Page 43 of Fiancée for the Cameras

Of course, the fact that Monica had run his life like a well-engineered machine, always anticipating his needs and meeting them before he even verbalized them, made it impossible for him not to miss her.

But it wasn’t just his work life. It was the way she’d made him laugh; the way she’d dragged him along to every new experience that she was determined to have; the way she’d sit quietly with her knitting while he worked on his sculptures; the way she’d seemed to bring him back to the man he’d been once before.

Ever since the accident, he had drawn a boundary around himself; had reduced his life to a single dimension—work—and let everything else about him die a slow death. But that had never been what Papa had wanted. He had never asked Andrea to turn himself into a machine.

He had only asked him to be careful with his racing, to dial down the unnecessary risks he had begun to take, the highs he had started chasing, to think of others before himself. And yet, as punishment, Andrea had turned himself into another version Papa would have hated, too.

He would have told him that life was to be lived, with the ones you love, that one’s heart was for more than just beating and pumping blood. He had shown him and Romeo by making their family name stand for so much, by loving their mother so well that to this day, that love was a shining light in her smile.

How could Andrea be anything less? What was left of his life without Monica? How was this empty darkness better than the light and laughter she had brought him?

The merger was done, production had started on the new plant and yet he felt no surge of pride or sense of satisfaction. All he wanted was to hear her voice one more time, see her and hold her.

He knew Romeo was in touch with her, but he refused to ask his brother about how she was faring. It was bad enough neither his mother nor Romeo would meet his eyes or say a word to his face. For all that she’d said she wouldn’t take sides, Mama’s displeasure was clear.

But as weeks piled into a month, what little pride he had hung on to had dissolved. For a few hours he decided he would fly to New York, to offer support to her while she tended to the man who had shown her kindness and love, without imposing any conditions. He wouldn’t ask for anything, demand anything.

But then her face swam into his vision, her eyes full of anguish when he’d straight out told her that she’d believed herself in love before.Cristo, he’d been cruel to taunt her for what she thought was her weakness. Still, she’d behaved so bravely,his fierce little mouse, walking away from him,from them, from the golden future he’d painted using her darkest fear against her, to get clarity, to know herself, even as she’d told him she was in love with him.

I don’t want to love you with that niggling whisper in my heart.

How could he then be any less brave? How could he chase her to New York and steal that time and space she’d asked for? How could he browbeat her into saying yes to him and then wonder for the rest of his life if she truly loved him?

Suddenly, he understood the anguish of the dilemma she’d faced.

If he truly loved her, which he realized he did painfully with each passing day that he didn’t see her or touch her or kiss her or hold her, he would give her the space to figure it out.

He would let her be, let her know herself, see herself as he saw her, the vulnerable yet fierce, the generous but bold, the gentle but brave, creature that she was. He would wait and hope thatwhen she did have that clarity that she would come back to him and give him just one more chance.

Just one chance and he would lay the world at her feet.

Every cell inside him revolted at the idea of waiting, of leaving the decision in her hands—at least for now. He balked at the idea of not chasing her down to wherever she was in the world and seducing her and kissing her and bending her to his will, at the idea of not making her say that she loved him all over again. He was not a man used to inaction, to letting others dictate his happiness and yet there was another thing he was coming to recognize—his happiness was with her.

In her kisses and embraces and her soft smiles.

It was the pain and uncertainty and the anguish that came with loving her, the very thing he’d wanted to avoid. But then he’d remember the sweetness of her kisses, her shy boldness when she was under him and looked up at him with those yellow eyes, and the soft, slow way she’d stroke his lips when he laughed, as if she wanted to bottle the sound. The easy, effortless way she had loved him, even when he hadn’t been able to appreciate it. And he knew that it was all worth it. That without this pain, they would always be unsure of each other. That now, he could live with nothing but her unconditional surrender, and his own in return.

The waiting made each day that much longer, that much more unbearable. Whatever they saw in his face now melted Mama’s and Romeo’s silent admonishments.

Then suddenly, as he sat working on a wooden piece in his new shed that gave him little pleasure without her company, it came to him. He would give her the one thing,the only thing, she’d ever asked of him and hope that she’d understand his message.

That everything that was his, his mind, body and heart, were all hers, if only she’d demand it of him.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

ITHADBEENthree 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 withhim. 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 momentcould 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?

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