~~Ria's POV~~
Adam's luxury car slowed down by the pavement near my building after the impromptu hangout. I expected him to stop by the front but he rushed the car into a free parking slot a little away.
"Why are you parking your car?" I asked him while unbucking my seatbelt.
"That's why parking spaces are provided."
He replied in a matter-of-fact tone. I slightly blushed at my incapability to convey him what I meant but soon recovered after I convinced myself that I most definitely couldn't top that comeback.
"Never mind." I said waving my hand dismissively. "I am far to tired to explain what I meant anyway." I mumbled under my breath.
"What?" He asked killing his engine.
"Nothing. So, bye-bye. Talk to you tonight?"
I said getting myself ready to jump out of the car but I stopped midway and gazed at Adam's face that was locked into a frown. He was looking away from me and I totally did not check out his prominent jawline.
Jeez, he can cut diamonds with it...
"What's wrong?" I asked him before my mind ran all over the place.
"Huh?" He said suddenly snapping back from his thoughts.
"Is anything wrong?"
I repeated and he seemed a bit reluctant to answer. I sensed that something was bothering him that he found difficult in sharing with me. I waited patiently for him to tell me whatever it was in own time. Three seconds passed and I was getting ready to ask him again impatiently.
"Can you do me a favour if I ask you?" He looked out of his window in a vain attempt to avoid eye contact with me.
"Well, I think I have wasted my precious hours on you I guess." I sighed dramatically. "You are still not getting what 'being friends' mean."
"What do you mean?" He looked back at me, his bright blue eyes looking stunning in the sunlight.
"Friends are for helping each other out."
After a moment of thought, he asked me bluntly, "Can you be my girlfriend for a day?"
"Wait, WHAT?!"
Did he just ask me on my face if I can be his girlfriend????
I opened my mouth but no sound came out. I must have looked like a fish out of water--- ugly and dying. But shock doesn't even cover what I felt at that moment. Shell-bombed would be more accurate.
"But Adam, I am your friend! I haven't even considered you like that and you simply asked me to be your girlfriend in one swift pull. Oh no! That's not right. I mean did you just- oh my gosh!!" I was in a full-blown panic-like state and my line of thoughts were cut out by a booming laughter.
"I was asking you to fake as my girlfriend for just one day." Adam explained to me briefly, calming me down. I heaved a loud sigh and dramatically posed my hands on my chest.
"You sacred the shit out of me." I confessed.
"Why? Am I that bad to think of as a boyfriend?" He asked playfully but I got an undercurrent of stiffness to his tone.
"No, no, no! It's not like that..."
I said quickly to undo what I had ranted in panic of a relationship prospect. The last one had given me a trauma to last for a whole lifetime. I didn't need one till I was ready. Suddenly, it crashed on me what he had just said.
"And why on earth should I fake as your girlfriend?" I asked him quite bewildered at his request.
"Its a long story."
He tried to bail out. But me, being myself, I would go to any extreme and embrassing lengths to satisfy my everpresent curiosity.
"I like long stories." I pressed with a wide smile.
He sighed and checked his Rolex. Then he drew a deep breath and started,
"Almost a month before we met, I was involved in a papprazzi problem back in California. I was never involved in tabloids news until then and I had always kept my relationships a secret. But unfortnately, my last... um, girlfriend?... had developing feelings for me which I wasn't ready for so I had to turn down. I still don't know how but the next morning I woke up to find myself as the cover page of all tabloids you can imagine; which listed and rounded up all my past relationships. My private investigators reported that Margrett was responsible for it. "
"I had to put up a cover against it fearing my career and credibility of my company. So I called in the press and told them that I was already in a serious relationship with a woman whose name I didn't wish to share."
"Was there a woman like that for real?" I interrupted his speech.
"No. That was a lie. I never had a serious relationship and I controlled the growth of this issue further with... well, money." He answered sheepishly.
I felt a wave of relief wash over me. Before I could further dig out the roots of that emotion, Adam had started talking again.
"The news-story ended that way and that is why I relocated myself to New York to oversee my upcoming project." He said
"So..." I asked him thinking hard, "where am I supposed to help you out? I'll do anything except posing for the tabloids as your 'one true love'. I just cannot live with my face in all the newspaper around the world. I have just ran away from my home but I sure do intend to return back without my parents shredding me into pieces."
He shook his head, "That problem is already solved, in a manner of speaking. The real problem is that my grandmother saw my interview and asked me to bring my girlfriend to her. I had evaded her questions until now but I have to show up with my girlfriend on her birthday."
I raised one eyebrow in question, "And when exactly is that birthday?"
"Next Sunday." He answered.
Monday... Thursday... Saturday...
Damn!
"That is like a few days away!"
"Can you be my girlfriend for her birthday? Just to convince her and then I can claim that we broke up." He asked me once again with nervousness lacing his tone.
"Why can't you tell her the truth?" I asked in a hope of dodging this awkward favour.
"I could but she'll bombard me with her emotional melodrama and I-I suck in this emotional crap."
He said looking at me expentantly for my approval of his plans next weekend. I looked at the busy street outside and thought fast. I couldn't avoid his favour mainly because I promised tht I would help him. When I made-up my mind I looked back at him and stared at him long to add in the drama before I replied slowly,
"I think I will do it, yes, I will do it if there is no media involved."
His face brightened and the end of his lips tugged itself into a mesmerizing smile.
"Sure. Do we have a deal?"
"Deal!" I shot out my hand and he took it, smiling more brightly.
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YOU ARE READING
What He Wanted (Book#1 of The Runaway Club)
Romance(Book#1 of 'The Runaway Club' but also can be read as stand alone). Ria Malhotra was done. If her parents thought that she will be marrying a man she will meet on her wedding day, they had another thing coming. So what does she do? Taking a leaf out...
