by Lizzie Shane
“I haven’t seen this spot in years,” she marveled, reaching out to touch one of the curved stone benches.
“We haven’t used it in the last five seasons,” Josh explained. “Too over the top.”
Which for Marrying Mister Perfect was really saying something.
An oasis in the middle of overgrown foliage, the Old Grotto looked like a cross between a sultan’s palace and a Greek temple. Low stone benches and half-finished columns surrounded a shallow pool which bore a distinct resemblance to a part of the female anatomy.
“It is something.” Sidney eyed the emptied pool.
“The producers keep talking about remodeling it, but it never seems to happen.”
She perched on one of the stone benches and Josh thrust his hands deep into his pockets. “Look, Sidney, I know we didn’t really have a chance to talk about that night. Things happened that shouldn’t have. I’d had a lot of scotch and I’m not sure what all I said, but you’re here for Daniel. We both know that. Anything else is impossible, but I can’t help thinking you aren’t fully investing in the process because of me. I’d just hate to see you lose out on this opportunity because you imprinted on me that night like a baby duck.”
Sidney released a startled laugh. “As flattering as the baby duck assessment is, there might be more to it than that. Both my lack of interest in him and the fact that I like you. I might just like you, Josh.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“I like what I do know.”
“From watching me on television? Do you really want to give up your shot at something real with Daniel because you’re infatuated with my celebrity? I’ve seen it before. You build up this golden ideal of who I am in your head, but that isn’t me. No one sees who you really are when you’re famous. They only see what you can do for them and who they want you to be.”
“Such a cynic. I’m sure your family and friends don’t see you that way.”
“Yeah, but they knew me before I was anything.” It was part of why he’d clung to his marriage to Marissa long after they both knew it was a lost cause. She’d wanted him before he was TV’s Josh Pendleton. He might never have that again.
Sidney cocked her head at him. “I bet you were always something.”
He frowned. “How did we get on this topic? We’re supposed to be talking about you and Daniel. Miranda wants me to talk to you before the Elimination Ceremony tonight about opening up to him.”
“I’m not so sure Daniel wants to be let in.”
“Of course he does.”
“You’re so certain of that? Can you honestly tell me you never get the impression he’s just nodding and smiling and waiting until it’s his turn to talk when he’s with us?”
“Hate to burst your bubble, sweetheart, but all men do that.”
“You listen to me.”
“Yeah, well, you won’t stop talking. I don’t have a choice.”
“Very funny.” She leaned forward on the edge of the bench. “I know he’s the one I’m supposed to want, but do you really think he actually has feelings for any of us? He loves being Mister Perfect, but I don’t think that’s the same thing as actually being interested in any of us. Let alone loving us.”
“It’s early. Give your feelings time to develop. If you just let him closer—”
“It’s hard to get close when he’s busy putting you up on a pedestal. He wants the trophy girl. The one he can show off as tangible evidence that he won at life. We’re the prize. I feel like if I showed him any human frailty he would send me home. If he even noticed.”
“Give the guy a little credit.”
“I guess being objectified is flattering in a way. I’m not used to men thinking I’m too pretty to have a personality. I’m more accustomed to being the invisible girl.”
“I find that hard to believe.” He took a seat opposite her, bracing his forearms on his knees.
“You’d be surprised.” She stood then, pacing around the grotto. “Miranda wants me to tell him my story. Ride my past to next week—but if I take the sympathy ring, all that will prove is that Daniel doesn’t want to be the dick who dumped a girl right after she told him something that made her vulnerable. It won’t mean he actually cares about me or feels any sort of connection with me.”
“I didn’t know you had a sob story to tell.”
“I used to be heavy.” She said the words sharp and fast, without hesitation, though he could tell they weren’t easy for her. “Which isn’t a tragedy, but the producers are treating it like it’s my deep dark secret that I lost 85 pounds before I auditioned for the show.”
“Did you lose the weight just for the show?”
“No, it wasn’t for him or anything like that. I struggled with my weight my entire life and then a few years ago I started running. I wasn’t doing it to lose weight. I’d pretty much given up on being thin by that point. But running cleared out my head and calmed me down and it sort of became an obsession. I always avoided scales, so it wasn’t until my clothes started fitting strangely that I even realized I was losing weight. Then I started being more careful about what I ate and I don’t know. I guess my metabolism shifted. And voila.” She waved a hand at her lean runner’s build.
“And you don’t want to tell Daniel that?”
“I don’t trust him to react the right way.” She shoved her hands into the pockets of her hoodie, circling the pool. “I’m still that girl in my head. When I go shopping, I still automatically go toward the plus sizes. I still hate having my picture taken.”
“That’s why you shy away from the cameras.”
Sidney grimaced. “They do add ten pounds.”
Her nervousness, her shyness—so much more made sense when he realized she didn’t see herself as others did. He’d type-cast her as the bubbly California blonde without a care in the world, but that wasn’t Sidney.
“There’s this voice in my brain telling me I’m being silly,” she went on. “Saying I’m thin now and I’m pretty now, but the rest of me calls that voice a liar. And I hate compliments. From anyone.”
“Compliments?” Josh often got sick of the sycophantic praise that Hollywood seemed to run on, but he didn’t think that was what Sidney meant.
“When you’re the chubby girl, people say things like oh, what pretty eyes you have, and I always felt like it was a little patronizing. Like there was this little for a fat girl attached to the words. Even being complimented on how smart I was felt like it was the consolation prize for the fact that I wasn’t pretty and thin. My track coach in high school told me during tryouts that I was pretty light on my feet for a big girl. He was amazed I could get over the hurdles. I’d always loved running, but after that I never wanted to go back. It took me years to start running again and when I did the weight fell off and everyone started giving me gushy compliments without the fat girl qualifiers and I started to resent it.”
“Your track coach sounds like an ass.”
“He meant it as a compliment. And it wasn’t just him. People always judge you on how you look. I know I’m not different inside, but people treat me differently and it’s hard not to resent it. Like when you said the only people you trust to really love you are the ones who knew you before you were famous?”
“I’m not sure I put it that way—”
“I want someone who would love me even if I was eighty-five pounds heavier. And we’re both being ridiculous. Because everyone wants to be famous and thin. But it still feels unfair that we don’t get to test our lovers to see if they really do love us or just the people we present to the world now. I never would have gotten on this show before I lost the weight and even if I had I wouldn’t have made it past the first Elimination Ceremony, but I still wish I knew if he would have picked me even if I wasn’t thin.”
“He might have. I don’t think he’s as shallow as you’re painting him.”
“I’ll never know. Just like you’ll never know if your celebrity is the only thing attracting me to
you.”
He was not going to get sucked into another conversation about her attraction to him. “You need to give Daniel a chance. He might surprise you. Just be real with him. You might be the most real person we’ve ever had on this show.”
“With you. It’s different with him. Besides, I’m not sure he wants real.”
“Give him some credit. Show him what you show me and he’ll love you. He won’t be able to help it.”
Chapter Six
Show him what you show me and he’ll love you. He won’t be able to help it
Those words seemed to echo in her brain like a song on repeat as she dressed and put on her makeup for the Elimination Ceremony. She wasn’t sure why they stuck so firmly in her brain, every detail engraved down to the look in his eyes and the pitch of his voice—like the moment somehow formed the basis of her existence.
Was it because he was right? Did she need to show Daniel who she really was? Josh had accused her of imprinting on him like a baby duck and not giving Daniel a chance. Had she really done that? She’d painted him as shallow and self-involved in her mind, but was she doing him a disservice? Was she ruining her own happy ending by dismissing Prince Charming as a frog?
Only one way to find out.
Sidney threaded her way through the pre-Elimination party. The other girls were all in the habit of being aggressive, but this was the first time she’d gone hunting.
She found him in front of the outdoor fireplace, curled up beneath a faux bearskin throw with Elena as she purred sweet nothings into his ear.
“Daniel, I was wondering if I could steal you away.”
His head snapped up, a guilty flush rising to his cheeks. “Of course!”
Sidney carefully averted her gaze as he disentangled himself from Elena’s clutches and straightened his clothes—making a conscious effort not to think about what Elena had been doing to him beneath that blanket. Daniel took Sidney’s hand, threading their fingers together, and led her away from the scene of the crime, toward the gazebo where fairy lights twinkled. The altar from the first night was long gone, but the padded benches were still there and Daniel led her to one, settling down and automatically cheating out toward the cameramen who were circling to get the best angles.
Sidney smoothed her skirt, barely resisting the urge to hunch away from the cameras.
Daniel took her hands, gazing straight into her eyes. If nothing else, he was good at eye-contact. “You look beautiful tonight.”
“Thank you.” She squirmed, then realized he’d given her the perfect opening. “I’ve never been very good with compliments.”
“Gorgeous girl like you?” he grinned. “I’d think you’d be bored of them by now.”
“Actually, I, uh, I didn’t used to look like this.”
He dimpled at her, little boy charming. “Plastic surgery?” he joked.
“I was… bigger. Growing up. A lot bigger.”
He lifted one hand to trace her cheek, his gaze as besotted as ever. “And you’re so beautiful now. You may have had an ugly duckling phase, but now you’re my beautiful swan. We all had to go through struggles to get here—like Marcy breaking my heart—but now I know that all that happened for a reason. So I could be here in this moment. With you.” He leaned in and she had to fight the urge to pull away from him as he went in for a kiss.
He was a perfectly adequate kisser, but her spine felt like it was being pulled in two—all her instincts shoving her back as she forced herself to lean toward him through sheer willpower.
Josh had listened, but Daniel couldn’t get past the listening fast enough. He just wanted to give a speech about how he accepted her and then kiss her… without ever making her feel accepted.
Comparing Marcy dumping him to a lifetime of battling her weight and her poor self-image… she couldn’t help thinking he’d diminished what she said. Or just used it to pivot the subject back to him as quickly as possible.
His tongue invaded her mouth and Sidney pulled back—her instincts winning the battle. Daniel smiled seductively and stroked her cheek. Crap. He was going to kiss her again.
And double crap that her reaction to him kissing her again was crap. That couldn’t be a good sign.
“Oh, Daniel…”
Tiffani’s cooing call preceded her around the corner—and a spike of relief jabbed hard into Sidney, letting her breathe again like an emergency procedure to open her airway.
“Duty calls.” Daniel winked and Sidney forced an understanding smile.
He rose and Tiffani latched onto his arm, already simpering about something she just had to show him. Sidney watched them go, certain she would later hear Tiffani gush about their intense connection. The camera men filed after the pair in a perfectly choreographed dance, but one of the producers hung back, crouching in front of Sidney.
“Would you like to do an interview now? Tell us how it felt to talk to Daniel about your past while it’s still fresh? We can get you set up in one of the confessionals right away.”
“No, I’m good. Thanks.”
Somehow she didn’t think the producers wanted to hear that she’d been annoyed by Daniel’s reaction and mildly repulsed by his kiss.
The producer smiled understandingly and patted her knee. “We’ll make sure we get you in there before the Elimination Ceremony.”
“Great.”
Maybe by then she would have thought of something camera appropriate to say.
*
“Caitlyn, do you accept this ring as a symbol of my affection and commitment to this journey?”
“I do.”
Josh watched as Daniel slipped the gold band onto Caitlyn’s slim finger and kissed her cheek. On his left hand, his own wedding ring chafed at his finger. His divorce may be public, but the Suitorettes were kept so isolated they wouldn’t know about it for weeks and to avoid distractions from the journey the producers had asked him to keep wearing his ring until they wrapped filming.
Caitlyn stepped off the platform where Daniel stood in front of a modified altar and returned to the line-up of beautiful women Daniel was picking between for the Elimination Ceremony. Samantha, Elena, and Tiffani already had rings on their fingers, with a half dozen more little gold bands on the altar waiting to be given out.
Josh had always liked the Suitorettes—even the ones who were only there for their fifteen seconds of fame. It was easy to dismiss the Suitorettes. Easy to diminish what they did, putting themselves out there in the most extreme way for a chance at true love. It was easy to discount them as naïve or shallow—as he’d been inclined to do when he was hammered the other night—but there was bravery in making yourself vulnerable on national television. He had to admire them.
Josh had befriended hundreds of gorgeous, accomplished ladies over the years, but never, not once, had he ever felt this slight, simmering edge of agitation during an Elimination Ceremony.
He wasn’t jealous. The idea was ridiculous.
But every time Daniel picked up another ring, Josh’s hackles went up until he called a name that wasn’t Sidney’s. Only then did Josh’s tension ease.
He had a job to do. He couldn’t be glowering every time Daniel looked Sidney’s way. He couldn’t be thinking that she deserved better than Mister Perfect.
He’d dodged a bullet with his divorce, but he couldn’t afford even a whisper of impropriety with a Suitorette or he’d be another Hollywood has-been on the unemployment line.
It was a stupid infatuation. A rebound. She’d been in the right place at the right time and his subconscious had latched onto her when he’d needed someone to take his mind off Marissa. That was all this was.
He could beat it.
“Sidney.”
The muscles in his shoulders knotted abruptly beneath his tailored suit. Sidney emerged from the line-up, her heels clicking on the polished hardwood floor as she crossed the room and climbed the platform to stand in front of Daniel. He held the ceremonial ring with both hands, raising it to chest-height a
s he stared deeply into Sidney’s eyes.
“Sidney, do you accept this ring as a symbol of my affection and commitment to this journey?”
If he hadn’t been staring at her, he would have missed it. Unfortunately, everyone was staring at her. So everyone saw her flick her gaze slightly to the side and make eye-contact with Josh. He nodded, just a subtle tuck of his chin, and her gaze returned to Daniel.
“Yes. I do.”
Josh released a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding as Daniel reached for Sidney’s hand to slide on the ring. He wasn’t sure what had just happened. A Suitorette had never looked to him for confirmation during an Elimination Ceremony before. When Sidney turned to return to the line-up, Josh let his gaze track around the room, watching for any sign that everyone else had noticed the momentary lapse, but the crew members all acted as if it was business as usual.
Until his gaze collided with Miranda’s, the EP watching him with a question beetling her brow.
Shit. Of course the last person he’d wanted to notice had noticed.
Josh gave her a nod—as if he’d only been doing what she’d instructed him to do, encouraging Sidney to open up to Daniel. Her frown held for a moment longer. Then Daniel called the next name and she turned her attention back to the ceremony at hand. Josh released another breath. He was going to asphyxiate if this kept up.
Of its own volition, his attention returned to the line of Suitorettes. And the blonde in the blue dress.
She didn’t look any happier about the ring on her finger than he was about the one on his.
Had she talked to Daniel? He wanted to ask one of the producers, but he couldn’t show an unusual interest in her. He’d given her an on-camera pep talk earlier, going through the usual script about opening up and letting love in, but it had felt staged and stilted. And that was how things had to be between them. Even if he knew she was real in a way so few people were in this world.
