Calum's PoV

I paced anxiously around the room, guilt eating me up. I was a fucking fool. I'd done so well to resist her, to tell her to leave me alone but I'd let my guard down when she began to apologise. I actually believed it. Then she kissed me. It was only a second, but for the paps that was all that was needed. Ashton yanked her from me and we both clocked the pap hidden in the shadows, both of us exchanging glances. We knew what was to come. Hours later, my family were sending me a barrage of calls, emails and texts about their disappointment. They knew Naomi was a leech, a disease, a tumour. Yet I let her in.
Fear had hit me when I got back to the room and Poppy wasn't there. I'd prepared what I was going to say, how I was going to grovel and beg for forgiveness, explain exactly what had happened and how she'd fooled me once again. But the room was empty. I fell asleep alone and woke up alone, my heart pounding as I realised nothing of hers had been touched. She'd never come back to the room. Horrible thoughts littered my mind; had she been hurt, injured, worse? I'd called her but she hadn't answered. Then it hit me. Maybe she needed someone else, a friend to help her through this. I nearly ran Luke and Sierra's door down as I explained what had happened. Sierra went off to find her and soon after, they were back. Poppy could barely look me in the eye.

"Let's get ready. Meet you at reception in an hour." Sierra had ordered, giving us time to talk. I knew that was the last thing Poppy wanted, but I needed to explain myself. We walked silently into the room and shut the door, locking it behind us.

"Poppy..." I began, not really knowing where to start. She finally looked up at me, her sunken eyes shattering my heart. I was doing this to her.

"I don't want to hear it. Just answer these questions and I'll know where i stand." Her voice cracked with emotion as she sat on the edge of the bed almost preparing herself for the worst. I began to panic. What if I answered wrong and ruined everything? I began to overthink everything. Was I going to lose her? "Did you know she was going to be there?" Her first question was asked and I shook my head.

"Not at all." I reiterated, hoping to put her mind at ease. I wrung my hands nervously.

"Did you kiss her?" She asked next, her body hardened as if she was waiting for the worst news.

"She kissed me. She tricked me into thinking she was going to apologise for her behaviour before." I answered again, making sure I said enough to help her make a decision. I sighed inwardly. It sounded so much more stupid when you said it out loud.

"Do you want her?" The final question hit hard. I didn't want to hesitate too much, to overthink the answer. Truthfully, yes I did but did she want to hear that or that I was faithful to her?

"Not all the time." I went with honesty. "She's not even in my mind most of the time. It's only when I see her, it just stirs up everything from the past and it's hard to resist. It's like an addiction. I keep thinking I'm clean of it but when it appears back in my life I don't have the strength to refuse it." I stared down at my feet, scared of just how much I'd hurt her with what I'd said.

"I appreciate your honesty." She said softly, our eyes meeting for the first time.

"Believe me, Poppy, if I could wish her away I'd have done it by now. I want you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I know it sounds so fucking stupid when there are photos circulating of me and her but I swear it was a set up. I didn't want her, I was refusing her again. She said she wanted to apologise and I believed it, she said I still caused her heart to race, she put my hand on her chest. I pulled away but she fell on me and kissed me." I rubbed my hands through my hair, convinced that I'd end up making myself bald If I kept doing it. "She planned it. I just know it. She told that pap to be there." With my back facing Poppy I let out an enormous sigh, just hoping I'd done enough to secure her. She'd barely said a word, nor moved a muscle as I spoke. She was thinking everything over carefully.

"I believe you. I was thinking the same thing. She told me she wanted to win and with you refusing her last time, she needed to step up her game. She's trying to turn people against the idea of us as a couple. If I take you back, paps label me a fool. If I don't, paps label you an asshole." She shrugged nonchalantly. I let out a small sigh of relief. Well, at least she hadn't thrown a lamp at me and stormed off. She was on my side. "I love you cal, but I can't keep doing this. I'm fighting so hard for you but I don't feel like you are fighting enough for me. I get that it's hard but I'm sorry, I need more than that. I don't mind being labelled a fool once or twice but I'm not going to carry on if you're with her all the time." Her words were cold, calculated as if she'd run the speech through her head millions of times before it came to me. I shuddered at the thought of life without her, of how all our lives would change without our nurse. Could I really screw that all up because of Naomi.

"You have my word." I said confidently. "I will refuse her, I will make her leave me alone. I'm not messing about with this anymore. I don't want to lose you; not as my fiancée, not as the bands nurse, not as the friend to everyone." I walked over and pulled her to stand, wrapping my hands around her. She hesitated, but slowly and softly wrapped her arms around my waist. I melted into her touch. "Let's rebuild this, take it slow if you want. Let's prove to her and the world that some dumb fake news isn't going to break us. We're so much stronger than they think we are."