She had just asked Sydney to fill them in on what they had been taping at the bridal salon.
“It was a closed set,” Deena said. “So we didn’t get to see what was going on. Although I suppose you have to close the set or you’d never get anything done with all the onlookers. So, what happened?”
Before Sydney could chew the bite of pot roast she’d put in her mouth and swallow it—
“Oh, I’m sorry, dear,” Deena said. “There’s nothing worse than someone asking a question just as you’re taking a bite. You take your time. Chew your food. Answer when you’re ready.”
But Lucy changed the subject.
“Umm, Dad? How come you never told me you fought in Iraq before I was born? I never knew you got your ass shot!”
“Lucy Denise Mercer! You watch your language, young lady.”
“Well, is it true? Isn’t it, Dad? Did you almost die?”
All eyes swiveled to the elder Miles, who was staring at her with an expressionless face. He lowered his fork, which had been poised midair when Lucy first began her line of questioning. Now his forearms were braced on the table. His hands were clenched into tight fists.
“I mean, I know you said Miles got shot because he was dinking with the video camera when he should’ve been paying attention,” Lucy said. “But I never knew about you getting hit.”
“Where did you hear this?” was all her father said.
“Miles told me, duhh. Where else would I have heard it? No one bothers to tell me anything around here. Especially not the good stuff. So he said you’re a hero. Like a real live war hero. Is that true? ’Cause if it is, I can’t wait for you to tell everyone about it at career day. I mean, you got shot? Like, for real?”
The elder Miles’s eyes cut over to his son’s. They locked gazes for a solid ten seconds.
No one spoke.
Sydney steeled herself for…for what? World War III? She had no idea what would happen. She couldn’t read the father’s steely, expressionless face. And she lacked the experience with a real family to even guess how this would play out.
It felt like the times in the various foster families she’d stayed with when someone would start yelling or swinging and she would do her best to disappear.
Here she was, thirty-five years old and she still hadn’t gotten over it. She still wanted to disappear. The only way she knew to cope when things got this tense was to…leave.
But then something unexpected happened. The elder Miles broke the staring standoff and looked at his daughter. His face softened.
“He said I was a war hero, huh?”
Chapter Thirteen
As Miles drove to work the next morning, he was still surprised that Lucy didn’t know the details of their father’s military career.
Why the old man had kept it a secret was a mystery. Actually, it was pretty par for the course. The things his father should share he kept close to his chest, while he spewed unfiltered thoughts and caustic remarks liberally.
His father’s approach had become such a standard since Miles had served in the military and then opted to go to college that Miles didn’t even flinch anymore.
He’d come to terms with the fact that he and his father didn’t—and probably never would—see eye to eye. They were two vastly different people and Miles understood that. He’d never been the type to futilely bang his head against the wall when it was going to accomplish nothing more than giving him a bad headache. So when his father had taken issue with Miles’s choice to go to college and leave the military, Miles wasn’t surprised his dad had found reason to blow their relationship sky high, especially after his movie was a success.
However, his father was so volatile, Miles had had no idea how he would react to him telling Lucy the details of his past. He was glad Lucy hadn’t mentioned she’d asked Miles to career day. Since she seemed to be happy with her war-hero father coming to speak to her class, her asking Miles would remain this little secret.
As he steered his Jeep into the Celebrations, Inc., parking lot, he saw Sydney’s car. He glanced at the dashboard clock, which glowed seven forty-five. He’d left her place after midnight and she was already at work. The first one there. Even with a job interview on the horizon, you couldn’t doubt her integrity. Now that they’d made love, he hoped that she would be just as committed to him—even if she got the job in St. Michel.
By nine forty-five, Sydney had already put in a few hours of work. Now she was in the kitchen, helping Caroline set out cake samples for Lily and Josh to try. The couple was due in at ten o’clock and they were scheduled to start taping the segment at half past the hour.
Caroline had made mini versions of her specialties. The sample cakes, which were the size of a large cupcake, had developed a cult following since the show had aired. There was a four-week order backlog and Caroline and her assistant were baking them as fast as time would allow.
As Sydney set out the perfectly crafted red velvet mini cake—Caroline’s specialty—she guessed that it would be the couple’s favorite.
It was a game she played with herself—when they had brides and grooms in for a tasting, she liked to try and guess which flavor they would choose.
Sydney had only met Lily’s fiancé once, when she, Miles, Lenny and Aiden were choosing the three finalists. This would be the first time since Lily had been officially chosen the winner of Celebration’s Bride that he would be on camera.
Still, even with the limited amount of time Sydney had seen them together, she said to Caroline, “I’ll bet they choose the red velvet. They just seem like a red velvet couple to me.”
That’s the flavor Sydney would choose if she were the bride. Reflexively, her gaze searched the set until she located Miles, who was studying something on a clipboard with Aiden.
As if he felt her looking at him, he glanced up, held her gaze in that sexy way he had, and then flashed that crooked half smile. A luscious shiver of wanting ran through her. She smiled back at him, but she hoped it made her look as if she wasn’t affected by that smile…those eyes.
Even though she was.
Oh, she most undeniably was.
She looked back down at the cake, straightened the plate and then glanced back at him, biting her bottom lip for effect.
Aiden must have said something that Miles missed because Aiden suddenly followed Miles’s gaze to Sydney. When he saw what was going on, he rolled his eyes in mock exasperation. Then all three of them laughed.
Caroline came around the corner with a freshly frosted carrot cake. “What’s so funny?” she asked.
“Aah, nothing…and everything,” Sydney answered, her voice sounding a little breathless, even to her own ears.
It didn’t take long for Caroline to catch on to what was happening. “God, are you two flirting again? If you weren’t so perfect together, I’d tell you to get a room.”
Her words stirred Sydney’s fight-or-flight reflex, making it rear its head. It made Sydney take a mental step back. Why was she fine flirting and making love as if it didn’t mean anything, but then when someone backed her into a corner and tried to hang a label on them—as a couple or being perfect together—she began to paddle backward to the distant shore of solitude and safety, where she could then run like hell.
She didn’t look back at Miles. They both had work to do, anyway, since Lily and Josh would be here any minute. It felt a little late, so she pulled her phone out of her pocket and checked the time.
It was 10:05.
Clocks could be off five minutes in either direction, but she made a mental note to ask the couple to do their best to be punctual. Miles was making sure Catering to Dallas ran a pretty tight ship and even a few minutes’ delay could throw off the production schedule.
For an insurance policy, she decided to give them a call time fifteen minutes earlier than she actually needed them. That was a little trick she’d learned in her years of dealing with the media. That trick had saved her clients more often than she’d like to admit. And the vast maj
ority were never the wiser.
She was just about ready to put her phone back in her pants pocket when it rang. Lily’s number flashed on the screen.
“Please tell me you’re not going to be terribly late,” Sydney said in a cheery tone. “I just helped Caroline set out the most delicious cakes I’ve ever laid eyes on and I don’t know how long I can keep from sticking my fingers in the icing.”
There was a beat of silence that lasted a moment too long, and at first, Sydney was afraid the call had dropped. Then, in a rush of tears and sobs, Lily wailed, “We’re not coming. Sydney, the wedding is off.”
It was worse than Sydney had feared. When she’d dragged Miles to Lily’s house, she’d gone with the intention of helping Lily and Josh quell prewedding jitters. Lily had said that Josh had called off the wedding because he thought she was making a circus out of it by putting it on television.
“He told me,” Lily said between convulsive sobs, “that he wasn’t going to be on television. I reminded him that this was the only way we could afford to have the wedding of our dreams. He told me it was the wedding of my dreams, not his. Then I told him, I’m only getting married once and I want to do it right in a way we’ll always remember, and he accused me of letting the party get so out of control that it had become more important than our union.”
Sydney wanted to bury her head in her hands, but she didn’t. She sat ramrod straight with her hands on her lap on the same couch where she and Miles had sat two weeks ago when Lily had been all smiles, serving them coffee, tea and sweets.
Now this Celebration’s Bride contest, which was supposed to have been a great way to reward a couple, to give back to the Celebration, Texas, community, had backfired and was threatening to tear this sweet couple apart.
The thing was that Sydney understood how Josh felt. Or at least she imagined she did. She wouldn’t want to get married amidst the glare of a television production, under the scrutiny of a nation that was probably hoping something horrible, something just like this, would unfold right before their eyes.
This brilliant idea of hers had created a monster and if it was the last thing she did, she was going to make things right for this couple.
Lily and Josh had been together since they were teenagers. They’d made her believe in soul mates and happily ever after. Bloody hell, they were a bona fide unicorn couple.
Sydney got up and handed Lily a tissue.
“I have an idea,” said Miles, who had been mostly silent as the ugly, tearful, heartbreaking scene had unfolded. He looked at Sydney. “I don’t think Lenny is going to like it, but…” He shrugged.
“Who is Lenny?” Lily asked as a big tear meandered down her cheek.
“He’s one of the producers of the show,” Miles explained. “He likes to bring the drama, but I think we’re going to overrule him this time.”
He shot Sydney a knowing look and she gave him a nod of encouragement. She had no idea what he was going to say, but she wanted to trust him. At least he had an idea; she was coming with nothing.
“You are happy to be on the show?” he asked Lily.
She shrugged. “I didn’t mind it when I thought Josh was okay with it. He said contests like that are a crapshoot and he thought we’d never win. That’s why he didn’t object to me entering.”
“How do you think Josh would feel if only you appeared on the show?” He paused, seemingly to gauge her reaction. “If he was okay with it, maybe he’d be okay with us airing a bit of footage from your wedding. Footage that your videographer shoots. We wouldn’t come in there with our cameras blazing. That way you could still have the wedding of your dreams and we will still have the footage we need for the show.”
Lily blinked and sat up a little straighter.
Of course! It was a brilliant plan and Sydney wanted to reach over and hug Miles for it.
Instead, she asked, “Do you think Josh would go for that?”
“He just might,” Lily said, swiping at her tears.
“Well, why don’t you dry your eyes and call him and ask him to come over here?” Miles said. “Tell him that we’ve worked everything out and we want to talk to him.”
Josh arrived about thirty minutes later. As he and Lily were having a private moment in the kitchen, Miles excused himself to go back to the set to deal with Lenny, who had called at least five times since they’d been there. Sydney and Miles had taken separate cars so that he could leave and get back to salvage some of the morning—possibly bump up one of the vignettes that had been scheduled for the afternoon in place of the thwarted late-morning shoot.
“He’s probably climbing the walls,” Miles said. “I texted him that we had a situation that needed tending to. I tried to keep it as vague as possible to buy us time to sort it out. Although I guess it was pretty obvious who it involved when everyone was missing when it came time to shoot this morning. I’ll tell him we need to reschedule Lily for tomorrow and that you’ll be back to shoot after lunch. Sound good?”
Sydney nodded. “He probably started rubbing his hands together in glee when he learned of this sudden shift in story line.”
He planted a quick kiss on her lips. “Don’t worry, okay? Everything is going to work out the way it’s supposed to.”
Sydney nodded, desperately wanting to believe him. After Miles shut the door behind him, the house was eerily still, except for the ticking of the grandfather clock that stood sentinel in the old-fashioned living room and the low murmur of Lily and Josh, who were still talking in the kitchen. Sydney had one ear trained on them to see if she could discern the tone of their conversation.
She didn’t mean to eavesdrop or invade their privacy. She just wanted to be sure that they were going to be okay, that this television show hadn’t torn apart an otherwise good relationship.
Sydney was due to leave for St. Michel in three days. Even though working as the press secretary to the royal family would bring its own set of challenges, at least she would be working for the betterment of something. The work she would be doing wouldn’t be destructive. It certainly wouldn’t be reality TV.
Suddenly, Lily let out a mournful plea and her sobs resumed.
“Oh, no.” Sydney sighed. That did not sound good. She had to fix this, even if it meant releasing Lily from the show. The show could get one of the other runners-up to step in as the grand-prize winner. It’s not as if it would be hard to find a taker. And next time they’d interview the groom more thoroughly to make sure he wasn’t camera shy.
In the short amount of time Sydney had spent with Josh, he had seemed crazy about Lily. Unless Sydney had read all of the signals wrong. Had she been so blinded by the fact that the two had been together so long that she’d missed telltale signs? They had seemed so deeply in love, but Sydney had to wonder if she’d missed something.
“Josh, no!” Lily wailed as her fiancé strode into the living room with a look of steely determination on his face. Lily had hold of his right hand, trying to pull him back.
“Please don’t go,” she begged. “We can work this out.”
“There’s nothing to work out, Lily,” he said. “Stop embarrassing yourself any more than you already have.”
Lily let go of Josh’s hand, sank to her knees and covered her face with her hands. Sydney’s heart was breaking as she watched the young woman fall apart.
“Josh, please,” Sydney offered. “We can release Lily from the show if that will make a difference.”
Josh turned his fiery eyes on Sydney, who reflexively stood up straighter, calling on every bit of her five-foot-nine inch frame.
“Nah,” Josh said. “It’s not the television show.”
“Then what is it?” Lily yelled from her crouched position. “Tell me what it is, Josh. You at least owe me an explanation.”
Josh turned around and smirked at Lily. “You really want to know?”
She nodded, mascara stains training down her cheek.
“You really want to do this here?” He gestured to Sydn
ey.
Sydney considered offering to leave, except she really didn’t want to leave Lily alone in the state she was in. The poor girl had lost her parents and her grandmother, and now her fiancé had one foot out the door. Sydney knew what it was like to feel so alone in the world that you had nowhere to turn, not a single shoulder to lean on. Unless Lily told her to get out, she was going to stay right here to make sure she was okay.
“You owe me an explanation, Josh.” She was standing up now, looking rather formidable in her anger.
“You’re too fat, Lily. I’m not going to marry you because you’re too fat. You couldn’t even fit into that dress you spent a house payment to buy. This is as good as it gets, Lily. You’re just going to get fatter and the bills are going to keep piling higher. This is not how I want to spend the rest of my life.”
Sydney stood frozen. If she didn’t move, maybe they would forget she was there.
“Keep the ring,” he said. “Sell it and use the money to make that house payment you spent on that dress you’ll never wear.”
With that, Josh turned and walked out the door.
Lily stood there for a moment as if she were frozen to the spot where she stood.
“Lily, I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do?”
Lily shook her head. “Just, please…leave. Please? I want to be alone. Please go. I’m…sorry.”
The young woman turned and walked down a hallway. She disappeared into a room—a bedroom or a bathroom? Sydney wasn’t sure.
She stood there for a moment, unsure what to do. Should she honor Lily’s request and leave or should she wait and see if she needed her? It might be nice to have a friend at a time like this.
Only Sydney wasn’t really her friend. She was the one who had gotten her into this ugly debacle.
As Sydney stood there stinging from the pain of Lily’s humiliation, another emotion took over.
Wasn’t this how it always worked?
Josh hadn’t broken the engagement because Lily was too fat.
Lily’s weight was simply an excuse for Josh’s backing out of the wedding. He didn’t want to marry Lily. Period. Any excuse would have done. It brought all sorts of unwelcome memories flooding back to Sydney. If someone made up their mind to ditch you, they would find a reason. Any reason.
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