In hindsight, Christian absolutely should have been suspicious when Mia rang late in the afternoon and asked if she could come with him to see their parents that evening. Unfortunately he'd been too busy being surprised that she was forgoing a night of getting drunk with her friends to visit their mother that he'd told her to meet him at his office and thought nothing more of it.

"Elliot said he was really sorry for not coming tonight." Mia said from perched on the edge of his desk. Christian had told her to amuse herself while he finished his work but apparently the only way she had found to do that was talking to him which he had explained was only going to make him take even longer and Mia had obviously taken no notice of.

"It's a miracle one of you is going, I think if both of you managed to take the time out of your clearly extremely busy schedules to go and see our mother you might rip a black hole in the universe."

"Stop being sarcastic. You know we love Mom, it's just so awful to go out and see her sometimes, the bad days she has are heart breaking, not to mention the scarf she has to wear on her head and how she always needs to sit down… I know she needs us Christian, I do, but it just makes me so sad, every time I see her it's just a reminder that I won't be able to for much longer." Mia told him, not meeting his eyes as she spoke. He felt a pang of guilt for being mean to her and then wondered if that was her intention or if she actually did feel like that. "Not all of us can be the saintly child."

"I'm hardly a saint, Mia." Christian scoffed.

"Well, she thinks you are. Or she would if you got a girlfriend and settled down, and then you'd be one hundred percent perfect, best child ever, no question. She'd probably disown me and Elliot because she wouldn't need other children." This probably should have been his second warning as to what exactly would happen when they arrived at their parents' house, but he remained for the time, blissfully unaware of what Mia was planning.

"Don't be ridiculous, she loves you both, I'm just a bit more settled than the two of you. It doesn't mean she loves me anymore, she just has to worry about me slightly less."

"I know, I'm just teasing you. We all know that if she actually did have a favourite it would be me because I am the prettiest, cleverest, and nicest of all her children." Christian rolled his eyes and didn't dignify his sister with a response to that. "Are we leaving yet?"

"Yes, you've officially irritated me enough that I have been rendered physically unable to complete any more work, congratulations."

"That's what I'm here for!" Mia exclaimed gleefully as she jumped off his desk, grinning at him. She pouted when she saw him glaring as he stood up. "Stop giving me that look, I'm your sister, you're not allowed to be annoyed at me. I'm saving you from yourself, Christian, like Mom's always saying, you'll work yourself to death."

"Yes, how very selfless of you." Christian sighed as he ushered her out and into the lift. "I suppose I'll be expected to drive us both."

"Of course not! I would never expect you to drive me, but consider the alternative – would you really want me to drive us both in the dark all the way to Mom and Dad's? Really Christian?"

"When did you become so good at manipulating people to do what you want?"

"I don't like that word, 'manipulate' it makes me sound mean. I'm just skilled at getting people to do what I want them to, that's not a bad thing!" Mia insisted. Christian was fairly sure that it was and also that what she had just said was the definition of manipulation but he couldn't be bothered to argue, especially with her track record of exclaiming that she was no longer speaking to someone when they started winning; the last thing that their Mom needed was for them to be in the middle of a fight when they arrived at her house.

"Oh my goodness, Mia, what a surprise!" Grace exclaimed as she opened the door to them. "It's so lovely to have you both, your father's out golfing at the moment, he would be on the one night you're both here!" Christian gave her a kiss on the cheek and the flowers they'd stopped off to buy for her.

Their mother seemed a lot smaller now than she used to; she'd lost weight with the treatment she'd been having and instead of the hair she used to have a thin silk scarf was always wrapped around her head now. She walked slower, as though every step was painful but she was going to great lengths to prove she could still do things for herself. Christian could understand why Mia didn't like seeing her like this, he didn't either, bt he'd bear it so that she knew her son was supporting her and there whenever she needed him.

"Hi Mom." Mia gave her a tight hug and shut the door behind them. Grace smiled and ushered them both past her into the kitchen.

"I bet neither of you have eaten a thing all day so there's food on the table if you want it." Grace phrased the offer as an option but her children knew by now her wrath if she thought they weren't eating properly, even now they were both well into adulthood.

"Actually I have eaten today, Mom, you don't need to worry about me."

"Suck up…" Mia whispered as she sat down. Christian pulled a face at her as he sat opposite and Grace sat beside Mia.

"Well, we've had a very interesting day, haven't we?" Mia asked. He shot her a warning look, sensing that something was about to happen but not quite sure what. "Mom, Christian told me today that he has a girlfriend."

"Mia, what the hell?" Christian asked her angrily. Of course this was misinterpreted by his delighted mother as annoyance that she had told her, not annoyance that she had just coerced him into a lie he had already refused to be a part of. Mia looked gleeful – in any other situation he just would have told them that she was lying but his Mom looked so happy already, he didn't know how he could do that to her. He'd be the one who ended up being the bad child in the situation even though Mia was the one who had decided to lie. It had been less than six hours since he'd refused to engage in this ridiculous scheme and now he was sat unwillingly participating in it.

"I know you didn't want me to say anything but I knew how happy it would make Mom, so I had to!" Mia put an arm around their mother who looked slightly stunned by the revelation but absolutely delighted too. In any other situation he might have even been a little bit proud of Mia's skills of deception, fondly called her 'cutthroat' and joked that they might have another budding business man (or in this case, woman) in the family. Of course in this situation he was too shocked and horrified that Mia had the nerve to do this that he ended up sitting in silence, stewing in the anger he was feeling.

"Well who is she?" their mother asked excitedly. He was praying that Mia pretended not to know the name, or just admitted to lying for whatever reason. Or possibly that a sinkhole would appear and swallow the house.

"It's Ana, Mom, you remember, she's his personal assistant." The only thing that could have made this worse was Mia saying exactly what she just had. At least it was now as bad as it could get, he supposed. Christian pushed his hair back from his face, always a sign that he was becoming stressed by a situation. He racked his brain for a plan of action before realising that there wasn't one apart from to just go along with the ridiculous situation. "And the reason he told me was because he wanted advice picking out a ring!"

He'd been wrong. Now it was officially as bad as it could get.

"Why have you not told us about this before?" Grace demanded, looking at him pointedly. Mia gave him a look as though this was a perfectly legitimate question.

"I didn't want to get your hopes up until it was really serious."

"Well, I'd say you being about to propose to her is fairly serious!" Grace exclaimed. "Mia, thank you for telling me, I know you're very private, Christian but I know now, you can tell me all about her!" Grace insisted excitedly. "Your father will be delighted too, he'll be so excited to meet her!"

"Meet her?" Christian asked, attempting to sound natural around the lump which had formed in his throat.

"Of course we have to meet her!"

"Ana's really shy, Mom," he said trying to sound apologetic. It might have been the first honest thing out of his mouth for the entire duration of this conversation. "I really don't think she'll want to meet you guys."

"Christian, this girl is going to be a part of the family, she'll have to meet us at some point and I'd much rather it was while I'm still around." Christian looked at his mother as she spoke and wondered if she was aware that her subtle ways of getting people to bend to her will had rubbed off on her daughter as much as they had.

"I'll ask her, Mom."

"You'll come next Friday." Grace told him, wearing the same smile she always did when she got her way.

"As in a week today?" Christian asked, horrified by the idea. "She might be busy, Mom, I have to ask." And of course there was the obvious problem that the entire relationship was fictional which might pose a problem.

"I'm sure she'll be able to clear her schedule to meet the family of the man she's going to marry, Christian." Grace huffed. Mia nodded unhelpfully in agreement, as though she hadn't already angered him enough. The door slammed and Grace smiled gleefully. "That'll be your father, he'll be so delighted when I tell him!"

Christian spent the rest of the evening seething with anger, although he managed to avoid being asked too many questions by saying 'she'll probably want to tell you about herself when she meets you' which proved to be a very effective substitute for not knowing any of the answers to the questions his parents were asking. Of course he has no idea how that meeting was going to go but he just needed to get through this evening before coming up with a plan.

"Thanks a fucking lot, Mia." Christian said as soon as they had started driving away from their parents' house. "What the fuck am I supposed to do now, go into work on Monday and try to convince my personal assistant to be my fake girlfriend? I can't fucking believe you've done this."

"Isn't that part of her job?"

"Funnily enough Mia, no, nowhere in her contract has it ever been written that she has to pretend to be my girlfriend."

"Oh. Well you should have done. I suppose you can just find some other girl who's willing to pretend to be your girlfriend and say that her name's Ana." Mia said with a shrug, putting her feet up on his dashboard and fiddling with the radio, seeming completely oblivious to exactly how angry he was with her.

"Firstly, I can't do that because Mom has been to my office and knows what Ana looks like. Secondly, and I can't stress this enough, you shouldn't have fucking lied in the first place! What the fuck were you thinking, lying about something like this? This is a new low of immaturity, even for you, Mia.

"I'm sorry. I didn't think you'd be so angry."

"No, that's your fucking problem, isn't it? You never fucking think about anything, you just breeze through life without and consideration for anyone else and how they might want to live their lives, just causing destruction everywhere you fucking go and never bothering to turn around to see the damage you've done because you're too busy moving on to ruin something else! So congratu-fucking-lations, you've officially backed me into a corner so that one of the last things I'm going to be doing to our dying mother is lying to her. We gave you a free pass when you were a teenager but you're twenty fucking years old now. You need to fucking grow up Mia and realise that everything you do because you think it might be fun or because you're trying to save your own ass by throwing someone else under the bus has consequences."

"Christian…"

"Mia, please, just don't fucking speak to me for the rest of this journey, I don't have the energy to tell you more shit you should already know. This is bad enough without you trying to justify yourself."

They spent the rest of the journey in silence. He dropped his sister off without a goodbye and was delighted when he eventually got back to his penthouse apartment and could pour himself the whiskey he'd been craving all night.

He was going to have to ask Ana to be part of this ridiculous deception, that was obvious at this point. And if she said no… Well, he was fucked. Maybe that was for the best, he'd have to tell his mother that not only had Mia lied but he'd actively joined in despite his better judgement but hopefully she'd forgive him. Eventually. The worst part was the only person he wanted to talk it through with was Ana, but he'd have to wait until he could ask her in person. It wasn't really the kid of request that could be adequately expressed in a text.

Actually, did he even have her number? He couldn't remember ever texting her before or a time when he would have asked for it. Instinctively he took his phone out to check – there she was. Before he could think the better of it he was typing out a message to her.

Christian 23:03: Hope everything went well with your mom

He put it down and took another sip of his drink. It buzzed on the table and he picked it up instantly.

Ana 23:04: Horrible! Whole weekend of this to deal with! Hope everything is okay with yours!

Christian 23:04: All good. Favour to ask you on Monday though.

Ana 23:05: What is it?

Christian 23:07: Let me talk to you about in face to face.

Ana 23:07: But everything's okay?

Christian 23:08: Yeah, don't worry.

Ana 23:09: Let me know if you need anything.

Christian looked at the last message from Ana for a long time. He expected her offer didn't extend to a fake relationship as a favour, mostly because it was such a ridiculous request that she wouldn't have ever thought he'd ask her for it. He just hoped when she inevitably refused the request wouldn't have damaged their friendship completely irreparably.