Chapter 13

Despite the fact that both men had put their opinions aside, there was a clear reluctance as they discussed their 'relationship'; the entire thing felt horribly wrong but they needed to stop the Q Groups attacks before someone else got hurt. However, even with such a strong motive, neither were all too happy with the fact they were announcing their plans to marry to the public in less than half an hour.

Henry dropped the pen, the two finally leaning back with a sigh, they seemed to have a story down, now it was to make sure that they both had it committed to memory. The older man picked up the paper covering in Henry's enviable writing, pushing his dark hair out of his eyes. "So, we met by chance outside the venue of a conference I had gone to with my family just over a year ago."

"I came to pick up Meera because she was feeling sick and you had come out to smoke, so you kept her company until I had arrived."

So far, surprisingly, there had not been any lies other than the fact that they had met. This had really happened; in fact they had found many occasions at which they could have met each other and hadn't since they had never been introduced.

"After a couple more coincidental meetings, we hit it off without knowing about the others family." Henry paused at that point, not wanting to be the one to say the worst part of this fake history. Joshua quickly realised this and frowned, sucking it up and continuing. "After some, eh, 'natural' progression, we started to… you know, d-date." He couldn't hide the disgust in his voice.

"You have to be the one to say that, I will give the entire thing away." Henry scowled, not liking it but unable to deny, responding only with a stiff nod.

"So, it was after that, for some reason, we found out about who our families were…" Even though Henry had continued, he still could not understand why this whole plot took such unrealistic approaches, who doesn't know about their partners family before dating. However, Joshua had given him some relatively clever reasoning: they would have kept quiet due to traditional stigma towards homosexual relationships.

The older man had reasoned that if they had to act as a gay couple, they should at least play the sympathy card. If people feel even a little sorry for them, they will question the story a less.

"And when we did, we decided to keep things under the wrap since we were young and all."

Joshua could feel his skin crawl as they continued to discuss things. "A year goes by of this whole thing, we realise we are serious. Talk to parents, they get along, merger comes out of it, after discussions, present day. Now as long as no one asks us any ridiculous questions, we should be alright. I need another smoke." The entire topic had made him so uncomfortable that he had prematurely ended the discussion, something the other man greatly sympathised with, along with the final comment.

Of` course, over the last hour and a half, they had come up with more than just that, they had detailed a few opportunities for them to meet and tweaking them to become a part of the insane, fake love story. There were a good number they had given some depth too.

Henry had given the idea that any more personal fact could be countered with their desires to live quiet lives, something not may could refute given how hidden they had always been from the media.

They also recognised the controversy behind publicly announcing their 'relationship' and then saying they wanted to keep things private. Joshua eventually came up with a semi plausible excuse entailing they wanted to help break the stigma and no longer wanted to hide their relationship from the world, which did not in turn mean they wanted to have a public relationship.

It had been a plot to a romance novel the dark-haired man had previously read, a heterosexual novel of course, it would be quite some time before Joshua was ready to stomach homosexual ideas. This entire situation made him feel a little homophobic, however the majority of his thoughts were due the shock and stress of the situation he had found himself in.

There was only one thing left, finding out who could expose their lie and silencing them. For Joshua, this was not too much of a feat, most of the people he had ever gotten physical with were whilst he was in university. This was not only abroad but also some time before the conjured-up relationship is said to have started; none of this posed even a little treat to the story.

Henry, on the other hand, was another story.

While it had been a little over a month since he had last met with someone, he had a surprisingly long list of one-night stands. Of course he had taken multiple precautions, never revealing his name or identity: not sticking to one area, always booking hotels or going to the lady's house, steering clear of other elites. On top of all that, he had the same person who helped keep him out of the media run background checks and taken extra steps if it seemed like a prior encounter could cause the young Reyes any problems.

Discussing this was the biggest problem to the young man, however.

"So, to the last on the agender." Joshua, as opposed to Henry, has less of a problem with being open. The pretty, blond man was not family so there was little awkwardness. Obviously he would never usually have these sorts of conversations with someone he had known a matter of days, but he knew that it was important to do so. "For me, there shouldn't be any problem. I haven't been with anyone since coming back from university." He decidedly did not mention that a lot of it was due to the fact he very rarely was social in the first place, admitting that would be embarrassing.

"You?"

The younger man slowly found himself turning his head away, his gaze falling to the floor as signs of embarrassment should on his face, his expression somewhat sheepish, the tops of his ears dusted red along with his cheeks. His sandy hair fell slightly due to the lowered angle of his head, covering his left eye.

Lore couldn't help but find the image a little cute, Henry looked truly childlike for a moment. But due to their current situation, Joshua chastised himself for having the innocent, undeniable thought.

"Well… I d-don't know how many… not that I sleep around a lot! But I should have a list, I can have my guy make sure no one is a risk to the situation." While he had managed to speak mostly well, as the words came out, the more embarrassed he found himself, in the end having to hide his face in shame. He said he does not sleep around and yet has no clue how many people he had slept with, it felt like a contradiction.

Unexpected to Henry, a light laugh came from the other man. He slowly peeked from behind his hands to see a mellow smile on the older man's face, his eyes crinkled at the outer corner, he looked a lot calmer than he had been all weekend. The sight put Henry's heart at ease.

"In comparison to Archer, you are a saint. You have nothing on him, unless you regularly partake in foursomes… or more…" the most recent encounter replayed in Joshua's head, making him shiver; if there was something he wished for more than this mess being over, it was to never have to see his brother's backside again. "My point being, there is nothing to be embarrassed about."

Now Henry had found himself internally embarrassed, the good-looking man had put him at ease far too easily. In the end, all he could do was nod.

Following this ordeal was almost an entire minute of silence, one which got exponentially more awkward as the seconds ticked on. Joshua didn't have any clue what they could talk about, at least nothing he wanted to bring up particularly. He could not help but wonder how they had silently shared a cigarette so long without any awkwardness.

Henry found it on him once again to guide the conversation. However, as soon as the words came out of his mouth, he immediately wished he had stayed silent instead.

"Do our parents really think we are gay?"

Both men simultaneously paled a little at the thought, they knew it was true even without confirmation from the other, that much had finally been made more than clear. Joshua sighed, "Apparently. I have no idea why they think so."

Another thought entered Joshua's head and a shiver of disgust ran through him again.

"And they also seem to think we are really a… thing. Or that it is at least a plausible assumption."

Henry paled even more; he had no idea what they were going to do now. The two had agreed to go along with the farce since the Q Group were getting too bold with their attacks. The most reasonable way to counter the notorious group now was the merger and it would be useless if they could not even accomplish that successfully. However, in agreeing to fake a relationship and announce their engagement, they had unintentionally told their parents that they would be happy to think about marrying each other, which would also imply they could imagine the two of them in a relationship.

This was of course the farthest from the possible truth, the two men were still thoroughly disgusted at even the thought of it. However, this then posed a whole other problem: their family think they are in a relationship and are willing to get married.

"How do you think they will react if we told them the truth?" Joshua found himself asking, his voice quiet, filled with uncertainty.

The other man felt the same, thinking about it. "I don't know about your parents, but mine would immediately suggest we change the foundation and later announced our 'separation' or something similar."

"My parents would react similarly. They made it clear right from the beginning that they only intended to use a marriage as the foundation for the merger if both parties were happy and willing to get married. They would never allow knowing that not only do we not have feelings for each other, but it was impossible to do so."

Something else suddenly entered Henry's head. "And I feel as though your family thinking we were, you know, played a big part in how quickly things returned to normality. Our families are already supporting each other like one family."

The idea had never once occurred to Joshua, but now having heard it, he could see some truth in the words. He knew his parents were strong, but when he thought back to things, if the Reyes hadn't been there that night supporting them and running an investigation on his parents' behalf, they would not be here less than 40 hours later, talking about game plans for the merger. Especially considering Penelope had been attacked afterwards again.

In reality, the support from the Reyes was a relatively important factor behind why Hanna and John had felt at ease enough to continue taking a stand so quickly despite the attacks on their youngest child.

"And if we tell them and they cancel the so-called engagement within months of the announcement, it will be fatal for the merger. The Q Group will know that we only announced this to rush though with the merger out of some form of desperation, that is exactly what we are trying to avoid."

"And it will not help with public image either. People will either not believe the entire thing and uncover the farce or scorn both families for so flashily announcing a marriage and just as quickly denouncing it. It will be detrimental to both companies' images. It will be just enough for the Q Group to dissolve all of us."

Henry and Joshua were both in agreement, however they did not like what that agreement entailed. In fact, neither could bring themselves to admit it out loud, only being able to agree through an understanding nod as Haerin came in to call them down.

They were not just pretending to be gay to the public, but also their own families.

Their thoughts were rushing so fast, that neither of them had realised how deep a hole they had dug themselves into.