to come out and say that we’ve been secretly involved for the past while.”
“But that would make us look just as bad as Chad.”
“I don’t really care how it looks,” I said. “This would be perfect. It would drive him insane to think that I had it in me to sneak around behind his back.”
Cole seemed to mull everything over, like he was actually considering my plan.
He pressed his lips together. “So you want to show up to some party with a bunch of people I’ve never met before and pretend like we’ve been secretly in love for years?”
I nodded, excited that he seemed to be getting on board with my plan. “You don’t think it would be too hard to fake, right? I mean, I know we’ve obviously never been like that. But you could pretend for just one night, couldn’t you?” I gave him a pleading look. “We might need to flirt and cozy up a little, but it’s not like we’re going to be making out at a party or anything like that.”
“Yeah, that’s fine. I’m just…” He trailed off like he was thinking through every detail.
“I know we’re basically like brother and sister, but it’s just one night that you’d have to pretend to be into me.”
“That’s not…” He winced and scrunched up his nose again before saying, “I don’t think pretending to have feelings for you is going to be an issue.”
“Then what’s holding you back?”
“Well,” he drew the word out. “It’s just, I kind of have a good- guy image to keep up, and I don’t know…don’t you think your followers would be upset if they somehow heard that you cheated on Chad with your best friend?”
I went still, considering what he was saying.
He did have a point. I did have a certain image to maintain for the public.
And Cole sneaking around with someone like me would only hurt his image—especially if someone decided to dig into my past.
I sighed. “Maybe this was a dumb idea. I didn’t even think about how it would make you look to be caught up with someone like me.” I stared at my hands, feeling like an idiot for even suggesting such a thing.
I’d told myself all these years that Cole and I never made our friendship super public because I wanted to build my platform on my own and without the influence of the famous people in my life. But maybe he’d been more attached to that plan than I’d thought. Maybe he liked having our friendship kept on the down low for his own reasons.
Or maybe Vincent had told him things about my past…
“Hey.” He covered my hands with his. “It’s not like that. Don’t even let yourself think it’s like that.”
When I looked up at his face, his big eyes were only full of concern and care.
“I’d be lucky to have people think I could land a woman as smart and beautiful as you are.” He rubbed his calloused thumb along my fingers, causing warmth to bloom where he touched. “So don’t ever think that’s the reason. I just don’t want you to do something you’ll regret later for someone like Chad.”
I bit my lip as I took in what he said. Then I shrugged and said, “I doubt Chad would go public with anything that would make it look like he got cheated on. He’s too proud to let anyone think that. And if he did happen to say something, I could just tell everyone the truth. I have those screenshots from that girl.”
“You do have those.”
“So…?” I raised an eyebrow. “Think you can slum it with me?”
“I wouldn’t exactly call being your secret boyfriend slumming it.” He squeezed my hand. “But yes, I can’t think of a better way to spend the evening than watching Chad turn green with jealousy as I pretend that you were always really mine.”
“Thank you.” My whole body sighed with relief. “Just knowing we get to do this almost makes all the years I wasted on Chad worth it.”
15
Arianna
After agreeing to our night of deception, Cole and I decided that the best way to make my plan work was for me to simply break up with Chad in the same way that I had originally planned. I’d pick him up from the airport, not say a word about him and Amber and simply tell him that things just weren't working out between us anymore and I was ready to move on.