Page 66 of Seduced by Her Billionaire Fake Fiancé

She always would be.

And now he saw her face as she’d been about to leave. The way her features had crumpled, and tears had filled her eyes and he groaned because he was the biggest fool on earth, and he couldn’t believe he’d actually hurt her.

That he hadn’t understood what he wanted from her and why.

He had to go to her. The thought of having to wait even another minute to tell her how he felt was intolerable. He moved quickly, grabbing his jacket on his way out of the office, his thoughts only of Andie.

Her eyes werebleary with tears, but she’d stopped dashing them away because it was a futile effort—the second she wiped them, more appeared. It was a never-ending stream. All she could do was keep her head bent as she moved through the entrance lobby of the high-rise building, grateful that it was late enough in the day for most of the staff to have dissipated. She didn’t particularly want witnesses to this.

She pushed out onto the sidewalk, looking left and right, barely able to see, entering the flow of after-work pedestrians.

Her heart was pounding, her insides unrecognizable.

She just wanted to go home and pull the covers over her head and disappear from the world for a while. To be alone with this awful, penetrating sense of grief.

Her mind wouldn’t stop replaying the scene from his office. His every reaction, sentence, rejection, so she groaned aloud, desperate just to get home, to try to blot out these thoughts somehow.

The lights changed and she stepped out onto the crosswalk, right as the car accelerated against the red light, to turn the corner.

Max’s lifeflashed before his eyes.

He saw it all happen, but he couldn’t get there fast enough. He couldn’t even speak. He was totally immovable at first, every part of him paralysed by the shock of seeing Andie,his Andie,being struck by a car and thrown back onto the sidewalk, her body lying lifeless and still, immediately surrounded by concerned passersby.

It was every single one of Max’s worst fears realized.

And it galvanized him into action. He pulled his phone from his pocket as he ran the short distance towards her, hurriedly pushing through the crowd, separating them, kneeling beside her.

She looked like she was sleeping.

And if he hadn’t already known how he felt, seeing her like this would have rammed it right into his big, stupid head and slow-moving heart.

He swore under his breath, phone tucked to his ear as he connected to emergency services. He leaned down, brushed his lips over hers. “Don’t you dare leave me, Andie. Don’t you dare.” And even though he didn’t know if she could hear him, if she would ever hear him again, he said, urgently, “I love you. With all of me, all of me always, I love you.”

Fifteen

ANDIE WOKE TO AN unfamiliar machine sound. Several. Like an orchestra. Humming, buzzing, beeping. She turned her head, found that doing so hurt. Opened her eyes, that also hurt.

But there was Max.

Max.

Something hurt inside her, deep inside.

Where was she? And why was he sitting on a plastic chair beside her? Was he asleep?

No. Just staring at the floor. She shifted her hand and he immediately moved, faster than lightning, standing, eyes penetrating her soul.

“You look awful,” she said, her throat hurting. She was impossibly thirsty. And while Max could never lookawful,he did look exhausted and…destroyed. “What’s happened?” She asked. Nothing made sense.

“You were in an accident,” he said, quietly. “Some idiot ran a red light as you were crossing the road. You were hit.”

Andie vaguely remembered. She’d been crying. The light had gone green, she’d stepped out. The surprise of a car in her peripheral vision. The feeling of her legs being struck, of being in the air. She didn’t remember how hard she’d landed.

She looked down at her body, belatedly realizing her arm was in a sling. But that wasn’t all. Her leg was plastered up to the knee.

“You’re lucky,” he said, standing at the edge of her bed, arms crossed, looking down at her with a set of features she didn’t understand and couldn’t comprehend. “You broke an arm, a leg, but other than that, your body is okay. Scans on your brain show no swelling.”

Andie nodded, but that hurt. “My head aches.”

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