Page 102 of Until He Confesses

To my annoyance, it was Anna, which made me certain that I was going to ignore it. When the phone stopped ringing, I noticed more than 70 notifications. At first, I was sure my eyesight was blurry and deceiving me, but when it cleared, and it was indeed that many, and they kept coming, I was shocked. Instantly, I sat up, accidentally knocking Lucas's chin.

Immediately, I turned around to be sure he was okay, gave him a kiss, and unlocked my phone. My photos from last night were splattered everywhere. Seemingly, they had a far reach because even people from college that were all over the world and who I hadn't seen in forever were reaching out to me with questions.

I lay back down against the bed, my heart beating because I hadn't actually expected this kind of exposure. For Pete's sake, he was just an entrepreneur. Sure, he was young and probably one of the most eligible bachelors in the world, but he was no star. This was my assumption, but I soon found that I was deluded and had gravely underestimated the consequences of what following him to the fashion show the previous day meant.

The messages were barely understandable, with all of them asking how I ended up dating a billionaire.

Dating, I frowned as I moved on to the links sent to me. There were messages of congratulations andyou're so luckythat aggravated me. Until I read one of the countless articles and understood that we had gone viral. And it had absolutely nothing to do with my gorgeous dress for the night. Instead, it was due to the fact that the man still resting beside me had never actually been seen with a woman before.

It was all over the news that the age-old question about his sexuality had finally been answered and that women all over the world could both jubilate and weep because he came out with his high school first love. My eyes widened the more I read, but at least now I could understand why everyone had assumed I was his girlfriend. They gave a brief and mostly inaccurate history of how we had met in high school but broke up because of the distance of going off to college. Now we had reconnected, as he could never get me out of his mind, and despite how rich he was and how many countless women had been trying to get his attention so far, none of them had been able to even come close to the space that I held in his heart. The women all over social media were rolling on the comments, and all I could do was read them without a single brain cell left to comprehend anything.

I turned to the man by my side and noticed that he was still sleeping. I wanted to wake him up, wanting this to be controlled in some way, knowing that he could. Plus, he didn't seem concerned about it, or maybe he just wasn't aware. I ultimately decided I didn't want to bother him with it, but it was now impossible to remain in bed even in his arms, so I got up and headed to the bathroom so I could get my bearings together. I started to brush my teeth, but in the meantime, I called Anna to gauge from someone real and not just articles how things actually were, because currently, my inner being was freaking out, though externally I appeared quite calm.

She responded instantly, just as I expected, but I couldn't clearly detect what her reaction was from her tone. She sounded concerned in a high-pitched manner that was also somewhat optimistic.

“I don't understand,” she said. “You two aren't officially dating, are you?”

“No, we're not,” I said as I grabbed my toothbrush and the toothpaste.

“So why is the whole world saying that you are?”

I wasn’t awake enough to know how to answer her, so I simply focused on the least complicated.

“How was my dress?” I asked, and this effectively distracted her.

“You hate pink, but that entire ensemble was breathtaking. You looked so beautiful.”

I couldn't help my smile then as I wet the bristles and began to brush my teeth.

“Hello?” she called.

“I'm here,” I mumbled. “I'm exhausted.”

She briefly went silent, and I instantly knew the accusation that was coming.

“Of course you are,” she said. “Let me guess, you two spent the night together?”

I couldn't help my blush.

“Did you expect me to go home alone in that dress?”

“I didn't expect many things,” she said. “And I'm sure you didn't as well. Why are you so calm about this? Or…"

She stopped talking as I stared at myself in the mirror, completely mesmerized by just how flushed and rested I looked. It felt like every ounce of stress and anxiety had been drained out of me, and even though it was all threatening to bubble to the surface, I couldn’t help but admit that it remained relatively easy to control due to the fact that I wasn’t really mad about being called his girlfriend.

"It's all speculation," I told her. "It'll die down by tomorrow, and everyone will forget about us."

"But will you?" she asked, and I stopped. "I understand that you're on vacation, but remember your concern from the start? It's so easy to get lost in all of this, and the last thing I want is for you to be hurt."

"I'm not hurt," I told her. "I mean, I won't be. I know what this is."

"So, you didn't read the article where they claimed that he hadn't been photographed with any woman before because of his high school love, you? That didn't make you feel soft and furry on the inside."

I smiled at her words and then sighed.

"What do you want me to do, Anna?" I asked. "I didn't think many people would care about seeing us at the show, but now they do. It's alarming, but I'm an air hostess, and he's a businessman. The news will die down by tonight, so what's to be worried about?"

She sighed.

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