Artifice

Mystery Girl

This was really rushed, I guess I'm kind of desperate to end this story.

-

Harry's POV

"Who are these people?" My uncle questioned me, pushing pictures of myself with different girls in my face.

The photos all made it look like I was walking beside the girls, talking, even hugging them.

"Friends." I rolled my head back onto my seat. They quiet literally were just pictures of myself with friends over the years. I would never understand why the general public found it so astounding whenever a man had female friends.

"Doesn't look like just friends." He lifted another photo for me to see.

I snatched the photo out of his hands recognizing the girl in the picture.

It was a picture of Eva laughing while staring up at me. We were in Central Park, I could remember that day vividly in my head. Looking at the picture made my skin boil, at the though that someone was capturing the moments we shared for the public to see. Anyone who saw this would get that she wasn't just a friend.

"Dammit." I slammed the picture on the table. Her getting involved in all this nonsense was the last thing I wanted.

That day when she looked at me completely devastated by me introducing her as my friend, it tore me to pieces. I didn't want her to be pulled into this sinkhole of people assuming who I was dating and harassing that person, so I addressed her as a friend. I am a right coward for not having the balls to tell her about all of this, I knew if I did she would go running for the hills.

Thankfully, herself and the people around her seemed oblivious to how spoken about my name has become. Everyone seemed so interested in the personal business of a rich asshole's son, for some reason.

"Who is she?" My uncles tone raised as so did my temper.

"No one you should be concerned about. How can I shut all of these damn rumors and get the media off my back?" I almost yelled.

Eva couldn't see these, she's already been more suspicious after that girl I mistakingly slept with weeks ago showed up at my apartment, the journal and damn Rebecca.

"Nothing. There's nothing you can do. If you try to shut them down they will claim your lying anyways. You're becoming the womanizer of the century. At least you haven't been publicly seen out partying as much as you use to." He paced around the large room, one hand across his chest and the other messaging his temples.

"I don't anymore." I admitted. "I haven't even been with anyone besides one person in weeks."

"Who?" His attention was caught fast.

"Her." I pointed to the picture I left on the table. "Do you really not remember her?"

"I'm a busy man, I meet at least twenty new people a day Harry."

"She was at the ball with me." The ball that went terribly wrong and ended with us getting ice cream after being there for ten minutes. She looked exquisite that day.

"That girl," he snapped his fingers. "Is that where you disappeared to Christmas weekend? With her?"

"Yes."

"What the hell Harry we must've called you a million times."

"I was busy." A smirk formed on my lips.

"So what? Are you dating her?" I felt like I was being interrogated at this point.

"Technically yes."

"You haven't gone public with her haven't you?" I shook my head. "Why not?"

"I have my reasons, can we stop talking about this and bribe some assholes to stop posting these stories about me?" I leaned into the computer seeing a string of articles relating to me.

"You need to explain all of this to her before she finds out by herself."

Eva's POV

In the blink of an eye, the festivities were over. My next semester started and Harry's week off flew by.

"Hey baby." I greeted Harry at the door with a quick kiss.

He brought in a large bag that immediately filled the area around us with the aroma of Chinese food.

"I haven't ate in hours." It was 10 in the afternoon and I've had school and a six our shift, this food and him was exactly what I needed.

The awkwardness of New Years surpassed eventually, although I started to become more aware of what Harry did. I wasn't to the point where I'd go behind his back to check his phone but I paid attention whenever he got random calls or spent long on his phone. So far, he's been normal which only made me feel like more of a crazy girlfriend, if I could even call myself that.

We spent the night talking about random things that seemed to pop up. Harry's had a knack for having a pretty creative mind when it came to conversations. The man could talk for hours if was let to.

"Eva," Harry gulped.

"Mhm."

"You know George's and my uncles company right?" I nodded my head not knowing where this was going. "So you know they are pretty well known, as am I?"

"Of course." I knew what came with being with him and it didn't bother me.

"I had a meeting with my uncle today." He slowly eased in to the conversation and I wanted to grab his face and tell him to get to the point. "I don't know why but people have been saying some pretty bad stuff about me. They've been collecting photos of me with girls or leaving bars at night. I-I just don't want you to see something and think the wrong thing."

"So you're basically a celebrity?" I asked.

"If thats the term you want to use."

"That's kind of sick. You should mess with people or like go out half naked with something crazy painted onto your stomach. Other than the butterfly already." I laughed and he looked at me bewildered.

"You're not bothered by it?"

"Why would I?" I couldn't care less about what middle aged men with cameras and behind computers had to say about successful people.

"Thank god, because it's been everywhere and they're calling me a womanizer. I respect woman and I'm not a complete sleaze-"

I pressed my lips against his to shut him up.

"Hm." His eyes slowly opened.

"You were rambling." My hand petted the top of his hair. "And you need to wash your hair. Now that it's long you can't go days without taking care of that grease mess."

"Hey!" He whined.

"I love you."

"I love you." He sang. "Let's go get our hairs washed."

-

Such a mess. It's 5am and I've written 4 chapters tonight perdoname. I hope this isn't too unrealistic the boy's the son to a multimillionaire, he's basically chuck bass but as Harry styles, you feel?