Page 41 of Fiancée for the Cameras

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 offor 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.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

SHESAIDNOTHINGin reply for so long that Andrea began to wonder if she’d heard him at all. Through the long, hot shower he carried her to, through the sudden foray into the kitchen in their robes when her stomach growled violently, through their return to his bedroom—giggling, after Flora had found them in the kitchen and watched them with red streaking her own cheeks—to feeding each other bits of cheese and figs and grapes and washing it down with wine. Through another bout of sex after Monica had demanded to know one of his fantasies and he had bent her over the arm of the couch while they watched each other in the full-length mirror. He began to wonder if he had said it at all.

Even wondering that, Andrea had fallen into a sort of blissful sleep, wrapped around her, after two days of emotional turmoil. When he suddenly startled awake, dawn was streaking the sky with fingers of pink, and the side where Monica slept was not only empty but cold, too. Again.

He shot to his feet, pulled on his sweatpants and followed her voice into the closet to find her packing her suitcase with her cell phone clutched to her ear.

He lasted two minutes before he grabbed the phone, ended the call without checking who it was and threw it behind him until it clanged against the floor with a loud thud. “Why are you packing?”

“You brute! That was my phone.”

Hands on his hips, he gathered all the patience he could find within himself. There was a strange flutter in his chest,like a panicked bird beating its wings. “Why are you packing, Monica?”

“I have to leave,” she said, shying away from his gaze, folding a sweater.

Shocked beyond reason, he grabbed her wrist, gentling his hold as he always did, and pulled her behind him back to the bedroom. He turned all the lights on and was struck by the sight of her anew. Deep shadows cradled her eyes as she wrapped her arms around herself. She looked as if she hadn’t slept a wink. Andrea ran a hand over his face, willing his anger to cool, his spiraling emotions to plateau.

“Leave for where,bella? And why are you packing at dawn, like some thief stealing away before morning hits?”

“I wasn’t going to leave without saying goodbye. The airline called about my ticket and I thought I might as well finish packing.”

“Again, why are you leaving? To where?” he said, knowing that he sounded like a desperate child and not caring.

“A friend told me that Father D’Souza has developed pneumonia. He has no one to look after him. I need to do that. I want to. For once in my life, I’m in a position to give my time and energy to him. I can’t leave him alone in this condition.”

Relief shuddered through him, even though Andrea felt awful for the old man. This was a solvable problem. This was within his control. “I will have a nurse by his side within the hour. He will not be alone,” he said, immediately reaching for his phone.

“Yes, but that would be a stranger. Not someone he knows.”

“Bene.You can go in a couple of weeks, then. I’ll even accompany you. You can spend a couple of days with him, making sure he has everything he needs and we can make a trip out of it. You always tell me how much you love New York in winter. It could even be our honeymoon trip.”

Her shoulders sagged but her head jerked up. Her gaze widened. She swayed where she stood like a leaf in a storm. “You’re joking.”

“Twice in a row about something like this? You know me better than that,bella,” he said, grabbing her hand. He felt this...strange, almost desperate, overwhelming need to touch her, to hold her, to anchor her to him in every way possible. He didn’t question the urge.

Seating himself at the edge of the bed, he pulled her to him. And something in him calmed when she came without the protest he was expecting and buried her face in his chest. She was trembling, he realized, and tightened his hold. Her arms went around his waist, as if she was intending to vine herself around him for days to come and yet, she was planning the opposite. Lifting her chin, he kissed her and all the urgency of the past few days came rushing back. A thread of something curled within him, roping tighter and tighter around his chest.

When he pulled away, she mewled in protest. He dug his fingers into her hair and pulled her head until she was looking into his eyes. “Tomorrow. We will get married tomorrow. Mama won’t like it but she’ll be too happy to—”

“Why do you want to marry me?” she said, eyes wide and emotions slamming through them one after the other. There was hope and excitement but also doubt and confusion and some new inner resolve he didn’t know how to break.

---