Page 51 of My Possessive Billionaire: Our Fake Marriage

“You’re going to have to confront this sooner or later, you know.”

“No, I don’t know.” My voice sounded sullen and petulant, even to my ears. “I don’t have to deal with it. I can just go right back to living my normal life again. The life I had before I ever met Evan Jones.”

Jennifer cocked an eyebrow.

“Amanda, come on. Don’t even try to pretend like it’s going to be that easy.”

“Why shouldn’t it be easy?” I covered my face with my hands. “Please don’t tell Evan where I am. I switched off my phone so he couldn’t track me, all right? I just want to go back to the way things were.”

“You can’t just walk away from this. It’s going to have to be a more conscious uncoupling than that.”

“I can just walk away,” I said, a bit loudly as I jabbed my finger at her. I felt like I had a great point to make. One I had been just dying to get out of me. “I can totally walk away, Jennifer. I mean, you’re right. If…ifthis had been arealrelationship, with a real wedding and a real marriage, I couldn’t just walk away. I’d have to do it a lot more messy than this. However!”

I held up my finger before she could cut me off.

“However, this isnota real relationship. It’s a fake marriage, and I’m a fake wife. Therefore, I can just make a clean break and walk right the fuck away from everything that has anything to do with Evan Jones.”

Jennifer gazed at me for a long time and then reached out to cup her hand over my own.

“You know I’ll support you in whatever decision you make. I just want to make sure you understand exactly what you’re gettingyourself into.”

“I understand what I’m getting myselfoutof,” I muttered.

She waited for me to explain myself for a bit. When I did not, she gently began to pry.

“You know, I thought that you and Evan were getting along a lot better. At least, that’s what Jenna said.”

“Jenna doesn’t know half as much as she thinks she does,” I snapped. “Yeah, we were getting along okay, I guess.”

Jennifer arched a brow. I heaved a long sigh.

“Okay, so it was more than just sort of okay. It was magical. It was great passionate sex at night and great companionship during the day. It was long hours in the office and long hours coming down from it later. I was liking it… maybe even loving that life, until it all came crashing down.”

“It came crashing down?”

I really did not want to give her the gory details. I really didn’t. All I wanted to do was to put Evan Jones out of my mind on a permanent basis. Wash that man right out of my hair, as it were.

“I let myself be duped, Jennifer. I duped myself, I should say.”

I hung my head between my hands and stared at the table. The wood had been polished to such a sheen I could see my reflection. I looked pretty miserable to my own eyes.

“I duped myself into believing that it could be real. That it was real. That we were a real husband and wife and there was real love between us. All right?”

I shook my head and lifted my gaze to meet her sympathetic expression.

“I was wrong, though. It wasn’t real, and it never could be. No matter how much I wanted it to be.”

I fought back the tears stinging the corners of my eyes.

“I should have listened to my gut, Jennifer. I should have listenedto my gut. I was so stupid to believe it was anything other than what it was. A sham.”

Jennifer squeezed my arm.

“Are you sure all of it was a sham? I mean, obviously I’m on the outside looking in here, but it seemed to me that he really liked you. A lot. And I’m going to go out on a limb and say that you really like him. A lot.”

I appreciated what she was trying to do. I almost told her all the gory details about how he was looking to replace me with a supermodel or something. Instead, I gave voice to something that had been bouncing around in my head ever since I decided to leave the manor.

“Powerful men like Evan, there’s something about them that you just have to accept.”

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