Page 54 of The Fake Boyfriend Fiasco

Wariness settled over Aria. She picked up her mug of tea and took a fortifying sip. “What?”

“Like I said, Nik is a dick… but…”

“I don’t like that but, Jen.”

“But, you really like him. And he loves you.”

Aria shook her head jerkily. “No. He doesn’t. He—he lied to me—”

“I’m not saying you should trust him, but let’s just pretend—for argument’s sake—that everything he’s told you is true. If you look at it that way, the story goes something like this: raging man-slut with zero relationship experience falls in love at first sight, doesn’t know how to cope with his feelings, and cooks up a desperate plot to keep the object of his affections in his life. Gives her ridiculous amounts of money and takes her on a truly excellent holiday. Makes her happy, treats her well, bestows many orgasms, admits he loves her and comes clean about everything.” Jen paused. “I don’t know, Ari. Does he sound like a dick? Yes. Completely. Does he sound like an evil, manipulative scumbag? Not exactly.”

“So, the best-case scenario,” Aria said frostily, “is that he’s a non-evil, slightly manipulative dick.”

“Do you think he manipulated you into liking him?”

“Yes!”

“How?”

Aria stared at her friend. Jen was usually so smart, and yet, all of a sudden, she had become unbelievably ditsy. “He lied to me, so I’d spend a week pretending to be his girlfriend.”

“Okay. But if that whole fake-girlfriend thing had been legit, do you think you’d have fallen for him anyway?”

“I—yes? I don’t know. Probably? Well, fuck, yes, definitely. But it doesn’t matter, because it wasn’t legit.”

“Right. He manipulated you into being around him. The thing is, though, it doesn’t sound like he manipulated you into liking him. Unless you think he was fake the whole time—like, he put on some act to make you fall for him. Or he hid some fundamental part of himself that would’ve changed everything.”

Aria forced hot tea past her cold lips. It landed with a sickening slosh in her belly. “No. No. I don’t think he did that.”

“Okay,” Jen said softly. “So, however you feel about him, or felt, before he told you the truth… that’s real. And if you really did care about him, maybe—maybe—you should consider giving him a chance to make it up to you.”

Aria thought about that for a second. She really, really did. But her mind threw up a single answer, undeniable as a brick wall. “I can’t. I just can’t.”

Jen gave her a sad smile. “Okay, honey. That’s okay. It was a rather big lie.”

But it wasn’t Nik’s lie that kept Aria awake that night, her stomach roiling and tears rolling down her cheeks. She barely thought about the lie at all.

Two images kept her up, flashing back and forth in her mind until they seemed to blur together. The look on Nik’s face, when she’d told him she was leaving—as if his heart had broken and his world had ended.

And the look on Simon’s, when he’d put a gun to her best friend’s head.

Chapter 11

Good Luck, Mate

“What the fuck did you do to Aria?”

The sound of that name, even in Keynes’s clipped tones, forced a flutter out of Nik’s miserable heart. Clearly, his heart didn’t quite understand the situation they were in. Everything is fucked. We are doomed. And Aria doesn’t care if you flutter for her. So chill the fuck out.

“I fell in love with her,” he said dully, staring up at the night sky. Nik should be with his friends on the last night out of the week—or at least in bed, getting ready to leave tomorrow. Instead, he’d brushed off Varo and Kieran’s concern, ignored G’s pointed questions, and spent the night alone in the garden, lying in the grass.

The bugs were eating him alive, but he didn’t really give a shit right now.

“You fell in love with her,” Keynes snorted. “Right. Okay. What country will you be in tomorrow?”

“I have no idea. Why?”

“I’d like to know your general location, so I can fly over and beat the shit out of you.”

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