Page 31 of Seduced by Her Billionaire Fake Fiancé

Because she was embarrassed? Still angry? Or had he hurt her?

A muscle jerked in his jaw as he reached down and lifted her up, carrying her cradled against his chest, ignoring her harsh intake of breath and quickly voiced, “What are you doing?”

In the bathroom, he placed her straight into the generous claw foot bath, not quite making eye contact with her himself. Busying himself over the faucet, he said, “How’s the temperature?”

She drew her knees up to her chest, eyes huge. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

He nodded once then left the room, needing to be alone to cope with everything he was feeling.

Andie letthe water run almost to the top of the bath, enjoying the feeling of it lapping against her body, her nerves in overdrive at what she’d just experienced. Every cell in her body seemed to be reverberating. Her nipples were oversensitive, her skin felt as though it were alive, with a mind of its own.

He left her in the bathroom for a long time, but eventually returned carrying two glasses of red wine, one of which he handed to Andie.

She took it, looking vaguely in his direction, then placed the glass on the shelf beside her.

“You’d never had sex,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bath, dangerously close to the high water level.

She shook her head, looking belligerently ahead.

“And you were going to tell me this when?”

That drew her attention to his face. “Never, obviously. Why would I?”

He stared at her until she became self-conscious.

“Not after what happened in the car?” He pushed, reminding Andie of the one time in her whole life she got in trouble, when she was called before the school headmistress and questioned over a party almost everyone in the grade had been at.

“It didn’t seem relevant.”

He nodded slowly though she could see he was simply placating her.

“Andie, why were you a virgin?”

Heat stained her cheeks. “That’s a little personal, don’t you think?”

His laugh lacked humour. “After we’ve just had sex, I think I’m entitled to get a little personal.” He paused, sipping his wine. “Don’t you think?”

She flinched at his tone. Angry and curt, even when she could tell he was trying to be calm. “I’m twenty-two,” she pointed out, blinking across at him. “There’s been Covid and my mom and my brother and the business. Tell me, when exactly would I have had time to have a boyfriend, let alone have sex.”

He swore softly. “You’ve never even dated?”

“I’ve dated,” she flushed to the roots of her hair. “Before. When I was in school.”

He closed his eyes on a wave of emotions she couldn’t decipher, but somehow, she instinctively understood him anyway.

“This isn’t a big deal,” she said quickly. “I’m not naïve enough to think that just because you were my first, you’re going to be my last,” she added quickly. “I knew what we were doing. And I liked it,” she said defiantly, because why shouldn’t she own that? “I’m twenty-two and I’ve had no time for any of the usual stuff people my age do. I enjoyed just being normal,” she replied.

“But it’s not normal,” he ground out, “for your first time to be like that.” He leaned closer, something in his face that speared her in the chest. “Andie, I wasn’t gentle with you. Not even a little bit. I was rough. I was angry. I was so desperate to be with you, and if you had experience, that would be fine, but you didn’t, and the last thing I wanted was to hurt you.”

Tears sparkled on her lashes, not because he’d hurt her but because of his admission and the vulnerability it showed to her, because of the way it made her face the sweet side of his personality, and the care he was showing.

“You didn’t hurt me.” She reached for her wine, sipped it. “Not more than for a few seconds, and I don’t think it would matter how you, you know, I guess that’s kind of inevitable.”

“Your first time shouldn’t have been like that.”

“I told you, I liked it,” she murmured with a shake of her head. “So please don’t keep going over what it ‘should’ have been. Who says, anyway? Is there some hard and fast rule on virginity loss that I don’t know about?”

It dragged a small smile to his lips. “No.”

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