Page 9 of Fiancée for the Cameras

Monica blinked back the surge of grateful tears and wriggled against the sheets, feeling an ache between her thighs. “Mouse, huh? That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.” Feverish or not, those words of affirmation out of Mr. Valentini’s mouth made pleasure skitter through her. “Maybe what I have is a praise kink and not this crazy attraction to him,” she said into the pillow, not realizing she’d spoken aloud until it was too late.

Behind her, she could feel Andrea still.

God, please, don’t let him have heard.

“I’m ready,” she said loudly, desperate to get this over with.

She stayed stiff and unmoving when the cool, soothing gel landed on her back.

She somehow kept her breath steady as his fingers spread the cold gel over the rash, skating nearly to her buttocks and upward, his touch incredibly gentle, as if he was an experienced skier in full control of his path.

When his fingers moved up and around to spread the gel to her side boob and to the back of her neck, and when the bed shifted and groaned under her when he leaned forward to reach her other side, and when she felt his breath on her back andhis scent filled her nostrils, Monica could do nothing about the dampness that bloomed between her thighs. Or the sudden, painfully alive ache that pulsed at her core.

So much for Francesco calling her prudish and unresponsive. His touch, his kisses, just hadn’t done it for her, because he wasn’t the one she really wanted.

Especially when she’d spent most of her life trying to downplay her body, dressing in frumpy clothes, wary of attracting the wrong kind of men. In the end, she’d started believing that she wasn’t much of a sexual creature to begin with. At twenty-three, she’d never felt the need to try sex. Even with her fiancée, she hadn’t been eager.

And yet, apparently, all her boss had to do was breathe in her direction and she was ready to go up in flames. It was knowledge she could have done without.

For the first time that miserable day, she cursed Francesco for putting her in this position, even though she was beginning to understand that he wasn’t really to blame. For proposing to her. For making her buy this shitty dress. For making it all gray and confusing and yet...deliciously right.For putting her in a situation where she knew without a doubt that Mr. Valentini’s touch made her shiver, always had, because she was unbelievably attracted to him.

She was attracted to her ruthless, grumpy boss, and if she so much as betrayed the fact, it didn’t bode well for her future with his company, or with his family.

Andrea had never been in this place where desire thrummed through his veins in a sluggish beat, slowing down the world itself around him. The only time that came remotely close had been when he’d tried a cannabis brownie with Romeo becausehis brother’s pain had been unbearable and he hadn’t wanted to do it alone.

Never again, Andrea had promised himself when all it had done was intensify his feelings around the loss of his father.

Not even as a twenty-year-old who’d been deep in the throes of lust with Chiara and had been determined to win her at any cost, had he felt this delicious heaviness in his limbs.

Now, as he covered his assistant’s bottom with a sheet and applied the goopy gel to her back, it felt like he was charting the dips and valleys of her smooth, golden-brown skin. As if he was compiling a database of how she reacted to what kind of touch.

Her soft groans of relief shouldn’t tighten his own muscles so much that he wanted to send his fingers on further exploration of her unmarred skin, of the tight cinch of her waist, of the swell of her hips...until she knew his touch everywhere. And it wasn’t just the physical hunger he felt for her.

It was an inexplicable, overwhelmingly possessive urge to fix all the wrongs that had been done to Ms. D’Souza, to give her everything she’d ever dreamed of in her life.

Cristo, the woman’s back was red and angry and she was literally in pain, on top of the humiliation she’d endured today. And still, some invisible spark she’d set off banged against the outer shell Andrea had covered himself in over the years.

It was her vulnerability—as raw and visceral as the rash on her back. He found it...tasteless, and yet it clung to him, making him wish he could pull something over to cover them both from his sight.

Maybe because it reminded him of how he’d once felt. How the accident had left him raw and aching with loss and fear. He never wanted to be at the mercy of such fear again.

And truly, something had been cauterized in him with his father’s death. He had gone from a wild, incessant partygoer who cared about nothing but soccer and women to a responsiblebusinessman whose duty was to his family overnight. But something more had been lost, too.

And he didn’t regret that loss just as he didn’t regret the loss of that wild lifestyle. Only that his father had never had a chance to see how responsible and capable Andrea could be, that he had died terrified for Romeo and for his family.

Ms. D’Souza’s face when she’d revealed how important his mother and brother were to her and how she never wanted to lose them...that kind of attachment would only set her up for pain and disappointment and loss. And yet, he had made the foolish promise that she would not lose them.

He jumped off the bed, wiping his hands on the end of a sheet. He needed to get out of here and figure a way out of Chiara’s father’s ridiculous ultimatum. He hated being manipulated like she and her father were doing. Didn’t like being pushed into a corner.

And now there was this...headache, in the form of this innocent, naive creature lying down in front of him. With whom he spent more time than he did anyone else in a given week. The last thing he needed was this attraction messing up a perfect professional relationship. If it was simply lust, he wouldn’t give a damn about it. But he had a feeling it wasn’t.

It was...more. Even admitting that stuck in his craw, but he wasn’t a man who thrived on delusions. He’d rather face the problem and fix it than drape himself in lies.

“When you come back, we’ll find you a position with a different department. Maybe you can go back to the CFO. Maria has been bitterly vocal that I stole you from her.”

Her silence told him he had hurt her. But Andrea couldn’t afford to care. She needed toughening up to begin with and she had failed in not communicating to him that Chiara had acted like they were already married. Her usefulness had beendefeated by this...inconvenient attraction, on his part, and her awe of him.

“It will be the same designation and pay,” he added, wanting to clarify that he wasn’t punishing her.

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