The Accidental Wife (Emily and Julian)

102

"Silas,, I swear to God you don't stop moving, I'm going to poke you with the needle," Rosie hisses in frustration. I have recently learned that there's a whole new side of Rosie that only comes out when she's working and it's her hottest side. She is so focused and doesn't let anything snap her out of that state easily. "I'm not even moving!" I exclaim. She is taking my measurements again. This time I have the suite she designed on. According to her, it's far from complete, but she wants to make sure that the measurements are correct before she proceeds. "Your body says otherwise," she snaps, and I roll my eyes. "Arms up!" she orders me and it takes everything in me to prevent myself from laughing. She barely reaches my shoulders, yet the bossiness in her is enough to be distributed among the whole football team. She reminds me of my coach. "All done!" She exhales as she notes down the last measurements in her notebook.

"Can I change now?" I ask and she nods. I make my way to her bedroom and get dressed in my original clothes. I walk out of her bedroom and make my way to the living room. She is sitting on the loveseat, completely lost in her own world.

I know what's wrong with her. Today, we're going to meet our parents and will tell them that we're dating. She hasn't told her parents anything yet, so she is extra nervous. I'm the one who is supposed to be nervous, not her.

I

I'm not worried about telling Emily and Julian that I'm dating their daughter. I'm more concerned about what I will be telling them in three months. They're going to think that I broke their girl's heart and that is the last thing I want to do. I know that they love me and I don't want to lose the love they have for me because of the inevitable break-up.

to waste.

I told Mum the truth, but Rosie doesn't know that Mum knows. I only told her because I wanted her to help me out with turning Rosie from being my fake girlfriend to being my actual girlfriend. I'm not even sure if this is possible or not, but I have a chance that I don't want When I took her to meet some of my teammates and their girlfriends, I loved the way she seemed to get along with them. But that wasn't my favorite part of the day. When she sat on my lap, it was so hard for me to remind myself that what we had wasn't real. How was I supposed to convince myself of that when everything seemed so real? The way her head rested on my shoulder and how I played with 1/5

GBG.

her hair made me think that we had atual chemistry.

3

"It's going to be okay, overthinker," I say as I poke her arm to get her out of her thoughts.

"This is my first time lying to them," she says, looking up at me. 30% 30%

"Do you want us to tell them the truth?" I won't be comfortable telling them that I'm fake dating their daughter, but if this is going to make her comfortable, I don't mind. I will do anything she wants. She stays silent for a few seconds before shaking her head. "No, I want to keep this between us. I don't want them to be more protective than they already are," she decides. I feel bad about telling my mum, but I trust her opinion and I'm going to need her input if I want to keep Rosie as my girl.

"Whatever you want." I nod and take her hand in mine and pull her up. "Let's not keep them waiting."

We end up taking her car this time and she drives to the restaurant where our parents are already waiting. Fortunately, we are only ten minutes late. Rosie easily spots our parents and the moment they see us, they greet us like we haven't met in

aw's everything going?" Julian asks us.

"All good," Rosie replies with a smile.

"Made new friends?" Emily asks her.

"Actually yeah," she says a little bit nervously. "Silas introduced me to his friends a few days ago and we all spent the day together."

"That's great!" Mum says with a wide smile. We all know how Rosie doesn't get comfortable around people easily, so to know that she met a group of people whom she has never met before and liked them is great news.

"So, we're glad that we're spending time together, but we're all wondering why you asked to see us all together," Dad says after a while.

I look at Rosie and reach for her hand to calm down her anxiety. Emily's frown doesn't escape my notice. I'm not sure how they're going to take the news, but I hope that it won't be bad.

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16:36 PM, Sep

"Silas and I are... dating," Rosie speaks. Julian's eyes go wide for a second and Emily ends up smirking.

"You owe me a new Birkin," Emily tells Julian. I look at Rosie and see her as confused as me.

"You had a bet?" Mum asks Emily as she laughs.

"I knew it

it was coming." She shrugs and my confusion only grows.

"Wait a minute. Did you expect Silas and me to date?" Rosie finally asks for the two of us since I have the same question.

"It's been very obvious. I knew it was bound to happen," Emily says and my conflicting thoughts erupt again inside of me. So, Emily has always known that I'm in love with her daughter, hasn't she? That's what she means, right? My mind reminds me that my feelings may real, but whatever it is between us is not. This is enough to make guilt start gnawing at my guts. "But... you've never said anything about that before," Rosie says.

be

"Because I didn't want your feelings to be impacted by my observation," Emily replies.

"And you had the same thoughts too?" Rosie asks her dad.

"Honestly, yes. Silas has always been very obvious." I nervously chuckle at Julian's remark. I surely don't want her father to out my feelings for her. His daughter isn't aware of my feelings and I don't want her to find out this way.

"I'm very surprised that it took you a while to realize that he has feelings for you when you have read hundreds of enemies to lovers," Emily tells her daughter and I nervously gulp.

I didn't expect the conversation to stray towards this. I didn't expect her parents to be observant like that. I take a look at Rosie's face and I don't know what to make of her facial expressions. Clearly, she is shocked, but her shock isn't enough to tell me about the thoughts in her mind. "Enough of that. The poor girl can't take all of that at once," Mum thankfully says, probably noticing how Rosie is absorbing all of that.

"Don, you know how much I love your son, but I'm sorry. If he breaks my little girl's heart, I'm going to make him regret it," Julian jokes with my dad, but anybody

can tell that he's not entirely joking.

"He's not s**d to break her heart. Not after he has finally managed to win it after years of loving her in silence." My heart s**ps a beat at my dad's words. F**k! Has he noticed too? Was I not subtle? I only spoke to my Mum about my feelings for Rosie. Has she told him? "Has he told you he has feelings for me?" Rosie asks Dad and a lump forms in my throat. "No, honey. He hasn't said anything to anyone. He has been keeping it all to himself," Mum saves the day.

I don't know what Rosie may say to me after this lunch, and I'm kind of worried. I don't want to admit my feelings to her now. If I do, she is going to be confused. I also don't want her to think that I intentionally acted like that with my teammates to fake-date her.

Thankfully, for the rest of the time, nobody speaks anymore about our

relationship. Our parents just ask us about how we're doing at school and Julian and Emily check with Rosie to see if that professor is still targeting her.

I have been checking on Rosie after each class with that professor to make sure that she's doing well. I know her well. She is not a fighter at all and she may endure any professor's abuse, so nobody would call her a nepo-baby. I want her to learn to ignore everything and to never allow anybody to walk over her. I'm not sure how I can do that, but I'm going to do everything in my power to make her stronger. "Take care of her, okay?" Emily says as she hugs me before we leave.

"You don't need to worry about that," I assure her.

As we make our way to her car, Rosie tosses me her car keys and I look at her in confusion. "You're not in the mood for driving?" I ask as I get in the driver's seat.

"No, my favorite author is going live, and I want to watch it." She smiles sheepishly

at me.

I chuckle as I start the car. Not only do I need an excellent plan to make her fall for me, but I also need to compete with her book boyfriends to win her heart. Making her notice me isn't going to be easy, but she is worth it.