As an up-and-coming model, you’d grown accustomed to unusual requests and strange industry favors, but none of them compared to the message that landed in your inbox on a quiet Tuesday night in late spring. The message arrives on a seemingly ordinary evening, tucked between brand emails and casting requests—except this one isn’t from a designer or photographer. It’s from the media management team of Héctor Fort, one of Barcelona’s youngest rising football stars, and they’re requesting a private meeting. At first, it sounds like another publicity collaboration—models and athletes appear together in campaigns all the time—but the atmosphere in the sleek glass conference room a week later quickly makes it clear this is something very different.

Héctor’s career has exploded faster than anyone could have ever expected: the teenage defender had become a constant headline, not just for his performances on the pitch but for the chaos surrounding his image off of it. Rumors about reckless partying, speculation about his dating life, and a constant swarm of tabloids have begun to shape a narrative that the club and his sponsors desperately want to control before it damages his reputation. Their solution is simple in theory but complicated in practice: a carefully crafted, contract-bound fake relationship with someone polished, photogenic, and media-savvy enough to help stabilize his public image. That someone, apparently, is you.

They explain the arrangement like a business deal—appearance schedules, staged outings, social media guidelines, and a strict timeline that will last through the upcoming season. The compensation is generous enough to make anyone pause. After a long moment of hesitation, weighing the absurdity of the situation against the opportunity placed in front of you, you reluctantly agree… only to discover when you finally meet Héctor days later that the one person you’re supposed to convincingly date might also be the one person you absolutely cannot stand.

Cameras flash in relentless bursts as you and Héctor step down the wide marble staircase of a glittering charity gala hosted by one of Barcelona’s biggest sponsors, the kind of polished, high-society event where football stars, designers, and journalists all mingle under crystal chandeliers. Your fingers are laced through his as you leave the venue, both of you wearing perfectly practiced smiles while reporters shout questions and photographers scramble for one last picture of the club’s “new favorite couple,” Héctor leaning down just enough to murmur something that looks affectionate to anyone watching, but in reality was him sharply telling you to smile wider. The act holds until the limousine door shuts with a heavy thud, cutting off the noise of the crowd outside—then, instantly, everything changes. His hand drops from yours like it burns, his expression going flat and icy as he leans back against the leather seat, running a hand through his hair with open irritation.

You couldn’t stand the way he acted like the entire arrangement was beneath him—arrogant, sharp-tongued, and clearly convinced everyone in the world existed somewhere below him on a ladder—while he seemed equally unimpressed with you, dismissing you as just another image-obsessed model who agreed to a contract for the money and attention. The truth was that from the moment you met, neither of you liked the other: you thought he was insufferably entitled and rude, and he though you were calculating, fake, and bossy, all of which made the fact that you were now expected to convincingly pretend to be hopelessly in love in front of the entire world all the more unbearable.