Page 12 of Fiancée for the Cameras

“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.”

Hetskedand 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’smoods 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 youcan’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 justimagine 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.

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