Page 35 of The Fake Dating Plan

With the idea floating in my head, I glanced at her seriously contemplating it when she turned to me and said, “Don’t you like your food.”

My gaze went down to the cooling food in front of me. It was a well-made plate worthy of its ridiculous price tag, but it wasn’t tempting to me. Something, or rather, someone else, was. I had to stop lying to myself; I realized. I wanted to fuck my ex.

I woke up the next morning to an incessant ringing of my phone. I picked it up and cut it off. It rang again. I cut it again. It rang and rang until it got so irritating, I wanted to throw it to the wall. I picked it up and checked to see who was calling. God, what did he want?

“I’m sleeping. Stop calling.” I croaked into the phone. My head throbbed from all the alcohol I drank yesterday. I covered my head with the bedsheets. There was too much sun streaming in for such an early morning.

“It’s not that early,” his deep voice said.

Had I said that out loud?

I got up with a start and checked the phone again. It said seven. Why was he bothering me? My body was yet to recover from the late-night partying. I hardly had time to take off the dress and shoes before I got into bed.

“Let me in.”

“Where are you?”

“At your door.”

I wanted him to go as far away from me as possible. I couldn’t face him with yesterday’s makeup streaked across my face and my curls hanging on top of my hair like a bird’s nest.

“Go away.”

“Are you sure about that? Because there’s something you’d want to see.”

My phone dinged, and I checked the message he had sent. It was a screenshot of a newspaper image.

“What the fuck!” I screamed into the phone.

“Open the door or it will get worse,” he said.

“Five minutes.” I rushed to the bathroom, washed my face, brushed my teeth, ran my hands through my curls, put on a robe, and went over to open the door. Ax looked dapper, as always, in chinos and a black shirt. His hair was well-combed, and he looked ten times fresher than I did. You wouldn’t be able to tell we went to the same party. I hated how my body responded to the sweet scent of his cologne and his overall magnetic appearance.

“Having me standing outside your door for longer than necessary would only add fuel to the fire,” he said as he strolled into my suite.

“Where did you find that photo?”

This? He lifted a paper written in Spanish. It looked more tabloid than news, and in the middle was a photo of me and Ax. I grabbed the paper and looked at it closely. If you didn’t know, one would think we were about to kiss. I was looking up at him with heart eyes and he was looking down at me as if I was under his spell. It was taken after we went to the secluded hall. Next to it was a picture of me and Ax on the red carpet. It was innocent enough. But next to this other one, it looked like we couldn’t get enough of each other. There was some text written on top of it in big bold letters, but all I could make out was ‘Axel Reid’ and ‘billionaire.’

“What does it say?”

“‘Stop the count. Billionaire Axel Reid has found a hot new babe.’ The small text says, ‘pack it up ladies Axel is—’”

“Yeah thanks, I don’t need anymore.” This was bad. It was terrible. I dropped the paper and rushed over to the bedroom to check my phone. Thankfully, there was nothing yet on social media. The American media, at least. I tapped my phone with rushed, stubby fingers and searched my name. There were no reports yet except in the Spanish media.

“This is bad.”

“Not really,” I heard him say behind me. I turned to see him leaning against the wide-open double door. “It’s not in America.”

“Yet. Probably because they haven’t woken up. After that, we’ll be plastered all over the internet!”

He shrugged. “I may be well-known, but I’m not that famous.”

“You should do something about this. Can’t you use your billionaire superpower to shut it down?”

“I may bear the brunt of toilet tabloid journalism, but I’m not against the free press.”

“Free press! These are lies!”

---