Vigilant | N.H.

Twenty Three.

March 25th, 2016.

NIALL'S POV
Last night I was a mess, but fortunately, I've managed to pull myself back together. I toss on an all-black suit, my typical go-to, and head out of the door. Today's the day.

Initiate plan 'make the girl I'm in love with hate me.'

I sigh as I step into the car with my driver and begin to make our way to the café. Honestly, I have no idea who this woman is—all is I know is that she's really famous. I figured that it would add to the "I'm the world's biggest dick" effect because I'll look like I only go for celebrities. I know Blair isn't known worldwide, but she is famous enough to get noticed on the street.

As much as I hate this, I am pretty proud of the plan I've devised, especially for the short amount of time it took.

"This is it," my driver informs me as I mumble a hurried "thank you" and step out. I look around for a tall, blonde woman, but I have trouble figuring out which one is her considering I see about 20 of them that pretty much all look the same.

"Are you Niall?" a familiar face says, approaching me. No fucking way.

"Hi," she cheerfully greets me. "I'm Hailey Baldwin." Oh, so Liam set me up with a model.

Yeah, so apparently it now looks like I only go for models now. Talk about adding to the douche effect. Thanks, Liam.

We waste no time and begin to converse about the plan. "Liam just called the paparazzi and said they should be here in about 5 minutes, so all we need to do is get a few pictures of us looking all lovey-dovey," I say with a light chuckle. This is absolutely absurd.

"Okay," she nods. "Thank you for doing this, Hailey," I say. "I know I can't explain why, but thank you," I genuinely repeat. "You're welcome," she says with a smile. "And if you're wondering—which I know you are—this isn't the weirdest favor Liam's asked of me," she giggles as she sips her cold brew the mason jar.

I nod my head in agreement. "That doesn't surprise me." She quickly grabs my hand and moves her chair closer to the table, leaning in towards me more.

"They're here," she says as she bats her eyelashes at me to make it look real. I nod and gaze into her brown eyes, imagining they're Blair's.

I miss her with everything in me.

The similarities between them are candid, but Hailey could never be Blair—not even on her best day. No offense to her or anything, but she's just not her. She's just a lookalike, and it's going to be gut-wrenching for Blair when she sees these pictures.

I quickly shake away the thoughts and focus on creating the perfect material to make this plan work. I flash a beaming smile at her as I hear the camera's click from a distance. I decide to turn up the heat a bit and lean in and place a kiss upon her cheek, but instead of making contact, I don't allow my lips to touch her skin.

I won't.

We continue with the performance for a few moments more before they start to pack up their things. "We deserve Oscar's for this," I add to break the ice. It's quite awkward, especially since we aren't even friends, but I can bear it. "Right?" she says as her voice inflects. "Thank you again," I say in attempt to wrap up everything. "Anytime," she says before realizing what she said. "I mean, of course. I hope you don't have to go through this again," she says, embarrassed by her mistake.