by Hope Tarr
Focused on getting through the show, Francesca hadn’t let herself think about the getaway prize, but now she had no choice. According to the call sheet, the two winners would leave by private jet directly following the show. Their happily ever after grand departure would be filmed, of course, with the entire cast herded onto the tarmac to bid bon voyage to the happy couple. How Francesca would get through the misery of filming that final all-too-real farewell she suddenly couldn’t imagine.
“Chin up, love, you’ll manage.”
She looked over to Franc. Blinking tears from her eyes, she managed a wobbly smile. “I suppose I must.”
The look he gave her was at once sympathetic and skeptical. “Fashion, style, may be our trade, but by now even we should know that appearances often deceive.”
The following few hours were torturous for Francesca, but she did indeed manage to get through, including the obligatory wrap party, with more than a little help from her friend Franc, her mouth pulled into a tight TV smile. Given the way she’d behaved, she likely deserved to spend the rest of her wretched life alone, only she didn’t want to—she wanted to spend it with Greg, and if he’d only grant her a second chance, he could go back to parting his hair in the center, to wearing geeky glasses and track pants and bowling shoes for all she cared.
Only every time she’d looked his way, hoping to catch his eye, he wasn’t looking back anymore. His beautiful blue gaze stayed on Brittany, and smart girl that she was, the librarian beamed back at him, batting her made-up eyes and smiling to show off her newly bonded teeth.
Two black stretch limousines had been brought to convey the cast members to the airstrip, the production people going ahead in vans to set up. Greg and Brittany, still wearing their evening clothes, had one champagne-stocked limo to themselves, their luggage already loaded into the vehicle’s boot.
Now standing on the tarmac along with the show emcee, cast, and crew, uncaring of whether or not a camera found her face, Francesca stared miserably ahead to the Cessna waiting to carry the Cinderella couple off to Belize.
Ahead, the host stood between Greg and Brittany. Speaking over the noise, he said, “Before you two lucky kids fly off, we have one final question for each of you. Brittany, what would you say is the most valuable lesson you’ve learned over the past eight weeks?”
Batting mascara-lacquered lashes, Brittany answered, “Well, blondes definitely have more fun—at least I’m hoping to! But honestly, I’m just so grateful to the producers and the viewers for making this happen for all of us.”
“Is this happily ever after for you, do you think?” the host prompted.
She glanced to Greg. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”
“Thanks, Brittany, and best of luck to you, dear.” Turning to Greg, he said, “Now, Greg, I’m sure I’m not the only one interested in hearing the male perspective on this Cinderella business. Tell us your take.”
Greg lifted his eyes and looked beyond Brittany, beyond the cameras, to where the cast was assembled. “Well, Rob, I’ve definitely learned a lot. I think we all have. I can’t speak for the other guys on the show, but for me I’d have to say what I’m most grateful for is the self-awareness the experience has made me develop.”
“Wow, Greg, that’s great. Can you let us in on the ways in which you’ve become more self-aware?”
Greg didn’t miss a beat. “Sure, Rob. All along I thought my problem was my appearance—that I was too big of a nerd for anyone to ever love me. Now I see that wasn’t the case. My problem wasn’t that women didn’t like me. It was that I didn’t like me. The bad clothes and bad hair and even the glasses were like body armor to keep other people—women—at arm’s length so I wouldn’t get hurt. Given I got shot down one hundred times, I guess it worked a little too well.”
Greg paused and everyone chuckled—everyone except Francesca. Spearing him with her gaze, she silently implored him to look her way. Just one more chance, darling, one more!
“Now that I’m not only looking better but more importantly feeling better, I’m hoping to share my life with a special lady. For a while I thought I’d found her, my soul mate, my Waterloo, but now it looks like I’ve been kidding myself.”
The host’s face fell. “Greg, buddy, that’s too bad, but I’m getting cued that we’re close to take off. We’d better wrap—”
“But,” Greg broke in, casting his gaze to the coaches’ corner where Francesca stood, “if it turns out I’m wrong and she does want me, if she loves me, then this is her chance, her final chance, to put aside her pride and come out and say so, right here and right now. Otherwise I’ll be climbing into that plane waiting back there and flying out of her life forever.”
Heart pounding, Francesca admitted that Greg was spot on. If it hadn’t been for her pride, she never would have accepted Deidre’s wager. Screw keeping up appearances and screw the bloody call sheet!
“But I do love you, Greg. I love you with all my heart.” Shouldering her way past Dee and New Miss Manners and even the more formidable fitness coach, she pushed her way to the front. “I love you whether you’re wearing those dreadful ‘I’m riding a horse’ T-shirts and track pants or Armani. I’ve loved you since you dragged me out to search for Bosco with you, only I was too ruddy stubborn to admit it to you or myself.”
“Francesca!” Sean, Greg’s story producer, crossed the sight line and snatched her arm. “This isn’t on the call sheet,” he hissed. “The sheet says ‘Greg and Brittany exit to happily ever after.’ You can’t go up there. It’s not your happily ever after to take.”
“The hell it’s not!” Wrenching away, she waved to Greg. “You’re my Waterloo, darling, my absolute bloody Waterloo.”
Smiling, he opened his arms. “Then what are you waiting for?”
What was she waiting for?
This time it was Jerry who pulled her back into place. “You go up there, and you have my personal guarantee you’ll never work in reality TV again.”
She shook him off with a laugh. “Brilliant! May I have that in writing?”
Freed, she bolted across the tarmac, catching her hem on a camera tripod as she ripped by. Rather than stop, she let the fabric tear. A cracking sound had her darting a glance down. Her right Cinderella slipper caved, leaving her limping. Bollocks! Finishing at a fast hobble, she reached the winners’ platform, shooting Brittany a gimlet glare. The girl, looking dejected but resigned, wisely stepped aside.
Francesca launched herself at Greg, her arms twining about his neck, her face lifting to his. “I don’t care what the bloody call sheet says. I don’t care that I’m saying all of this with a mic clipped to my clothes. I don’t even care that this undignified, potentially humiliating moment will almost certainly be up on YouTube before morning. All I care about is being with you. Greg, darling, are you still willing to ‘lay all your love on me’?”
Arms going about her waist, he hauled her against him. “How about we start right now? Pretty much all the fairy tales I know end with true love’s kiss.”
Before she could answer, he bent his head, his mouth covering hers in a claiming kiss. Watched by a dejected Brittany, a beaming Franc, a shocked film crew—including Jerry who clutched the left side of his chest—and potentially hundreds of thousands of viewing households in the days and weeks to come, Francesca embraced him back. The camera, sound, and lighting crews, the producers, even the other cast members seemed to fade to black. All Francesca registered was Greg—the firmness of his mouth matching hers, the ragged rhythm of his breathing, the amazing feeling of his hands moving over her.
He ended the kiss, leaving her deliciously dizzy. His sigh whispered across her moistened lips. “I’d almost given up on you, Francesca. What took you so long?”
She glanced downward to her smarting shin and then back up. “I am wearing heels, you know.” Magic ones, apparently.
He shook his head. “I mean before. By my calculations, you’re a decade late.”
She smiled into
his bedroom-blue eyes. “How unpardonably tardy of me.”
His hands slid to the tops of her shoulders. Anchoring them there, he warned, “Now that you’re here, don’t go off anywhere, not without me, okay?”
“I won’t.” It was an easy promise to make—and keep. By his side was the only place she wished to be.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Franc hastening toward them. “Good show,” he said before facing out onto the stunned onlookers.
“Once again, love conquers all,” he proclaimed, mugging for the cameras. “But why should Cinderella get all the action, hmm? Viewers, audience members, text in your votes for a spinoff series, hashtag ‘PrincessAndThePea.’ Six sexy insomniacs, and only one proper mattress mate—who will make it together to the top? The show will need a host, of course, and consider this me tossing my name in the top hat. Who better to ensure that the newly beautiful stay styling—and that all you geeks out there get your happily ever after?”
Standing in the stylist’s shadow, Francesca and Greg exchanged amused glances. “It’s bloody brilliant, actually,” Francesca whispered, unclipping the wireless mic from the neck of her gown.
“I can’t speak for you, but this is my reality TV swan song,” Greg whispered back, doing away with his mic as well. “One happily ever after is all I’m built for. I’m officially retiring.”
“You’re sure?” Francesca asked, striving for innocence. “You might carve out quite a lucrative career for yourself in front of the camera. There’s certain to be follow-on work. Apparently Princess and the Pea is imminently on its way.”
Hands still resting atop her shoulders, he held her at arm’s length, his earnest gaze cinching onto hers. “There can only be one princess, one Waterloo per lifetime, and you’re that for me, Francesca. That—and more.”
“Oh, Greg,” she said, feeling ridiculously happy as well as deliciously swoony. “This really is it, isn’t it, true love?”
He nodded. “The truest.” His hands slid down her arms, drawing her closer, making her shiver in the very best of ways. “Happily ever after, Francesca.”
“Happily ever after, darling.” She lifted her face to his for yet another kiss, knowing in her heart of hearts that it was but one of many more to come.
Epilogue
ETERNITY—AKA THE GREAT BEYOND
Maddie spun away from the Earth portal, dashing a tear from her eye. “Lovely, simply lovely. Carlos, I do believe this happily ever after came off even better than the last.”
Carlos crossed the pink cloud floor to join her. “Most moving, my dear. Another set of soul mates reunited calls for a celebration.”
Two flutes of pink champagne appeared in both hands. He passed one to Maddie and raised the other in toast. “To my beautiful and talented bride.”
“Bride, I’m hardly that!” Maddie protested, shaking her coiffed head. “We’ve been married since 1941, you darling fool. Why that’s—”
“An eternity,” he finished for her. “And yet it feels only yesterday since I first set eyes on you at the Rainbow Room in New York City. The band played Mr. Miller’s ‘Moonlight Serenade,’ as I recall.”
Her painted mouth curved into a soft smile. “Our very first dance.” Expression dreamy, she reached up and brushed away an errant angel feather from his smoking jacket’s velvet lapel.
“The first of many.” He leaned in. “I would not have thought it possible then, but you have become infinitely more beloved and beautiful to me.”
Maddie framed his jaw between her satin-gloved hands. “Oh, Carlos, you say the loveliest things,” she purred, lifting her face to his.
Their mouths met, the kiss producing a poof of pink shimmer.
They drew apart, the cloud dissipating, and Maddie took a serious turn. “Before we lose ourselves to romance and reminiscence, there is one more happily ever after to engineer before the shoes’ mission is complete.”
Carlos thought a moment. “Ah yes, the statuesque Mediterranean beauty. Remind me of her name.”
“Stefanie, Macie’s catering compatriot from Washington, DC,” Maddie supplied. “Concocting in-home gourmet meals for busy career couples is a fine, thriving business nowadays, but it doesn’t leave much occasion for meeting eligible men.”
“You mean marriageable men,” Carlos clarified with a wink.
Maddie rolled her eyes. “Really, darling, what other kind of eligible is there? Stefanie’s perfect mate is on his way to her at this very moment, only she’s become so accustomed to seeing herself as a grump that she may well turn him down—or miss their meeting altogether!”
The stakes were high indeed. Carlos sobered. “Miss out on meeting her soul’s mate, what a terrible tragedy that would be.”
She sighed. “Indeed it would—and I for one prefer to save any tragedies for the stage and screen. Earthly life is far too brief to spend in unnecessary sadness. Every precious day is to be celebrated—savored.”
Curious, Carlos asked, “How will you manage to transport the shoes from Los Angeles back to Washington, DC, where Stefanie lives?”
A cagey smile served as her answer. “Patience, pet, you and Miss Stefanopoulos shall learn that and more…in good time.”
Acknowledgments
My sincere thanks to my fabulous publishing partners: my editor, Stacy Abrams, my agent, Louise Fury, and the team at Entangled Publishing for going above and beyond to make my Suddenly Cinderella series such a success. I would also like to express my deep appreciation to fellow author and friend, Leanna Renee Hieber, and producer and actor Brian Girard for generously sharing their insider knowledge of television production generally and reality TV specifically. Any errors in the book are, of course, entirely of my making. Last but never least, thanks to my partner, Raj Moorjani, director of marketing for Tracks Media Group, for answering my many questions concerning the tech industry—I promise to stop now!
About the Author
Award-winning author Hope Tarr earned a master’s degree in psychology and a PhD in education before facing the hard truth: she wasn’t interested in analyzing people or teaching them. What she really wanted was to write about them! To date, Hope has written twenty historical and contemporary romance novels for multiple publishers, including Operation Cinderella, the launch of her Suddenly Cinderella contemporary series for Entangled Publishing.
Hope is also a cofounder and current principal of Lady Jane’s Salon™, New York City’s first and only monthly romance reading series, now in its fifth year with five satellite salons nationwide. Find Hope online at her websites at www.HopeTarr.com and www.LadyJaneSalonNYC.com as well as on Twitter (@HopeTarr), Goodreads (www.Goodreads.com/HopeTarr) and Facebook (www.Facebook.com/HopeC.Tarr).
Look for the Suddenly Cinderella series finale, Stefanie and Nick’s story, coming in summer 2013.
