesday and the glittering lights of Milan’s financial district shone through the floor-to-ceiling glass walls of Andrea’s office.

They had been going through the final corrections that the legal department had sent on the merger with Mr. Brunetti’s company since six in the morning. Not only was Monica bone tired after being up until two for a dinner with Andrea’s business associates, but she was also worried about him.

All day, words had formed and dusted away on her lips as she waited to see signs of his mood spiraling or retreating. Instead, he had been on a high the past two days. Mr. Brunetti had finally agreed to most of Andrea’s terms for the merger, and they had been working hard and playing harder. He’d been relentlessly demanding in bed, and Monica had begun to wonder if sex could be used as a way to blunt painful reminders of grief. Not that she minded one bit being used like that...

A file plopped onto the coffee table in front of her.

“You missed two pages of corrections again,” Andrea said, planting himself onto the table.

Embarrassment flushed her cheeks as Monica opened the file, found the pages he was referring to. “I’m sorry, there’s no excuse.” Foolish, useless tears formed a lump in her throat. How could she have missed it? God, she prided herself on her work and this was unacceptable. “I’ll look through these and get the new changes entered immediately. You’ll have them ASAP.”

When she made to get up, he leaned forward, his legs straddling hers and locking her in place. “That’s two times you made a mistake today. And two times in the three and a half years since you started working at this company.”

Monica looked up to find his eyes full of that sardonic humor. And that spark touched her heart as if it were a warm tendril wrapping around the chamber, cocooning her from the world. Slowly, she straightened her spine, when all she wanted to do was to lean into his warm body and let him envelop her. “That’s two times too many for my liking,” she said, flipping through the file. “I don’t know how it happened but I promise you that it won’t happen again, and—”

“It happened because I’ve been working you too hard,” Andrea said, taking the file from her hands. He leaned in where she had pulled back and rubbed the pad of his thumb under her eyes. “You look exhausted, cara . Why didn’t you tell me you needed a break?”

“ You didn’t take one,” she said, drawing a finger across the gaunt brackets around his mouth. God, how she loved touching him like this, as if he was hers to do so. And what was she going to do when this merger was all signed off on? When his interest in her and the necessity of this fake relationship began to dwindle? How would she keep her hands to herself and her thoughts free of him? How would she sit across from him in this same office and pretend like she didn’t want more of him?

Her thoughts looped in the same way, even as she tried to detach herself from them, detach herself from this growing feeling that pervaded every one of her waking and sleeping moments.

“You have double standards here,” she said, smiling to make the complaint seem shallow. “Even Romeo agrees that you never slow down, despite preaching it to him.”

“My fiancée and my brother are going behind my back and discussing me?”

“We’re too afraid to say it to your face,” she said, wondering when he’d begun to drop the fake part from her title. She tried so hard to not read anything into it.

“I have spent years training my body and my head to survive on little sleep and rest. For you, though, it has been long nights and long days, si ?” His gaze encompassed her entire body, from her hair in a loose bun to her tight dress shirt and her black trousers, lighting every inch of her on slow, deep fire. “I should have realized I’m making too many demands on you. Which is something Mama and Romeo have been hounding me about.”

“I like spending time with you. At work or outside of it. I mean, yes, I could do a little less of all the socializing and networking dinners as your fiancée but all the rest, I like it, Andrea. I like what we do together,” she said, and then blushed so hard that she had no doubt her cheeks must look like tomatoes.

“I like how intensely you admit that, bella ,” he said with a grin and caught her mouth in a whisper-kiss that made her heart thud against her rib cage. He tasted of coffee and mint and like decadent want, his mouth drawing her deeper with each nip and stroke.

She kept waiting to see if the raw need she felt for him would dial down or change with each kiss and caress. But it hadn’t. It didn’t. If anything, now she craved him like a drug that she needed to function fully in the world. His kisses and his teasing and his carnal demands in bed... She reveled in every moment, yes, but now they were tinged with a deeper emotion, carried more weight with each passing day.

Like every single time, their kiss rose to a fever pitch soon, tinged with a desperate need on both their sides, racing toward more. Maybe because it had been a whole thirty-six hours since they had made love. They had been so busy last night that they had fallen into exhausted sleep as soon as they had returned to his penthouse.

She protested with a mewl when Andrea pulled away, even as her fingers were locked against his nape, holding him to her. Her eyes closed as he swept his mouth over her jaw and that sensitive spot where her neck met her shoulder. Shamelessly, she thrust herself into his touch, and had the even better reward of hearing his laughter.

Finally, he pulled back from her again, and she was glad to see his own pupils blown up with desire and more. There was always a little more that tinged his desire, too, but she could never be sure if it was only what she wanted to see.

His mouth trailed upward and landed at her temple, his rough fingers circling her nape with a possessive protectiveness that she’d longed for her whole life. “Go home, take a shower, catch some sleep and then I want you to take a couple of days off. There’s a little mountain resort within two hours that the chauffeur will drive you to. I’ll join you tomorrow night.”

“No,” she said, something close to panic rising within her. They couldn’t go off this weekend, of all weekends. When he realized what it was, he would hate her. “I need to finalize these documents and—”

“I’ve been pursuing this merger for more than two years. Brunetti has thrown every obstacle in its way and we have resolved them all to our satisfaction. Signing on the dotted line can wait for a few days.”

“It’s not just work I’m worried about.”

“Whatever is on the social calendar, cancel it. Why the resistance, bella ?” He drew back, as if to search her face for some hidden meaning. Something she’d never heard before underlined his words when he spoke. “Aren’t you the one forever nagging me to take it slow for just a little bit?”

Her cheeks heated at that word. “No, nothing on the social calendar. I already cleared the rest of your week, beginning tomorrow. I knew you wouldn’t want to work on Friday and...”

“What’s Friday?”

“It’s the...twenty-third of September. You...usually don’t work that day.”

He reared back from her so fast that it was like whiplash. He had forgotten the significance of the date, she realized with a belated sort of horror, and that was exactly what was reflected in his face now.

He looked horrified that he had forgotten. And fast on the heels of that came guilt that filled his eyes.

Monica stood up, wanting to follow him, some knot of fear and guilt trapped in her throat making it hard to breathe. He walked away from the sitting lounge, his moments lacking that economic grace that made him a pleasure to watch. When he reached his desk, he rubbed a hand over his face, his shoulders tight with tension.

“Andrea, it’s a small oversight. We’ve been busy with this merger and you—–”

“I do not need you to assuage my guilt, Monica,” he said, without turning around. But she saw his reflection in the windows and how he rubbed the heels of his palms against his eyes. It was a rare gesture of vulnerability that he never showed the world, not even his family. And definitely not her.

Monica , he’d called her. Not bella or cara mia . And in that particular tone that he rarely used anymore. She swallowed the sliver of hurt it invoked. This wasn’t about her or their relationship. But somehow, she couldn’t swallow that lie. “I’d never tell you to feel one way or another, Andrea. Just as you can’t tell me to not care about you.”

Her words landed in between them, creating a minefield she couldn’t cross without it exploding in her face.

“I do not need your care. Definitely not in this and not in any area of my personal life. I thought you understood that.”

She nodded even though he couldn’t see her and rallied herself into acting as if the vast room wasn’t suddenly swathed in tension. Gathering her files and folders, she started stuffing them into her laptop bag. “What you suggested earlier is a good idea. A weekend at the resort, I mean. I’ll make arrangements for your stay. Anything that comes up, I can manage easily.”

“What a thoughtful assistant and lover you are, bella , easily shifting from one role to the other, not making any demands in either,” he said now, turning around, his mouth wreathed in a cynical twist he rarely showed her anymore. It was almost as if the Andrea from those beginning years of their acquaintance was back, and she was nothing but one of his dutiful sheep.

“I’m thinking of you,” she said, a reckless kind of boldness sweeping through her. “I know you don’t let anyone, not even Flora or Romeo, do that, but I do. And I won’t apologize for it.”

“And yet, you’re not insisting on accompanying me on the trip.”

“Not this time, no,” she said, each step she took toward him feeling like an obstacle course she was jumping over. “I have a feeling anything I suggest will only rile you up right now.”

“What a good little rule follower you are, always weighing your risks.”

His words landed like a punch to her gut, given they carried so much truth in them. That he would taunt her for what she thought was her weakness...hurt on so many levels. “You’re...not in a good place now and I have no problem being your target,” she said, anger coming to her aid. “But don’t presume to know how I feel or what I want.”

“Tell me what you want, then,” he said, the words full of some craven demand. “Tell me what the perfect assistant, perfect lover, perfect fake fiancée, Monica D’Souza, truly wants.”

“I want to go to the chalet with you. I want to be with you and give you the space to talk about anything and everything. I want to give you companionable silence. I want to go to bed with you. I want you to tell me about that awful day. I want you to not struggle with your grief alone. I want to hear about what kind of man your father was, in your own words, because I know he must have been amazing to have raised you and Romeo to be who you are. I want to watch over you as you do for everyone that comes into your sphere. I want you to be not alone because every moment you are, I’ll be thinking of you.”

His gaze lost the dark humor, icing her out. His chin reared down as if she’d attacked him instead of offering a short respite from his grief and his guilt. “I don’t need to talk about it, bella . There’s no big emotional resolution I’ll achieve by talking about how I drove Papa into crashing our car. There’s no big breakthrough I’ll get by talking about how Romeo almost died because of my selfishness. There’s nothing you can do that will change that day and what it stole from me. Or what it turned me into,” he said, turning away. “You’re one of a kind, bella , I’ll give you that. But you cannot change me. And if you’re beginning to think that...”

“Oh, don’t worry, Andrea. That kind of arrogance has never been my strength. As for wanting to change you or claim you...even I’m not that naive. But—”

“I think you should leave. Before I say something I cannot take back.”

Monica had known this was coming, this clearly drawn line in the sand that would shove her back beyond that boundary. Her entire life had been about lines like this that told her she was wanted only if it was convenient, only if she behaved well, only if a foster family was faring well financially, only if she behaved perfectly, only, only, only...

Something that had been forever yoked to that fear, that she might have a family or love if only she stayed behind that line and didn’t ask much, splintered. Suddenly, it felt as if she had been set free from a huge weight and it was both terrifying and liberating.

With that came a kind of recklessness, even as she dutifully walked back to the other side of the line. She had a question to ask. And it flew from her mouth like a bullet. “Are you angry that for the first time in a decade, you were so happy with your own life that you forgot the relentless grief you carry as some kind of shroud? Or are you angry that it is our fake relationship that made you forget? Or is it that you have decided you cannot be happy at all?”

His shoulders tightened enough for her to know that her question had landed exactly as she’d intended it to. But she didn’t wait for his answer because Andrea Valentini was an honorable man and she didn’t want to make a liar out of him. Though there was little satisfaction in knowing she was right.

Her heart felt heavy in her chest as she walked out of his office and closed the door, even as every inch of her wanted to stay, wanted to be strong enough to withstand his misdirected anger and guilt and hold his hand through the pain that came later.