Faking It With My Billionaire Husband

Chapter Three:

By the time the rain eased, I had finished my tea and half a slice of lemon cake I hadn’t meant to eat.

Max had ordered it without asking, placing the small plate between us with a quiet, “You need sugar.” I had opened my mouth to argue, then realised I was too hungry to pretend I wasn’t.

Now only a few crumbs remained, and my embarrassment over eating like someone who hadn’t had a proper meal in days had been replaced by something more dangerous.

Comfort.

I hadn’t meant to feel comfortable with him.

I didn’t know anything about him other than his name, his ridiculous blue eyes, and the fact that waitresses called him Mr. Charles with instant recognition in their voices. That should have made me more cautious. Instead, it only made me more curious.

Outside, the rain had softened to a mist. The windows were streaked with water, and the city beyond them looked blurred and far away.

I traced the rim of my cup with my fingertip. “Thanks,” I said quietly.

“For the cake?”

“For everything.”

Max watched me for a second, then inclined his head. “You looked like you needed someone to interfere.”

A smile tugged weakly at my mouth. “That’s one way of putting it.”

He sat back in his chair, long fingers wrapped around his coffee cup. Even sitting in a tiny café, he somehow seemed out of place in the best way—like he belonged in boardrooms and penthouses and expensive black cars, not in a corner by a steamed-up window with a woman who had cried all over his coat.

The thought made my stomach twist again.

I glanced down at it, still around my shoulders. “I should probably give this back.”

“You should probably keep it on until you stop shivering.”

“I’m not shivering.”

He looked pointedly at my hands.

I tucked them under the table.

That earned me the faintest flicker of amusement. “Very convincing.”

I rolled my eyes, but a little warmth spread through my chest at the ease of it. It had been a long time since talking to someone had felt this… simple.

Too simple, maybe.

The thought put some caution back into me. I straightened slightly. “So what were you doing out there?”

His expression didn’t change, but something in his eyes cooled a fraction. “Working.”

“That sounds vague.”

“It is.”

I raised a brow. “Are you always this mysterious?”

“Only with women I’ve just pulled out in front of moving cars.”

I huffed out a breath that might have been a laugh. “Fair.”

He glanced toward the window, where the traffic had begun to move more steadily now that the worst of the weather had passed. “And what about you? Were you heading somewhere?”

Home, I nearly said.

But home wasn’t really home. It was a rented room in a peeling old terrace where the heating only worked when it felt like it and the landlord acted like fixing mould was some kind of personal favour.

So instead I shrugged. “Not really.”

His gaze returned to me, sharper this time. “You left the hospital with nowhere to go?”

“I have somewhere to go.” My answer came too quickly.

He didn’t call me on the lie. “But not somewhere you wanted to be.”

The gentleness in his voice made it harder to look away.

I pressed my lips together. “You ask a lot of questions.”

“I’m trying to work out whether I should worry about you.”

The blunt honesty of it knocked the air from my lungs for a moment.

“No one’s asked that in a while,” I admitted before I could stop myself.

Max’s eyes held mine, steady and unreadable. “Then the people around you are failing.”

My throat tightened.

I looked down again, suddenly unable to bear the weight of his attention. “You don’t know the people around me.”

“No,” he said. “But I know you nearly walked into traffic today, and you keep saying you’re fine when you clearly aren’t.”

I bit the inside of my cheek.

He wasn’t wrong. That was the problem.

The problem was that he was too observant. Too calm. Too interested.

And I didn’t know why.

The silence between us stretched, but it didn’t feel awkward. Just full.

Finally, I said, “My mum hates hospitals.”

He didn’t interrupt, so I kept going.

“She always has. Even before she got sick. She used to joke that just walking into one made her blood pressure rise.” I smiled faintly at the memory, then the smile faded. “Now she can barely leave her bed.”

Max’s face softened. “How long has she been ill?”

“A while.” I swallowed. “It got worse recently.”

“And you’ve been taking care of her?”

I nodded.

“On your own?”

Again, I nodded.

He was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke, his voice was lower. “That’s a heavy thing to carry alone.”

A lump rose in my throat so quickly it hurt.

“I don’t really have a choice.”

There it was again—that look in his eyes. Not pity. Something else. Something warmer and more dangerous.

“Everyone has a breaking point, Maya.”

My fingers tightened around the cup. “I’m not breaking.”

His gaze dropped briefly to my white-knuckled grip. “No?”

“I can’t.” The words came out sharper than I intended. “If I fall apart, then what? My mum still needs me. The bills don’t stop. Life doesn’t pause because I’m having a crisis.”

His expression didn’t harden the way most people’s would have. If anything, he seemed to understand more.

“You’re right,” he said quietly. “It doesn’t.”

I blinked at him, surprised by the lack of argument.

He tilted his head slightly. “That doesn’t mean you’re supposed to carry it alone.”

The rawness in my chest deepened. I looked away, toward the rain-silvered window, because if I kept looking at him, I might embarrass myself all over again.

I was too close to tears already.

“So,” he said after a moment, and the change in tone told me he was doing it deliberately, giving me room to breathe. “What do you do when you’re not nearly getting flattened by traffic?”

I let out a weak laugh. “Is that your smooth way of changing the subject?”

“It seemed kinder than letting you cry into another napkin.”

I smiled despite myself. “I work at a florist part-time.”

He leaned back slightly. “That suits you.”

I frowned. “You don’t know me.”

“No,” he said again, that same calm answer. “But I can picture you with flowers.”

The image hit unexpectedly hard. Me in the tiny little shop with its buckets of roses and eucalyptus, trimming stems while soft radio music played in the background. It was one of the few places I felt calm.

Or had felt calm, before hospital calls and debt threats started ruining everything.

“My mum loves peonies,” I said before I could stop myself. “They’re her favourite. She says they look too extravagant to be real.”

“Do you bring them to her?”

“When I can afford to.”

A tiny crease appeared between his brows, gone so fast I almost missed it.

He set his coffee down. “You said there was private treatment.”

The shift in topic made me tense immediately. “I shouldn’t have mentioned that.”

“But you did.”

I drew in a breath. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t afford it.”

“How much?”

I stared at him. “Why?”

“Because I asked.”

“That’s not an answer.”

His mouth curved faintly, but his eyes stayed serious. “Humour me.”

Every instinct told me not to answer. Not because I thought he meant harm, but because saying the number out loud would make it real in a way I wasn’t ready for.

Still, after a beat, I said, “More than I have.”

“That bad?”

I gave a hollow laugh. “That’s one way of putting it.”

He watched me for a moment, and then his gaze dropped to the table, to the cheap phone lying beside my cup.

“Is that all that’s wrong?”

I went very still.

Joe’s voice seemed to slither back into my ear.

End of the week.

My stomach knotted.

Max noticed. Of course he noticed. “There’s someone else pressuring you.”

It wasn’t a question.

I shook my head too quickly. “No.”

“Maya.”

I hated the way he said my name—soft, steady, like he could pull truth out of me if he kept using that tone.

“It’s nothing.”

“That’s the second time you’ve said that about something that clearly isn’t nothing.”

“I don’t even know you,” I said again, more to remind myself than him.

His jaw tightened, not in anger exactly, but in restraint. “Then don’t tell me. But don’t lie to yourself and pretend it’s under control if it isn’t.”

The words landed harder than they should have.

Because it wasn’t under control.

Nothing was.

Not my mum’s illness. Not my money. Not Joe.

Not even my emotions, apparently, because suddenly my eyes burned again and I had to blink hard to stop the tears.

“Oh God,” I muttered, pressing my fingers to my forehead. “I’m sorry. This is ridiculous.”

“It isn’t.”

“Yes, it is. I’ve just sat here and dumped my life on a stranger.”

“You haven’t,” he said. “You’ve barely told me anything.”

The ridiculous part was that he was right.

For someone who had said so little, I felt weirdly seen.

I let out a shaky breath and pushed my chair back slightly. “I should go.”

This time I meant it.

The warm safety of the café had begun to feel dangerous in a different way. Too easy. Too tempting. Like if I stayed any longer, I’d let myself forget reality for a few more minutes, and I couldn’t afford that.

Max looked at me for a long second, then nodded once. “All right.”

The simplicity of it almost disappointed me.

I stood, adjusting his coat around my shoulders. “Thank you. Again.”

He rose too, effortlessly tall, and reached into the inside pocket of his jacket. For one wild second, I thought he was going to hand me money, and horror flashed through me.

Instead, he held out a plain cream business card.

No flashy logo. No dramatic gold lettering. Just:

Maxwell Charles

Charles Holdings

And beneath it, a number.

I took it carefully. “What’s this for?”

“In case you need help.”

I almost laughed. “From a man I met because he stopped me from getting run over?”

“If that’s how you want to tell the story, yes.”

I looked at the card again. Charles Holdings. I didn’t know what that meant exactly, but it sounded expensive.

Corporate. Important.

And him? He looked like the kind of man whose problems lived in newspapers, not on overdue gas bills.

“I won’t call,” I said, because I needed to say something sensible.

A faint smile touched his mouth. “Probably not.”

“Then why give it to me?”

His eyes held mine, and for one strange suspended second the whole room seemed to go quiet around us.

“Because I think you’re the kind of woman who only asks for help when she absolutely has no choice,” he said. “And I have a feeling you’re closer to that point than you want to admit.”

My breath caught.

The terrifying thing was that he was right again.

I hated how quickly he’d worked me out.

I closed my fingers around the card. “You really don’t know me.”

“No,” he said softly. “But I’d like to.”

My heart gave one stupid, betraying thud.

I looked away first.

“Goodbye, Max.”

“Goodbye, Maya.”

I handed his coat back, and for a second our fingers brushed.

It should have meant nothing.

Instead, heat climbed my spine all the way to the back of my neck.

I turned before he could see it, clutching the business card too tightly in my hand, and pushed open the café door.

Cool damp air greeted me outside. The rain had stopped completely now, leaving the streets slick and shining beneath the late afternoon light. Cars passed, people hurried along, and the city had resumed as though nothing had happened.

But something had.

I walked for half a block before I dared look back.

Through the café window, I could still see him standing there.

Watching me.

Not in a way that felt threatening.

In a way that felt… intent.

As if he were memorising me.

I turned away quickly and kept walking, my pulse unsteady.

By the time I reached the bus stop, I had convinced myself the whole thing had been a strange accident. A bad day colliding with a handsome stranger and a warm café and too much grief.

That was all.

It had to be.

Men like Max Charles didn’t step into women’s lives for no reason.

And women like me definitely didn’t get rescued by them.

Still, when I climbed onto the bus and slid into a seat by the window, my fingers moved before I could stop them.

I pulled out the card again.

Maxwell Charles.

Just looking at his name sent that same odd feeling through me—something between curiosity and warning.

I slid the card into my bag anyway.

Not because I planned to use it.

Just because throwing it away felt impossible.

Then I rested my head against the cool glass as the bus pulled away from the kerb, carrying me back toward the life I could no longer pretend wasn’t crumbling.

And somewhere between the hospital and the rented room I dreaded returning to, one truth settled quietly, deeply, beneath all the rest:

Meeting Max should have felt like a moment.

Instead, it felt like the beginning of something.