Page 14 of The Wrong Husband
I bit my lower lip. This was not good. This was so bad. So, so, so bad. Very, very bad.
"Okay. Okay," I said to calm myself down. "We'll just get this marriage annulled and you can tell the media it was ah…a drunken mistake."
"Yeah and that won't be a PR nightmare at all." He was being sarcastic, and it irked me. Now wasn't the time to dismiss ideas—now was the time to come up with some new ones.
"We can't stay married," I snapped.
"We'll spin it," he said lightly.
"Spin it?" My eyes went wide. "What are you gonna spin, dude? That we fell in love and got married? That I'm a home-wrecker who got between my sister and her famous boyfriend? Any idea what that'll do to my life?"
Damian leaned back on his chair. Cool as a freshly-painted canvas.
"We'll make a statement that Bianca and I broke up a while back."
"And she'll go along with it?" I demanded. "This is nuts. Just…oh God. My parents are going to hate me. Bianca is going to hate me."
I would deserve that. I was a horrible person. I had done this because I was selfish, just like my family always told me.
"We're not rushing into anything," Damian finally said.
"You mean like when we got married?" I quipped sadly.
"We need to do damage control," he continued firmly, ignoring my comment. "The story breaks tomorrow morning. We have time."
"The annulment?" I asked lamely.
"I don't want an annulment."
I stared at him, not able to process what he'd said. "What?"
"I said that I want us to stay married."
"I got that," I gritted out. "My question is why."
"I think we should give this marriage a chance," he continued.
If my eyes could bug out like they do in cartoons, they would. Seriously, Damian Archer saying he wanted to give marrying me a chance was a fantasy wrapped in a joke wrapped in freaking massive heartbreak.
"Because of the media?"
"Yes. And…maybe we owe ourselves the opportunity to explore this."
I shook my head. Hell no! I might be the invisible sister but I wasn't going to torture myself by pretending to be married to Damian fucking Archer.
"Look, we both know that you and Bianca will get back together. You always do. I shouldn't have taken advantage of you."
He leaned back in his chair. "Six months."
"What?"
"Emilia, I can't keep repeating myself.
"I raised an eyebrow. "What does six months mean?" I clipped.
He smiled. "I want us to stay married for six months. Move in with me and—"
"No," I rejected. "I like my place. I have a studio and—"