Page 36 of Fiancée for the Cameras

He did seem livelier and more relaxed, more prone to spontaneity and taking time off work, since she’d resumed working for him. Still, wary reluctance was a knot in her belly anytime she wanted to cross a line that really wasn’t there. So when that particular day approached that Andrea would not work, Monica ensured his schedule was clear and made plans to make herself scarce.

It was the day more than a decade ago when they had lost their father. Everyone, even at work, knew that Andrea disappeared that day. Not even Romeo or Flora knew where he went or how he spent it. As his new assistant two years ago, Monica herself had been witness to the change in his demeanoreven a week ahead of that day each year, of how the shadow of grief ravaged him.

But...a small part of her desperately wanted to talk to him this time. To spend it with him, even if in utter silence. To provide a little solace and companionship to him on a day when he retreated from the world, and even his family.

She was still mulling over how she could do it without crossing a boundary when Andrea entered and closed the door to the office behind him. Monica looked away from her screen and rubbed at her gritty-feeling eyes.

It was eight in the evening on a Wednesday and the glittering lights of Milan’s financial district shone through the floor-to-ceiling glass walls of Andrea’s office.

They had been going through the final corrections that the legal department had sent on the merger with Mr. Brunetti’s company since six in the morning. Not only was Monica bone tired after being up until two for a dinner with Andrea’s business associates, but she was also worried about him.

All day, words had formed and dusted away on her lips as she waited to see signs of his mood spiraling or retreating. Instead, he had been on a high the past two days. Mr. Brunetti had finally agreed to most of Andrea’s terms for the merger, and they had been working hard and playing harder. He’d been relentlessly demanding in bed, and Monica had begun to wonder if sex could be used as a way to blunt painful reminders of grief. Not that she minded one bit being used like that...

A file plopped onto the coffee table in front of her.

“You missed two pages of corrections again,” Andrea said, planting himself onto the table.

Embarrassment flushed her cheeks as Monica opened the file, found the pages he was referring to. “I’m sorry, there’s no excuse.” Foolish, useless tears formed a lump in her throat. How could she have missed it? God, she prided herself on her workand this was unacceptable. “I’ll look through these and get the new changes entered immediately. You’ll have them ASAP.”

When she made to get up, he leaned forward, his legs straddling hers and locking her in place. “That’s two times you made a mistake today. And two times in the three and a half years since you started working at this company.”

Monica looked up to find his eyes full of that sardonic humor. And that spark touched her heart as if it were a warm tendril wrapping around the chamber, cocooning her from the world. Slowly, she straightened her spine, when all she wanted to do was to lean into his warm body and let him envelop her. “That’s two times too many for my liking,” she said, flipping through the file. “I don’t know how it happened but I promise you that it won’t happen again, and—”

“It happened because I’ve been working you too hard,” Andrea said, taking the file from her hands. He leaned in where she had pulled back and rubbed the pad of his thumb under her eyes. “You look exhausted,cara. Why didn’t you tell me you needed a break?”

“Youdidn’t take one,” she said, drawing a finger across the gaunt brackets around his mouth. God, how she loved touching him like this, as if he was hers to do so. And what was she going to do when this merger was all signed off on? When his interest in her and the necessity of this fake relationship began to dwindle? How would she keep her hands to herself and her thoughts free of him? How would she sit across from him in this same office and pretend like she didn’t want more of him?

Her thoughts looped in the same way, even as she tried to detach herself from them, detach herself from this growing feeling that pervaded every one of her waking and sleeping moments.

“You have double standards here,” she said, smiling to make the complaint seem shallow. “Even Romeo agrees that you never slow down, despite preaching it to him.”

“My fiancée and my brother are going behind my back and discussing me?”

“We’re too afraid to say it to your face,” she said, wondering when he’d begun to drop the fake part from her title. She tried so hard to not read anything into it.

“I have spent years training my body and my head to survive on little sleep and rest. For you, though, it has been long nights and long days,si?” His gaze encompassed her entire body, from her hair in a loose bun to her tight dress shirt and her black trousers, lighting every inch of her on slow, deep fire. “I should have realized I’m making too many demands on you. Which is something Mama and Romeo have been hounding me about.”

“I like spending time with you. At work or outside of it. I mean, yes, I could do a little less of all the socializing and networking dinners as your fiancée but all the rest, I like it, Andrea. I like what we do together,” she said, and then blushed so hard that she had no doubt her cheeks must look like tomatoes.

“I like how intensely you admit that,bella,” he said with a grin and caught her mouth in a whisper-kiss that made her heart thud against her rib cage. He tasted of coffee and mint and like decadent want, his mouth drawing her deeper with each nip and stroke.

She kept waiting to see if the raw need she felt for him would dial down or change with each kiss and caress. But it hadn’t. It didn’t. If anything, now she craved him like a drug that she needed to function fully in the world. His kisses and his teasing and his carnal demands in bed... She reveled in every moment, yes, but now they were tinged with a deeper emotion, carried more weight with each passing day.

Like every single time, their kiss rose to a fever pitch soon, tinged with a desperate need on both their sides, racing toward more. Maybe because it had been a whole thirty-six hours since they had made love. They had been so busy last night that they had fallen into exhausted sleep as soon as they had returned to his penthouse.

She protested with a mewl when Andrea pulled away, even as her fingers were locked against his nape, holding him to her. Her eyes closed as he swept his mouth over her jaw and that sensitive spot where her neck met her shoulder. Shamelessly, she thrust herself into his touch, and had the even better reward of hearing his laughter.

Finally, he pulled back from her again, and she was glad to see his own pupils blown up with desire and more. There was always a little more that tinged his desire, too, but she could never be sure if it was only what shewantedto see.

His mouth trailed upward and landed at her temple, his rough fingers circling her nape with a possessive protectiveness that she’d longed for her whole life. “Go home, take a shower, catch some sleep and then I want you to take a couple of days off. There’s a little mountain resort within two hours that the chauffeur will drive you to. I’ll join you tomorrow night.”

“No,” she said, something close to panic rising within her. They couldn’t go off this weekend, of all weekends. When he realized what it was, he would hate her. “I need to finalize these documents and—”

“I’ve been pursuing this merger for more than two years. Brunetti has thrown every obstacle in its way and we have resolved them all to our satisfaction. Signing on the dotted line can wait for a few days.”

“It’s not just work I’m worried about.”

“Whatever is on the social calendar, cancel it. Why the resistance,bella?” He drew back, as if to search her face forsome hidden meaning. Something she’d never heard before underlined his words when he spoke. “Aren’t you the one forever nagging me to take it slow for just a little bit?”

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