Page 18 of Fiancée for the Cameras

“I know it puts you in an awkward position and I will understand if you refuse,” he said, turning back toward his desk. When she didn’t say anything, he gave a hard nod. “We will begin with the statement you can make to the press tomorrow and—”

“No, I...want to help sort this out. I want to pay you back in some small way for all the kindness you have shown me for four years.”

He whirled around, every lean, hard inch of him radiating anger. “You will make a monster of me, just as the media says?”

“What? No. Why is it wrong to want to return—”

“Because if it was a kindness, then you insult Mama and Romeo and me by constantly talking about wanting to pay it back and—”

“No, that’s now how I meant it. I had nothing and no one when I arrived here that summer on a whim. Now I have so much and I just want to contribute—”

“If that’s why you want to do it, then let’s stop now. If I had taken your overinflated sense of obligation into account, I’dhave never considered it. Do you count us obligated to you since you nearly died to save Mama? What is the price for that?”

Frustration made Monica groan. Why was she botching this so badly, alienating him with her words? “I’m sorry for how I said it. I meant that if there’s anything I can do to...help you out of this tricky situation, part of which I’m responsible for, I’m more than willing. I just can’t help but wonder if you’ve thought this through.”

“Three weeks with Romeo has shown you your claws, huh,bella?” His gray gaze swept over her face, as if he was seeing her anew. And yet, instead of irritation, admiration glinted there. “You never would have asked me that before.”

“Yes, well. Humiliating life experiences have one upside to them. You’re forced to think what’s the worst that can happen and then come up withBeen there, went through that.”

“This new boldness suits you,” he said, and a thrill shot through her. “Now, tell me your reservations.”

“I’m not...used to the high society you move in. Just speaking to Mrs. Rossi—who was so sophisticated and poised—gave me the biggest fright. Luckily for us now, I couldn’t mumble a word in my defense when she kept warning me to stay away from you. But I worry that I might cause your reputation more harm than good. I might be found out as an impostor of the worst kind. I know nothing of arts or fashion except for reading about them.”

“All of those can be learned. You know enough about me, and that’s more than most women, even Chiara, can say. Don’t let anyone tell you you’re less than who you want to be. Even me.”

“Believe me, I’m trying,” Monica said, liking this new, charming side of him as much as she liked the serious, ruthless side.

“Bene.What else?”

“This one’s a big one.” To avoid losing herself in those eyes, she started walking around the room, her pulse skyrocketingwith every step she took. But she had to tell him. She had to make sure he understood before they got deep into this. “You might even decide that it’s a deal breaker. But I...don’t want to play games with you and I don’t think I could, even if I tried. And I’m afraid it might just be—”

“Monica, what is it?”

His impatience made the words burst out of her. “I’m attracted to you!”

Dio mio, it was the last thing he’d expected her to own up to. And with such open, artless naiveté.

The primal attraction he’d felt toward her that day... It had taken him by shock, too. Still, he was experienced enough—Cristo, he’d thought his manly prowess was in winning as many women as he could as a cocky twenty-year-old race-car driver—to know that it wasn’t one-sided. In the three weeks since he’d left her in his mother’s care, he had wondered, multiple times, if she simply hadn’t seen it. Or if she’d lied to herself that it didn’t exist, since she also clearly believed that she was in love with that rogue. People clung to intrinsic beliefs like lifelines, even when the evidence to the opposite was in front of their eyes.

And here it was. The answer he’d desperately wanted to hear, delivered in such easy but complicated words.

Her arms were wound around her belly in a gesture of defensiveness that tugged at a part of him he hadn’t known existed.Dio mio, did she think this attraction was wrong? As if everything around them and about them wasn’t complicated already.

“Look at me, Monica.”

It was the first time she defied his command, refusing to meet his gaze, continuing to walk around the study. “It feels...awful tofeel all these things about you. And I don’t even fully understand it. I’ve never felt like this before. Even with Francesco, it was never—”

“You don’t need to draw a comparison chart,bella!”

She shook her head. “It could be that I’m just attaching to you because you were so good to me that day and I was half out of it. I had hoped these three weeks would be enough to wake me out of the trance but no, it’s still there.” She rubbed a hand over her neck and when his gaze went to the smooth column and the rising swell of her breasts, she pulled away from her own body, as if scalded. “It’s still there and I am afraid that you...”

“Will take advantage of this...thing that you’re not even sure about?” he bit out, his mind stuck on the wordawful. She thought her attraction to him was awful? He hadn’t required his masculinity or his ego to be validated on any basis in a long while, butDio mio, if her assessment didn’t rankle like a thorn stuck under his skin.

“What? No?” Alarm widened her big eyes. “I’m afraid that you might be...disgusted by me and my reactions and my little twitches every time you come near me when we put up this pretense of an affianced couple. I’m not sophisticated enough to play it all cool. Not that I would make a move on you. And I’m not even sure if this is some kind of reaction to Francesco and you’re like this giant rebound blanket—”

“I would prefer it if you didn’t bring that bastard up in our conversations.”

She tilted her chin up, and then everything about her stilled. “You’re angry with me again.”

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