Page 3 of Seduced by Her Billionaire Fake Fiancé

“Go on.”

“I’ll sell forty nine percent to you, right now. Thereby scuttling the Santoro deal. You win.”

He was very still. “But?” He prompted, when she didn’t continue.

She sighed. “My father wants to sell. The last few years have been…personally very difficult for us,” she said, blinking away, hating that her throat stung with unshed tears and her eyes felt blurry. ‘Very difficult’ was a totally insufficient way to express the torment they’d lived through. “He’s done with Acto.”

“But you’re not.”

“No. It’s my parents’ legacy and I want, more than anything, to retain control. I need a buyer who’ll work with me, rather than forcing a complete take over.”

“I see.”

“But it’s more complicated than that,” she admitted, standing up, pacing to one of the bookshelves and studying a small ceramic bird there. “When I first floated this idea to dad—of finding someone to buy into the company rather than selling it all off—he completely shut it down. He’s done. As I said, the last few years—,”

“Have been difficult,” he finished for her, a hint of impatience in his words. She tilted her head to look at him and found his piercing blue eyes resting on her face with undisguised curiosity.

“Right. He just wants to shut the world out, but I think that’s the wrong decision. I know he’ll regret it. When the grief fades and things go back to normal, he’s going to want something of his old life to return to. He won’t forgive himself for getting rid of the company.”

“Okay, I’m listening. How would this work?”

“Well, the thing is,” she said tentatively, and all at once, “if he thought this was more than business, I think I could convince him.”

“More than business how?”

“Hear me out,” she pleaded.

A frown twisted his lips.

“What if we were to say we were engaged?” She couldn’t look at him as she spoke the preposterous suggestion aloud for the first time since the idea had occurred to her. “Just for a while,” she hastened to add.

“Engaged?” He stood quickly, his body jack-knifing from the chair. Which showed that his first reaction was definitely not one of resounding enthusiasm.

“If he thought this was more than business, then I think he could be persuaded,” she continued. “He thinks I’m being driven by grief too, and maybe I am, but I still know this is the right decision.”

Max’s nostrils flared; she could practically see his mind ticking over. “I need to think about this.”

“There’s no time.”

One brow shot up.

“I’ve stalled for just about as long as I can. I’ve had our contracts team giving the most ridiculous excuses, but the company has got to sell, one way or another. This is the very last minute.”

His eyes narrowed, clearly unimpressed with the timeline.

“Think about it,” she pushed. “You’d get to lord it over the Santoro family, that you’d gotten what they desperately want.”

“You have done your research,” he repeated. “Except for one thing: I am not interested in getting married.”

“Nor am I,” she assured him, though that wasn’t completely true. At some point, she hoped she’d meet someone and fall in love, that she might find a person so well suited to her as her father and mother had been, but for the moment, her heart was too shattered, her focus too split between her father, brother and the company, to even contemplate anything along those lines. “This would be a fake engagement, pure and simple. We’d barely have to see each other, except to make it seem real to my dad, and in a professional sense—because I intend to be very involved in the running of Acto. Once everything was official, we’d wait a while, maybe a couple of months, then amicably part ways. Dad will be disappointed but by then, we’ll have shored up the company and hopefully he’ll be more like himself. Enough like himself to be glad we kept a controlling stake of the company.”

Max was silent, looking at her but without really seeing Andie’s features. He stalked towards the window, stared out, brushing a hand over his jaw.

“And the Santoros?”

“Will find some other flailing company to shove their cash at,” she muttered. “Look, I have no hard feelings towards them. In fact, they’ve been reasonable to deal with. But they wouldn’t consider a partial buyout and I don’t want to sell the whole thing.”

“And you didn’t consider other buyers?”

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