All By Design: A Nikolai Lantsov Series

Chapter Three: you've got no reason to be afraid

This chapter's song: you're on your own, kid

Thus the ruse begins, for real this time. They weren't trying in the slightest before now, but after that ninth day, both Nikolai and Y/N have a complete reversal of feelings. It's a competition now, and neither of them are willing to accept a loss in the slightest. The press and public, if they had any doubts about whether or not their relationship was real, are completely convinced after that. Even Tamar, Tolya, and Zoya are blown away.

Even Nikolai and Y/N, for that matter. Truth be told, although Nikolai had grinned like a killer and promised Y/N that he'd convince his own family he loved her like no one else if that meant showing her up, he still wasn't entirely sure how well it would work. Still, faking it 'til he makes it is one of Nikolai's favorite ways to get a project done. He just hadn't entirely anticipated that pretending to be in love with Y/N L/N would be his most crucial goal at the moment.

Despite his reservations, it turns out all either of them needed to convince themselves to get over their hatred of each other was some good old fashioned competition. Nikolai presented Y/N with some fresh red roses in full view of the public, she was beaming at him in the picture of perfect happiness except for the egregious curses she was whispering to him under her breath. Y/N breathily told a late night talk show host the most over the top story of why she fell in love with him and he was grinding his teeth into dust trying to hold a grin on the other side of the camera.

Truth be told, he wasn't expecting Y/N to be this good at it. When the ruse first began, Nikolai swore up and down that this was going to be a solely one-sided venture. He's the actor, obviously, and that meant that he would be the one having to pull all the strings. Y/N would float along the way she always does, a spark of glitter floating above the heads of everyone at a party. She would be effortless while Nikolai choked on the weight of trying to save both of their skins.

He might have judged too soon, however. Maybe he's just used to the way it's always been and tried to insert that same narrative into how he acted with Y/N, but she's proving him wrong every day. Nikolai might have finally met his match when it comes to someone who can keep up an act just as well as he did.

It's making him start to wonder how she does it so well. If Y/N can slip this comfortably into a world that is not real, where is the guarantee that she doesn't do it every single day? Nikolai had assumed that she was just like that all the time, some glimmering beacon of what every celebrity must become at some point, but what if it's not true at all?

He asked her about it once. They were trying to push their way through crowds of onlookers to reach the train station. Y/N had a meeting for her label that was just too close for a plane flight but too long for a drive, and besides everyone involved in the ruse knew that trains were far more exciting a method of transportation and thus far more applicable to their present situation.

They'd been talking since the taxi picked them up from their respective locations, but as the hour of departure crept closer towards the present, Nikolai grew desperate for answers. He's always liked the game of mystery when he holds the cards, but for some reason the fact that Y/N's ahead right now has him flummoxed.

He'd been dodging around the topic for a while, but as the cab someone at the label had hired for the express purpose of getting the two of them physically together drew closer to the station, Nikolai knew it was going to be now or never. He got Y/N's luggage out of the taxi before she could, earning him a barely contained eye roll from his lover, and walked inside the station with her.

There were already crowds of cameras pointing their direction, but the further they progressed inside the train station the easier it was to feel some sort of isolation. Nikolai strolled with Y/N towards the track, then inclined his head towards her, whispering words that were either declarations of love for the paparazzi or questions of moral principle of her.