Page 81 of The Fake Dating Plan

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The stares I got the next morning when I came to work were much worse than the previous ones I got. At least those were curious. It was as if they were viewing me in a different light. This time, the stares were judgmental. They had made their decision on which light to cast me in and it wasn't a favorable one. And I had done nothing wrong. You wouldn't think it if you read the online gossip and the trending tweets.

Why settle for one big fish when you can catch two. That's how one headline read. When I saw that as I was preparing to go to work, I ignored it and instead listened to one of my favorite podcasts. A big mistake, since I was their favorite topic.

"Is she cheating on him or is it one big throuple? What do you think?" Host one had said.

"I think she's giving him a flavor of his medicine," host two said. "I heard they used to date once, and he broke her heart."

"Oooh. I heard she signed up to date him as part of the deal." That was closer to speculation than anything I heard so far.

"Please. I doubt a man like him needs to buy women like that. This whole thing is a ruse. It could all be publicity. Part of brand Steel Cute and have us talking about her so we could buy her shit."

"Shit, you could be right. And we are talking about her. You know what? Let's not. Let's all stop giving them the air they desire so much. Oh god, I hate rich people with their…"

I had to stop listening at that point. I didn't beg them to talk about me. I would rather they knew nothing about me at all, except maybe my jewelry collection.

Knowing people were judging me and making all sorts of nonsense speculation about my private life and judging me for doing absolutely nothing but existing was what bothered me the most. When I sat down in my office, I turned on my computer to see exactly what people were saying. I was the trending topic again. Even though I knew I should turn away, I couldn't. I wanted to know more.

Laura came in before I could go down further into the doom scroll tunnel. "I hope you're not on Twitter."

"Are they saying something about the brand on Twitter?"

"I like your humor. I didn't see you when you left the apartment, or when you came back last night, frankly. How are you doing?"

"We broke up if that's what you're asking."

“Is it true what they're saying?”

"I'm not seeing Chad Heron. God! That meathead knows nothing about anything. Also, why would I date him, of all people?"

"So that's not why you broke up."

"The dolt thinks I was cheating on him." Laura frowned, and I immediately knew the question that was on her mind. "It wasn't because he saw it on the net that we broke up. He's probably the one who leaked the images for all I know. It's the same one he showed me."

"Oh." She gently sat down. "And does that include the back rubbing one?"

"Back rubbing?"

She took out her phone and showed me an image of me lying face down on a yacht. Chad was sitting on a lounge chair next to mine, rubbing me with lotion. I groaned out loud and slammed my head on the desk.

"That's the one where we were on Heron's yacht. Remember. He wanted us to 'woo him'"

"I thought it looked familiar. God, these pesky little no-names. I thought it was a recent photo. They're making it out to be a recent photo!"

"It doesn't matter anyway. The relationship is over. Not that it was real in the first place."

"It wasn't real?" I thought I had muttered that last part to myself. "What do you mean it wasn't real?"

I told Laura everything. Well, most of everything. About the deal, the favor he would ask of me and our past. I didn't tell her how I had fallen in love with him because of our fake relationship. Or that last night, after storming out of his apartment in fury, I cried myself to sleep because of him. After I was done, she slumped back in her chair, shocked.

"And here I was thinking he was just an investor."

"He is. Or at least I hope he is. He has said nothing else regarding the business deal."

"Do you think he's going to pull out the funding? He wouldn't!"

I shrugged. I was done guessing what next Ax would do and simply preparing for the worst.

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