Page 64 of Seduced by Her Billionaire Fake Fiancé

“I’ve been thinking about us,” she started, and once she’d said that she couldn’t take it back, and so she forced herself to continue, even when Max didn’t visibly react, even when he gave her no encouragement. Pulse washing through her ears, she continued. “About everything, really. So much of what happened between us didn’t make sense to me. I don’t have much experience, as you know, and was honestly completely out of my depth so much of the time with you,” she admitted, biting into her lower lip. “I haven’t really understood my own feelings, not since meeting you.”

He made a noise that might have been a sound of encouragement. Deep and gruff.

“And then Friday night, Soph and I went to a bar, and I met a guy.”

She wasn’t looking at Max but she felt him stiffen, saw it in her peripheral vision.

“He was really nice. Handsome. Smart. Successful. Funny—he made me laugh, and God knows I needed that.”

Max said nothing.

“But I felt nothing for him.” Her lips pulled to the side. “Not even when he kissed me. It was like…nothing.”

“He kissed you?” Max repeated quietly, but with a coldness to his voice that had Andie’s eyes jerking back to his face.

“That’s not important,” she promised.

“No? You think not?”

She frowned. “Are you angry that some guy kissed me for a couple of seconds two weeks after we ended our fake engagement?”

His eyes sparked when they met hers. His lips compressed tightly, and she felt the emotions radiating off him. She dug her fingernails into her palms.

“And why are you angry?” She demanded, though he hadn’t answered her question.

“I’m not,” he assured her, though his voice was tightly controlled. “I was just surprised. It’s your life, though, Andie, and as you point out, we’re nothing to each other now.”

Her heart tightened. “I didn’t say that” she responded immediately. “In fact, that’s the opposite of what I’m trying to tell you.”

His hands gripped the back of his chair. “Which is what, exactly? That you had sex with another guy the following night?”

Her head jerked back as if he’d slapped her. “Don’t,” she responded, but her voice shook a little. She cleared her throat.

“I just can’t see why you’re telling me any of this,” he said. “I don’t need to know the ins and outs of your personal life, Andie, just as you don’t need to know mine. How would you feel if I came to your office to tell you about some woman I’d been with while in Italy?”

Andie’s eyes filled with stars. “You—were you?”

“That’s not my point.”

Andie gaped for air. She took a step backwards. “Forget it. This was a mistake.”

But it hadn’t been a mistake. He was hurt and jealous and acting out of those emotions. Which made it more likely he had feelings for her, not less.

So tell him, her brain pushed. Go on!

She reached for her mother’s ring, swung it side to side again.

“You make me so mad,” she said quietly. “There are times I honestly think I hate you. But what I’m trying to tell you, what I’ve finally realized, is that the reason I feel so damn strongly about you all the time is because on top of sometimes hating you, I also love you. All the time.”

Max straightened again, stared at her, and Andie had the satisfaction of at least seeing him rendered completely speechless…and shocked.

“I think I’ve loved you almost since I first met you,” she turned away from him because she could no longer look at him. Her head was spinning. The relief she thought she’d feel at telling him the truth hadn’t enveloped her. Instead, she felt a strange pain opening up in her chest, like a chasm forming. “And I just wanted you to know. Because I didn’t know. I didn’t understand anything about what I felt when we were together, I didn’t understand why I needed to end it when I did, I didn’t understand. And if there’s any chance that you have feelings for me too, and you just haven’t realized, I wanted you to know…”

Silence. She turned to face him slowly. His expression was unreadable, his eyes, which were usually so communicative, gave nothing away.

“Even if you don’t have feelings for me,” she murmured. “I still wanted you to know. It seems…important. Like honouring my feelings or something.”

“I see.” His lips were grim, his eyes pushing into hers. “Is that all?”

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