Page 23 of Fiancée for the Cameras

“You’ve always been more than that to me,” his mother said, tapping Monica’s cheek. Then she stepped back and gave her a once-over. “I would recommend a piece of jewelry with your outfit but I will leave that in Andrea’s capable hands.”

As he watched, Romeo pulled Monica to him and kissed her on the cheek—a little too close to the corner of her mouth for Andrea’s liking, but he had already given his far too intrusive family too much ammunition against him. Then his brother whispered something in her ear that made her cheeks flush the same color as her dress.

A slow, thunderous beat seemed to take up in his blood as his mother and Romeo left the lounge, intending to arrive at the gala separately from him and Monica. Finally, when Monica set that liquid gaze on him, something he couldn’t recognize shimmered there. Her slender arms spread in a welcoming stance, she asked, “What do you think? Will I do as Andrea Valentini’s fiancée?”

“What did Romeo say to you?” he bit out, instead of acknowledging her question.

Her expression shuttered and her chin rose with that willful streak he was coming to recognize and like. Although not so much at this particular minute. “That’s between me and your brother.”

Cristo, no wonder his family was teasing him like they did. He behaved like a hormone-ridden, angsty teenager around her. And he should have known she’d clam up when he demanded an answer to such an inane question.

In nearly two years of working intimately for him and with him, she had never cowered or bent at his criticisms or his demands or his perfectionist, workaholic tendencies. She didn’t engage in an argument, but always brought him around to her point of view in the end. Slowly, but surely, as she was driving him out of his mind now.

Sighing, he said, “Mama is right. We need jewelry for you.”

He didn’t wait to see if she followed him, leading the way to his father’s old study. Like his mother had rightly guessed, he’d already had a jewelry showroom that he knew Chiara had always liked send him some pieces in advance. Now he regretted not asking Romeo to look through the selection and eliminate the worst options. He knew nothing of the current trends in jewelry—design and fashion had always been Romeo’s field of expertise—nor of Monica’s tastes. But there were at least a dozen pieces for her to pick from.

He turned to find her looking around with wide eyes. The study was a remnant from his father’s time and while Mama constantly asked him to redo it, he hadn’t found the heart to erase memories of his father.

“This is different from your study at work. Or upstairs,” she said, not meeting his eyes. “It’s so full of...character and charm.”

Beyond the smooth, silky skin of her shoulders, he saw the tightness with which she held herself. And Andrea suspected he had hurt her by not complimenting her, even after she’dspecifically asked it of him. A part of him found it maddening that he couldn’t give her a simple compliment that she could appreciate, but a bigger part of him was almost resentful of her for reducing him to such peevish behavior.

“It was Papa’s,” he said, gentling his tone. “He was an avid reader and a fan of woodworking. Many of the pieces are his.”

She nodded, her long neck tilting forward to look at the pieces up close. “He was very talented.”

“Si.”

“But this one...” She bent and leaned close and Andrea didn’t look away fast enough to miss the delectable sight of how the silk moved over the swell of her buttocks.

She touched the one he had carved of a wood nymph from a dark wood that Romeo had acquired from some trader a couple of years after Papa’s death. In turn, Andrea had put a sketchbook into his brother’s hands, determined to provoke him from the deep, dangerous fugue state Romeo had slipped into. It was the first step they had both taken to carve their way back to each other and to life itself.

While Andrea had worked on that particular piece during the nights Romeo had sketched, he hadn’t taken it up again since. Not until this past year. He had had very little time for woodwork, after he’d taken over the company full-time, especially when all his risks and strategies had exploded it beyond even his own vision.

Or was that another lie he had told himself?

Maybe because it was the one thing where he and his father had seen eye to eye, had understood each other, had met each other without the usual frustration and animosity that had colored their relationship when he’d turned eighteen and his ambitions and vision for life had veered completely away from his father’s dreams for him.

“This is yours,” she said, awe in her tone.

“How do you know that?” he said, his voice sharp from the sudden, overwhelming flush of pleasure that bathed him. When she didn’t answer, he said, “Answer me.”

She turned, but her arms crisscrossed over her belly in a defensive posture he hated. “The style is different from the others. Also similar to the almost finished one, the mermaid that you keep hidden away in your drawer at work. The detail in such a tiny piece is...magnificent.”

“You went snooping?”

She stood ramrod, her eyes going wide. “Of course not. I was just curious if you had—” now she was blushing again “—liked it.”

“What do you mean?”

Her lush mouth puffed out in a frustrated exhale. “I was snooping,si. Fire me for my sins.”

“I have worse punishments in mind if you don’t give me the answers I want, Ms. D’Souza.”

A lick of heat dawned through her yellow eyes, making them burn bright and hot. An answering heat punched through Andrea, knowing that she understood him, knowing that her mind had gone there just as his did.

“That would have frightened me a few months ago, Mr. Valentini. Now whatever you deal out...” She swallowed, the pulse at her neck thrashing at her own boldness. “I’m more than willing and ready.”

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