Kiss and Confess (Love Unscripted Book 1) (6 page)

Charley gulped when he reached for her hands with both of his. His skin was warm, his hands steady. “Hi,” he said. “I’m Marc.” There was a hint of nerves in his easy tone, just enough to cause the ones zinging from one spot to another in her rib cage to recognize a possible ally.

She opened her mouth to reply, painfully aware of Rob Smiley’s expectant gaze and the cameras zeroing in for a close-up of her face. “You’re the answer to a
Cosmo
who-should-I-marry quiz.”

Oh no.
She had not just said that out loud. It had been meant to stay inside her head where it couldn’t be heard. By anyone. Ever.

Marc’s forehead crinkled. “I think I should say thank you?”

She leaned closer. “You’re welcome.”

He also leaned closer and dropped his voice to a whisper, their heads barely an inch apart. “You’re beautiful.”

“You too.” Her whisper matched his.

“Hey now,” said Rob Smiley with mock laughter as he put a hand between them. “This is TV. You have to let everyone in on what you’re saying or we’ll have to subtitle you.”

Marc smiled at Charley. Charley smiled at Marc. From somewhere off to her left, she could swear she felt Luke bristle.
Good. Let him feel it.
Her confidence made a tentative comeback. “Sorry, Rob,” she said. “We’ll speak up.”

Marc nodded his agreement.

“Looks as though we’re off to a great start,” Rob enthused with a wink at the camera. “Why don’t you two make your way over to the bar to start getting acquainted?” He motioned toward the corner of the rooftop.

Marc tugged on Charley’s hand, leading her away. “Shall we?”

“Yes.” So her perfect match had dimples. And a clean-shaven face.
Interesting
. She’d always thought she went for whiskers that brushed her skin.

The panel of experts obviously knew better.

As Charley and Marc walked toward the bar, one camera ahead of them and the other following—yeah this was still weird—she couldn’t help but steal a glance over her shoulder.

Luke’s arms were folded across his chest, his expression grim. He said something into the microphone at his mouth, barely moving his lips. Probably some glitch with the show. Screw him. He’d probably barely even noticed that she’d just met the perfect guy for her.

At the bar, Charley gave both the bartender and Marc what she hoped was a winning smile. She pointed to a bottle of wine. “A glass of that, please.”

“White over red,” Marc observed. “Good choice. Me too, please.”

Another inadvertent glance back toward Luke, who had his hand on the small of the other female contestant’s back. Tall, slim, and fine-featured, with toned arms and legs and a tan she couldn’t have gotten in Seattle unless she’d paid for it, the woman scanned the room, her expression all business.

Charley felt fingers brush hers and looked back to see Marc extending a glass of wine to her. “A toast?” he asked.

It wouldn’t exactly be a hardship to fall for this good-looking guy with the great smile. “To us,” she said and lifted her glass.

“To us.” His dimples deepened.

They clinked glasses and each took a long, slow sip of wine, their eyes meeting over the rims. His were a nice shade of sky blue, not too dark and not too light.

“What do you do?” she asked.

“I’m a financial operations analyst for a large aerospace firm.”

There was only one in Washington. “Boeing.”

He nodded.

“Sounds interesting.” It actually sounded like a lot of math, but there did have to be some people in the world who liked working with numbers.

Rob Smiley’s voice carried toward them. “Brittany Smith,” the host boomed. “Are
you
ready to meet your perfect match?”

“I’m ready, Rob.” The super-toned woman tugged at the hem of her form-fitting cobalt blue dress. Charley couldn’t help but note that Brittany’s form was somewhat better than her own. She adjusted the neckline of her dress.

Brittany’s match began moving toward her even before Rob Smiley called his name. The host scrambled to keep up with the lumbering contestant, a massively muscled man who looked as though the suit he wore had a chokehold on him. “Michael O’Halloran,” announced the host, who looked concerned by the size of the man bearing down on him.

Charley watched, fascinated. Michael O’Halloran’s brows were pulled into what might well have been a permanent V and the expression on his face was as serious as Brittany’s. Charley half-expected Michael to throw Brittany over his shoulder and Brittany to perform some kind of ninja leap off his back and then slam him to the concrete rooftop.

It didn’t happen like that, though. Instead, they sized each other up and gravely shook hands. Too bad. A throw down would have been more fun.

Charley realized that Marc had spoken. She turned back to him. “Sorry?”

“It’s a lot to take in.” A sweep of his hand encompassed their surroundings.

“It is.” She nodded.

“We might be crazy to be doing this.”

“We most definitely are crazy to be doing this.”

“So why are you here? Someone like you,” his hand swept from her head to her toes, “has to have every guy you meet claiming to be your perfect match.”

Awww. He was sweet, this Marc Renne. Her bruised ego needed him. She took another sip of wine and held his gaze. “I could say the same about you.”

His dimples made another appearance. “Tell me what you do.”

“I work in marketing and events. For a nonprofit. You might have heard of it. The Second Chance Sanctuary?”

Marc shook his head, but looked sorry about it.

“Not doing my job very well, then.” She tried to make light of it, taking another sip of wine, but felt the familiar sting when someone didn’t know the organization. It was her responsibility to make sure they did.

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

“We help a lot of animals, but mostly dogs. Get them well if they’re sick. Find them homes. Give them a safe, warm place, food and lots of love, if they’re not adopted.”

“Nice.” He nodded. “Where did you go to school?”

With the abrupt change in subject, she wasn’t sure how nice he thought her job was. She felt her hackles begin to rise. Some people didn’t know what it felt like to have the trusting, tender hearts of so many animals depending on you.

But then she could be reading him all wrong. Marc might be as nervous as Charley. She took a deep breath and refocused. “I graduated from Washington State.”

“Uh-oh.” His eyes crinkled. “Hate to say it, but they might have made a mistake in this matching thing.”

“You’re not—no way. A…?”

“Husky,” he finished. “Yes, I am. University of Washington, class of 2007.”

She sighed. “This can’t be happening.” She lifted a finger toward the host, who was getting ready to introduce the third and last couple, and registered a mock protest in a voice too soft for Rob to hear. “Um, Rob? There’s been an error.”

“You’re so right,” Marc said. “Clearly it’s not going to work. City guy, country girl.”

“Who are you calling a country girl?”

“The one who went to school in Pullman. Surrounded by cows and farms.” His eyes twinkled in a nice way.

“Says the guy whose school is surrounded by traffic and crime.”

Marc grimaced, putting his fist over his heart. “You’ve wounded me. We’d better call it off right here, right now.”

She laughed, pulling his hand away from his chest. “Stop. Did you minor in theater?”

“Never.” Once again, his nice-guy eyes met hers, this time with a hint of a possible devilish spark. She could like him, she decided. He really did look like the answer to the
Cosmo
quiz. And that couldn’t be a bad thing.

Jason, the huge, likable guy she’d met at the Kiss and Confess, now stood next to Rob, dwarfing the host with his size, hands clasped tight in front of him, his dark hair carefully done and his polished black shoes reflecting light from the candles. He looked like a shy, lumbering near-giant in a suit that strained at the seams. His gaze kept going to the one guy still standing and waiting, and then flickering away.

“Jason Wallace,” said Rob Smiley, “are you ready to meet your perfect match?”

Jason’s answer was so quiet, Charley couldn’t hear. She had to assume he’d agreed.

“Trevor Ames,” Rob Smiley called. “Won’t you join us, please?”

An average-sized man with a neatly trimmed beard and broad smile walked to Jason. They gravely shook hands and Trevor reached in for a hug, which Jason returned, making most of Trevor disappear within his big arms.

A few minutes later, Rob announced it was time for the couples to get to know each other by taking a seat at the table bearing their name cards.

“Shall we?” said Marc, gesturing toward the area that had been set up for dinner.

“We shall.” Charley’s tone matched the formality of his as she stepped ahead of him to find their places.

He pulled the chair out for her. She made a mental note, points for gallantry, and looked around, taking in the other contestants.

The mightily toned Brittany and Michael seemed to be silently circling, each waiting to counter the other’s move before finally sitting across from each other at a table.

Jason and Trevor, both wearing beaming smiles, couldn’t seem to tear their eyes away from each other.

And then there was Charley with Marc, who had probably been a straight A-earning prom king, polite to every girl he’d ever dated and breaker of no hearts, sitting together and sipping wine, talking and laughing as though this were any ordinary first date.

Well, it might have been if there hadn’t been cameras, sound guys, makeup people, a host, producers, and several others watching their every move. Yep. This was weird.

Their salmon was perfectly cooked and the chocolate mousse exquisite. Even though Charley was so nervous she could only manage small bites, her taste buds radioed a solid thumbs-up.

There were breaks, during which the producers huddled together, the contestants continued talking, and the host had his makeup freshened, re-freshened, and re-re-refreshened, until Charley was positive he was wearing more than any woman present.

The food turned cold during the many breaks, but waiters glided in and out with fresh plates before filming resumed, leaving Charley confused about how much she had, or hadn’t, eaten.

Marc did the heavy lifting conversationally, which was a relief and allowed her to surreptitiously continue to seek out Luke. Just knowing he was here gave her a ping in the pit of her stomach, like an elevator zooming too fast for her body to catch up.

Why? He’d made it clear there was nothing there. She’d made it clear there was nothing there. Yet her eyes were taking their cues from her heart, not her brain.

Luke hovered in the background near her table, giving the cameraman silent signals. Charley wanted to know what those signals meant.

No, she didn’t. Okay, yes, she did. Especially if they had anything to do with her.

She did her best to focus her unfaithful attention on Marc, who had moved on from telling her about his job to telling her about his family. Something about sisters and brothers, neighbors, and growing up in a house with green shutters.

“I guess that comes from being the youngest,” Marc said, placing his hand on the white cloth that covered the table. He looked expectant, waiting for her agreement or comment.

It would have been helpful to know what he had said. Charley laid her fork on her dessert plate and pushed her chocolate mousse to one side. “I’m the youngest, too,” she said. A waiter walked by and pushed the mousse back in front of her.

“Then you know what I’m talking about.”

She wished she did. “Well, there are only two of us, me and my older brother, so maybe not
exactly
…” She took a long sip of wine, noting through her peripheral vision that Luke was watching her. He crouched next to the cameraman, chin down, looking up at her.

She laid her hand over Marc’s. “But yes. I do.”

He grinned. “You didn’t have to wear your brother’s hand-me-downs, though.”

“No. I meant— Um…” She didn’t know what she’d meant. Even her peripheral vision was locked on Luke, which didn’t bode well for her straight-ahead vision.

“You meant that you know what it’s like to have to share the attention,” Marc offered. “Even if yours was only divided two ways, instead of nine.”

Wait.
Nine?
He was the youngest of
nine
kids? That was one fertile family. Her ovaries stirred in alarm. She took another long drink of wine and looked up to signal a waiter to bring her more. “That’s a big family.”

“The speculation is that my parents enjoyed their time together when they sent us off to Mass. By ourselves.” He aimed a sheepish smile at her.

“Evidently.” She chortled, picturing the children trooping off to church on their own while their parents got busy making more.

“They sure as hell didn’t get any other time alone.”

“Not with that many kids.” She raised her glass. “So you’re Catholic.”

He raised his. The glasses made a tinkling sound when they met. “I am.”

“Me too. Guilt, incense, saints, and all.”

“But only two kids in your family.”

Was he trying to say he wanted a house full of kids? “True,” Charley said carefully. “My mom said they practiced the church’s birth control method until she found out she was pregnant with me. Then they used their own.”

Marc nodded. “Smart decision.”

She liked him again. Her ovaries relaxed.

“I’m not saying it was all bad to have that many siblings. I always had someone to do things with. But after wearing everybody else’s clothes they’d grown out of, I don’t apologize for spending money now on clothes no one but me has worn.” He winked in a conspiratorial kind of way. Normally, Charley wasn’t a big fan of the wink, since it usually came off as arrogant, but this time, it was more like she was being included in a joke.

“You
shouldn’t
apologize. It’s your money,” she said, taking a good look at his clothing for the first time. A crisp white shirt with an expensive-looking chrome watch on his wrist. But who knew if they were his. The show might have provided his clothes, too.