My Bride Chose Her Publicity Stunt novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: The Hidden Boyfriend

I pressed play, and a hotel suite filled the laptop screen.

The date in the corner said seven years ago, in April, a Thursday.

Three people sat around a glass table.

I knew two of them at once.

Lena was twenty-three, with her hair in a ponytail and a plate of half-eaten room-service fries in front of her.

Brandon sat next to her, younger and thinner, with a notebook open on his knee.

The third was a gray-haired man in a navy blazer, the head of Meridian Records, and the camera was clearly hidden in a bookshelf behind him.

"Let's be clear," the man said. "My contract has one rule. Lena cannot be involved with anyone on her own team. Not her manager, not her publicist, not her security."

"I know," Lena said.

"If it ever came out that you and Brandon are together, the deal is void. Immediately."

Brandon closed his notebook.

"Then nobody will find out," he said. "Because the world will see someone else."

My hand went cold on the laptop.

"Go on," the man said.

"We invent a secret boyfriend," Brandon said. "Someone she's hiding. Fans love a hidden love. Photographers will chase him for years, and nobody chases the best friend."

"And the best friend?"

"Stands in front of the cameras, holding her hand, whenever the real boyfriend gets caught," Brandon said. "It looks like a cover. Every magazine will call it a cover. Nobody will ever look at me and wonder if it's real."

The man leaned back.

"A fake relationship with a real one hidden inside it," he said. "I like it."

"Inside out," Brandon said. "The fake one is the real one."

I stopped breathing.

In the back seat, Maura had gone silent, but I could feel her looking at me, not at the screen.

"We need a face for him," Lena said.

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