“Fine,” she finally says. “You can write that article, but I get final say over whether I publish it. And just to set a boundary up front, if you make me sound this bad in your post, this goes no further. I won’t let you publicly humiliate me.”
“Says the woman who was fine to publicly humiliate everyone else.”
“Do you want this or not?”
The look on Fallon’s face is hard to read. She’s not happy, that much is clear. And I’m not sure how honest she’ll let me be, but I have to try. I don’t know if what I want to say will be enough for Nathan to understand I wasn’t in cahoots with Fallon, but I have to tell the world who he really is.
At the very least, I owe him that.
FORTY-TWOTHE ARTICLE
It Wasn’t Fake, Folks. Nathan West Is Not the Man You Think He Is.
There are times in life when it’s necessary to pause and take stock of who you are and what you’re doing. To judge your actions, choices, and thoughts against who you want to be and see if they align, then make Big Scary Changes if they don’t.
My name is Mina Blake and I’ve come to one of those moments.
As you may have read on this blog, I entered into a fake relationship with Nathan West.
He offered to pay me to pretend to be his girlfriend. I needed the money so I accepted, even though, at the time, I didn’t like him. I’d built my opinion of him off things I saw online and never slowed down to wonder how much was exaggerated, blown out of proportion, or just plain wrong.
I’m sure you expect me to apologize. To tell you I’m ashamed of what we did and then spin a story about a rich man taking advantage of an underprivileged woman.
But that’s not what happened. I wasn’t taken advantage of by a villain. And I’m not going to apologize for a choice that led me to fall in love with an amazing person.
I’m here to set the record straight.
I willingly entered into a fake relationship with Nathan West, but that’s where the truth in the article you read last week ends. He wasn’t using me. He didn’t seduce me for personal gain. Yes, he’s rich and sure, I’m poor, but he made me feel like a treasure, not an embarrassment.
When I first met Nathan, I called him The Prince of Darkness and thought I was cute. I’m sure many of you judge him based on the things you think you know and believe he’s a rich asshole building a villain’s lair, living in excess while the rest of us struggle to put food on the table and pay our bills.
But know this.
Nathan West is not that man.
Period. Full stop. The end.
He’s not drinking too much. He’s not with a new woman every night. He’s not sipping champagne in exclusive hotels, enjoying luxury at the expense of the little guy.
Nathan cares deeply about the world and the people in it. He dedicated his life to charity and kindness, not to impress anyone, but because that’s what he’s called to do. He’s a protector. A provider. Someone who gives freely. Who sees the best in people even when they do him wrong. He’s dedicated to his family and strives to make life easier for everyone. He does what’s right, even when it’s hard. When you meet the man, the whole man, the human being who has good days and bad days instead of the caricatures of him you see online, he will inspire you to live as your best self because that’s what he’s doing every day.
I thought the hardest thing about pretending to date Nathan West would be making people believe I liked spending time with The Prince of Darkness.
Turns out the hardest thing is that I fell head over heels with a wonderful man, and when push came to shove, I’m not sure I deserved him.
I ask all of you to rewrite what you think you know. When you see the name Nathan West, don’t think about a playboy or a villain or a trust-fund-asshole.
See the man for who he is:
A philanthropist dead set on leaving the world better than he found it.
FORTY-THREE
Nathan
Nick’s missing. My girlfriend is a liar. My cousins won’t talk to me. And everyone at work keeps staring and whispering when they think I’m not paying attention. Life took a hard right turn and I fucking hate it. I want to go back to a week ago when everything was beautiful, and I thought I was healing and falling in love with the woman of my dreams. Except maybe it never was fine, at least according to Dom, who’s gloating like a motherfucker while pretending he’s oh so sad to have been right about Mina’s motivations. Even Rita had a hard time making eye contact this morning and I’d pegged her as unflappable.
Mina hasn’t texted since Saturday, probably giving me the space I said I needed. The petulant child that lives in my head swears it’s proof she was using me. That she’d fight harder if she genuinely cared. The adult knows she’s being respectful of my wishes.
I’m the reason we haven’t talked.
I just can’t deal with it all right now.
I’m simmering in stress.
The Nick situation would be enough on its own. But to find out he’s missing the same day my nemesis told the world my relationship was fake? Only to find her in Mina’s bedroom the next day?
It’s too much stacked on too much stacked on too much.
I’ve lost the respect of my family. My colleagues. I can’t talk to Micah or Angela or my brothers or sister about it. I can’t even think about Nick without a jolt of panic scattering common sense.
I’ve lost Mina.
Or maybe I haven’t.
One conversation might solve everything, but therein lies the problem. I don’t trust her anymore. What if Dom is right to gloat? What if Mina being friends with Fallon Mae was just the tip of the iceberg. What if she was pretending to love me because of her mom’s medical bills? Being my girlfriend would be a hell of a solution, either because she applies for assistance through ROF and asks me to grease the wheels on the application, or I just pay the damn things off myself.
I should talk to her.
I miss her.
But worse than not trusting her, I don’t trust myself. I’ll hear what I want to hear, not what she’s actually saying. Just like I did with Blossom.
I am too gullible for my own damn good.
But I should have called her days ago. Letting this drag on so long is an asshole move.
I’m better than this.
I groan, leaning my elbows on my desk and threading my fingers through my hair, begging to get off this damn merry-go-round. “Come on, West. You’re here to work. Buck the fuck up and work already.”
Lifting my head, I stare at the email I opened who knows how long ago. I’ve read it four times and still have no idea what it says. I scrub my face, realize I probably should have shaved before coming in this morning, then lean in for one last attempt at reading when my phone pings. An alert on my name…from Fallon’s blog.
Damn it.
She had the balls to post another article?
Really?
