Page 42 of Fiancée for the Cameras

At least he had an answer ready for this. “I like having you in my life. I like that I can trust you in every way and I like that you and I share the kind of passion that one doesn’t come by often. I like knowing that I can give you the kind of security and family that you’ve always wanted and dreamed of. Is that not so?”

Tears filled her eyes and overflew, the tip of her nose turning adorably red. She swiped at the tears slowly, her gaze neverleaving his. “I did. I do. But I... I want to be by Father D’Souza’s side as soon as possible.”

“That’s not an answer, Monica.”

“I can’t think of this now, Andrea, and—”

He nodded. “We will fly with you to New York in a couple of days, then. Mama and Romeo and I. We can marry in that church with the father’s blessing.”

Her mouth fell on a gasp, and a smile cut through the tears. “You’re serious.”

“Of course, I am.”

A groan seemed to wrench out of her and she mumbled, “You’re making this so hard,” while drenching his chest in fresh tears. Then with a deep breath, she stood, stepped back from the circle of his arms, the line of her shoulders stiffening. “You didn’t like my disappearing on you for two whole days, did you?”

“No. But—”

“Marrying me is about efficiency for you. About keeping things in control. About compromise,si?”

“I have no need to marry you,bella. So what am I compromising on?”

“It’s giving me just enough without truly letting me in,” she said with an empty laugh and scrubbing at her cheeks. Even watery, her eyes shone with that resolve he’d never seen in her before. “My dreams are not the same as they were three years ago, a year ago or even three months ago when you saved me from Francesco.”

“So you don’t believe in marriage and family and security anymore?” he asked, unable to keep the taunt out of his voice.

“I do, and you have no idea how tempting your offer is. I’d have your trust and your fidelity and the security you offer and Flora’s love and Romeo’s companionship. I’d belong to you, like I’ve never been anyone’s. But all of those things can’t make upfor the one thing I need. You have changed me, Andrea. Being with you these two months... It’s unlike anything I’ll ever live through again. It’s taught me so much about myself.”

“You talk as if you’re...” His heart gave a swift kick against his rib cage as realization landed. He stood. “You’re ending this. You came back yesterday with this intention set. You asked me to make love to you as some sort of wretched goodbye. All night, you laughed and talked and kissed me...with this in mind.”

“I don’t want to, but I have to. Before it gets ugly and I start clinging to you. Before you push me away again. Before I do something that violates that boundary around yourself. Before my heart shatters into so many pieces at your feet. But more than anything, I need to understand what this is.”

Every thought and word that came to Andrea was ugly in its shape and full of a bitter jealously. And after those came something worse. He felt as if he were in that floundering car again, yelling at his father to steer into the skid, yelling at Romeo to sit back, yelling and yelling and yelling until he could no more and the oncoming tree loomed larger and larger and fear shone in Papa’s eyes and he was shouting, too, telling him that he loved him, asking him to look after his mother and Romeo, telling him that...and then there had been nothing.

Not sounds. Not sights. Not the tears in his father’s eyes, or his moving lips, or his fingers’ death-like hold on Andrea’s hand. Nothing but wretched darkness consuming him. And when he’d woken up days later, the world had been painfully colorful, so bright and yet so empty that he had wished himself to be swallowed up back into that darkness.

He had vowed to himself that he would never feel like that again. Never feel such love again that it left him searching for the dark. And yet, here he was, losing his foothold on reality again, losing something he had never wanted at all.

“Andrea, please try to understand,” she said, reaching for his hand.

He jerked away from her, his action now one of self-preservation. Somehow, he made himself look at her. The large lamp behind her limned the contours of her face and body with loving care and he wondered at how empty this space would feel without her.

“I don’t,” he said, reaching for some composure. It didn’t matter that he could see the pain in her eyes, in her entire body. All he could focus on was the sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. “But it is your life and as you made it clear over the weekend, you owe me nothing.”

“Is that what you truly think?” she asked, anger etching itself into her words. She looked impossibly, achingly beautiful then, her emotions making her bolder and taller and making her shine brighter than he’d ever seen her before. As if her very conviction was a light inside her. “If I told you I’m in love with you, would you still marry me? If I told you it hurt to be sent away from you, it hurt to not reach for you and offer solace, it nearly ripped me apart to know that you might never feel the same about me as I do you, would you still marry me? If I told you I’d settle for nothing less than love, would you still be ready to marry me?”

He would’ve been less shocked if she’d slapped him across the face out of nowhere. “You’ve imagined yourself in love before, Monica, and look how that turned out.” The moment the words poured out of his mouth, he wanted to snatch them back.Cristo, what was the matter with him? Why did he always say the worst things when it came to her? Why did he hurt her when it was the last thing he wanted to do?

And he had his answer as surely as she let out a humorless chuckle. It was the very thing he’d always been determined not to feel, the very thing that was making him lash out at her, thevery thing that was turning him inside out at the thought of losing her. But he could not give in, could not take that risk.

Her arms went around her middle, as if he had attacked her but she’d also expected it. It shamed him that she knew him better than he knew himself, that he had proved her right. “This is why I need to leave. I can’t be near you, much less marry you when I feel this way. When I don’t know if this is just me reaching for security again. When I don’t know if these feelings that make me so angry at you can be trusted, when this constant knot of fear sits in my throat, warning me that I shouldn’t ask for more, I shouldn’t crave more, I shouldn’t demand more than you give. I don’t want to be in a relationship with that fear in my heart. I never should be in one unless I know I can ask for whatever I deserve. It’s not fair to me. It’s not...” She gasped in a pained breath. “I don’t want to live in that fear. I don’t want to love you with that niggling whisper in my heart. So I have to leave. I have to say goodbye to the best thing that has ever happened to me. I have to let go, even though I don’t want to, and hope that in the future, I will know a love that doesn’t come with conditions. I have to start believing that I deserve that kind of love. Andyoumade me realize that, Andrea. Even if you can’t offer it.”

She came to him then and went on her toes and kissed his cheek and pressed her cheek to his chest, her arms going around him again, as if he was both the storm and the port and she was caught in the middle.

Andrea couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t bear to smell her and hold her, and touch her and kiss her, all the while knowing that she was leaving him, alone and adrift in the snow again.

He pushed her away from him and left the suite, wanting to be swallowed up by darkness again.

Andrea hadn’t imagined, in his darkest nightmares, that he would feel her loss so keenly every single day.

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