by Lizzie Shane
Her stomach roiled queasily. “I thought the publicity stuff was all you.”
“It is for now. But when you win, it will be both of us. We’re America’s Couple, baby.”
For the love of God, stop calling me baby. “But we will have just gotten married. I thought we’d be able to get away—”
“This would only be a short break before our honeymoon. Two weeks tops. Then we can get started on our lives. And trust me, baby, the money from the magazine spread will really help a young couple starting out in the world.”
They’d never talked about money. She was only a piano teacher now, but her parents had been very strict about putting her concert earnings in a trust for her. She’d never told Daniel about the trust. About the freedom it would give them so they wouldn’t have to do publicity crap for money.
But he didn’t sound like this was just about the money. He liked it. The attention. The fame.
All the things she’d walked away from.
Her stomach rumbled again. How well did she know him? Two months of carefully crafted dates. Was that really enough to build a marriage on?
“Daniel, I don’t know…”
“Just think about it. Think about our dream house in Beverly Hills.”
“I don’t think my dream house is in Beverly Hills.” Was he even listening to her? How wrong had she been about him?
“Sorry, right. I know. I just get so carried away. I want to give you everything, sweetheart. You’re my Miss Perfect.”
In person she might have been taken in by his tone, by his blue eyes sparkling with sincerity and sweet dimples, but now all she could do was sit in her darkened apartment and wonder if she was making the biggest mistake of her life. Was it too late to back out?
“I don’t know, Daniel. Everything happened so fast. Do you think we’re rushing it?”
“Hey,” his voice lowered from its excited chirp, and for the first time she felt like she was talking to the man who had wooed her. “I know all this is madness, but all of it is about one thing. You and me. Through all the crazy distractions, it’s always been you and me. Together. Right?”
“Right,” she echoed weakly.
“Watch the show on Tuesday. Look at my face the first time I saw the girl of my dreams.”
“Elena?”
He snorted. “Funny. I love you, baby.”
“Love you too,” she echoed, ignoring the growing certainty that she was lying with those words.
Or maybe he was right and it was just the chaos of the last few weeks. The publicity nonsense. She would watch the show. She would remind herself who he was and why she loved him.
They said their goodbyes and Caitlyn turned back to the window as Daniel rushed back to watch the ball drop with his important people. The torchlight parade was over. She’d missed it. Moments later, the first boom of the fireworks lit the night. Midnight in New York. A New Year. A new slate. Full of possibilities.
The year she would get married.
Her stomach roiled. She was going to have to stock up on Tums.
Will collected the last of the LED torches used in the New Year’s Eve processional each year, shoving off hard and skating smoothly over the snow toward the storage locker where the rest of the ski patrol guys were already stowing the other torches and bragging about which of the out-of-towner snow bunnies they were going to be kissing at midnight at the Lodge Gala.
“That blonde was giving you the eye, Hamilton,” Ray Schaal said as he took the torches from him so he wouldn’t have to pop off his skis and trudge down the snow bank to the locker.
“She’s just a flirt,” he said, brushing the comment aside even though he had no idea which blonde they were talking about. He hadn’t really been paying attention to who he was talking to as he handed out the torches at the top and collected them at the bottom.
Ray shrugged and joined the others, comparing the various attributes of the snow bunnies. There was never a shortage of girls to kiss at the Gala, but the idea of flirtation and forced laughter and barely disguised desperation to escape the loneliness for a little while just made him feel old.
Which wasn’t far off the mark since most of the ski patrol guys were barely old enough to drink.
He was supposed to be past that stage of his life. Dating and playing romantic musical chairs. He thought he’d found his chair. He’d been ready to sit there for the rest of his life—and then his chair had knocked him on his ass and run away with his best friend.
Okay, not the best analogy. But whatever. He was too old for this shit.
He’d been busy since the snowfall had picked up last week. Busy enough to avoid most of his family’s friendly interference in his love life. Thank God they’d gotten enough snow for the torchlight parade to go forward so he’d been able to say he was working tonight and avoid any well-intentioned New Year’s Eve set ups.
The other ski patrol guys invited him to join them at the Gala as they secured the locker, but he waved them off, pushing off and gliding over the snow toward his place, the lights of the Lodge throwing his shadow across the snow in front of him.
The one advantage to his tomblike apartment was the ski-out deck and he slid onto it now, popping his skis off and brushing loose snow off before resting them against the wall. He leaned against the glass, flicking open the fastenings on his boots and pressing down the tongues until he could slide his feet out. Opening the deck door—which he really ought to lock one of these days, but it was Tuller Springs so he never thought to bother—he stepped from his boots directly onto the carpet inside in thermal socks. Knocking the snow off his boots, he dropped them next to the potbelly stove and tipped his head, automatically listening for the music from above.
But there was only silence and the apartment above had been completely dark when he skied in.
Even septuagenarian piano teachers had somewhere to be and someone to be with on New Year’s Eve.
His cell phone vibrated against his chest—still on silent from when he was working and he fished it out of the inner chest pocket of his jacket. Probably Claire. Or Julia. They didn’t know how to stop pushing.
But when he pulled out the phone, his breathing stopped as the numbers on the Caller-ID screen slammed into his brain like ice-picks.
He’d deleted her number, but he hadn’t been able to delete the memory. He knew the damn thing by heart. Tria.
Six months of nothing and now she was calling him on New Year’s Eve? What the fuck?
He stared at the phone, debating whether to answer it and tell her to go fuck herself or ignore it. He waited too long and it went to voicemail—the little missed call icon popping up cheerfully on the screen. As if that one call hadn’t shattered him.
Fuck. Fuckety fuck fuck.
He waited, but no message appeared in his voicemail. Whatever she’d wanted, she’d wanted to speak to him personally. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to leave a recording, proof that she’d called. Maybe she was tired of Andy already and looking for someone to cheat on him with.
The thought made his dinner lunge up toward his tonsils.
Maybe she wanted to beg forgiveness again. Or bitch at him about the lawsuit he’d filed to get the money he’d put into the house back.
She wasn’t supposed to call him. The lawyers didn’t want them talking to one another directly.
But Tria had never been very good at doing what she was supposed to. Case in point: The Wedding That Wasn’t.
The piano upstairs began to pick out the tune of Auld Lang Syne.
Should old acquaintance be forgot…
If only.
Chapter Seven
By eight o’clock on Tuesday, Caitlyn had thrown up from nerves twice and switched to an all chewable Tums diet. Her mouth tasted like she’d been licking a chalkboard, but at least her stomach had stopped doing backflips.
Mimi and Ty had come over that morning to install a DVR—just in case reliving the horror once a week wasn’t enough for her. Mimi had wanted to
stay and watch with her, but the idea of Mimi watching her watch herself had sent her running for the Tums and thankfully Ty had managed to drag Mimi out.
It was bad enough knowing the entire town would be watching. There had been an article in the paper that morning. Sort of a local girl makes good thing. Very flattering.
Horrifying.
She wasn’t an idiot. She’d known this was coming. She’d just indulged in selective amnesia to avoid thinking about it.
It had been easy while she was on the show. Whenever she started to fret about it Daniel or Miranda or one of the seemingly dozens of segment producers would be there to reassure her that everything was going to be fine, America was going to love her and all of this was going to be worth it when she and Daniel were married and living out their happily ever after.
But now she was alone, engaged to a man she could barely speak to and wasn’t allowed to see, and keeping the biggest thing in her life a secret from everyone she cared about, while everyone in America was free to speculate about her love life.
Caitlyn reached for the Tums as the clock ticked over to eight and the red light fired on the DVR.
It was on.
She didn’t have to watch. If she didn’t look, maybe she could pretend it wasn’t happening.
Stalling, she turned her back to the television, moving to the kitchen table to investigate the package that had arrived earlier today with an LA postmark. It said it was from Miranda, but if Daniel wanted to send her something, he couldn’t very well use his own name. He’d sent her a text earlier—the world stopped when I saw U, baby—but that couldn’t be all the contact his fiancé merited on a day like this.
When the box had been delivered, she’d handled it like it might explode, but now she grabbed some scissors and began hacking at the tape. Anything to avoid looking at that DVR light.
The packaging came loose and she peeled back the flaps of the box. Inside, an industrial sized bottle of her favorite liquor was nestled in something white and gauzy, along with a note. She plucked the note up, her heart picking up the pace at the thought of reading Daniel’s words, his thoughtfulness. Hidden beneath the note was a squishy maroon stress ball in the shape of a heart.
But it was Miranda’s name inside the note. Miranda’s handwriting.
Relax. It’s never as bad as it looks on screen. P.S. The padding is from the props department. Everyone sends their love.
God. How terrible must she look if Miranda had to send her an economy bottle of marshmallow vodka to dull the pain?
She pulled out the bottle and the stress ball, investigating the loops of gauzy white material. It seemed to be one long strip, winding around on itself. She hauled it out of the box, hand over hand.
When she realized what she was holding, a strangled sound burst out of her mouth, half laugh, half sob.
A veil. They’d sent her a wedding veil. The kind that would drag the floor if she put it on her head.
She bit back the urge to laugh again—afraid if she started she wouldn’t stop and hysteria was probably a bad way to start the night.
Vodka, however, sounded like an excellent way to start the night.
No harm in it. She wasn’t going to be driving anywhere. How much trouble could she get into sitting in her own house, watching her own public train-wreck with a tall glass of marshmallow vodka on the rocks?
Caitlyn slapped the veil on her head and reached for the biggest glass she had.
“I’ve got thirty beautiful women just dying to meet you. Are you ready for this, Mister Perfect?”
Daniel chuckled and flashed his aw shucks smile—and Caitlyn slammed her finger down on the pause button, glowering at those pearly whites.
It might have been paranoia, or a side effect of the vodka she was slurping out of the giant plastic Rockies souvenir mug, but she’d become more and more convinced as she watched the scene over and over again that the perfect farm boy smile was a lie.
On her first viewing, she’d mostly been relieved that she only had a grand total of about three minutes of screen time. Her first meet with Daniel had been suitably cute—though she hadn’t noticed any hearts or flowers exploding in either of their eyes.
The show had put each girl in a setting designed to demonstrate her particular talents—the LPGA golfer putting in a ball gown on the lawn, the bakery owner in the kitchen icing cookies—so of course Caitlyn had been at a piano. Thank God her fingers knew how to play through nerves. She’d dashed off a quick Bach Prelude…and then she’d had to face him.
She hadn’t jabbered incoherently, which was good, since she hadn’t been able to remember a single word of what she’d said. She didn’t really remember the first time she saw him—just that she had been so nervous she’d been worried that her shaking knees would be visible through the flowing skirt of her gown. No grenades of true love exploding in her heart and reshaping her world. No symphonies in the air. Just nerves.
There was no evidence that the world stopped for him either. If it was love at first sight as he had professed, he was doing a good job of slow playing his hand as he told the cameras that she looked like an angel—too pure and sweet to touch.
Elena however was very touchable.
Caitlyn tried not to fixate on the way his tongue had practically fallen out of his mouth when he’d walked into the dance studio and seen the Latina beauty, or the guttural whoa that he’d practically groaned as she glided toward him oozing sex. She’d pulled him into her arms to teach him a basic tango step and the cameras had begun strategically filming from the waist up—it’s a family show, folks.
Apparently there were angels and then there were sex goddesses. And Caitlyn fell squarely on the “cute” side of the spectrum. Damn it.
She watched the rest of the show, dreading seeing her own face again, but she had stayed clear of most of the first night drama, trying to fade into the background during the infamous challenges, and so there wasn’t much footage of her. Other than the Elimination Ceremony, where Daniel offered her the fourth ring, she was invisible.
Thank God.
But even as she’d grown more and more relieved by her lack of notoriety, something else began to bother her. Tickling at the back of her mind, a little scratch of unease, fueled by marshmallow flavored clarity.
His smile.
His familiar aw shucks farm boy smile.
She’d restarted the show, watching back through it for the smile. And there it was. Beaming back at her. All teeth and folksy charm and sparkling eyes.
So why couldn’t she escape the thought that it was a lie?
Did it look too smug? Too self-important?
The cell phone shrilled.
Caitlyn jumped, sloshing the smooth, sweet vodka of the heavens, and dove for the phone. “Daniel?”
“No. Miranda. Sorry.”
Caitlyn slumped against the kitchen counter, miscalculated slightly and slid down the cabinets to plunk on the floor. She may have had slightly more to drink than she thought. “Miranda! Hey. Did Daniel’s smile always look like that or did you edit it?”
A low chuckle hummed against her ear where she’d pressed the phone a little too tight. “I see you received the vodka.”
“I did! And thank you. It’s my favorite.”
“I remember.”
“Veil was a nice touch.” She set the vodka against her leg, dipping a finger into it and lifting it to her lips to lick off the drops of sugary goodness.
“I’m glad you found it amusing. How are you coping?”
Caitlyn waved a hand in a so-so gesture, then realized Miranda couldn’t see her. “He really likes Elena’s boobs, doesn’t he?”
She imagined she could hear Miranda’s grimace. “We have him on camera saying flattering things about most of you ladies, but we’re trying to create drama and Elena’s overt sex appeal is going to be a major point of conflict for some of the girls in future weeks so it got a lot of screen time.”
“Yeah, no, I get it. They’re a
wesome boobs.” She squinted back toward the television—the screen wasn’t large, more a glorified computer monitor than the fifty inch mega-screen most people seemed to have these days. Normally she liked that it was small, easily ignored, but now she was irritated that she couldn’t see his questionable smile clearly from the kitchen.
Miranda was speaking. Something about plastic surgery. Caitlyn made what she hoped was an appropriately interested noise in reply.
Miranda paused. “You should get some sleep. It won’t look so bad in the morning.”
Caitlyn hummed agreeably and thumbed the phone off after they said their goodbyes. No texts from Daniel. No call. Nothing to reassure her that he liked her boobs too.
They were nice boobs, dang it. Not as big as Elena’s, but at least Caitlyn wouldn’t have back issues later in life from carting around cantaloupes on her chest.
She used the counter to lever herself back to her feet, nearly rolling her ankle before she found her balance on the little red high heeled sandals she’d decided completed her show watching ensemble. After collecting her Rockies cup of vodka, she made a remarkably steady crossing to the television.
Daniel was still smiling.
Maybe it was the lighting that made him look fake.
More light. Then she could see him better. Caitlyn turned, kicking aside the veil, and charted a course to the wall switch behind the potbelly stove.
She flipped the switch. Sparks crackled and sprayed, shooting out of the switch.
Oh shit. Caitlyn yelped and flung the liquid contents of her glass at the sparking switch.
For a moment nothing seemed to happen, then whoosh. Fire burst in her face, eating up the wall, heat slamming into her face like a slap. She screamed, leaping backward.
Or attempting to leap. Her heel caught on the train of her veil and she tumbled to the ground, landing hard on her butt. The Rockies cup plinked to the ground and rolled away from her hip. She tried to scramble backward, crab walking away from the flames as they traveled eagerly up the wall, but the veil tangled around her limbs, clinging and cloying.
