Page 32 of Seduced by Her Billionaire Fake Fiancé

“That’s what we are,” she said with a shrug. “I think it’s the only way for us to be. It’s okay.”

“There is no ‘us’,” he said, quickly. “This isn’t real, Andie. That’s the problem. You have no experience, and it’s so easy for you to blur the lines, to think that living together, working together, pretending to be a couple for the sake of other people, might mean it’s actually a relationship, but it’s not.”

She agreed with everything he was saying and yet, inexplicably, hearing the words come from his mouth did something strange to her feelings, her heart was heavy, and her stomach tightened.

It was just that it was so soon after having sex, she consoled herself. It seemed like bad etiquette for him to be laying it all out in such black and white terms when they’d literally just slept together.

But it wasn’t bad etiquette at all. It was decency. He was trying to avoid her getting hurt, just like he’d said. Not physically but emotionally.

“I’m not stupid. Just because I’ve never been with a guy doesn’t mean I’m going to suddenly fall in love with you because we had sex.”

He stared at her, almost as if he was staringthroughher, his eyes seemingly penetrating the core of her soul.

She didn’t blink away, even when she wanted to. “I’m serious, Max.”

“Because you know,” he said, gently, close to her. “That when we break our fake engagement, we won’t keep living together. We’ll work together, but even then, less and less. This is not permanent. It’s not real.”

“Jeez, you really have an ego the size of Ben Hurr, do you know that?”

“This isn’t about ego.”

“So, what is this?” She reclined in the bath, wincing as never-used muscles gave a little twinge of pain, but that settled quickly enough, and the bath water was soothing and warm. “Does every woman you sleep with fall in love with you or something?”

“No, but I don’t sleep with many women, and when I do, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they see sex as I do.”

“Which is?”

He didn’t look away. “Transactional.”

Andie’s brows shot up. “That’s pretty cold.”

“It is as it is.”

“But it’s not like that for everyone.”

“No, probably not for most people. Definitely not, I think, for you, which is why I wanted to make sure you understand—,”

“I do,” she interrupted quickly.

He continued as though she hadn’t spoken, “Why we can’t do that again.”

Andie’s lips parted in surprise. It wasn’t like she’d had any firm ideas of them having sex again, not tonight necessarily, but given the way they sparked off each other, she didn’t think it was entirely realistic to make that kind of pronouncement.

Unless he hadn’t enjoyed himself.

Unless he’d found it to be a chore.

She jerked her gaze away quickly, mind spinning, as she replayed their experience, trying to imagine it now from his perspective, but she couldn’t. Her own feelings had overshadowed everything; she’d barely noticed how Max had been reacting.

“Fine,” she said quietly. “If that’s what you want.”

He made a noise of frustration. “It’s not necessarily what I want, but we’re in a delicate situation. It’s complicated. I just don’t think it’s smart to add another layer of complexity to that. We’re fake, all of it. Let’s try not to forget it again.”

A week later,Max freely admitted he was going insane.

He wasn’t sure if it was intentional or not—he didn’t think Andie had a manipulative bone in her body so was inclined to think not—but rather than the silky negligees he now knew she liked to sleep in, she’d been wearing enormous, over-sized sweaters and track pants around the apartment, as if by totally hiding her body in far too much fabric, she might be able to quell the desire that raged between them.

But it only made Max want her more. He lost himself in imagining bunching all that excess cotton in his fists and pushing it off her body, kissing her all over, tasting her, making love to her slowly, determinedly blowing past all of her barriers until she was recreated as someone entirely new and different, someone so much more aware of her body and what it was capable of.

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