Romancing Miss Right (8 page)

“What time is call tomorrow?” Marcy slipped
her feet out of her heels and bent to rub the ball of her foot.

“Hair and make-up at eight. We’ll need you on
site and in wardrobe by ten-thirty for the arrival of the Suitors.
You’ll explain the competition, divide them up into rock bands, and
then at eleven-thirty send them off to rehearse and get in costume
for our charity rock show. You’ll need to visit each band and
encourage the guys as they are rehearsing—and then we’ll squeeze in
your lunch before doors open to our Super Fans at one-thirty for a
two p.m. curtain. You’ll greet the audience with Josh and then take
your seat front row center for the guys to serenade you with their
efforts. Pick a winner, thank the audience, recap how each
performance struck you—then back to wardrobe to change for the
evening cocktail party. Private time with the winner, group time
with all the guys, recap the evening for our cameras and you should
be done by eleven if we stay on schedule.”

“How many guys tomorrow?”

“Another twelve.”

“Which leaves three wondering who gets the
last private date and who gets shafted this week.”

“James will receive the invitation while
you’re at the Rock n’ Roll date tomorrow.”

“And that’s the low key, riding bikes through
the park and having a picnic date, right?”

“That’s the one.”

“And next week?”

Miranda flicked through screens on her tablet
bringing up the schedule for Week Two. “Two group dates
again—cowboys and s’mores on the first, beach volleyball a la
Top Gun
on the other. Two private dates—one thrill-seeker
and one wine-tasting in Napa. After the Elimination Ceremony, we’ll
sit down and talk about options for who goes on which—”

“Give Craig the next private date.”

Miranda frowned. “Two of the guys won’t have
had a date with you yet. If you keep them, typically we try to
reward their patience with a private date.”

“So give one of them the other private
date.”

Her voice was firm. Decisive.

Damn it.

Miranda hated it when Miss Right decided she
knew what she wanted. Life was so much easier when the girls were
wishy-washy and willing to be guided through the journey.

She probably had Craig’s influence to thank
for this. Was he the one Marcy had been looking at in that shot? If
so, Miranda needed to make sure they spent more time together.

She needed more of that spark of real emotion
in Marcy’s eyes. Even if it would be showing him too much favor too
early on. Though maybe if she was lucky throwing them together a
lot early would lead to a nice implosion.

“Craig it is.”

#

“Settle, people!” Miranda strode into the
basement rec room the production team had commandeered as their
command center, raising a hand to call the room to order. “The
sooner we get started, the sooner we can all get some sleep.”

The roar in the room instantly descended to a
murmur. It was nearly three in the morning and they’d just wrapped
up the second Elimination Ceremony with not one but
two
of
the departing Suitors devolving into drunken tears as they
professed their longing for everlasting love to the cameras.

“Excellent work tonight,” Miranda announced
as she settled into a chair at the long, cluttered conference
table. “Just a quick note before we get to the schedule for the
next week—remember this is when we need to start keeping an eye on
how much the guys are drinking—a drink to take the edge off and
help them open up is encouraged, but after the fiasco of the Rock
n’ Roll date we have all the drunken idiot footage we need so let’s
reel them in when possible. The show is about finding love, not
partying hard, and we don’t want the audience to forget that. Now
for the upcoming week…”

Linus leaned forward. “I’d like to recommend
Paul for the bungee jumping date. He’s terrified of heights. She’ll
help him work through his fears—”

“Darius,” another segment producer insisted.
“He’ll be totally in his element, being all manly and adventurous
and letting her lean on him.”

“Darius had a date last week,” Linus
protested, “and Paul has been a great sport about waiting on the
sidelines. Plus, he really needs the chance to share his personal
tragedy with the audience at home. His story is heartbreaking.
Sure-fire sympathy favor.”

Miranda lifted a hand before the argument
could get out of hand. “Craig gets the bungee jumping date. Marcy’s
call.”

A murmur of surprise traveled around the
table.

“Paul can have Napa. It’ll be better for
sharing his story anyway,” Miranda said, making a note in her
schedule. “Now let’s talk Cowboys.”

The rest of the meeting went smoothly, as
smoothly as the show was going so far—which made Miranda nervous as
hell. When things were going right, she was always waiting for the
other shoe to drop.

The production room was clearing out,
everyone dispersing to grab some shut eye, when one of the PAs
approached her, hovering on the edge of her vision until Miranda
snapped, “What is it, Emily?”

“It’s probably nothing.”

Miranda sighed.
God save me from
wishy-washy film school grads in their first real job.
“If it
was nothing, you would be on your way home. What is it?”

“Well.” Emily twisted her hands together.
“It’s Craig.”

Miranda set down her iPad, giving Emily all
of her attention. “Did he hit on you?”

“Me? Gosh no.”

Gosh. She should mate with Daniel. They could
have wholesome naïve babies. “Then what’s the problem? Did you see
him do something inappropriate? Something that violates his
contract?”

“I don’t know. I’m not really sure I saw
anything.”

Miranda resisted the urge to wring the girl’s
neck. “Emily. I’m tired. Spit it out.”

“I saw him talking to Patrick and Mark J.
today.”

“Lots of the guys talk to one another, Emily.
It’s part of the show.”

“Yeah, but he was talking to them right
before they had their melt-downs and did all the crazy shit that
made Marcy decide to get rid of them.”

Miranda’s eyebrows flew up. “You think he’s
manipulating the other Suitors into sabotaging themselves?”

“I don’t know. But I remembered him talking
to Stefan, drinking with him that first night, and I thought…”

“You thought he might be doing everything he
could to improve his odds.” Miranda nodded. It sounded plausible,
coming from Craig. “Do you have footage?”

Emily nodded. “Camera Three was on it.”

“I’ll look into it. Good work, Emily.”

The girl blushed and Miranda almost expected
another gosh, but she just received a quick bob of the head before
Emily left.

Craig was proving to be an interesting
conundrum. Marcy was captivated by him, the men seemed to dislike
and distrust him, but he still managed to get in their good graces
enough to set them on paths to self-destruction. As long as it made
good television, Miranda was happy—but she wasn’t about to let him
hijack her show. There was only room for one puppet-master here and
it was going to be her.

She might have to have a word with Craig
Corrow. But she’d hold off for a bit. Give the amateur
puppet-master a chance to show her what he could do.

Chapter Ten

“Are you ready for this?” Craig’s wicked
black eyes gleamed into hers from a distance of inches. “Ready to
take a leap of faith into the unknown of our relationship? Ready to
plunge headlong into love? Ready to bungee into bliss?”

Strapped together in the bungee harness as
they were, she didn’t have much room to maneuver, but she smacked
his shoulder, fighting a grin. “Shut up. You’re ruining this
beautiful moment for me.”

“Didn’t the producers ever see
Speed
?
Don’t they know that relationships based on extreme experiences
never last? We’re supposed to base it on sex.”

Before Marcy could respond, the segment
producer waved his hands, shouting over the wind on the bridge,
“Okay! The chopper is in position! We’re good to go!”

Beside them, the bungee expert yelled, “Don’t
worry if you swing a little bit in this wind. On three. One.
Two.”

“Swing?” Craig asked, the first flicker of
doubt cracking through his self-assured cockiness.

“Three!”

They tipped off the bridge, Craig’s arms
spasming tight around her as she let out a scream that almost
drowned out his.

Almost.

The wind rushed past, gravity making the
world race, her heart drumming so fast and loud she couldn’t hear a
break between the beats. As they hit the limit of the bungee and
sprang back, his scream cut off with a yelp. Hers converted into
peals of laughter as they rebounded back up toward the sky. She’d
never felt so wild. So alive. Like her heart had leapt right out of
her body, but it was all right because she didn’t even need it
anymore. She could fly.

And there was Craig’s face—white as a
sheet—right in front of her. “Holy shit.”

She laughed as they bounced again. “That was
awesome.”

They stopped bouncing and came to a rest,
dangling upside down in the ravine, swaying and swinging at the end
of the rope. Craig’s arms were still locked in a death-grip around
her.

“Holy shit,” he repeated.

“Wanna go again?”

He groaned and pressed his forehead against
hers, so close.

This was it, the moment when he would finally
kiss her, when she would finally know if the bad boy was all talk
or if he could deliver on the promise of chemistry that sizzled
between them. Her heart rate was still high, every sense
hyperactive. Even his scent was a turn-on—aftershave and fresh
laundry.

He leaned in and her eyes fell closed, but it
wasn’t her mouth he went for. His mouth moved against her ear,
whispering, “Don’t tell anyone I screamed.”

She laughed, giddy with adrenaline and the
rush of blood to her head and the fizzy feeling of delight that his
words inspired. “Your secret is safe with me.” And the two dozen
microphones that doubtless picked up his girly shrieks, but she
didn’t say that. She was still waiting for that kiss.

But it didn’t come.

The rope jerked and began reeling them slowly
back up to the bridge, and Craig leaned back, craning his neck to
look around. “So what’s next? Lion taming? Sky-diving? Running with
the bulls?”

“Nothing so extreme. Dinner.”

#

Marcy fidgeted in the confessional, impatient
to get through the touchy-feely crap and get on with the date.
“Craig joked about fabricating emotion through adrenaline, but the
truth is I can’t imagine sharing this experience with anyone else
and I do feel closer to him now.”

It was all true, she did feel closer to
Craig, but it wasn’t leaping off the bridge that had done it. It
was the little real moments around the edges—the way he made her
laugh with his bluntness and sarcasm about the contrived romance of
it, all masking what she realized now was his fear. A fear only she
had seen when he had whispered in her ear for her to please keep it
secret.

“We took this leap together and I know the
risk was worth it. I wasn’t sure if Craig was here for the right
reasons, but sometimes you just have to leap and he leapt with me.
We’ll always be bound by that now.”

“Do you think he could be your husband?” the
producer, Avery, coaxed.

“Uh…” For a moment her mind went absolutely
blank. The thought of marrying Craig was too foreign to be
considered and her brain shut down in protest. “We have fun
together, but I guess I’m not sure I really know him?”

“So tonight, Craig needs to prove…”

“Right, yeah. Sorry.” Marcy cleared her
throat and put on her Concerned Miss Right face. “I really enjoy
the time I spend with Craig, but I feel like right now our
relationship is all about fun and thrills and if we are going to
have a future together I really need to get to know him on a deeper
level. Tonight, if he wants to earn my favor, he’s going to have to
prove that he can really be vulnerable and show me who he really
is.” She twisted her hands together where the camera couldn’t see
them. “How was that?”

#

Craig shoved his hands into his pockets,
rocking on his heels as he waited for Marcy. So much fucking
waiting. Sometimes it felt like there was nothing but waiting.
Waiting for his dates, waiting for her on their dates while they
were separated to tell the cameras how they felt about
everything
. He’d been asked to talk about his emotions more
in the last week than he had the rest of his life combined.

He’d bullshitted his way through so far, but
tonight he felt… something. Off balance. Edgy.

Jumping off that bridge today had scared the
ever-loving shit out of him, but Marcy had gotten him through it,
grounded him when he would have panicked—all without seeming to
realize what she was doing.

It was ridiculous to think the show’s
heavy-handed emotional manipulation tactics were working, but the
truth of it was he liked her. He hadn’t been supposed to like her.
That wasn’t supposed to even enter into the equation. He wasn’t
supposed to
feel
anything. That wasn’t why he was here.

A PA hovered nearby, listening intently to
the buzz of conversation in his earpiece. Craig jerked his chin to
get the kid’s attention.

“What’s the deal with tonight?” he asked.
“What do I need to do to score the favor?”

“Be vulnerable,” the PA said instantly.
“Private dates are all about intimacy and honesty. You really need
to reveal your inner soul tonight.”

Craig snorted. “I don’t have an inner soul.
What you see is what you get.”

The PA blinked, visibly unsure what to make
of that. “You could always just kiss her, I guess. That usually
works too.”