Page 40 of Seduced by Her Billionaire Fake Fiancé

“I mean with women in general. You’re obviously a,” she searched for the right word, “virile guy. I guess women are always tripping over themselves to get into your bed.”

A muscle throbbed in Max’s jaw. “I didn’t mean we should discuss my past relationships.”

She flinched at his words and his tone.

“This is about you and me and what happened.” His voice was almost a growl. “And why I can’t get it out of my head.”

Her gaze snapped to his.

“Why I keep thinking what it would be like to make love to you properly, as your first time should have been.” He began to walk towards her, his gait long, his eyes so focused on her face she felt as though her feet had become stuck to the floor. “We have five more months together.”

“Six months was just a number I plucked out of my head. We don’t have to stick to it,” she blurted out.

Max nodded slowly. “But let’s, for now, say that we have five months left. Do you want to spend it walking on eggshells around me, as you have been?”

“We’ve been avoiding each other,” she responded tautly.

“You have barely looked at me since that night. You don’t even fight back with me.”

Andie’s jaw dropped. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

“No. I like fighting with you.” He shook his head in frustration. “I like yourideas,Andie. I like it when you express them, even if I don’t immediately seem to agree. I don’t want to steamroll over the top of you. And I definitely don’t want you to mute yourself because of what happened between us.”

“I’m not,” she said, then shook her head, because actually, wasn’t that exactly what she’d been doing? She’d avoided conflict because her nerves were already stretched to breaking point, because she wanted more of what had happened the other night, and because it terrified her how much she loved sparking off Max. “Not intentionally,” she amended, blowing out a puff of breath, so her hair shifted around her face. But his words were having a delayed impact, sinking in only now she played back their conversation.

“I want a truce,” he said.

“You just said you wanted to fight with me.”

“If we need to fight, we fight. I don’t want to avoid each other. Somewhere between ripping each other’s clothes off and ignoring the hell out of each other, there’s a middle ground. Let’s try to find it.”

But how couldAndie find a middle ground when Max had said he couldn’t stop thinking about her? When he’d said he’d been thinking about what it would be like to make love to her properly?

She felt like it had been very properly done the last time. What did he want to do differently? What could she do differently?

The ideas swirled around her mind non-stop until late afternoon the next day, in frustration, she reached for her phone and called Sophie. It was time to get advice from someone with way more experience.

Sophie listened patiently, and Andie could just imagine her nodding.

“So, make it impossible for him to resist you.”

“How?” Andie demanded with a shake of her head.

“Well, it sounds like fighting between the two of you inevitably leads to this…”

“Yeah.”

“Find something to fight about.”

“Soph! I can’t just magic up some kind of sticking point.”

“Of course you can. He’s swept into your family business and started making billions of changes. It should be easy to pick out something you don’t like.”

Andie pulled her lips to the side.

“And also, start dressing in a way he can’t fail to notice.”

“Meaning?”

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