“Why are we here, Cooper?”
He looks around us. The cameramen have moved closer, and Iscowl at them.
“We’re here because it seems as though our friends take NDAs a little too seriously. I was absolutely positive that NDAs do not include significant others.” He groans. “It appears they do, and none of them opened their normally big mouths.”
And it’s true. I’m honestly shocked that they all kept it a secret.
I’m shocked that the girls kept it from the men, too.
“Is this a joke?” I ask suddenly, anger pumping through my veins again.
His brows furrow as his face pinches. “Why would this ever be a joke?”
“To make me look stupid again.”
Again.
He rears back like he’s been punched.
“Amara—”
“You left me,”I cry. The tears came within a split second. One moment I’m angry, and the next I’m sobbing, desperate to cling to someone who isn’thim.
“I didn’t mean to?—”
“Bullshit,” I spit. “All the promises. All the years of friendship. I trusted you.”
His face crumples.
I stand, making a move to unhook the mic pack from behind me. Lindsey seems to appear out of thin air. “What are you doing?”
“I’m quitting,” I tell her simply, turning my back toward her so she can take it off.
“You can’t do that,” she panics. “If you quit now, it’s in your contract that you owe fifty thousand dollars.”
I freeze.
Fifty. Thousand?
And then I remember Zara mentioning it. Specifically, she told me that if I were to go through with this, I had to commit, because otherwise I’d be absolutelyfucked. “I havegood news and bad news,”she had told me, sitting a pile of papers in front of me. “Bad news is that if you do this, you have to go through with it, or you owe them fifty grand. You’re fucked if you don’t get up there and follow through with the show until the end. The good news? You don’t have to sign a marriage license until the end. It’s a fake one until your commitment ceremony.”
“Fifty thousand dollars?”I struggle to get the words out, instead placing my hand on the cool siding of the building.
“Amara, listen to me,” Cooper begs, still on the ground. He stands, leaning against the surface beside me, ducking his head to look into my eyes.
Do NOT melt,I have to remind myself.
“If you don’t want to do this, I will pay our way out of the contract. Both of us.”
I open my mouth to say okay. He absolutely can do that. But he interrupts.
“But I think we should do it.” His voice is a whisper as his eyes flicker to the camera crew.
“I think that we should do it for ourselves. They’re going to cut this up and blow it up no matter what. This wedding is fake. We’re not really signing anything. Why don’t we just get through this, and at the end, go our separate ways?”
I can’t meet his gaze, instead opting to run my thumb along the back of my other hand roughly, my skin bunching up at the movement. “I don’t think I can do that.”
He’s quiet, and when I look up, his eyes are welling with tears. “Please. Just give me one single chance. If at any point you want out, you’re out.”
