Falling for Mister Wrong

by Lizzie Shane

“I know who I am.”

  “The teacher who doesn’t teach anymore. Mr. Perfect who got jilted on national television because he wasn’t so perfect after all. A self-professed country-boy living in LA. Yeah, you sound like you’ve got it all figured out.”

  “So I’m changing.” He sulked. “People change.”

  “They do. And I always hope it’s for the better, but how often does that happen?” Miranda gathered up her tablet and her shoes. “Just do me a favor. As you’re changing and growing and finding yourself in LA, don’t go on Dancing With the D-List. Have some freaking self-respect and stop chasing fame.”

  She left him there. Security and his driver would make sure he got home all right. Or wherever he wanted to go after he left here. He wasn’t her charge anymore, but she wasn’t going to toss him out into the night either. He’d been a good Mister Perfect, in his own way. Good for ratings, anyway.

  She ignored the little shiver of guilt that she’d done that to him, ruined him somehow by picking him as Mister Perfect. He’d been her call. Corn-fed country-boy school teacher. How could she have known he’d turn into Fame-zilla?

  “Miranda.”

  That voice. Raspy sex and sin. Shit shit shit. She turned slowly, adjusting her grip on her heels and her tablet. “Bennett. How did you get in here?”

  “I pulled some strings to get an invite to the taping—”

  And someone is getting fired for not warning me you were in the building.

  “I wanted to watch your finale. I’d never seen one of these reunion deals before.”

  She didn’t dare ask him what he’d thought of it. She didn’t have the emotional energy to take his critique tonight.

  “I guess you’re here for your answers,” she said instead.

  “Yes and no.”

  She didn’t know what to make of that. Was one of the offers no longer on the table? Which one?

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said. About the show being the only thing on television that glorifies love.”

  “I didn’t say it was the only thing, just that it’s not a bad thing to do.”

  “Will you let me finish?” he asked, his lips quirking in a way she hoped was promising. If he was giving her that smirky smile, maybe…

  No. She wouldn’t get her hopes up. “Is this the moment when you tell me you’ve been wrong all along and beg my forgiveness?”

  His expression tightened.

  Nope. Not that moment.

  Strange. She was so good at orchestrating the romantic futures of others, and yet could never seem to get the romantic moments in her own life to play quite right.

  She folded her arms defensively around her middle, awkward with all she was carrying, but she managed it. “Sorry. Go ahead.”

  “You said we’re all idiots when we’re falling in love.”

  “That certainly sounds like something I would say.”

  “Miranda. Shut up.”

  “Fine,” she muttered.

  He took a deep breath, like he was about to dive underwater. “You want me to treat you like an equal, but we’ll never be equals.”

  Irritation spiked hard. “Go fu—”

  “You’re a thousand times better than me.”

  Wait, what? She’d been working up a good head of steam, but the words slowly penetrated and her jaw dropped.

  “I never deserved you. The only thing I had to offer—my experience in this business—was the one thing you kept throwing back in my face. I freaked because I’ve never needed anyone the way I needed you and you didn’t need me back.”

  “I loved you,” she said, the words echoing in the empty sound stage.

  “But why? When you said the words, all I could think was that I’d pulled one over on you and any second you were going to wake up and realize what a mess I am. I’ve been divorced three times, Miranda. I’m a decade older than you. If you didn’t want what I could give you as a mentor, I couldn’t figure out why a woman like you would be with me. Do you have any idea how terrifying that is?”

  “As terrifying as calling you from Italy to tell you I loved you without any guarantee that you would ever say it back?”

  “You’ve always been better than me. Braver. Hell, that girl on your show tonight was braver than me. But if she can do it, the least I can do is man up and say I’ve wanted you back every second of every day and I understand why you won’t take me because you’re too good for me, but I love you.”

  Sound receded as everything slowed. “You don’t say that.”

  “I know.” He stepped forward, suddenly in her space. She swayed back, but there was a camera boom and she could only stand there as he loomed over her. And it was probably the hottest moment of her life.

  “You never say that,” she whispered, his face so close. “Not with anyone.”

  “I never meant it with anyone else.” He groaned, swiping across her cheeks with his thumbs. “Shit, baby, don’t cry.”

  Was she crying? “You said yes and no.”

  “What?”

  “You said yes and no. Is the job no longer available?”

  He snorted. “Of course you want to know about work when I’m trying to have a romantic moment.” But he was grinning as he said it. “Yes. The job is yours if you want it. And if you don’t… The show was good tonight. It was… sincere in a way I wasn’t expecting. I’ll be honest, I’m still not in love with it so I’m hoping you’ll take the ADS job, but if Marrying Mister Perfect is what you want to do, I’ll try to be better about understanding why. If you’ll have me. Can you forgive me, Miranda?” His lips quirked, that sexy almost-smile. “I was an idiot, but someone very wise told me we’re all idiots when we’re falling in love. Probably me more than most since I came to it so late in the game.”

  She narrowed her eyes, which still seemed to be leaking from the edges. “Don’t start making cracks about your age again.”

  “It is a substantial difference. You could easily find someone closer to your own—”

  “Stop. You’re the King of Reality Television, Bennett Lang. You aren’t supposed to be insecure. I love you, you idiot. Even if you are decrepit and ancient.”

  “Hey.”

  “And I don’t need you to prove how worthy you are with job offers.”

  “That isn’t why I—”

  “In fact, I can’t imagine working at American Dance Star without you.” But with him... that would be a whole new adventure. “Are you sure you want to retire?”

  His eyebrows arched. “You mean co-produce? You want to try living together and working together?” he asked skeptically.

  She looped her arms around his neck, her tablet resting against one shoulder blade as her heels bumped against the other. “So we’re living together, are we?”

  “I just assumed—you said—look, I suck at this stuff—”

  “Relax, Romeo. I can see I’ll have to teach you about milking a romantic moment.” She went up on her toes. “You’re supposed to be kissing me now.”

  And he did.

  Maybe she wasn’t so bad at her own love life after all.

  Chapter Forty-One

  The silence from the apartment upstairs was killing him. It had been two days. Two days since the finale aired and he’d been given a second lease on life when he saw he might still have a chance with her. But she hadn’t come back.

  He was going nuts missing her. They’d had a rash of freakishy warm weather, melting the snow so it was like skiing through a slushee and he came home soaked to the skin every day. It was miserable. Or maybe he was just miserable.

  Thursday. His day off. Leaving him far too much time to think. Taking advantage of the Sucker Spring weather, he spent the morning working on the engine of the Thunderbird—mostly as an excuse to be out in the parking lot, watching for Caitlyn’s arrival. She had to come back today, didn’t she?

  His sisters had argued for hours about what exactly he needed to do and say to convince Caitlyn he wasn’t a complete waste of genetic ma
terial. About the only thing they’d agreed on was that he needed to find some way to get closure on the Tria and Andy situation.

  They might be right.

  Didn’t mean he had the first idea how to go about doing that.

  Normally if he and Andy had a falling out, one of them would invite the other to go skiing and they’d forget about whatever was bugging them on the slopes. But the dumbass had gone and wrecked his knee. Suggesting they get together for anything else just felt too weird. Especially when he wasn’t even sure he wanted to see the man who had once been his friend.

  Shit.

  Maybe he could get closure by talking to him on the phone. He could manage that much.

  He went inside, wiping the grease off his hands, and dialed the number he’d set up for the house when he and Tria moved in, a weird mix of aggression and a sense of inevitability rising up as he listened through the first ring.

  “Hello?”

  “Tria. I’m calling to talk to Andy.”

  “Oh. Um. Andy’s at PT. I was about to go pick him up, but I’m sure he’d love—”

  He wasn’t there. Off the hook. “Right. Bye, Tria.”

  He hung up. And stood staring at the phone. He’d been ready to talk. Ready to have it out. Now the fact that Andy had thwarted him in his attempt at resolution was just another nail in the asshole’s coffin.

  He was barely aware of grabbing his keys and storming out to the Jeep. He was three miles down the road to the physical therapy center in the next town over before he even realized where he was going.

  Andy might not even be there. Tria was going to pick him up. They might be gone already. His ex-fiancé and the asshole who had—

  Andy was sitting out front in a wheelchair, his injured leg propped out straight in front of him, face tipped up to soak in the unseasonably warm sun.

  Will slammed the Jeep into park, launched himself out of the driver’s side and stalked up to him.

  “Will, hey…”

  His fist slammed into Andy’s face, knuckles splitting against teeth. They both swore, Will cradling his hand and Andy spitting blood.

  “Feel better?” Andy said, gingerly testing his teeth with his tongue to see if they were all still attached.

  “Not really. I kind of feel like a dick for punching a guy in a wheelchair.”

  “Even if I deserved it? I was surprised you didn’t come after me months ago.”

  Andy’s nose was bent in two places—once from where he’d done a facer into a chairlift pole and once from a brawl they’d gotten into with some boarders when they were seventeen and stupid. He’d always been able to take a hit and keep on kicking.

  “Even then.”

  “I’m sorry,” Andy began and Will cut him off.

  “Stop. I don’t want to do that. I can’t do that yet.”

  “I want to apologize. I have this whole speech. I’ve been rehearsing it for, like, months.”

  Will just stared down at him. Andy. Still the same old loveable screw-up. “You love her.”

  Andy winced. “Yeah.”

  Yeah, well, I loved her too, asshole. It would have been easier if he hadn’t. If it had just been a stupid infatuation. If he’d just gotten carried away in the moment. But he hadn’t. He’d loved her. It may not have been the same kind of down to the bone connection he felt for Caitlyn, but he’d really loved her. “Well, you got the girl,” he rasped. “Your stupid love story ripped out my fucking heart.”

  “I know,” Andy said hoarsely. “I hated myself this year. Tria says I’m trying to kill myself. Taking stupid chances because if I get hurt, I deserve it, right? We both deserve it—”

  “Shut up.”

  Andy swallowed audibly, but his mouth snapped shut.

  Will stared down at his friend, absently rubbing his knuckles. He didn’t want Tria anymore, but what they’d done still burned like acid. The two people he’d trusted most outside his family had each put a hand on the knife and stabbed it into his back. He was justified in being angry about it. Justified in holding a grudge. But maybe justification wasn’t enough.

  Maybe it was time to loosen the stranglehold he had on his anger and make room for something else in his heart. Someone else.

  “Look. We’re not going to hug it out and be best buds or anything, but I’m gonna work on not being so mad at you and you need to knock off the stupid risky shit. I’m the one who gets to be pissed. You’re the one who got the girl. So keep her, you idiot. You broke my fucking heart. Fine. Now make it worth it. Make her so happy I’m happy for you even when I want to knock your teeth in. Understand? Don’t waste this.”

  Andy nodded jerkily, jaw working.

  Will turned away—and saw Tria, standing in the crook of her open car door a few feet away. He hadn’t even heard her pull up. He didn’t know how much she’d seen and heard, but he’d had about as much closure as he could take today. He jerked his chin at her, wordlessly, and walked back to his car.

  It wasn’t exactly a bundle of puppies and rainbows, but it was a start.

  Now if only Caitlyn would come home.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  The driver helped her unload her bag. Just the one bag this time. She’d been in LA less than a week. She could have managed the roller-bag herself, but her hands were full. Gerbera daisies. Giant happy flowers. Will had said they were his favorite.

  She’d never brought a man flowers before. But then she’d never tried to woo anyone either. Never ridden a bull… never fallen in love… Will was just a font of new experiences.

  The door flew open when she was still five feet away from it. Will stood framed by the doorway, wild and dark and gorgeous, like Heathcliff on the freaking moors.

  “I heard the car,” he said, without moving from the doorway, his eyes drinking her in just as greedily as she was doing to him. “How was your trip?”

  Behind her, she felt the driver hesitate, probably trying to figure out what the hell to do with her suitcase now that she’d frozen into a statue, but she couldn’t tear her eyes off Will.

  “I told everyone in America that I was falling for you.”

  “I saw.”

  He didn’t move, and her hopes, which had been so high when he ran to greet her, began to waver. Was he still angry about the lying? She was ready to grovel. She’d come prepared to woo, damn it.

  Caitlyn hitched up her hopes and the flowers. “Are you going to let me in?”

  He blinked, glancing around as if suddenly realizing he was blocking the door. If he heard the double meaning in the words, he didn’t show it. “I spoke to Tria,” he blurted. “And Andy. Worked some things out.”

  And her hopes took another nosedive. “What?”

  Was he getting back together with his ex? She’d suspected he might still be in love with her. A shiver of dread worked down her arms. His eyes locked on the slight movement.

  “Shit, you’re cold. Come inside.”

  It wasn’t cold out with the sun beating down. The temperature in the parking lot would have suited Los Angeles, but she didn’t argue as Will reached past her to take her bag from the driver, trading it for a tip and ushering her into the dark, windowless foyer and up the stairs.

  She unlocked the door and it was the most natural thing in the world for the two of them to go inside together. Sometime in the last two months her place had started to feel like theirs. At least it had to her. She was terrified that they weren’t on the same page at all. They’d had one fight—and it had been a doozie—and then she’d had to go. She’d been such a mess she hadn’t even remembered to bring her cell phone.

  Will set her bag down next to the door. “Who gave you the flowers?”

  She blushed, awkwardly shuffling the bouquet from one hand to the other. “Um, I got them for you actually. I know it’s silly, but you said you like them and I thought, why are girls the only ones who get flowers, right?”

  For a moment he didn’t react, then a smile broke out over his face like sunshine bursting into
her heart. “Don’t move,” he said. “I got something for you.”

  Please God, let it be another mix tape. She’d bought a portable CD player and listened to the mix non-stop on the flight.

  He was out the door before she could blink, leaving her there, still holding the flowers. He was gone less than a minute before he burst back in, holding a rectangular package, like a department store shirt box. “Happy Independence Day.”

  “It’s March.”

  “Independence from the show.”

  He thrust it at her and they awkwardly exchanged—flowers for box. He barely looked at the daisies, watching her intently, something a little manic in his expression—which was making her insanely nervous. She felt like something massive must have happened while she was away.

  “You said you talked to Tria?”

  He nodded jerkily. “Yeah. Well, mostly I talked to Andy. And punched him. It was good. Not the punching. The talking.”

  He was babbling. Will never babbled. She was the babbler in the relationship.

  He jutted his chin at the package. “Are you going to open it?”

  Almost afraid to see what was inside, Caitlyn moved to the piano, resting the box on the top as she peeled off the ribbon holding it shut. Will followed, hovering nearby, but just out of touching distance.

  She pulled off the box top.

  Sheet music. Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata. Her throat closed.

  “I know you already have it. Look inside.”

  She pulled back the cover and there, on the first page, taped right over the first note on the page, was a ring.

  It wasn’t the Rock of Ages. There was nothing showy or flashy about it. It was delicate, a small stone in an intricate, almost antique-looking setting. Lovely.

  A ring.

  Caitlyn swung to gape at Will.

  “You can say no,” he said, the sentence so fast it almost sounded like one word. “I know we haven’t known one another that long and you’re probably sick of guys proposing to you. But that’s when you had me. From the first note. You asked me if I believed in love at first sight and I think I joked about it, but you had me from… okay, not from hello, I’m not gonna say that, but from the very first second I heard you and saw you and touched you and kissed you. Every single first dug another hook into my heart and the seconds and thirds just drove you deeper. Even that freaking ridiculous wedding veil. And I know I freaked out about that perfect guy and this is probably the last thing you want to hear right now. My sisters told me this was a dumbass plan. They said I should apologize first and let you breathe. Did I remember to apologize? I don’t care about the show or you making me the Other Man—though I wish you’d told me and you have to tell me stuff like that in the future, if we have a future—”