Page 29 of Seduced by Her Billionaire Fake Fiancé

“Frankly, that would have been great. I know what I’m doing, I just need space to do it.”

“Then why have an office in Sydney? Why have departments this huge? You do know they need to be cut, don’t you? You can see that? But you’re fighting it, because you’re bound in every way by your parents. By this being their company, their legacy. You’re fighting reasonable changes because your emotions are too wrapped up in the business. There is no place for feelings in the corporate world, Andie, and you know it. It’s about the figures on the page, that’s all.”

“How can you be so…” She stared at him, anger fizzing inside of her, making her chest hurt and her head spin. “So bombastic, and cold, and, and…” she searched for more epithets, words that would truly give expression to her feeling. “I hate you,” she settled for in the end, declaring it loudly, one hand on her hip.

“No, you don’t,” he responded gently, and he was so close she could feel his warm breath brushing her temple.

“I do.” She tilted her chin and angled her face to his. “I hate the way you do business, the way you ride roughshod over everyone, the way you throw your weight around, the way you take what you want, like kissing me when it suits you…”

“I asked you,” he reminded her.

She had no sensible rejoinder to that, which only made her angrier. “What about in the car?” She demanded, and his eyes narrowed.

“You didn’t want that?”

But Andie was not a liar and she’d been caught out in saying something nonsensical, because she’d wanted that very, very much. Every little bit of pleasure had stitched its way through her body.

His finger latched beneath her chin, keeping her face angled as it was. “You wanted me then, and I bet if I were to strip you naked and feel between your legs, you would want me now.”

She gasped at his crude statement, but he was right. Heat pooled at her sex, and her insides clenched with a fierce, all-encompassing need. It was burning like wildfire through her.

“Don’t fight with me, Andie. Not when we could find way better uses for your energy.”

“You are insufferable.”

“You honestly thought I would buy into Acto and not look at restructuring?”

“No, but it’s only been two days,” she said, stumbling a little because the conversation had returned to business and now, she was only conscious of her body and his and how desperately she wanted him.

“I’ve done this before,” he said quietly. Somehow, his arm had come around her body and was holding her to him. “I’m good at it.”

“You’re arrogant.”

“Confident. There’s a difference.”

“I don’t need you lecture me on the semantics of the English language.”

His nostrils flared. “This is the point where you walk away, Andie.”

“Huh?”

“Walk away, or I am going to kiss you, if only to shut you the hell up.”

His frustration was evident in the lines of his face, the darkness of his eyes. She gasped, glaring at him, but she knew that nothing on earth would have her walk away from him now.

“You don’t get to tell me what to do in my own home,” she replied, pressing her body forward, hard to his, gasping when she felt his arousal against her belly. So, they were both feeling like this, totally overwhelmed by desire in the midst of their argument.

“Don’t I?” He responded, reaching for her shirt and lifting it over her head, tossing it across the room with evident frustration. “You can walk away at any time.”

She continued to glare at him, even as he reached around and unfastened her bra, a slight groan escaping his lips as her breasts tumbled out of the fabric, then he cursed, and it was Max’s turn to glare at Andie, as though she’d said something he couldn’t forgive. “You drive me crazy.”

“That’s mutual,” she responded, her own hands finding the bottom of his shirt and ripping it from his pants, pushing at the buttons one by one, growing more and more impatient as her fumbling fingers struggled to feed the buttons through the shirt holes. Eventually she managed and removed his shirt with a sound of triumph, only to find him watching her, studying her, so her cheeks flushed pink.

“What?” She asked, still angry, haughty.

“Why can’t you admit that I’m right?” He asked, staring at her. Half-naked, Andie wasn’t prepared to have this conversation, nor to analyse the depths of her soul to understand the answer to that.

“I told you I’d think about it.”

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