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Pulling the phone from my ear, I open my emails and click on hers. A scream is immediately pulled from my throat.
No. No. No.
This cannot be happening. I stare down at the images of Alessandro and me in front of a chapel with Elvis in the background. I have a bouquet of flowers in my hand and a wide smile on my face. We are looking at each other with genuine affection as if we don’t hate each other. If I saw these images and didn’t know our families hated each other, I would assume this was real. We look happy. Which turns my stomach. Then I flip through, and there are pictures of us kissing, more images of him gripping my ass, him whispering something in my ear and my cheeks are red.
“I don’t know what to say,” I tell Francesca.
“I’m assuming by your reaction they are real?” she asks.
“Yes, I guess they are,” I answer, swallowing hard.
“Shit.”
“I know.” I sigh.
“You two look happy, if that’s any consolation,” she adds.
“No one can know about this, Fran.”
“Babe, I know, but I can’t kill this story,” she tells me honestly. I want to be sick.
“Please,” I plead with her.
She sighs. “I can give you a week before it goes live to get ahead of the story or …”
A week. I’m screwed.
“… you can find me something else,” she adds.
“Juicer than this?” I ask.
“Yeah. Tall order I know.”
Fuck.
“And you promise me I have a week to sort out what I need to or to find you something better than this?” I ask.
“You have my word, Nat. I promise you this is in the vault until the deadline date.”
Guess that’s something. “Thank you, I appreciate the heads-up. If this had gone to press and I had no idea. Fuck.”
“I have to ask, you and Alessandro, you haven’t been secretly dating, have you?”
“Ew. No,” I answer.
Francesca laughs. “Didn’t think so. How much did you have to drink then to marry him?”
“I don’t know. I have no memory of it happening.”
“Got to love the Vegas effect. What happens in Vegas …” she says, teasing me.
“Wish it would stay in Vegas,” I add, which makes her laugh.
“Still can’t believe you married him. I mean, Alessandro is hot, so I get a drunken hookup, but a Vegas wedding? This is so unlike you, Nat. You never get yourself into a pickle like this.”
“I know. I don’t understand what happened. Can someone drug you into marrying them?” I ask her.
Francesca scoffs. “You did not look drugged at all in those photos.” She’s right. I don’t. I wish I was just so I could blame that for my stupidity. “Don’t forget he was there, too, so Alessandro went through with the wedding also. That must mean something.”
