Fiancée For The Cameras (Mills & Boon Modern)

CHAPTER TWELVE

I T WAS A full two days before Monica returned to his family home, a huge bunch of wild lilies clutched in her hand. The moment she saw him, wariness turned the corners of her lush mouth down.

Andrea had spent the anniversary of his father’s death mulling over the questions she had posed for him and chastising himself for being hard on the one person who had dared only to think of him. He still didn’t know what to think or how to process the fact that he had forgotten that date this year.

For years, it had stood out like a black mark against his very soul on the calendar, reacquainting him with guilt and grief and raw pain that he took on as punishment. He spent it drinking, replaying the argument with Papa, regrets piling up until he couldn’t breathe. For days, he would be unable to face Mama or Romeo for fear of seeing their hatred or resentment or even grief. He had never allowed himself the luxury of grieving with them, of reflecting on what they’d all lost that day. He’d forced himself to be alone, both as punishment and repentance.

And yet this year, all that had changed.

She had changed it, even as he had taunted her that their relationship didn’t matter in the scheme of things. Not a minute after she’d left, he’d regretted his callous words. Still, he was cowardly enough not to want to face her even though her hurt weighed on him like another shroud. He didn’t have an answer for her question and was ruthless enough to know that he wouldn’t give it to her even if he had it.

Instead, he had turned up at his family home two mornings later, so that it wouldn’t look like he was seeking her out. Neither did he miss it that she had drawn him here on that day when he’d stayed away for so long. Only she wasn’t there and instead of the heavy silence he’d braced himself for, he’d heard laughter, the kind that surged up from one’s belly, like a cleansing fire.

He had shocked Mama and Romeo in the middle of watching those home videos Papa had made out of every tiny occasion, their laughter ringing around Romeo’s high-tech studio lounge.

Transfixed by the sight of the laughing man in the grainy video on the screen, Andrea had folded himself down onto the sofa, a little distance away from them. Papa had come alive for those videos, dancing with Mama while he or Romeo held the camera precariously, playing with them, teasing them...

They had watched those videos for hours, laughing and shouting and reminiscing and at the end, Andrea had found his eyes wet and his head achy and his heart somehow lighter and yet heavy, too. Mama had buried her face in his chest and sobbed silently, even as she hurried to reassure him that she loved him with all her heart. That whatever his father had dreamed of for him and Romeo for the future, he had fulfilled it a thousand times over and wouldn’t he forgive himself, too?

And Andrea had realized what a fool he’d been all these years. How unnecessarily he’d suffered through his grief alone. On the heels of the first came another realization. He didn’t want that life anymore, where he punished himself, where he struggled alone, where he hid himself from his family. It was the exact opposite of what Papa had wanted for his firstborn.

Beneath all of it was the gnawing realization that two days had passed since their argument and Monica still hadn’t returned. Only Romeo’s admission that she’d told him she was fine and needed space had stopped him from calling the chief commissario of the police to look for her.

The third morning, she walked into his home, her pale pink sundress rumpled—had she slept in it?—and an expensive bunch of wild lilies, her favorite flowers, in hand. Her mouth instantly drew down when she spied him prowling the garden around the patio. Her hair in a messy braid, her eyes wearing that haunted look he’d seen once before—the very sight of her made emotions surge through him. Gritting his teeth, he sought control, trying to find some rationality out of the thorny knots.

He had worried over her safety. He had...hated sleeping by himself and had repeatedly reached out an arm, desperate for her warm body across his bed. He had...missed her with a longing he couldn’t kill or define. And with each hour that had passed, he had become more determined to come up with a plan that would both satisfy his needs and prune the buds of things he didn’t want to feel or nurture.

Seeing her, hearing his heart thud in his chest and his body tighten with desire, told him this was the change he sought in his life.

Turning their fake engagement into a real one was a simple and brilliant solution. Monica would have what she’d wanted all her life—family, security and a promise of a long, solid future. If she wished, they could even have children.

He would have her in his bed, and when passion waned as it eventually would, they would have a stable partnership built on loyalty and friendship and mutual care. It wouldn’t be the soulless business merger with Chiara, but neither would it be the great love story his parents had shared that had left his mother shattered. It would be something in between, something that suited him and Monica.

She knew him, maybe better than anyone, and she would understand what a reach this was for him, would know how far he was willing to go for her. Just her .

With each second, the idea held more and more appeal. She would be his. Her loyalty, her generosity, her affection, her passion, her days and nights, all of them would be his. The very thought sent a staccato of urgent need beating through him.

“Where the hell have you been?” he asked as she skated a wide arc around him to reach his mother and Romeo, who were breakfasting on the patio.

She kissed Mama’s cheek and then wrapped her arms around Romeo from behind, smiled when he whispered something in her ear and then planted a sound kiss on his scruffy cheek.

Bitter jealousy ran rivulets through Andrea, tying his stomach in tight knots, and he swore to himself that he would have that easy affection from her, too. He’d never been a patient man and now that he knew what he wanted, he wanted it sealed and done now. He wanted her acceptance now. He wanted to tell his mother to plan the wedding so that they could have it as soon as possible. Then he would whisk her away on a short honeymoon—with this merger going through, he could afford at least a weekend. And then he would punish her, in the best way he knew, for this stubborn act. For cutting him off for two whole days, for being unavailable to him when he’d been desperate for her. He would give her so much pleasure that she’d never even think of parting from him again.

After what felt like an eternity, she turned to him, her chin lifting at that stubborn angle that both infuriated him and fascinated him no end. “Good morning to you. too, Andrea. I have been staying with a friend, taking a break as you ordered me to.”

He walked toward the breakfast table, not liking the reminder that she had sought his brother for help, yet again. To avoid him specifically. “You switched off your phone.”

“I wasn’t working and you told me to steer clear of you.” Her eyes held his, and at whatever she saw there, she sighed. “Romeo knew I was fine.”

“What about what you owe me?” he bit out, not hiding his frustration, and her eyes widened. “Was that your little petty punishment because I behaved like an ass? Because it worked.”

Whatever anger and defiance she’d drummed up seemed to drain out of her at his admission. Her hand shook as she lifted the carafe and poured a cup of coffee, added a spoon of cream, stirred it in and handed it to him. Even now, she catered to his wishes and unspoken needs first and damned if he knew how to feel about it.

He was shocked enough to grumpily say, “I don’t need your peace offering.” But the scent of her was already working on him, making his body buzz.

“I know you worry over me, and you think I’m some naive lamb out in the jungle. If I try really hard—” her mouth twitched “—I can even appreciate where your concern stems from. But it’s not necessary.”

“I disagree.”

She thrust the coffee cup into his hand and went back to the table. Loath as he was to have this spat in front of his mother and Romeo, he settled down at the table. They’d been pestering him about their “little fight” for days now and this way, they would understand his intentions and he wouldn’t have to reassure them that he wasn’t hurting their little lamb.

“What’s with the flowers?” he asked after taking a few sips of his coffee. Already, his day felt better, in his control, with her seated across from him and his plan cementing in his mind.

She ran a finger over one fragile petal, shying her gaze away from his before she said, “Birthday flowers from Francesco.”

Silence fell over the table. Even Mama’s look for Monica was full of soft chastisement.

“That’s the friend you’ve been staying with?” Andrea bit out, jealousy clinging to his throat like a thousand tiny pinpricks. “Did you run to him the minute we fought?”

Her head jerked up, her gaze blazing with fire. Cristo , why was he saying all the wrong things? “If you really think that—”

“I don’t.” He rubbed a hand over his face, wondering what the hell was wrong with him.

“I stayed with that waitress friend of Romeo’s,” she said, cutting his brother a cheeky grin. That grin should be his, as should the light in her eyes. “We went to the lakefront in Navigli, and Francesco was there with some friends. He came over, ordered expensive wine, remembered all of a sudden that it was my birthday and bought the flowers from one of those expensive shops. He was trying to show off his elevated life status and it was easier to accept them than argue with him.”

Another regret to add to his mounting pile, Andrea thought.

It had been her birthday and he’d sent her off to spend it with strangers, by herself. And that scoundrel knew that little detail about her and he hadn’t. For the first time in his life, Andrea wished he could redo the whole past few days all over again.

Mama broke the spiraling tension between them. “Four years and you didn’t tell us the same day is your birthday, Monica? We would have celebrated it with you!”

Monica shook her head, dislodging a thick strand of hair from her braid. Andrea felt the most overwhelming urge to tuck it behind her ear and pull her into his lap until she poured down all the reasons for her swollen eyes and pinched mouth. If it wasn’t just him, that is.

“I know how hard that day is for you all. As for my birthday, I don’t think it’s even real. It was the day Father D’Souza found me on the front steps of the church. We simply decided that would be my birthday.”

“Giovanni would have been delighted to know that the anniversary of his death could be marked with celebrating such a lovely person like you, cara mia ,” his mother said, her words trembling, but her mouth stretching into a wide smile.

“We will celebrate it tonight,” Andrea said, and his mother and Romeo added their excitement.

Monica stared at him, her hand stilling on her own coffee cup. Anger flashed in her eyes and yet, she pushed it away with the sort of control he’d never seen her possess.

Andrea sat back in his chair and watched her, his gut tight with some strange sort of premonition. There was something different about her, he realized, even though she’d only been gone two days. Like a wall of newly erected defense between her and him. Like she wasn’t being herself.

When she looked at him, her gaze was calm. It was not the Monica he had known for almost four years, the woman who wore all her emotions like bright colored signals on her face. “Is it okay if I excuse myself, Flora? I want to shower and maybe catch up on some sleep. I’m afraid I don’t feel good.”

When his mother nodded, she stood up and left without so much as blinking in his direction. Effectively dismissing him, which was novel in itself.

Bemusement and something more sang through Andrea’s veins. He’d never seen her anger or her armor before and he didn’t like it one bit employed against him. Especially the latter.

He followed her slender frame up the stairs with his hungry gaze. Disappointment curdled through him when she chose to go to the room she had convalesced in, instead of his suite where they’d been staying for the past two months.

“I believe the Americans call it being in the doghouse,” Romeo supplied softly, unhelpful as ever.

“It was her birthday and you forced her to spend it with a stranger. You better make it up to her, Andrea,” his mother said, casting a shrewd glance at him. “If, however, you’re bored with her, it might be better to tell her. I do hope you know that I will not be picking sides.”

“Hardly, Mama,” Andrea said, reaching for her hand and giving it a squeeze. “For once, you’re going to be not only impressed with how I plan to make it up to her, but thoroughly ecstatic.”

Her eyes widened and even Romeo looked stunned for once. Andrea kissed her cheek and left for his own shower, ignoring his brother’s rapid-fire questions. He’d let her sleep a little and then he’d make it up to her.

Monica came awake slowly, and instantly sought her cell phone to check the time. Instead, she found the electronic alarm clock that rested near Andrea’s bed winking at her, the red digits showing it was just past six. Frowning, she sat up in the vast bed, the luxury cotton duvet clinging to her bare legs, the all too familiar navy furnishings and that cozy scent of wood shavings making her body react as if it were a scent specifically designed to comfort and arouse her in equal measures.

“Feeling better after your nap?”

She turned to find Andrea sitting at his woodworking desk, torso bare and whittling away at a small slab of dark ebony wood in front of him. For a few moments, she simply watched his fingers use tiny tools with the same precision he used against her intimate folds. Heat flushed within her at remembered pleasure.

He wasn’t even looking at her yet somehow knew the exact moment she’d woken up. Closing her tired eyes, she told herself to stop reading meaning into the silliest things. Especially now, in a vulnerable state after the phone call she’d received this morning from one of the two friends she’d made at the orphanage about Father D’Souza.

It was not good news and yet, somehow it felt like if it had to happen, it had happened at the right time. Somehow, even in his ill health, the kind father was looking out for her well-being.

Pressing the heels of her thumbs into her eyes, Monica willed the roiling panic to abate. She knew what she had to do. All weekend she’d wondered how she could shore up her defenses against him, how to finish this thing between them with dignity instead of letting the coming end consume her.

Fate had handed her a way out and now, all she had to do was act on it. And yet, there had been something different about him this morning. He’d shown more emotion—yes, it was masked by jealousy, but it had been there. Even a sense of urgency. It had taken all her willpower to run from him, though she knew she needed the reprieve.

The bed dipped at her side the same moment a wall of warmth rubbed up against her arm. She felt his fingers on her cheek, the abrasive pad of his thumb tracing her jawline. Her breath came in deep, eager pants, the scent of his sweat and soap making her nearly delirious with desire and longing. “Monica? I was an ass to you in the office, bella . Forgive me.” He whispered the words into her temple, one arm coming up behind her to hold her loosely.

Monica leaned her side into his chest, automatically seeking whatever he would give. “Forgiven,” she whispered, hiding her face in his neck. God, he smelled delicious, and she wanted to burrow under his skin.

His fingers encircled the nape of her neck, the tips digging into her scalp, and she pushed into the touch, needing that rough, fierce claiming of his. Her nipples drew into tight, painful points under her flimsy tank top at first contact with his hard chest.

She rubbed herself against him, like an animal in heat, and licked at the hollow of his throat. Usually, she didn’t even do that much. In two months of their relationship, it was always Andrea who initiated touching, kissing and playing. The few times that they had sex without any foreplay, it was because they’d engaged in it indirectly for hours on a hectic workday or at a party with little, intimate touches or sitting across from each other at his mother’s table while Romeo called them lust birds.

Always, it was he who reached for her and always, Monica was more than willing and ready for him. But today he gently but firmly pushed her away and she felt a sudden flash of anger. She’d spent two months making sure she never asked him for more than he was willing to give, never even going near the boundary he kept around himself. Except two days ago. And now again...

Turning stiff in his arms, she tried to jerk away and off the bed.

He didn’t let her. His fingers trapped her wrists and tugged—with that ever-present gentleness he always showed her—until she was prostrate against the headboard and she had no choice but to look up at him.

“I have something important to say to you,” he said, bringing her palm to his cheek and rubbing against it. He was kneeling between her thighs, and her world was reduced to this gorgeous, possessive man and his gloriously warm body. How was she supposed to walk away from this?

“I’m not in the mood for talking.”

“You’re always in the mood for talking, bella .”

“Well, not right now. I want something else. And if you won’t give it to me, I...”

He raised a brow. His mouth twitched but there was an unnerving intensity to his gaze that she’d never seen, that arrested the juvenile taunt she’d have thrown at him. Flushing with heat and something more, she said, “If you don’t want to give me what I want, just say so.”

“When did I ever deny you anything you asked for, bella ? Truly asked for?”

Dismay curled through her as his gaze held hers. He was right. Even that day in his office, she’d given him a rhetorical answer with a lot of “woulds.” She hadn’t demanded to go with him. But it was also only true because she’d never made any demands of him. And today, on the day when she had to make the hardest decision of her life, she did want something from him. She wanted him .

She scooted closer to him. Pushing him back onto his haunches, she straddled him until his shaft was pure torment against her core. “I want to have sex, Andrea. Now. I need you inside me. Please,” she added, her gaze flitting between his eyes.

“As you wish, bella ,” he said, catching her mouth in a brutally tender kiss. She was on her back on her next breath and he rocked his erection into her core, his tongue plunging into her mouth with the same erotic insistence.

Monica clung to him like a rag doll as he got rid of her tank top, leaving her in her silk panties. Then his mouth drew a line down her neck, between her breasts, and he played with them just how she liked, kneading and cupping, his tongue and teeth leaving marks on her. With a loud groan, she tugged at his hair roughly when he wouldn’t touch her where she needed it and finally, finally, his tongue circled her nipple and his lips drew the tight knot into his warm mouth and Monica bucked off the bed.

His rough stubble against the sensitive nipple made her shout his name in a brazen demand that she’d have blushed at any other time. But more than just desire beat through her. Was it brushed with a stroke of grief and pain at what she was losing? Was it loss if she never had it in the first place?

Urgency beat through her veins, a desperate need to bottle everything from this moment so that it would last her a lifetime. And for the first time in their relationship, she didn’t want to passively wait for him.

When his fingers dipped into her folds and stroked her clit in those mind-numbing circles she liked, it took her everything to jackknife herself into a sitting position and push at his chest. “I want to touch you,” she announced.

He catered to her with a wicked smile and shifted to lean back against the headboard, lacing his hands behind his head. Licking her lips, Monica tugged at his sweatpants and he lifted his hips until they got rid of them. Then holding his gaze, she wrapped her fingers around his cock.

Arousal thrummed through her as if it were his fingers touching her intimately, instead of the opposite. He was all thick hardness wrapped in soft, velvet-like skin here, the exact opposite of the man he was everywhere else. Already, she could see the tightness around his mouth, hear the rough grunts of his breaths, feel the infinitesimal thrust of his hips when she stroked her fist all the way to the base and then up, until she was squeezing the soft head. “Monica, look at me,” he said, his words a gravelly whisper that slid along her skin like pings of electricity. “You don’t have to do everything today, bella .”

“I want to, Andrea. I want to taste you and suck...” Here, she blushed beetroot red, no doubt. “And do all that stuff that men want their lovers to do. I want you to...come inside my mouth, or on my face or wherever you want to. I want to make your filthiest fantasies come true. I want to be everything you need.”

His hands circled her nape, bringing her up to him so his mouth could take hers in a rough, hard kiss that told stories of his actual wishes. “We have time for you to do all this, bella . And you’re already everything I want.”

Tears pooled in her eyes as those simple words speared through her with the force of a silken thrust. Those were the words she wanted to hear, but in a different context. Her stupid, stupid heart. “I want to do it now,” she said on a thready whisper.

Leaning down, she licked at the soft head and before he could recover with a curse and a grunt, she opened her mouth and sucked him in. He was salty and musky and he stretched her mouth too wide but God, the sounds he made, the filthy curses that fell from his lips, the “good girl, just like that,” he kept saying, made the little discomfort worth every inch of it.

Monica followed his instructions to the letter, and could feel his body draw tighter, his hips thrust up when he lost control, his erection hitting the roof of her mouth, his need to go deeper and harder, his thighs rock hard against her nails.

His fingers tightened in her scalp, rougher than ever before, a breath before he was pushing her back into the mattress and with one rough stroke that almost pushed her off the bed, he entered her.

The sensation of being claimed by him like this... It was the most connected she’d felt to her body, to the world around her, and yet somehow, utterly divine, as if her soul couldn’t remain untouched. A lone tear escaped her and fled into the bedsheets.

“I was rough. Cristo , did I hurt you?”

Monica licked her lower lip and shook her head. “No. It was...perfect. As it always is. But I want more, please. I want you to move. I want you to make me forget. I want...so much, Andrea, and it feels like I will never have enough of you.” She looked away, scared that she had said too much, betrayed her innermost feelings somehow, even though she hadn’t even articulated them for herself yet. She braced for him to push off or withdraw or even to just finish what she’d demanded he give her without acknowledging her mindless words.

But as always, Andrea surprised her.

Whatever he saw in her face, or heard in her words, he gave her more than she asked for this time. Hands under her hips, he pulled her up until she was in his lap, straddling him, entrenching him even deeper inside her.

Throwing her head back, wrapping her arms around his neck, Monica let out a deep groan. “God, it feels like you’re everywhere inside me like this.”

“Look at me, cara mia ,” he said against her mouth, and she complied.

Fire burned in his gaze as he trailed tiny butterfly kisses over her face.

And then he was thrusting up into her and Monica knew she’d never forget this moment. Sex in this position was different, raw, on a visceral level. They were joined head to pelvis and she felt as if she was enveloped in this gorgeous, generous man’s very essence. With every upward thrust of his, she bore down until they found a rhythm that reverberated with their heartbeats. Her breasts pushed against his chest and when he dragged her hand to her clit and said, “Come for me, bella ,” she felt a new, wild, wanton heat thrash through her.

Touching herself while he watched her dialed up her pleasure another notch. It was filthy and awakening and when her fingers wandered down and touched the place where he thrust in and out of her, he let out the filthiest curse of all, and as his gaze told her he was almost there, Monica fell apart. Her orgasm ripped through her out of the blue, with the force of a wave pulling her under, and then there was nothing but swimming through the hazy pleasure of it while Andrea’s thrusts became rougher and wilder and his body pressed her down into the bed when his own climax claimed him.

Their breaths were a rough, harsh symphony in the sudden silence, their bodies damp and sweaty. And then when he pulled back and kissed her temple and whispered, “Marry me, Monica,” it felt like fate had dealt her the cruelest hand one more time. Only this time, it was couched in the shape of her deepest, darkest want.