Romancing Miss Right (25 page)

“If she chooses you, in the end, you can only
have the job if you turn her down.”

“What? Why?” Craig glowered. “You said before
you needed me to leave so I didn’t get in the way of your perfect
happy ending, but if she wants me to be her happy ending, why are
you fucking with that?”

“The audience loves drama. They love choices.
They know most of these relationships don’t work out, but they love
seeing who picks what. Your choice has always been between love and
money, Craig. You’ve made that very clear. So we’re going to have
Pendleton film a sit down with you where he offers you the network
job, but you can only have it if you ditch Marcy at the final
pedestal. The home audience will see her choice and yours. Double
the drama.”

“I’ve studied these shows. That isn’t how you
do things. You’re supposed to be selling happiness and romance not
forcing me to break her heart.”

“The shows are about ratings and what will
get people talking around the water cooler the next day. They
aren’t about being humane. They never have been. I got this job
because I was willing to think outside the box. Jack picked a
Suitorette last season who wasn’t even on the show. America got a
heaping plate of love served to them last season. But every season
is different. And this one seems to be about materialism and
honesty. I wasn’t expecting that, but you work with what you
have.”

“You
want
me to hurt her on national
television?”

“Of course not. I just want you to choose for
my cameras. The choice you make is up to you.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Marcy had always thought
when she watched the show from the comfort of her home couch that
any woman who didn’t know which man she wanted after nine episodes
of dating had to be a blithering idiot.

She was officially a blithering idiot.

The train rumbled along, chugging steadily
toward Italy and the man waiting for her there. Her time with
Daniel had been perfect. Stress-free and easy. No challenges or
quarrels, just affection and companionship. But she wasn’t sure
that’s what she wanted in a relationship.

If it had been only a question of picking a
man, that would be impossible enough, but she felt like she was
making a choice between two potential lives. Two futures.

One was neatly defined and checked all the
boxes of what she always thought she’d wanted—kids, house, husband,
domestic bliss and suburban tranquility. The other was completely
unknown—a blank slate of possibilities. It should have been an easy
choice—safety and security, obviously—but something about that
flying leap into the unknown was strangely appealing.

But there was her father to consider.

He’d said he would support her whatever she
chose, but the idea of making him worry unnecessarily made
everything in her revolt. He would have less cause to worry if she
picked Daniel. But could something so easy ever really satisfy her?
Would she miss the stimulation of Craig? The fire?

She and Daniel had a pleasant, warm
chemistry—no explosions or fireworks, but his kisses were lovely.
Could he be the One?

She’d always thought she would know when it
happened to her. She was decisive, she knew herself. The idea that
she wouldn’t know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, when she found the
man she was meant to spend the rest of her life with was so foreign
she wondered if it was neither of them.

She’d been so certain she loved Craig at the
hospital—but that was an extreme circumstance and in the time
since, when she hadn’t seen him, doubts had crept in around the
edges of that emotion. Had her fear for her father and desperate
need for someone to hang onto in that moment made her think she
felt more for Craig than she really did?

But why had it been him and not Daniel she
had turned to?

Marcy thunked her head against the window,
watching the countryside zipping past. It was quite possibly one of
the most beautiful views on the planet and it was wasted on her
today.

Even if she did love him, if Craig was the
One, did she dare risk choosing him?

He’d never hidden the fact that he was using
the show and by extension her. But her motives for going on the
show had been a front, concealing her fear of letting herself go
for it. Could he be the same way? Could he possibly love her back?
He’d told her that if she let herself love him he would only break
her heart, but was that just his fear talking? She couldn’t very
well test her theory by telling him she loved him—she was
contractually forbidden from saying the “L” word until after she’d
made her choice public.

Maybe she was worrying over nothing.
Borrowing trouble, as her mother liked to say. Maybe she would take
one look at him when she got to Verona and realize that all the
emotion she’d felt at the hospital had been nothing more than a
mirage. Perhaps that certainty she’d always thought she would feel
would be there when she got off the train.

Because right now, she was a blithering
idiot.

#

He was waiting at the station, standing on
the platform with a bouquet of roses when the train pulled in—and
all her hopes for a moment of clarity vanished. Seeing him was
relief and anxiety, joy and terror, excitement and dread. Her heart
began to pound, too loud, until it echoed in her ears and she could
barely hear.

A PA popped her head into the compartment
where a bored camera crew was filming her looking out the
window.

“You’re on, Marcy.”

She’d seen him as they pulled in, standing
not far from her compartment, but the crew had her walk down
through two cars before she exited so she stepped onto the platform
a good fifty yards from him. Craig saluted with the bouquet and
Marcy waved, beginning to walk toward him, towing the abnormally
light prop suitcase the PA had handed her right before she stepped
off the train. Cameras circled in carefully arranged
non-conflicting orbits, capturing every angle of the reunion.

Funny, she hadn’t noticed the cameras
swarming like gnats with Daniel. Their relationship was filmed,
that was just how it was, but with Craig it suddenly felt strange.
Invasive. As if their time alone together without the cameras at
the hospital had changed something fundamental in their
relationship.

Which was silly. But Marcy still felt awkward
under a dozen lenses as she made her approach. She began walking
faster, trying to outpace the discomfort. Before long she was
trotting, and then it was only natural to break into a light jog.
Craig was moving toward her as well, but much too slowly and if she
was going to do this she might as well go for it.

Marcy dropped the prop suitcase—because
really, who ran into a man’s arms with baggage?—and broke into a
full out run. Craig laughed, jogging now himself, and they collided
mid-platform. The bouquet of roses smashed themselves against her
shoulder blades as his arms closed around her and he swept her off
her feet, swinging her around until the world blurred and her head
spun dizzily.

His chuckle brushed against her ear, sexy and
dark.

“So tell me,” he murmured, low enough that
even the sensitive mics would have trouble picking it up. “Was that
because you’re happy to see me or because you wanted to give the
cameras a show?”

She pulled back enough to look into his
eyes—the black gleamed with pleasure. Something prompted her to
mess with him.

“Can’t it be both?” she said, enjoying the
way he frowned a little, nonplussed to hear her echo his words from
the night he’d snuck into her room in Bora Bora.

She grabbed his face between her hands and
pulled him to her for a kiss, thoroughly erasing the flicker of a
frown. When he finally set her down, they were both grinning.

“Welcome to Verona. That was some entrance.
Do you think they’ll put it in slow motion and play some sappy song
behind it?”

“
At Last
, the Etta James version. For
sure.”

He snorted. “And I here I thought our song
was
Pour Some Sugar On Me
by Def Leppard
.
”

“In your dreams, boy.”

“Repeatedly.” He grinned, and it was so
naughty she wondered why no one had snatched him off radio yet. The
man was a very bad influence—and he’d be even worse on screen.

He stepped back, flourishing the slightly
crumpled bouquet. “For you, milady.”

She accepted the bouquet with thanks,
noticing for the first time something small and white tucked among
the big red blooms.

“The roses were the producers’ idea. Too
cliché, right? Roses?” He reached into the bouquet and plucked out
the bit of white. A delicate little wildflower. “But this is me.”
The petals were slightly droopy and off-center, but he poked at
them, fluffing them up. “It got crushed a little. And I might get
arrested later for picking it from some park, but I just thought,
hey, it’s something real and natural and unexpected in the middle
of all the pretty romance trappings. That’s what we were talking
about before, right?”

“Craig, that’s beautiful. Thank you.” She
took the wildflower, loving every slightly wilted bit of it, and
brought it to her nose to inhale the delicate fragrance. Part of
her wanted to melt, but another louder part was trying to pull her
mouth into a confused frown. This was the guy who’d said he would
break her heart if she gave him the chance. What was he doing
wooing her with flowers?

Luckily she had all day and night to figure
it out. “Shall we start this date?”

#

“You’re bored out of your mind, aren’t
you?”

Craig looked over at Marcy where she strolled
at his side through the botanical gardens. “How could I possibly be
bored with you by my side?” The words were a little sarcastic, but
the truth was he hadn’t been bored for a second.

The date was ridiculously cheesy. Going to
Juliet’s house and getting pictures taken in front of the statue.
Writing and leaving letters to Juliet with all their romantic
concerns and hopes and dreams in them. Locking a padlock with their
initials written on it to the gate of Juliet’s house. Then going to
the botanical gardens to stroll hand-in-hand through the
elaborately sculpted grounds.

He was a little surprised the producers
hadn’t put Marcy up on a balcony and asked him to do a soliloquy
yet.

“None of this seems very
you
,” Marcy
said. “You’ve been very patient with it though. Thanks for
that.”

“It does seem like they were expecting Mark
to go the distance. The date seems tailor made for him. You must
have surprised the producers when you picked me two rounds ago. Why
did you ditch him anyway?”

“I overheard one of the camera guys saying
they’d originally planned Amsterdam for you, but the network hadn’t
been thrilled about that and when the schedule got pushed back they
used it as an excuse to go for something less…”

“Hash bars and prostitutes?”

She laughed, a quick startled burst of sound.
“Something like that.”

“So I get to be Mark for a day. I notice you
dodged the question about why you got rid of him.”

“I’m not going to discuss the other Suitors
with you.”

“Why not? He’s gone anyway. It’s not like I’m
going to influence your decision. And besides, if this were a
normal relationship, you’d confide in me. So what went wrong with
Shakespeare?”

She tugged her hand out of his, moving to sit
on a stone bench amid an explosion of spring flowers. “Suffice it
to say meeting his family didn’t go well.”

“You didn’t actually think I was going to let
that suffice, did you?” He dropped to the bench beside her, long
legs sprawled out in front of him. “Give me details. Did they
harass you when you lost at Name That Shakespeare Play
charades?”

“You aren’t far off the mark—though I
actually kick ass at identifying Shakespeare plays.”

“So what was the problem?”

“I write smut.”

“I know.” He grinned, leaning back lazily.
“It’s one of my favorite things about you.”

She slugged him lightly on the shoulder.

“Ouch. Don’t damage the merchandise.”

“The merchandise is fine.”

“Why thank you.” He grinned lecherously, but
it was quick, fading into a question. “Do you call it smut?”

“No. But Mark’s family did. Also, ‘trash’ and
‘pornography’ and ‘poorly written, populist crap’—though none of
them would lower themselves to actually read a romance novel to
know whether they are badly written or not.”

“They sound like assholes.”

She shrugged. “It’s not an uncommon reaction
when people find out what I do for a living—they’re all impressed
that you’re able to make a living as a writer, but they only
respect you when they think you write depressing literary
fiction.”

Anger on her behalf fired in his gut. “That
happens a lot?”

“More than you might think. A lot of book
snobs think genre fiction is somehow lesser than literary fiction
to begin with because it’s about entertainment rather than
enriching the reader by making them cry over the injustice and
horribleness of human nature. And romance is the black sheep of
genre romance. Even mystery and sci-fi lovers call our books pulp.
We’re girl porn and bodice rippers, according to them.”

“Why?”

She shrugged again. “There are a lot of
different theories. It’s a genre predominantly by women for women,
which is one theory why people are more dismissive of it. The sex
is another possible culprit. Sex sells and mainstream movies are
filled with it, but if you have sex in your book in any form it
must be pornographic. Some of the older romances used to be pretty
anti-feminist—but a lot of the modern books are about strong women
who know what they want and that includes love. Though some people
object to that message too. Who knows why? I’m pretty inured to the
anti-romance bias. It doesn’t bother me much anymore—though if one
more person asks me if I write
50 Shades of Grey
books, I
think I may scream.”