Page 21 of Fiancée for the Cameras

“Why didn’t you just ask?” he said, then scoffed. “Right, the list of obligations and all that.”

She nearly danced on the balls of her feet. “Can I, please?”

“Si.”

“And just for the gala, can I have a stylist, and a makeup artist to help me get ready?”

“Si. Mama will arrange it for you.”

“And who do I see for a little insight into how to seduce the man who’s brilliant and ruthless and so gorgeous that he makes my knees quake even when he glares at me and calls me a damned headache?”

His mouth twitched and Andrea had to fight the insane urge to jump over the desk and tackle her to the floor. He would rip that ridiculous thing she called a top off her and bury his lips against her golden-brown flesh, dig his teeth into the curve of her breast, flick his mouth against the bold nipple that poked against the fabric even now, until she arched into him completely. Until she was begging for his mouth somewhere else.

The urge was overwhelming in its intensity.

Instead, he simply took in the breathtaking beauty of her, savored the thundering of his own pulse thrumming with a rich awareness he hadn’t known in years.

He wanted to say yes to this, too. He wanted to say yes to anything she’d ask of him, if she asked him in that tone.

The little mouse was getting so bold. And it sent a thrill through him. Maybe he would never take her to bed, butCristo,he felt like a new man when she flirted with him, when she crossed that edge of caution just for him, when she glared at him.

“You’re growing bold.”

She waved her fingers in the air, her eyes dancing with a wicked pleasure he’d never seen in her. Energy seemed to radiate from her, and he wondered if he was shortchanging her. If he was projecting the vague unease he felt at the back of his mind onto her. “Just flexing my newfound claws.”

And then she was out the door.

For a long while Andrea stayed in his chair, wondering what he’d unleashed between them. And yet, there was not even a hint of regret to be found anywhere within him.

CHAPTER SEVEN

TWOEVENINGSLATER, Andrea stood waiting in the lounge of his family home, impatience and anticipation swirling through him in equal measure. He hadn’t been this...invested in even the damned merger. But then, he knew the rules of that game. He’d written most of them.

With his assistant turned temptress...all bets were off. He felt as immature and unsure of himself as he’d felt with Chiara all those years ago. But for entirely different reasons.

For one thing, she was late.

Which was uncharacteristic enough of Monica that he couldn’t help wondering if she’d changed her mind in the two days since they’d seen each other, since she’d declared with a steely resolve that she was going to be a part of the solution for the mess they had both had a hand in creating.

He wouldn’t blame her if she did back out, though. He would even try to see it as the better outcome—notwithstanding the problem of Brunetti and the merger—because then he wouldn’t have to spend God only knew how many months trying to avoid giving in to temptation.

How do I seduce a man who makes my knees quake?

Dio mio, that innocent and yet infinitely provocative question of hers had haunted him for two days and nights. An echo of her sunflowers-and-vanilla scent had lingered in the air long after she had left his bedroom. He’d woken up close to dawn, hard as nails, the sheets tangled around his lower body feeling like those fingers that had tingled against the base of his palm.Thatwas all the contact they’d had and yet it felt like she had left the echoes of her tentative touch all over his body.

For the first time in years, he’d thrown off the sheets, sunk back into the bed and taken his erection in hand. Eyes closed, he’d spent long minutes running through the images of her in his head, like a slow reel he’d been saving up for his leisure.

The upswell of her breasts when she’d leaned over the desk, all anger and outrage that he was changing his mind. The lean, muscled lengths of her thighs as he’d carried her to the car. The relentless flutter of the pulse at her neck when he was close. The soft gasp that fell from her sensuous mouth when he touched her.

He flicked through every image while he pumped himself in his hand, reveling in the pinpricks of pleasure sparking all over his body and corralling down his spine, coalescing into a storm that made him thrust his hips up off the bed. The moment he reached the image of her gaze lingering on his mouth...he spilled all over his sheets, his climax a sudden, riotous explosion that had left him shaking.

For long seconds after, he’d lain against the sheets, his skin damp, his breaths bellowing through his lungs, lingering aftershocks making his muscles shake. It was a luxury of time, of experience, of mind and body, he never allowed himself anymore. Had not for more than a decade.

And as he’d gathered the sheets and thrown them into the laundry hamper, as he’d checked his phone like some gauche emo teenager after a first date to see if she’d texted him, as he’d padded naked into his shower and turned the water to an icy blast to cool down his overheated skin and suddenly rampaging libido, he wondered if that was why he was so attracted to Monica. Not just attracted, but attuned...in a way he had never been to another woman. If he’d deprived himself of even the smallest pleasures, like lying in bed thinking of a beautiful woman, of feeling the silk sheets against his skin, of the blood-tingling chase of wanting a woman, of letting his mind and body linger and revel in all that he’d built through sweat and tears.

He decided that was it, as a man who needed things to sit in clear, defined boxes. He’d been driving himself at a relentless speed, working eighty-hour weeks, pushing himself and the company and his staff to put out more products, more innovative designs, more investments, for thirteen long years...until Brunetti himself had reached out to him with interest in a merger. Driving himself toward another milestone, another million, another meteoric development, until his father’s dream became true. Until he built enough wealth and power that Romeo and his mother would never need anything. Until Valentini Luxury Goods had become synonymous indeed with luxury and design and innovation. All the while, he... He had never learned to rest on his laurels, to celebrate his achievements, to simply enjoy the hard-won pleasures.

No wonder Brunetti’s ridiculous condition had driven him to the brink so easily. No wonder he felt so...burned out. No wonder a delicate, inexperienced, almost fragile woman like Monica was catching him unawares, knocking him to his knees without even trying. God help him the day she decided she wanted to flex her sensuality, though.

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