Page 16 of Fiancée for the Cameras

“I’m glad.”

He was not a man to make pageantry of anything, and yet this felt like that. As if something big was looming on the horizon, something she hadn’t foreseen in her wildest dreams. Or nightmares.

She needed to take control of this conversation as much as she needed to take control of her life. Turning around, she blurted the first thing that came to her lips. “If you’re going to fire me to do damage control, Mr. Valentini, I’d rather—”

“Mr. Valentini? And,Cristo, I’m not firing you. Where is that faith of yours?” His gray gaze flashed with a thread of...hurt?

No, she was seeing things again, apparently a condition she suffered when it came to only him. “Of course, I have faith in you. But I realize how bad this is.”

“So the solution is to get rid of the one person who’s innocent and powerless in all this?”

She jerked her chin up, a defense mechanism, hating that that was how he saw her. Though it wasn’t far from the hard truth, like the dog with the broken leg Romeo had nursed to health a year ago. “No, it isn’t. But I also know that you wouldn’t just cast me out on the streets or hide me away like some taint upon your name. I was just thinking of the company and your reputation. I...misspoke out of fear and urgency.”

“Monica... Whatever else the future holds...with the company, with this scandal, with us, I need you to understand that I would never abuse my power in any way.”

“I know that, Andrea,” she said, letting him hear the conviction she held deep in her bones. His name on her lips, this time when she wasn’t delirious with pain, landed between them like an invocation. To what, she had no idea. But she didn’t scuttle her gaze away from his.

It was the one truth she’d always known, even if she hadn’t understood anything else about her reaction to him. But uncertainty about the current problem was another beast. She addressed the thing that was bothering her, trying her best not to look like a startled hare. “Why are we having this discussion in your suite?”

He sighed. “It’s the only place Mama won’t try to send some staff member to spy on us. And I need a shower before I can deal with the—”

“—mess I created,” she automatically finished for him, wondering why Flora would involve herself in this when she usually stayed outside of Valentini company concerns.

“That was unfortunate phrasing on my part,” he said, rubbing a hand over his temple. Was that regret that laced his words? That would have been strange enough to capture her focus, but something else stole and held her attention.

He leaned against the massive desk, stretching his long legs out in front of him. Custom-stitched Italian trousers pulled tight, displaying the hard lengths of his thighs. With that economy that imbued his every action, he undid the cuffs of his white dress shirt and slowly rolled each one back. The sight of his corded forearms, liberally sprinkled with hair, made Monica compulsively run her fingers over her own smooth forearms. Then his fingers went to his shirt and he unbuttoned a couple. Her pulse sped up, in direct proportion to each strip of olive-toned flesh that came into view.

His gaze snapped to hers and something else snapped into place between them. “It’s not like you forced me to strip you in the middle of the piazza,” he said, easily cutting through the growing tension. “Or made me carry you or begged to be transferred to a different department. I didn’t handle that whole day well.”

“Can I ask why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you so...angry with me?”

“I’m not angry with you.”

“You seem it. It’s fair in a way, because I’ve brought your professional reputation into question. But it feels somehow...personal.”

One hand thrusting through his hair, he stilled at her question. And while he only continued to stare at her thoughtfully, Monica realized his silence was assent.

Itwaspersonal. And then it came to her. “Is Mrs. Rossi upset by all this talk about our supposed affair?” How could she doubt a man like Andrea? “I’ll talk to her and explain it all. Make it clear that there was never anything other than work between us. That all you’ve done is show me kindness, that you pitied me, that Flora forced you to—”

“Basta!”he said, looking even more disgruntled than before. “You’re not some charity case. As to why I reacted badly, that’s neither here nor there. Believe me, if Chiara was to be my fiancée, she would not doubt me.”

“So she’s not going to be your fiancée?”

“I have no interest in her, or in her father’s deal when it comes with such strings. Especially when it’s nothing but manipulation.”

“You were never interested in marrying her?”

A soft, swift smile broke his serious expression, stealing Monica’s breath. She flushed, reacting to that knowing glint in his eyes. Though she had no idea what the knowing was of. And then the other, bigger truth slammed into her.

“So all the hard work we put in for the merger is going to waste? All those jobs, that new manufacturing plant in Vienna...”

“Brunetti has always put his business before personal life and family. It was the reason Papa never liked him. But that could be to our advantage right now. Chiara has always been a spoiled child and if she had told him that she and I were a sure thing, he would have attached her as an addendum clause, happy about the extra level of connection it would bring us. He would think nothing of abandoning her now, when he realizes I have no interest or intention of taking her on. Except it’s become a...”

“A matter of pride that you have said no to his daughter. He wants the merger to go through but wants to save face as well,” Monica finished his thought process.

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