La Vie En Rose |MÅNESKIN|

Chapter 25

2021, Rotterdam, Netherlands

It seemed like hours had past until someone knocked on the door and made Elle move, it was Clara, who looked really worried.

"I just got out of a zoom call with both of your record companies and MÅNESKIN's manager, they said it's bad publicity, but we can deal with it." The two singers shared a look, they were not sure of how they could deal with that.
"How?" The brunette was playing with her rings, she was nervous, more than she was before going on stage.
"There are two solutions, I already said no to one of them. They wanted you to fake dating, I said no way, we all know how it ends, and we don't need more drama right now."
"What's the other one?" Damiano was almost as nervous as his ex, none of that would have happened if he had not fucked up.
"You have to make a public announcement stating that whatever happened between you is in the past, and that it only concerns the two of you. A post on Insta should be enough, we'll take a picture where you are smiling, you'll say that you loved each other but sometimes it's not enough. Then, we'll go to the Arena and act like nothing happened in front of the other contestants, if anyone ask anything, you just have to deny, deny, deny, alright?"
"You're sure it will work? I don't see how a pic and a little text can work." He was right, there was no way it would fool anyone.
"They'll know that my songs are about Damiano, it's obvious."
"That's why you won't deny that you were together, you will just don't talk about the whole cheating thing."

Michelle turned around to look at her ex-boyfriend, hoping to see a reaction on his face, he took her arm and approached his head from her ear.

"It's not perfect, but we have to do it, Michelle. We'll take that pic, we'll post on Insta, we'll tell them how happy we were until we realised that we couldn't be together because of our carriers. Do you trust me?" Did she trust him? Yes, it was weird, but she still trusted him, even after everything that happened.
"Alright, let's do this."

Damiano kissed her forehead and left the room, they had to get ready, they have to look happy on that photograph if they wanted to fool the whole word. The brunette took a shower, did her makeup, and got into her beige oversized suit before leaving the room to join Clara in the living room. For the first time since the morning, she opened her phone to see what was happening on Twitter, their names were trending, MÅNESKIN's fans and Elle's were fighting about who was right and who was wrong in this story, it was a disaster.

"I found a spot on the terrasse where we can take the picture, or we can use an old one from when you were in Rome. Wait, no, we can't use an old one, people would think that you try to fool them."
"Is Damiano ready?"
"Vic texted me a minute ago, he's already there."

The two French girl left their suite to join the band downstairs, it was ridiculous, that whole story was ridiculous. Michelle did not even know how the medias had acquired the picture that was in the article, she had forgotten that they had took it back then. She could see that Damiano was tensed just with a look, he was smoking while talking in Italian with Thomas and their manager, Victoria and Ethan were there two but farther.

"Alright, so now that Michelle is here, we can start." Stated Marta, the band's manager. "It would have been easier if she had not fired her manager." Continued the woman in Italian, earning an angry gaze from everyone.
"It would have been easier if Anna wasn't a control freak that had no respect of my private life." Elle's voice was cold and clear which made her friends smile as she answered in Italian to the woman. "Oh, and for your information, I speak fluently Italian, mostly thanks to the band you're representing."
"Alright, let's just do that picture already, we have to go to rehearsals." Marta clearly sounded annoyed by the French girl, but none of the artists actually cared.