Fiancée For The Cameras (Mills & Boon Modern)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I T HAD BEEN three weeks since Monica had returned to Italy and joined Valentini Luxury Goods again as an executive assistant. Only instead of assisting the CEO, she was now working for the Executive Head of Design, which was Romeo. Working for him at his studio, where he allowed no one, and staying at his girlfriend’s place, hadn’t made Monica any less worried about running into Andrea. Or any less eager.

It felt unnecessarily sneaky, though, and Romeo wasn’t happy about it. She didn’t blame him. But the good friend he was, he also understood that she had needed to do this.

She’d spent two months looking after Father D’Souza and when he had not only recovered but also returned to his work at the orphanage as if he were a spring chicken instead of a seventy-three-year-old man, Monica had found herself not only heart-sick but at a loose end, as well. As much as she loved Father D’Souza and was glad to see him restored to his full self, her life wasn’t in New York.

The new friends and family she’d made were all across the ocean. Even as she’d nursed Father D’Souza with full devotion, her mind, heart and soul had remained behind with him . Thinking of Andrea, remembering the look in his eyes when he’d asked her if she was ending it, the shock that seemed to reverberate through him when she’d proclaimed that she loved him, she hadn’t been able to sleep or eat or function in any kind of normal way.

All she could think of was whether she’d made the wrong decision, if she’d thrown away a lifetime’s worth of belonging and happiness by confusing her feelings. Not for one moment could she stop imagining what life would have been like if she’d said yes.

Would they have been married already? Would she have shown him all her favorite spots in New York? Would she have settled into married life as well as she’d settled into being his fake fiancée? Would there have been a day where she woke up and realized that she was simply another cog in his life, like everything else that was convenient and easy and suitable?

Would she have been happy knowing she loved him and he would never love her back?

When the last question came, she inevitably fell into the thinking she’d been right to leave, though it provided no solace.

But one thing had become clear.

She had to be strong enough to return to Italy because her friends and life were there. She was still connected to Flora and Romeo, still connected in some way to Andrea. She had to reclaim her life, her strength, in this way. She might even have to face a future where Andrea would move on with another woman and would simply have to hope that someday she might move on, too. Though at this point in time, it was impossible to think of a moment or a day when she wouldn’t love Andrea with a soul-deep need. At least that much had become clear to her across oceans and two months of time.

So she’d returned to Italy, asking Romeo to help her find a job and start afresh. As much of a businessman as his brother, Romeo had said he was loath to let talent like hers go off to another company, especially with her familiarity of the company culture and organizational systems. Her first instinct had been to beg him to find her something else, but she knew she couldn’t avoid Andrea forever, either.

She couldn’t run and hide and avoid life, as she’d done for so many years.

And yesterday, another mundane, lifeless day in a number of them, it seemed, a small cardboard box had been sitting on her desk in Romeo’s studio, looking a little worse for the wear. She realized why when she looked at the different stamps. The little package was addressed to her and had been sent to the orphanage, but must have missed her by days. Father D’Souza must have received it and forwarded it to her here.

Hands trembling, breath whistling through her as if she’d run a marathon, Monica pulled at the tape and the numerous layers of bubble wrap around the object. She was sobbing by the time she got the last one off and the little dark mermaid danced in her hand.

Through her blurry vision, she ran her fingers over the delicate contours of sculpture, marveled at his craft with wonder in her heart. And then she was unfurling the small note, torn out of his notepad, and read:

Ask me, bella. For whatever you want.

Her knees giving out under her, Monica had fallen to the floor, clutching the little mermaid to her chest, her heart expanding so big that it might explode out of her. He’d given her what she’d asked for. He’d always give her what she asked for, if only she was brave enough to ask for it.

So here she was at his family home, in the bedroom suite she’d shared with him, knowing that Romeo was out and Flora would be at her friend’s anniversary party, wondering if her sudden burst of bravery had, after all, been a foolish idea. She didn’t even know if he would be home tonight. But she’d wanted to surprise him and had even thought up an excuse in case he was in a frightful mood.

She was staring at the pieces on his desk, shocked at seeing several new ones, her throat full of that sticky pain she felt whenever she thought of him, when a voice said behind her, “Should I call the polizia on you, Ms. D’Souza?”

Monica whirled so fast that her head felt dizzy.

Andrea stood against his closed bedroom door, eyes alive with an unholy shine that sent a thrum of awareness through her. It was the look he got when he wanted to tease her, or torment her extra for her climax, or when he wanted sex. Basically, all the times when he wanted her, saw the real her, the American orphan that no one wanted.

He looked like he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days but otherwise, he looked as magnetic and gorgeous as he had ever been. His dress shirt hung open to reveal the rough hair on his chest that she loved to touch, and the black trousers he wore emphasized the lean power of his thighs.

Meeting his gaze, though... She felt like every bit of oxygen had been sucked from the room and she was almost lightheaded from the impact.

“You look like hell,” he said, walking toward her, barely giving her time to recover or react in any way.

She tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, fervently wishing she’d washed it and worn something other than faded sweatpants and the thick, chunky sweater made out of Italian wool—the one thing she had stolen from him. But she’d been acting on instinct, urged on by a reckless kind of desperation. She’d needed to see him.

The closer he came, though, the less panicky and anxious she felt. Almost as if she couldn’t be anything less near this man than her whole self, this man who had taught her that she deserved everything she ever wanted in life—including his love. Straightening her shoulders, she lifted her chin. “I haven’t been doing well.” When he scowled, she sighed and added, “Emotionally, I mean.”

“But you’re well enough to come into my home and rifle through my things? What were you planning to steal?”

“I’m not stealing anything. There are a couple of things I left and they’re mine,” she bluffed.

“Like what?”

“Like the necklace you picked for me.”

“Why do you want it when you didn’t want me?”

Outrage erupted from her mouth like an indignant squeak. “I never said I didn’t want you. I never even said I was ending it. You did. I just wanted some space. I needed to know that what I felt for you was different from what I felt for Francesco. For that I needed to grow up, understand my own needs and wants first. In the end, it turned out to be right.”

He was closer now and she could smell that delicious scent of his and feel that warmth of his body, and her knees nearly buckled.

“What turned out to be right, bella ?” he said with an infinite tenderness, and this close, Monica could see that he had not fared any better than her at all. There was a gaunt, downright pinched, look to his features as if something dark had etched itself permanently onto them. Her loss, she wanted to think, though it didn’t really give her solace. He looked ravaged, reduced, less of that vibrant, energetic man she knew and adored. “What did your little experiment prove, except that it made us both miserable?”

She swallowed at the rough rasp of his voice as he asked that, as if he, too, was making an effort to speak past the pain. And this new, brave, not-delusional version of her knew, in her gut, that he was in pain. That he had missed her as much as she’d missed him or even more. Because when Andrea Valentini gave something, he gave it with his whole heart. And that gave her the courage to say all that was in her own. “It proved that I am in love with you, that these feelings I have for you—” she rubbed at her chest, feeling actual pain there “—are so real that you’re all I think of and see and feel even when I’m not near you. It proved that what I thought I felt for Francesco was nothing more than a cheap imitation of the real thing. What I feel for you, Andrea, it makes me braver, stronger, makes me know myself like I never did before. It makes me want the best for myself. So it also proved that I’d have been miserable to marry you without having your love.”

“If I talk about my grief about Papa, if I tell you of myself at my worst moment, then, bella ?”

“I already know you blame yourself for that accident. That for months after, you wouldn’t look at Flora. That you and Romeo nearly lost each other all over again. I know that it has only driven you to be a better man, a man your father would have been proud of. Whatever you think is your worst, Andrea, I only love even more.”

“And yet instead of facing me, you return to Italy, work for my brother right under my nose? What is that, bella ?”

It took her a moment, looking around the shifting light in the room—suddenly they were cocooned in a thick darkness—to realize he had gotten even closer. With his arm on the wall behind her head, he had caged her in, and yet it felt so natural that if they were in a room together, any room, it was impossible that they would stay apart. Something about his tone made her tilt her chin up and look into his eyes. He had known she was back, that she was working for Romeo. The little flicker of hope in her heart turned into a bright, glowing flame. “It was your idea that I work for Romeo. Your idea that I stay with his girlfriend. Even my return ticket, you arranged it through him.”

“Si . ”

“Why? So that I can feel even more indebted to you? So that you can flex your power over me?”

“Is that what you truly think, Monica?” he said, his breath warm on her cheek.

She turned and their mouths were so close that she could feel the weight and depth of his lips crashing over hers. She wanted to touch him and kiss him so badly that she was trembling with the need. And the truth was plainly written in his gaze if only she was brave enough to see it. “You... You wanted me to have that safe space. You wanted me to prove to myself that I’m strong enough to come back and face you. You wanted me to have the security of knowing that Romeo and Flora are not lost to me. That you’re not lost to me, even outside of our relationship.”

“Si.”

A sob threatened to burst through her chest. Monica bunched her fists against his chest, the sensation of his skin against her fingers nearly burning her. “Why? Why do all that for me? Why?”

“You have a pretty logical brain, bella . Why don’t you follow through?”

“I can follow the logic, yes,” she said, smiling through her tears. “But I need to hear you say it, Andrea. All my life, I was desperate to belong somewhere, to be wanted. So desperate that somewhere came to mean anywhere. But not anymore. With you, I need so much more. With you, I want the entire world. I want...” She pressed her hand to his chest and felt the thundering beat of his heart. “I want...your words, because I know you don’t give them lightly.”

He smiled then and she could see his heart in it. “Flexing your claws again?”

“With you, yes. Since I know you love them,” she said, gaining back some of her own spirit.

His gray gaze held hers then, his hands taking hers. He opened his mouth and closed it a couple of times, as if words couldn’t encompass what he felt. God, she had always understood him best, better than anyone.

Finally, when he spoke, his words were low and soft and full of his love. “My heart, my body, my everything, is yours, Monica. I’m so sorry it took me so long to see what I have in you, to realize how much I already needed you. You didn’t just change me , bella , you brought me back to life. You completed me even before I knew what that meant.”

When Monica had imagined this moment, and she had over the past few weeks with a feverish, desperate urgency, she was laughing and screaming with joy. But reality was different. Even hearing those words from him only brought into keener contrast all the doubts and ache she’d suffered, all the anguish of wondering if he’d ever choose this between them, if he’d ever choose her .

“To wait for you to come to me, to hope that you would see you belong with me and I with you...has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done in life. I will give you words and actions and promises and presents, if only you give me one chance, bella . I will give you all of myself.”

And then she could hold off no longer. She pressed her mouth to his, half sobbing, half yelling and the shape and taste of him started a riot in her body. He clamped her hard to him, his fingers digging almost painfully into her hips as he devoured her mouth. It was a hard, rough, possessive kind of kiss and it was exactly what she needed.

He bit her lower lip, licked the hurt and repeated the rough caresses over and over again. Shaking and gasping, Monica clung to him, rubbing herself against his body. “I need to be inside you, bella ,” he whispered, his words taking on a guttural slant, his urgency in every touch.

“Yes, now, please,” she said.

He pushed her sweatpants down roughly and she kicked them off, and when he lifted her, she wrapped her legs around his waist. Pressing her back against the wall, he thrust inside her and Monica banged her head into the wall and he cursed and cradled her head, but the jarring pain of it only made the pleasure in her lower belly even more white-hot.

But she didn’t want to miss an inch of this, so she clasped his cheek and looked at him and when he said, “Say it again,” she shouted the words instead.

“I love you, Andrea!” She repeated his name again and again, on each silken thrust, and soon, she burst like a star in the sky and he was following her.

And even though she’d come to accept that the future was uncertain, Monica knew she’d never regret a moment spent with him. Not when it was true that he loved her, too.

It felt like hours but it was only minutes later, after they had both washed up and she was in his lap in his armchair, that Andrea was able to hear his heart’s muted whispers again.

It was only now, when he could physically touch her and feel her weight in his arms, that he felt like his world was all right again. Her cheek pressed to his heart, Monica burrowed into him as if she never wanted to leave again.

“Tell me, Andrea. I know your heart but still, I want to hear it. Please.”

He tilted her chin up and looking into those beautiful yellow eyes, Andrea saw his future. “I’m in love with you, bella . I knew it even as you shouted it at me. I knew as I walked away from you. But I couldn’t face it. All I could see was pain and loss ahead, even as I was already losing you. So young as you are, what you did was right for both of us. It was only after losing you that I could see why it was so easy for me to jump into a compromise of a marriage. You were right. I was cheating you. And I was cheating myself.”

“You still want to marry me, then?” she asked, her voice small and fragile, and he felt as if she could turn him inside out.

“ Si . More than anything in the world. I want to have you all to myself first. Then I want to have a family with you, if that’s what you want. And I want to love you every day for the rest of our lives. You changed me even before you were my fake fiancée, bella . And I can’t wait to see what else life holds for us.”

Then she was crying and whispering, “Yes, I’ll marry you,” and Andrea kissed her and tasted her tears and her pain and her love and vowed to himself that she’d never doubt herself or his love ever again.