Page 71 of The Fake Dating Plan

“Then all you need to do is deny it. I assume there won’t be any other pictures of you and our partner swapping spit in a swimming pool or anything of the sort?”

“No.”

“Because that would be bad.”

“I’m aware. And no, there were no swimming pool shenanigans.” That were public. If we were talking about the time Emilia and I had swum in my indoor heated swimming pool, however…

“Then you have nothing to worry about. We can play the denial game and this entire thing will be last week’s news by evening.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“I could have some of my people put out other celeb news. That usually helps to bury things.”

“You do that.”

She was about to get up, and then she sat back down again. “Although,” she said, “I find it interesting that this time, you're more concerned with your reputation than the other times.”

“And you’ll continue to find it interesting.” That seemed to shut down that conversation. After she was gone, I grabbed my phone and regretted doing so, because the family group chat was once again filled with conversation about me and Emilia. Tiago shared a news article. One that stated the count was over and everyone was having fun ribbing me.

My family could be unnecessarily weird sometimes. Their investment in my personal life was turning into an obsession. I threw the phone on the desk and went back to work. I poured myself into it until it was late into the night. After realizing I had done most of the work, including half of the next day’s tasks, I called it a day. Most people would have gone home by now, but maybe Emilia hadn’t? She’s a night owl. She used to study late into the night when we were in college and would sometimes show up at my place at midnight or even later. Sometimes we would go to a bar together, share a beer and talk about nothing. Somehow, I remembered those times more fondly than I did the sexier times. I wanted to relive that again. I snatched my phone.

Me:Are you still at work?

No response.

It said she read it, which made me wonder if she didn’t want to speak to me.Should I send her another text?That road was the quickest way to Clingy Central. Instead, I checked to see if my PR manager had fixed the damage. We were no longer trending, thank god. Some other celebrity news had taken the spot. Chatter about us was almost non-existent, but the articles were still there, unfortunately. I calmed down a little. This will all be nothing by tomorrow.

I woke up to the sound of my phone ringing off the hook. I groaned. Who the fuck was calling me so early in the morning? Whoever it was, I ignored them until it went silent. Then it rang again. And again. Fuck! I got up and picked it up. When I saw Emilia’s name, I sat upright and cleared my throat.

“Hi.”

“Did you check your socials?”

“Good morning to you too.”

“You do not know, do you?” She sounded stressed. A lot more stressed than yesterday.

“What is it?”

“There’s a picture of us, kissing.”

“Hold on.”

I put her on hold and searched my name, heart racing. The first result was a gossip news article with a picture of Emilia and me. It was the same image from the Gala that now resurfaced. This time, it looked like I was the one who was besotted. the caption read:

Was Axmilia brewing longer than we thought? Couple is said to have absconded to a yacht on the Spanish Riviera in September.

Another article with the same picture read:

Don Juan Axel? Love Boat on the Riviera!

I rolled my eyes at that one. I scrolled through it a little. They had little information, most of it was fabricated, but the gist of it was true. The ship name Axmilia had stuck, and that’s what most articles were using. It was bad. Very, very bad. I returned to the call. “When was this out?”

“This morning. I’m fucked.”

“No, you’re not. We can fix this.”

“How?” I didn’t know, but I would find a way.

---