Page 59 of Seduced by Her Billionaire Fake Fiancé

“The business has changed hands. Nothing we’ve done can be undone. My father might suspect this was all for show, but it won’t matter, because the company is still partly mine.”

Max nodded once. “Okay,” he sat back in his chair as the plane touched down, his frame relaxed. “If that’s what you want, we’ll end our engagement.” His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’ve enjoyed being your fake fiancé, Andie. One day, you’re going to make some man very happy.”

One day,you’re going to make some man very happy.What a stupid, idiotic thing to say, Max berated himself as the wheels touched down on the runway and he immediately unbuckled his seatbelt and stood, reaching for his document wallet and sliding his newspaper into it. He took comfort from going through the motions of ordinary actions, while his brain was grinding like rusted gears over Andie’s pronouncement.

He hadn’t fought her because he’d known she was right. This made sense.

Of course they should end it.

He probably shouldn’t have agreed to it in the first instance.

She was right about his family. He’d had a similar conversation with his father and brother, about how great Andie was, how much they loved her, how good she was for him, and Max would be lying to himself not to admit that he’d felt a similar sense of guilt for the ruse they were perpetuating.

There was also her father and brother to consider. They’d been through enough without adding more pain to their emotional load. The ending of a short engagement would be disappointing but there’d be no huge devastation caused by this.

Andie was right.

So why did he feel like every minute of silence between them was filled with angry static? He felt as though there were a thousand things he should say but couldn’t.

He wanted to drag her against his body and kiss some sense into her, to make love to her here in the middle of the plane and say, ‘to hell with everyone else, I like being pretend engaged to you’. But Andie had made her decision for all the right reasons, and Max had to respect that.

Hell, he should have been relieved!

Being trapped in an engagement was hardly his speed. At least now he could get on with his life: without Andie in it.

When Max had first started stayingwith her, Andie had been aware of him even when she couldn’t see him. She’d felt him in the atmosphere, had heard him even when he was silent. And the same could be said now, in reverse. She felt his absence like a hole in her gut.

Stepping into the kitchen to find it empty was like being punched.

Eating cereal alone, for dinner, only made her yearn for Max and his meals.

Working late into the night without Max to bounce ideas off was boring and isolating.

But lying in bed was the worst.

In Italy, at his parents’ home, they’d shared a bed, and in two short nights, she’d become used to—no, addicted to—having him there. She’d loved reaching out for him. Having his arm curl around her, the weight of his body always present.

She lay back in her big empty bed and a single warm tear rolled down one cheek, landing with a thud on her pillow.

She’d been right to end things. That was a simple, necessary step to take.

But it wasn’t just about the business, nor the fake engagement.

Something more had been happening between them, something that went well beyond the fake engagement, and in concluding one part of their arrangement, she’d somehow ended the other too.

But the spark was still there.

And it was more than a spark now, because they’d ignited it. They were the custodians of a fully raging wildfire, and Andie wasn’t sure it was in the power of either of them to walk away from that.

Max didn’t leave Manhattan.He continued to arrive in the office every day, to say good morning to Andie, to smile at her, and he was so very normal, there was no hint of him lying alone, awake in bed, thinking of Andie, missing her, that Andie knew she couldn’t show any hint of her feelings to Max.

Her doubts about what she’d done.

Her desire to play with their spark again.

Andie had told her father that she and Max weren’t sure now about their engagement. It seemed easier to let him down gently, to break the news in a few steps, rather than all at once. He’d been disappointed for Andie but had said he was there for her, if she needed to talk, and left it at that.

Andie had been relieved, and then empty.

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