Page 4 of Fiancée for the Cameras

Cristo, the woman was stunning and sensuous even when she was a hot garbage mess, as one of his younger cousins was fond of saying. Now Ms. D’Souza was swaying where she stood and Andrea thought she might disappear in a whiff of smoke if he so much as breathed wrong.

“Then you can turn around, forget this little scene ever happened and return to your air-conditioned suite and that Brunetti contract. If you do me this favor, I’ll even put in a fewhours of work tonight. And I’ll return the blade back to you. I know it is a cherished gift from Mrs. Rossi.”

Andrea stilled, shocked at her request. Shocked at how much of his personal life she was privy to. That he held on to the blade that Chiara had gifted him almost a decade ago, not even his mother knew. It had been foolish sentimentality at the beginning. And now he was simply attached to the master craftsmanship of the blade. Not that he had to explain his uncharacteristic fondness of the blade to this woman.

“Do not be ridiculous, Ms. D’Souza. I’m not so much of a monster that I would make you come in to work when you’re in such a...pathetic state.” It was a bad choice of word, yet again. Andrea regretted it the moment it found shape, even before it landed and she flinched.

Dio mio, what was wrong with him? He was called ruthless, arrogant, but casual cruelty had never been his weapon of choice.

She did draw her chin up then and he knew he hadn’t imagined the same earlier. “If you’re not going to help me, leave me in peace.”

“What good will a Swiss blade do you now? You should have taken better care with your money and your heart before you trusted such a scoundrel. All these dramatics are of no use. Walking naked through these streets is not going to bring him back.”

“That’s not what I mean to do at all,” she said, mouth falling open at his suggestion. “Wait, how do you know that he...” Closing her eyes, she took a bracing breath.

Once again, Andrea was struck by her quiet dignity.

She rubbed a hand over her cheek and neck and opened her eyes. There was a flatness to her gaze that he disliked intensely. “You know what? Like you said, it doesn’t matter. Francesco dumping me here has no more or no less significance justbecause you found out and use it to talk down to me. If you’ll excuse me, I have other things to take care of. I’m sorry that Flora inconvenienced you and I will see you tomorrow morning at work.”

He should have let her go, letitgo. In fact, he was glad to see she had some backbone. But he didn’t. Apparently, today was full of surprises.

When she sidestepped him to take the stairs down past him, he grabbed her wrist. “I’m not talking down to you,” he said, stubbornly wanting the last word. “And you are...”

His words stilled. She was burning to his touch.

Andrea dropped her wrist and touched the back of his hand to her forehead and then her neck, like he had seen Mama do countless times.

“Are you dehydrated?” he demanded, pushing into her space, touching her compulsively in a few more spots. “You’re flushed and sweating and...you need a doctor. You’re a stubborn creature to stand here and argue with me when you—”

“I need your blade,” she said, shoving away from him. “If you have even a tiny bit of respect for me, you’ll listen to me when I say I know what I need. Now, Andrea.”

It was how she said his name that convinced him. With an easy familiarity, as if she had said it many times. When in reality, he had always been Mr. Valentini—his last name almost a shield. Now, in that low-pitched husky voice, it sounded intimate and strangely like something he had imagined before.

“I will not let you do anything foolish, Monica.” Her own name fell easily, effortlessly, from his lips. As if some hitherto closed door had been unlocked, never to be shut again.Cristo, the heat must be getting to him, too, because that was a load of bullshit if he’d ever heard, in his own head.

She scoffed then, and he felt the loss of her innocence keenly. “I have lived through too many shitty foster homes, evaded toomany incoming hits, fought too many roving hands, to now harm myself over a man who has no...loyalty.”

He placed his blade into her outstretched hand. “You’re an orphan, then?” How had he not known it in two years of working together so closely? Or the nearly four years that she’d been close to his mother and brother? How had he compartmentalized this woman so easily?

She didn’t answer and Andrea knew that it was a choice, that he hadn’t made the cut to her inner circle. Damn if it didn’t irritate the hell out of him.

She palmed the blade, as if to test its weight and slant, and then turned the pointed edge toward the bodice. Andrea nearly leaped at her, his pulse jumping into his throat. Only to realize that she meant to rip the bodice off her flesh.

“Put some pressure on my hand,” she said, and he clamped his fingers over hers automatically. “The zipper is stuck.”

She was different now, her calm voice and the rigid resolve showing something else beneath the soft-spoken, highly efficient shadow he’d gotten used to for years.

Too close, they were too close. Any protest he had that they were creating a spectacle disappeared as he noted the slight swelling of her lips and the small reddish bubbles near her neck. Her eyes flickered for a second, meeting his, then she groaned as the fabric finally rent under their combined pressure. It fell open, revealing an ivory white lacy bra that was clearly much more expensive than the cheap dress. Her breasts were thrust up, falling and rising with her labored breaths.

“Now the back, please,” she said, and turned around, presenting him with her back.

Shaking himself out of the sudden haze, Andrea cut through the fabric of the dress in the back. He’d barely gotten it down to her waist when she ripped it off her skin as if it...burned her.

He saw it then. The angry red rash all over her back, dipping all the way to the slope of her buttocks. A combination of blisters and rash that looked...intensely painful. Alarmed, Andrea pushed the dress down her shoulders and then down her waist and hips. He pulled the bra away from her skin and cut through that, too, realizing now that her skin must burn when anything touched that ghastly rash in this heat. He hated himself a little for making her wait so long before listening to her.

“That feels...better,” she said, turning around and burrowing her upper body into his. The blaze of heat from her body nearly seared him. Her hands were shaking as she held the torn dress against her breasts, her mouth a rictus of pain, her eyes cloudy.

“You’ll be fine now, Ms. D’Souza,” he said stiffly, shrugging off his jacket, feeling a strange powerless anger thrum through him. He recognized the familiarity of it and loathed it so much that he almost pushed her away. But the wobbling of her delicate chin stopped him.

---