Page 33 of Seduced by Her Billionaire Fake Fiancé

Only Andie was off limits, and she had to stay that way.

At work, it was worse.

At work, they were frequently in meetings together and he saw the way she was with people, the way she was honest and open and friendly, and he couldn’t help but marvel at how genuinely nice she was. He wasn’t sure he’d ever known anyone like her.

Then, there was the way people were with her. Particularly men.

Max saw the way they looked at her, just a little longer than was necessary. The way they laughed at her jokes, offered to do things for her. It was obvious to Max that there were at least ten guys in senior staff who’d date Andie in a heartbeat if she’d give them the time of day.

Even with Max there, her purported fiancé, it didn’t curb the way men interacted with her.

She had a magnetic quality that couldn’t help but shine through.

He wasn’t jealous, because they didn’t mean anything to each other, but his ego smarted a little at the obvious flirting right under his nose. Not by Andie—he didn’t think she even noticed.

Was that why she was still single?

Any one of these guys would have been interested in her at any point in the last few years.

Then again, she’d had her hands full, as she’d pointed out. Between nursing her mother and then her brother, trying to single-handedly run the business while her father devolved into a shell of his former self owing to the extent of his grief, he got it. Andie’s life had been tough.

For one reason and another, Andie was under his skin, in his mind, his head, driving him crazy. He couldn’t escape her, and he needed to. So after a week of living with her, working with her, breathing her in to the point of suffocation, he did the only thing he could.

“I haveto go back to Italy.”

Mid-way through reading a report, Andie tapped her pen on the edge of her desk. “Huh?” She was pretending. Just like she’d been pretending for over a week. Pretending not to notice when he walked into a room, when he spoke to someone else, when he looked in her direction. Pretending not to notice that the air between them was still crazy sparkly whenever they were nearby. Not to notice that her pulse was in overdrive all the time, that she was exhausted because the x-rated nature of her dreams made it impossible to get a good night’s sleep. And now, pretending that she hadn’t heard him when she’d most definitely registered his use of the word ‘I’.

“I need to check in with the office there. I’ll be back in a few days.”

She shrugged, feigning non-concern. “Okay. I’ll try my best to cope without you.”

He stood just inside the door jamb, eyes staring at her, ignoring her sarcastic rejoinder, just…looking.

Her heart was on fire, her pulse throbbing inside her body. She kept a calm expression with every last ounce of her willpower.

“Okay,” he said, after a beat too long. “See you when I get back.”

She turned her attention back to the paper on her desk, ignoring the unexpected sting of tears, right behind her eyes.

A nightout with Sophie was just what she needed.

“Seriously, you’re engaged, and I hear about it through the newspaper?” Sophie demanded, settling herself in the plush seat beside Andie, unfastening her handbag from her shoulder and giving Andie a ‘what the hell’ look.

But Andie had promised herself Sophie was the one person on earth she could be completely honest with—and that had never been more important than now. She needed serious help understanding what had happened, what it meant, why he’d disappeared. Everything.

Ensconced in the crowded, exclusive wine bar in the diamond district, Andie leaned a little closer. “I have so much to tell you.”

“You think?” Sophie responded with something bordering on mock anger—but only just—as she lifted a manicured hand in the air and instantly drew the attention of a waitress.

“A bottle of champagne, two glasses, some hummus and crudites—no carbs.”

Andie suppressed a smile.

Sophie was svelte and stunning, but she wasn’t naturally slim. In high school, she’d been overweight and teased mercilessly, and she now approached weight management with a professional obsessiveness that took Andie’s breath away.That’s because you’re lucky and don’t ever have to think about what a calorie is.

“Okay,” Sophie turned her attention back to Andie. “Spill.”

Andie stared down at the engagement ring, finding it hard to know where to start. But she was lying to absolutely everyone in the world and she couldn’t lie to Sophie. In fact, she was desperate to tell her the truth.

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