Justin smiled and watched her as Allie finished up a story about a guy she had dated in high school.

"...so then, she told me she thought he looked like a monkey." She could barely contain her laughter. "And not one of the cute ones either! A big ugly one that a zoo wouldn't even adopt."

Justin leaned back in his seat, laughing so hard that his eyes crinkled at the corners and he had to hold his stomach like he was in pain. So far their evening out have been suprising pleasent.

Once Allie had forgotten that he was Justin Timberlake and started to accept him as just Justin, that is.

He calmed down and reached for his drink just as a young girl approached their table. She looked about fifteen and was holding a cell phone and a napkin in her hands.

"Excuse me." She said softly. Allie's smile faded away instantly and Justin turned his head, still holding a polite, but significantly less genuine smile.

"J... Justin?" The girl seemed very nervous. He nodded.

"Can I get your autograph?" the girl continued, "I'm really sorry to bother you." She added quickly.

"Sure hon." He reached for the napkin. "Do you have a pen?" The girl nodded and magically produced one.

"What's your name?" He asked.

"Katie."

"Alright Katie, here you go." He wrote a little hello, and signed his name before handing it back to her.

She smiled, clearly excited, and then dared to ask another favor. "Do you think.. I could get a picture with you?" She flipped open her phone. 'They all had cameras nowadays/'Allie thought

"Here, let me take it." Allie reached for the phone and forced a smile. Justin cast her an apologetic look and then stood up and put his arm around the girls shoulders.

"Thank you sooo much." Katie gushed, then with one last smile at her idol she hurried away.

"Sorry about that." Jutin said after a few seconds of silence.

Allie shook her head. "It happens... I guess." The magic that their earlier conversation had created seemed to have dissappeared. Now there was an uncomfortable tension, as he became THE Justin Timberlake in her eyes again.

Justin sighed and allowed his eyes to wander around the room. "Well." He said suddenly, "We'll be the talk of the internet." His attepmt a a joke was ill recieved.

"Are you ready to go?" Her head snapped up and he caught her eye. She nodded.

Justin didn't even look at the bill after he waved the waitress over and handed her his credit card. Allie excused herself and went to the bathroom.

Justin met her at the door and held it open for her before following her to the car. The drive home was quiet, Allie stared out the window the entire time and thanked him for dinner and then said goodnight, heading to bed as soon as they got through the front door.

Justin stood in the foyer for almost ten minutes after he watched her dissappear upstairs. He was frustrated and upset that it had only taken one fan to totally disrupt and destroy any and all progress he had made in getting her to trust him. This plan of his was going to be a lot harder then he thought.

Justin had an interview and photo shoot with Rolling Stone early the next day and didn't see Allie until he got home at around 3:30 in the afternoon. She tracked him down the second he was through the door.

"We were on television again today." She said, an annoyed tone to her voice. "They had pictures of us in the car and at the grocery store. That was weeks ago, I wasn't even showing at all." She touched the small but noticeable bump of her stomach. "But they are still saying you're going to be a father."

Justin swallowed hard but overall kept a very collected demeanor. "Well, I am." he replied, kicking off his shoes and sitting on the couch. He changed the channel to ESPN and hoped that his nonchalant attitude wouldn't set her off again.

Allie didn't say anything more, but she glared at him when she crossed in front of the television and sat in an empty chair. She knew it was pointless to try and force a reaction out of him.

"I don't know why you keep watching that stuff." He said. "I'm going to have to disconnect the cable if you keep it up."

"You wouldn't. Because then how would you watch your damn basketball." She remarked, looking at the game he was now watching.

Justin had to smile at her response to his idle threat. He spun the remote in his fingers as he watched the scores thread across the top of the screen. He finally saw what it was he was looking for and then changed the channel back to what she was watching before and then stood up.

"I'm going to take a shower." He announced.

"Thanks for the update." Allie muttered.

He was in mid-step towards the stairs, when he stopped and spun around. She was getting feisty. Her back was to him, and he grinned. As much as he hated to admit it, he liked it. He shook his head.

"Just thought you'd wanna know." He replied as he jogged up the stairs. He didn't wait to see if she'd say something back.

He came back down the stairs about an hour later, and found her in the kitchen, cooking something for dinner. Justin opened up the fridge looking for something to drink. Allie didn't realize he was there and just as he was standing up and turning around, a Pepsi in his hand she slammed into him. Her hands flattening against his bare chest.

She was startled for a moment and couldn't quite move, her eyes transfixed on the firm muscles of his chest and arms when he instinctively wrapped his arms around her to keep them both steady and standing.

"Whoa..." He said. Her head turned and their eyes locked. Both of them were still, caught up in each other’s eyes.

Allie regained her composure before Justin could and she stepped back and turned away from him, pretending that there were dishes that needed to be washed in the sink. She kept herself busy by tending to the pasta she was cooking and didn’t dare look at Justin who was still stuck there standing by the refrigerator watching her wander around, seemingly unaffected.

He didn’t quite know what to do at that point. He’d had an agenda when he came into the kitchen but at the moment he’d completely forgotten exactly what it was. He didn’t know what to say, and that was a rare occurrence for him. Something had just surged through him when their eyes met.

For the first time that he could remember he was almost afraid to speak. He didn’t even want to bring up the strange connection he’d felt, even though he was sure she’d felt something too by the way she was avoiding his following gaze. The possibilities and the magnitude of the situation they were in confused him, but for a split second as she moved around his kitchen cooking dinner, pregnant with a child that was his… theirs, he almost wished that they were a family. He almost wished that she was his girlfriend, or his wife, that he wasn’t a celebrity and that this was his life.

“Did you want some of this?” Her voice snapped him out of his nerve-wrecking day-dream and he instantly shook his head.

“No, thanks.” He stuttered and stepped towards the door. Their eyes accidentally met again, and this time it was he who turned away first, simply because if she kept looking at him that way, he was going to have to do something about it.

‘Where is this coming from?’ he asked himself as he walked as quickly as he could back to his room and shut the door. He didn’t want to feel that way… his plan was to make her trust him, so that he could get her to agree to at least pretend to be his girlfriend and maybe then this whole baby fiasco wouldn’t ruin his reputation too much. She was supposed to fall at his feet and go along with whatever he said, he was supposed to be in control of the situation.

As manipulative and crazy as it seemed at the time, he’d decided that she was supposed to fall for him… and he wasn’t supposed to fall for her in the process.

But for some reason, he couldn’t seem to forget the way she seemed to glow whenever she rubbed her stomach and drew attention to that small bump. He couldn’t get the sparkle of her eyes out of his head.

‘This is not good.’ He told himself as he lay on his bed watching the ceiling fan spin around and around. ‘Not good at all.’ But even as he tried to force himself to think of something else, he couldn’t push away the strong urge he had to go back downstairs, pull her into his arms and kiss her like she was his air, and that was the only way he could breathe.