Page 93 of Keep Your Friends Close and Your… Work Enemy Closer?

In no mood for jokes or talking in riddles, I plunged onward. "Why are you even here,Max? What's the point of this whole little charade anyway?"

"I'm glad you asked. And I was planning on telling you all of this at dinner on Friday anyway."

"You were not."

"Yes, actually, I was," he said, his eyes intent on my face. "I've been feeling terrible that we took our relationship to the next level under false pretenses. Although I had no idea webothwere doing that."

A twinge of guilt spiraled through me at his words. Especially if he was telling the truth about Friday. Because I had no such plan to tell him my true identity.

"Why did you do it? I mean, whyareyou doing it?" I amended, skipping past my own accountability in this situation.

He hesitated, and I wondered if he'd actually confide in me, the silence stretching between us as his gaze flickered to the shelves behind me. The weight of the moment, of everything unsaid, thickened the air around us.

"Because as Max Sterling," he finally began, "no one ever acts like themselves around me. I'm the big, bad CEO, and everyone cowers before me. This is my way to get a peek inside my companies and see what's really going on."

"And why would you want to do that?"

His broad shoulders lifted in a shrug. "Because I want to see how morale is, what people really think about the places where they spend hours every week."

"And in the meantime, you hook up with unsuspecting women."

He narrowed his eyes at me, for the first time displaying real emotion. "That's not it at all. I've never done that before. Never even close. Only with you."

Could I believe that or not? "And why didn't you tell me the truth earlier?"

"Why didn'tyou?"

Touché. "I—I would have come around to it." I would have. "We were just having some fun. So..." I shrugged as his jaw hardened.

"What we were doing was way more than that," he said, enunciating every word. "It meant a lot more to me than justhaving some fun."

I stared at him, seeing Max instead of Jared, despite the stupid disguise, making his words difficult to believe.

"Tell me this," he said. "Now that you know who I really am, why do you hate me so much?"

Not hesitating for a moment, I dove right in. "Because you've always looked down on me... and my sisters. Always acted like you didn't even know us, even though we've been in the same circles for years."

"That's because I have an awful time remembering faces."

I raised my brows at him. "You have face blindness?"

"To a degree, yes. I have to work really hard at it."

Again, I wasn't sure how much I could believe him and anything that came out of his mouth. Another thought that had haunted me in the night popped into my head. "And what about that stupid email we broke our backs over to Max, toyou, about the painting? You made us agonize over every word when it was to your fucking self and you knew damn well you'd never send the painting."

He stepped closer, a muscle ticking in that annoyingly strong jawline. "I had the painting sent over last night. And I had every intention of doing it, I just got a little sidetracked. By you. By us."

The way his voice softened on the word "us" made my chest squeeze.

"And as far as that night where we crafted the email..." he went on, running a hand over his face. "Well, that was because I just wanted to spend time with you, Dee—I mean, Annalise—because we were having fun."

"Maybe you were. But that was work for me. And really putting myself out there. My name out there."

"Your name?" he echoed, arching a brow.

"Okay," I acquiesced, feeling a bit hypocritical. "My work name."

He studied my face for a beat before responding. "And what about you? Why are you hiding who you really are?"

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