Romancing Miss Right (20 page)

“Craig, can I have a word with you?”

“Sure thing, sweet cheeks.”

She didn’t take his hand, just led the way
without touching him to the old barn. She stopped just to the left
of the doors and turned, facing him and the barrage of cameras.
“Sweet cheeks?”

“What? Is honey bun better? Or do you prefer
sugar plum?” He propped one palm on the wall above her head,
leering down at her.

“I’d prefer that you act like yourself.” She
folded her arms tight around her middle, glaring up at him.

“I am being myself. Just a bigger, better
version.”

“It may be bigger, but it sure as hell isn’t
better. And you’re too smart not to know the difference. Are you
deliberately trying to make my family hate you? Because it’s
working.”

“So?” He shrugged, and some of the bluster
and bullshit seemed to fall away. “They were going to dislike me
anyway. I’m just making it a little easier for them to decide.”

Tears pricked behind her eyes, though she
wasn’t sure why—frustration, no doubt. “So this sabotaging
yourself... you want me to send you home, is that it?”

#

The words
send you home
hit him harder
than he’d expected. That was the whole idea behind his behavior
today, after all. So why did hearing her say it make his lungs
seize and his heart clench?

He’d been an ass all day because he’d figured
if she decided to send him home, she’d feel like she’d dodged a
bullet and he wouldn’t have to be the one to hurt her. He wouldn’t
have to tell her why he was leaving. And he wouldn’t have to choose
between her or the job. She would take that choice away from him if
he was just himself—the loudest, most obnoxious version of
himself.

It was better for her to kick him out than
for him to have to give her up. At least that had been his plan.
Convoluted, but the best he could come up with.

He just hadn’t expected this spike of panic
when he realized it might actually be working. And he sure as hell
hadn’t expected to see the glimmer of tears making her green eyes
glassy. She was supposed to kick him to the curb without a backward
glance and go back to commiserate with her sisters over the near
miss.

He’d been ready for anger. He didn’t know
what to do with hurt.

He didn’t want to lie to her, but for once he
didn’t want to tell her the whole truth either. Not when it might
upset her.

So he settled for a fringe truth. He looked
away, back toward the picture of domestic bliss that was the
Henrickson family picnic. “Look, I’ve never been good with parents.
Daddies take one look at me and reach for their shotguns. I guess I
thought it would be easier when they hated me if I’d done something
to deserve it.”

“They might have liked you. Now we’ll never
know.” She frowned, studying him in the shadow of the barn. “Are
you sure that’s all this is? Are you okay? Your mom is good?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine. Better than fine.”
That was true. He’d been offered his dream job. Or at least the job
that would put him on the road to his dream job. So why didn’t it
feel like a dream come true?

He should tell her he was history, take the
job and run. This was as good a moment as any. She was practically
asking him to. But instead he stood in the shade of the barn and
said something he wasn’t sure he’d ever said—and meant—to anyone
other than his mother before. “I’m sorry. I really screwed up
today. But maybe it’s for the best.”

“The best?”

“That happily-ever-after thing was always
more your deal than mine.” He shoved his hands into his pockets.
“Look, I’m gonna head back to the hotel. Tell your folks I’m sorry
I had to leave early—though I doubt they’ll be sorry to see me
go.”

“You could stay. There’s still time to try to
make a better impression.”

“You and I both know there aren’t enough
hours in the day for that. I’ll see you at the Elimination.”

#

Marcy watched the dust rise in the wake of
the SUV carrying Craig as he retreated back to town and
Murphysboro’s one hotel. The hurt she’d felt when she realized he
was intentionally sabotaging his Meet the In-Laws date had faded
into a bright, building anger.

He’d just given up and walked away. Hell,
he’d given up before he even arrived when it came to her family.
He’d just decided it was
for the best
that they hate him and
made sure it happened.

She returned to the picnic tables, where her
sisters were sitting with tall glasses of Chardonnay. “Well, Craig
left.”

Cameras circled as Marcy flopped onto the
bench next to Dinah with a sigh.

“We saw.” Laurie poured another glass,
sliding it toward Marcy. “Mom went in to see if she could talk
Daddy down and Rick is gathering up the monkeys. You wanna talk
about it?”

“About how Craig was a complete and total ass
and made everyone in my family hate him in less than three hours?
Not especially.”

“It wasn’t as bad as all that,” Dinah
protested. “I kind of liked him. He was pretty damn entertaining,
even when he was being a dick.”

“He must have some redeeming characteristics
for you to have brought him this far,” Laurie commented, sipping
her wine.

Marcy took a swallow of her own, letting the
cool liquid ease some of her frustration. “He was always honest
with me. I appreciated that—especially in the show environment
where you never really know what people want from you. He was so
upfront about only being there for the publicity—it was
refreshing.”

Dinah nodded sagely—and slightly tipsily.
“And you never had to risk losing control with messy emotions with
him.”

Marcy frowned at her over the rim of her
glass. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Laurie said, always the diplomat.
“But you have to admit, you’re awfully type-A. Very firstborn
child.”

“Control freak,” Dinah added.

“I’m not a control freak.”

“Of course you are,” Dinah said blithely.
“You’ve always wanted to run the world. Why else would you write
all those books where you get to be God and make everything turn
out just the way you want it to?”

“Because I like happy endings!”

“When you get to orchestrate them from a safe
distance,” Laurie said, and Marcy turned toward her other sister,
eyes wide with the realization that they both thought she was some
kind of puppet master. “If you’re up on high, pulling the strings,
you don’t have to get into the trenches with all the rest of us
messy mortals and feel all the crazy screwed-up shit that comes
with love and marriage and your perfect happily-ever-afters.”

“You think I’m some kind of ice princess who
doesn’t have emotions?”

What was it with everyone in the world
thinking that of her? She felt plenty, damn it.

“Not at all,” Dinah countered. “I think you
have all the emotions – and you probably feel them more keenly than
most. You’re just terrified of engaging them because you think they
will swallow you whole and ruin your neatly ordered world. Which
they probably would. Emotions are rip tides waiting to drag you
under.”

Laurie sipped her wine contemplatively. “I
think I like Craig. He’s the only one who got you worked up.”

“Good point,” Dinah said. “If Daddy had hated
Darius or Daniel, you wouldn’t even have blinked.”

“I
like
Daniel,” she protested. She
felt like she’d been moving toward the inevitable—an engagement
with him—since the second they met.

“Do you ever call him anything other than
Daniel?” Dinah asked. “Dan? Danny?”

“Your relationship with him did seem awfully
formal,” Laurie agreed.

“He’s a very traditional guy,” she said,
hearing the defensive edge to her own voice.

“Are you sure that’s all it is?” Laurie
pressed gently.

Marcy laughed bitterly. “Right now I’m not
sure of anything. This was supposed to make things easier, having
you guys here, getting fresh perspective on them, but now I feel
like every decision I’ve made to this point is being
questioned.”

“That’s because you made them with your
head.” Dinah punctuated the statement with a wave of her wineglass.
“What does your heart say?”

“My heart doesn’t have an opinion, because
like you guys said, I haven’t engaged it once since I left to go on
the show.”

Maybe it was the wine, or her sisters, or the
disastrous afternoon with Craig, or the entire weight of the show
catching up to her, but Marcy felt something crack and shatter—that
thin shell that had been keeping all the pieces of herself neatly
together—revealing a truth she wasn’t sure she wanted to see.

She’d told herself she was going on the show
for the publicity because she’d been terrified of risking her
heart. If she went on the show looking for love and failed, how
could she ever expect to find it? Everything on the show was
designed around giving her the perfect man. If she couldn’t find
love as Miss Right, how would she ever? So she hadn’t looked. She’d
told herself it wasn’t about love.

“Oh God, I really am the ice queen!” She
burst into tears—she’d blame the wine—and her sisters immediately
swarmed around her, hugging and patting her shoulders.

“You aren’t,” Dinah protested. “You just need
to get your heart in the game.”

“I don’t know how!”

She’d been going through the motions, her
head making all the decisions while her heart stayed quiet because
she couldn’t let herself love Craig, knowing he would only hurt
her, and she didn’t actually
feel
anything for Daniel.

But if she chose Daniel, she would get the
life she’d always thought she wanted.

Had she been sabotaging her relationship with
Daniel because she knew it could be real? Or was whatever messed-up
attraction she had with Craig standing in the way?

But when she thought of getting rid of Craig,
her heart squeezed. Maybe it hadn’t been silent. Maybe she just
hadn’t been listening.

He’d said all along he was only in it for the
publicity, but maybe he hadn’t been listening to his heart either.
She had to find out. If he loved her…

Hope surged. Marcy sopped up her vino tears
and turned to the nearest segment producer. “I need to talk to
Craig. Before the Elimination.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

He’d only been back in his hotel room for
twenty minutes when the production assistant knocked on his door.
Not even long enough to get a good start on a bender. Craig opened
the door, mini-bar scotch in one hand, the other braced against the
door to keep it open. “Yeah?”

The PA clutched a tablet to her chest. “Marcy
would like a word with you.”

Shit
. Craig downed the rest of the
tiny bottle in a single swallow and sat on the bed to put on his
shoes as the PA shifted from foot to foot in the doorway.

He hadn’t known whether she would wait until
the following night and the Elimination Ceremony or whether she
would come after him as soon as she got back to town, but he
supposed sooner was better than later.

He followed the production assistant down the
hallway to the little sitting area that was used for the hotel’s
continental breakfast every morning where Marcy and a host of
cameras were already waiting.

He wasn’t so melodramatic as to think it was
like walking to the executioner. He was already resigned to the
fact that he was leaving. He’d done the damage this afternoon. All
that was left now was to take his medicine and go home—with his new
job in his back pocket.

Maybe they’d see one another again someday
down the road, probably at a
Romancing Miss Right
reunion
show. When she’d be engaged to someone else.

Craig rubbed at his mouth, wishing he’d taken
the time for a second mini-bar shot.

She was still wearing the v-neck T and shorts
she’d worn for the picnic this afternoon, her hair swept up and
back in a simple ponytail. Still as undeniably beautiful as ever,
her clear green eyes steady on him when he walked into the
room.

“Marcy.”

“Craig.”

They’d never been awkward with one another
before, but if they were going to be awkward, now seemed a likely
time. The Big Goodbye.

“Have a seat.”

Ah. So they were being civilized. Craig took
the chair that had been set up and perfectly lit next to her. It
was comfortable. Squishy. At least he wasn’t going to be dumped in
one of those awful hard-seated chairs they’d had at the dinner
after their bungee-jumping date. Though he hadn’t minded the hard
seats then. Marcy had made the night fun.

Now, in her own comfy chair, she took a deep
breath, visibly bracing herself. He knew the platitudes.
Eliminations were never easy. Craig ran over all the possible
break-up lines in his head.
It’s not me, it’s you
.
Don’t
let the door hit your ass on the way out. Go fuck up some other
girl’s life.

“I have a question I need to ask you.”

Craig frowned. He hadn’t been expecting a
question.

She wet her lips, a nervous tell. “You’ve
always been honest with me and I appreciate that—”

This did not sound like a break-up speech.
Craig’s frown deepened.

“So please, be honest now.”

She paused. Thinking she needed some kind of
response, he muttered, “Okay.”

She nodded, swallowed hard and wet her
lips—so many little nervous gestures. What did she have to be
nervous about?

“If I took you to the end,” she said, her
voice starting soft and gaining volume. “If I picked you, if I
loved you and you won it all, would you break my heart?”

His mouth went dry. Sahara dry. Kalahari dry.
She had to make this hard on both of them, didn’t she? The
producers had probably put her up to this. The assholes.

His answer—the only answer he could honestly
give—came out as a croak. “Yes.”