Page 48 of Untamed Billionaire's Innocent Bride
“Which marriage would that be?” she asked. Tartly, she could admit. “Your sister’s? You must know that she and her prince are playing a very specific cat and mouse game—”
Matteo was rifling through papers, frowning at something off screen, and she knew that his sister’s romantic life was a sore point for him. Was that why she’d brought it up? When she knew that wasn’t the marriage he meant?
“I mean your marriage, Lauren,” he said in that distracted way of his. She knew what that meant, too. That her boss had other, more important things on his mind. Something she had always accepted as his assistant, because that was her job—to fade into his background and make certain he could focus on anything he wished. But he was talking about her. And the marriage he’d suggested, and she’d actually gone ahead and done on his command. “There’s a gala in Rome next week. Do you think your husband is sufficiently tamed? Can he handle a public appearance?”
“Well, he’s not actually a trained bear,” she found herself replying with more snap in her voice than necessary. “And he was handling public appearances just fine before he condescended to come to Combe Manor. So no need to fear he might snap his chain and devour the guests, I think.”
“You can field the inevitable questions from paparazzi,” Matteo said, frowning down at the phone in his hand. The way he often did—so there was no reason for it to prick at Lauren the way it did. Maybe it is time you ask yourself what you wouldn’t do if your Mr. Combe asked it, Dominik had said. You may find the answers illuminating. But what about what Matteo wouldn’t do for her? Like pay attention to the fact she was an actual person, not a bit of machinery? “You know the drill.”
“Indeed I do. I know all the drills.”
She’d created the drills, for that matter. And she wasn’t sure why she wanted to remind Matteo of that.
“Just make sure it looks good,” Matteo said, and he looked at her then. “You know what I mean. I want a quiet, calm appearance that makes it clear to all that the San Giacomo scandal is fully handled. I want to keep the board happy.”
“And whether the brother you have yet to meet is happy with all these revelations about the family he never knew is of secondary interest, of course. Or perhaps of no interest at all.”
She was sure she’d meant to say that. But there it was, out there between them as surely as if she’d hauled off and slapped her boss in the face.
Matteo blinked, and it seemed to Lauren as if it took a thousand years for him to focus on her.
“Is my brother unhappy?” he asked. Eventually.
“You will have to ask him yourself,” she replied. And then, because she couldn’t seem to stop herself, “He’s your brother, not mine.”
“He is your husband, Lauren.”
“Do you think it is the role of a wife to report on her husband to her boss? One begins to understand why you remain unmarried.”
Something flashed over his face then, and she didn’t understand why she wasn’t already apologizing. Why she wasn’t hurrying to set things right.
“You knew the role when you took it.” Matteo frowned. “Forgive me, but am I missing something?”
And just like that, something in Lauren snapped.
“I am your personal assistant, Mr. Combe,” she shot at him. “That can and has included such things as sorting out your wardrobe. Making your travel arrangements. Involving myself more than I’d like in your personal life. But it should never have included you asking me to marry someone on your behalf.”
“If you had objections you should have raised them before you went ahead and married him, then. It’s a bit late now, don’t you think?”
“When have I ever been permitted to have objections in this job?” She shook her head, that cold look on Dominik’s face flashing through her head. And the way he’d said your master. “When have I ever said no to you?”
Matteo’s frown deepened, but not because he was having any kind of emotional response. She knew that. She could see that he was baffled.
“I value you, Lauren, if that’s what this is about. You know that.”
But Lauren wasn’t the same person she had been. It wasn’t the value Matteo assigned to her ability to do her job that mattered to her. Not anymore.
She could look back and see how all of this had happened. How she, who had never been wanted by anyone, threw herself into being needed instead. She’d known she was doing it. She’d given it her all. And she’d been hired by Matteo straight out of university, so it had felt like some kind of cure of all the things that ailed her to make sure she not only met his needs, but anticipated them, too.
She had thought they were a team. They had been, all these years. While he’d had to work around his father and now he was in charge.
But Dominik had taught her something vastly different than how to make herself indispensable to the person who paid her.
He had taught her how to value herself.
He’d taught her how to want. How to be wanted.
And in return, he’d taught her how to want more.