AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Ian is wearing the same thing he was wearing a few hours ago when he texted me the photo of him with the cupcake. In it, he’s clutching Mei’s elbow on the sidewalk, his lips pressed gently against her cheek while—I assume—he’s telling her goodbye after their brunch earlier.
“You’re not worried about this?”
I shake my head; I can’t tell Ava everything about why this picture doesn’t make me upset, because most of it isn’t my story to tell, but I’m relieved that I can stow my worry, at least.
“I promise you,” I tell her. “This isn’t a thing. They had brunch earlier.”
“Just the two of them?”
“No, Bella was there, too, but even if it was, it wouldn’t matter. There’s nothing between them, and I trust him.”
Ava is still looking at me like she’s not entirely convinced, and while I can’t exactly blame her, since she doesn’t have all the facts, it’s still mildly irritating for someone to be doubting Ian.
“Wait,” I gasp, remembering one of the headlines. It said Ian had “done it again.” Which means now the entire fucking internet will be shredding his character again without knowing what they’re talking about. “Fuck,” I huff. “You said Gia wants to see me?”
“Yeah.” Ava nods. “There’s a lot of rumors circulating already about him cheating on you or something.”
“They don’t even know we’re together for sure!”
“You know that doesn’t matter to social media.”
“What a fucking nightmare,” I groan.
“Gia wants to make sure you’re okay, and, well, you know. See what your next move is.”
“My next move?”
“Yeah, I mean…you and Ian were doing this for good press. If this negative stuff keeps blowing up, it might have the opposite effect on your ratings.”
“I’m not—” I feel my face flushing. “I’m not going to stop seeing him.”
“That’s not what I’m saying. I just…” She heaves out a sigh, crossing her arms. “Just go talk to Gia. I’m only the middleman here.”
“Fine.”
I nod distractedly, already dusting off my shirt and turning away from her, hearing her voice call after me, “Let me know how it goes!”
My mind is racing all the way up to Gia’s office, both at the prospect of having the same conversation with her that I just had with Ava as well as with worry for how Ian is doing, if he’s seen the news yet. I hate the idea of him having to see people slandering him again, and I can only hope that he hasn’t checked his phone in a while, which is a huge possibility, given how little he uses it.
I don’t bother with knocking when I reach Gia’s office, immediately rushing inside and finding her scowling at her desktop before she looks up at me. “There you are,” she says. “Have you seen it?”
“I have,” I tell her, dropping down into one of her office chairs. “Ava told me.”
“Do you have any insight on this? Is something going on between Ian and his ex-wife?”
“No,” I say with more force than I mean to. “There’s nothing going on between them.”
Gia frowns. “How can you be sure? I know you’re friends, but he might not tell you about something like that if he were—”
“There’s nothing going on between them,” I huff.
Gia eyes me carefully, pressing one perfectly manicured fingernail to her bottom lip. “Is there something I should know about?”
“I—” I consider, chewing on the inside of my lip. Personally, I don’t think it’s the network’s business what Ian and I are or aren’t to each other, but considering that the only reason we even started this was because of their ideas, I guess I owe them something, at least. “Ian and I have…gotten closer. Since he came back to town.”
“Are you two in an actual relationship?”
“I don’t know if I would call it that,” I tell her. I want to call it that, but I need to check with Ian first. “But we’re close enough that I can tell you there’s nothing going on between him and Mei. I mean, we just had dinner with her and her wife last week. Together. I knew he was out to brunch with her this morning. Hell, her wife was there! The cameras just didn’t catch that.”
