Free Billionaire Romance: MAXIMILIAN (An Alpha Bad Boy Contemporary Mystery Romance) (Mysterious Billionaires Book 3, Anthologies & Collections) by Nicole Banks Page A

with Braden.  She had been so sure about him, and so sure about the two of them.  Here, she had allowed herself to believe, was finally The One.  He had never lied to her, never misrepresented himself to her, never pretended to her.  Braden was for real.  His attentions and his intentions were both genuine.  This, she was sure, was going to work.  This, she was convinced, was going to be her life and her future.  Braden accepted her.  Braden was willing to make a life with the face that men always thought was pretty, and everything that went with it—the arms that other men found too stout, the hips that other men found too wide, the bottom that other men thought was too full, the legs that other men thought were too big and sturdy.  Braden saw that there was more of her to love and he loved it all.
                  The trouble was that what he enjoyed better in bed was the slender blonde with the more graceful, lean curves.  The slender blonde had far less money and far less girth than Danielle.  And it thus became clear to Danielle that what Braden loved best about her was her pretty face, her sparkling wit, the vast holdings and resources of her family and the social, business, and political connections that they afforded.  Braden was an attentive, doting, passionate, and oh-so ambitious lover.  The greatest part of what he had felt for her, after all, was the private ambition.  Danielle examined herself in the mirror now, studied what Braden had told her that he accepted, and felt like the most naive creature in the universe for believing him.
                  She had believed in him because, in truth, she wanted to believe in him.  She needed to believe in him.  She had convinced herself that in a space filled with billions of men, on Earth and on far-flung moons and asteroids, there had to be one—just one —whom she would actually want, and who would actually want her in return.  After all, in a galaxy full of millions of potentially life-supporting planets, there statistically had to be some that did contain life, and some that contained intelligent life, and some that even harbored life capable of space travel.  Reality had borne out the statistics and humanity was now in contact with dozens of such species.  If the odds had been on the side of extraterrestrial intelligence, they must surely also be on the side of Danielle Dryden finding the love that she most wanted.  Daniel had seized upon Braden as proof of the odds.
                  And then Braden had gone and demonstrated the probability of a gorgeous, handsome, well-built man being attracted to gorgeous, slender women, proving to her the true order of the universe.
                  "Well, Danielle sweetie," she told herself with a sigh, "the universe doesn't care what we believe, does it?  Or what we need to believe.  The universe is what it is and goes on that way regardless."
                  There was no need to go on checking herself in the mirror.  She was put together as well as she was ever going to get, at least on the outside.  All she needed to do was get through the next few hours for her parents' sake, and it would all be over and she could go home to Mars and not have to think any more about socializing, or about the company of desirable men who really desired women to whom nature had given less than it had given Danielle Dryden.  Just one elegant, glittery, opulent party to get through, filled with VIPs and glitterati from across known space, and she would be done.
                  She huffed a bit at her reflection.  Perhaps, after all, she was taking the wrong attitude about this whole thing.  Yes, she would have to get through a whole evening in a ballroom at one of the most posh and high-end guesthouses in the solar system.  And yes, she would have to spend the whole evening ignoring her broken heart and smiling and saying all the right things to