“It'll be okay,” I lied, pulling him into me. “Nobody reads this paper anyway.”
“Right,” James chuckled, but there was no mirth to it. “No one reads the New York Times.”
I blanched a little and held him tighter. “What do we do? You tell me what we need to do, and I'll do it.”
James relaxed his grip on me, looking down with those green eyes that seemed to absorb everything around him. “I appreciate that.”
I tried to smile, but my lips wouldn't move. This was too awful to smile about. “If you want, I'll make a claim that it's all lies. That I think you're gross and smelly.”
“You didn't read the article, did you?”
“It says you aren't gross and smelly?”
“They have pictures. Compromising pictures.” His whole body stilled.
“How would they get those?” I asked. “Even if they figured us out, how did they get pictures?”
James sighed. “I don't know. The paper didn't run the photos, saying they were too risque for print. I have no idea what they are.”
“Maybe there are no pictures?” I didn't think we would get that lucky, but I said it anyway. “What are we going to do?”
“Wouldn't matter now. The damage is done. It's out in the world now. Even if there aren't any pictures- the idea is in the public eye. It will never go away.” He trembled slightly and it scared me.
“What do we do then?” I asked, pressing into him.
James sighed. “Yesterday, I had a plan. I was halfway to hiring someone to pretend to be your boyfriend. To create some distance between us and make it believable that you got knocked up by someone other than me.”
“You were going to hire someone to be my boyfriend?” I repeated, stuck on that part of his statement. “Like, to take me out on dates and stuff when you aren't around?”
“Don't worry. The guy I was looking at is gay and has excellent taste in restaurants,” James assured me, as if that was the weird part of his hiring plan. He let me go and started pacing the room. “But now... now I don't know what to do.”
“Well, you can cross having to have a job interview with the pretend boyfriend off your list.” My voice faded as I finished, knowing that it wasn't funny. I just hated to see James look so defeated. It wasn't James to look like he'd just been kicked in the balls and left in the mud.
“Not funny, Allie.” He ran his fingers through his hair. He already had bed-head, so he only mussed it up further.
“Sorry,” I murmured, staring at the paper resting on the bed. This was bad. “At least there's no mention of the pregnancy.”
“Yeah, but for how long?” James sank into a chair. I'd never seen him look so depressed. “Once you start to show, it won't be rocket science. Even if we avoid the rumors now, they'll come back. There's no running from this.”
He paused, clearly at a loss for what to do. He needed some help. And I had an idea. “So we own it,” I said.
“What?”
“We own it.” I said with a shrug. “We're in love, right? People love a good love story. We make it about how we feel, how you're Romeo and I'm Juliet and we can never be together...”
“And you think people will go for it? That they'll look past the whole brother-sister thing?” He looked doubtful.
“The way I see it, we have two options.” I held up one finger. “One, we deny everything. It could work, but if there are actual pictures out there, we'd really be in trouble.” I pulled up a second finger. “Or, two, we acknowledge it.”
James rubbed his chin, his eyes thoughtful. “We control the angle. We spin it positive, make everyone focus on how romantic it all is instead of how wrong.”
“Basically.” I chewed on my lower lip, not quite sure if he was going to go for it. To announce our relationship was never part of the plan. Honestly, it was all going so fast, I wouldn't have announced it to more than close friends even if we weren't related by marriage. But, that wasn't an option anymore.
“It could work...” James' cockiness was starting to come back. “I need to get in contact with Lauren.”
He pulled out his phone and hit a speed dial.
“Dammit!” Frustration crossed his face and he slammed the phone shut. “She's not picking up.”