Daddy's Fake Bride (A Fake Marriage Romance)

by Caitlin Daire

  “Damn. So it might not be her. We’re back to square one,” I said, my shoulders slumping.

  Eden shook her head. “Not necessarily. We should still finish watching the video feed for that night. Like you said, it was a late dinner.”

  She un-paused the kitchen hallway footage, and when the time-stamp read approximately 7:45 P.M., we saw someone else entering the hallway and stepping into the kitchen.

  “Oh, shit,” I said, my eyebrows practically shooting to the ceiling. “Is that…”

  Eden nodded. “Yep,” she said, her face drawn into a grim expression. “It’s Blair.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Eden

  I stared at Troy for a moment, my eyes wide.

  “No,” I finally managed to get out. “This has to be wrong.”

  Surely my eyes were deceiving me; there was no way that Blair could be the saboteur. We’d had our problems in the past with my discovery of her lie about Troy’s letter, but that didn’t mean she was completely crazy or vindictive, and we’d moved on from that issue. Or at least I thought we had.

  Not only that, she’d been the target of the saboteur’s spitefulness in the past. She’d had her hair products tampered with, and her hair had almost been ruined with bleach. She wouldn’t do that to herself…would she?

  “It’s right there on the screen. Technology doesn’t lie,” Troy said. “She was in the kitchen for about three minutes that evening.”

  “This doesn’t make sense,” I said, shaking my head. “She was targeted! Why would she target herself?”

  Troy raised an eyebrow. “Maybe she did it to make herself look innocent. After all, we haven’t suspected her at all this whole time, because we saw her as being one of the victims. Also, think about it. Having her hair bleached in chunks wasn’t that bad. Sure, she was upset, but it was a very easy fix, right? All we had to do was get the hair and makeup crew to dye it back to brown and put some conditioning crap in it, and it was all fine.”

  My shoulders slumped, and I shook my head again. “Why would she do this? She doesn’t want to win the show, at least not badly enough to do something like sabotage other people in such awful ways.”

  “Well, maybe she’s innocent. I guess there could be another reason for her being in the kitchen that night.”

  “She’s always been very concerned with her diet; always trying to stay as skinny as possible. I suppose there’s a chance she went in there to speak to the chefs about how healthy and low-calorie the food was,” I said.

  “Ask them.”

  I contacted the kitchen crew via walkie-talkie again, and a few minutes later, I had my answer. No one remembered seeing or speaking to Blair in the kitchen that night at all.

  Troy leaned back and put his hands behind his head as he stretched out. “Well, there you go. If no one saw her or spoke to her, then she must’ve been sneaking around in there. And why else would she do that?”

  I shook my head. I still couldn’t believe it was Blair. “What if she went in there looking for someone to ask about the food, and she simply couldn’t find anyone? She wasn’t in there for long.”

  Troy reached over and stroked my hand. “Eden, I know she’s your friend, and you want to defend her, but I think we’re out of excuses. It’s her. It has to be.”

  “You don’t know that!” I said hotly. “That video doesn’t really prove anything other than that she went into the kitchen that night. So did Cailin.”

  “Yes, and we’ve already proved that Cailin couldn’t have done it,” Troy said gently. He paused for a moment before continuing. “Eden, how well do you really know Blair these days? I know you two were close in high school, but that was a long time ago. How often do you even see her?”

  “I guess we try to catch up every few months. It’s hard when we live in different cities.”

  “So you only see her a few times a year, then,” he said. I nodded, and he went on. “Look, I know it’s hard to think about, but maybe you don’t know her as well as you thought you did, at least not anymore. Look how long she hid the whole letter thing from you.”

  “That was different. She had a reason for that, and she was really remorseful for doing it.”

  “Or so she says,” he replied. “Whose idea was it for her to be on the show, anyway?”

  “Mine,” I replied indignantly. “I thought it would be good for her.”

  “Are you sure it was really your idea, though? Think about it carefully.”

  I hesitated. “Well…whenever we spoke about work in the past, she did talk a lot about how her business was failing and how she would love it if she had a chance to promote herself like the Stud contestants get to. But it was definitely my idea to recruit her as a contestant. She never asked.”

  “Sounds like she planted the seed for the idea in your head. Common manipulation tactic. I mean, who knows, Eden? Maybe everything she says or does is just a manipulative game.”

  I sighed and sat down, my whole body slumping. He was right. I just didn’t want to admit that my friend could’ve been behind all these awful sabotage attempts this entire time, and I didn’t want to admit that I could’ve been so blind as to not notice the sort of person she could’ve turned into over the years.

  “You’re right,” I said softly. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. It’s not your fault. You’re a good person, Eden, and you want to believe that other people are mostly good, especially those you’re close to. It’s much easier to think that the saboteur is someone you barely know, because then it’s easier to comprehend how they could be capable of such horrible things.”

  I sighed and nodded. “I’ll call Candice and tell her what we’ve found. I’d tell Glenn, but he went into town with the rest of the crew.”

  Candice arrived a few minutes later, and she watched the footage with narrowed eyes. She didn’t question why Troy was here with me; she probably assumed that he happened to be in the media room by coincidence.

  When the video was over, she turned to look at me. “Sorry, but this doesn’t really prove anything. It looks bad, and you’re probably right, but we can’t boot her off the show for that alone. It’s not hard evidence.”

  God, I was sick of hearing that.

  “Troy could cut her in the next elimination, right?” I said.

  Candice looked at Troy and nodded. “Sure, he can cut whoever he wants. But the next elimination ceremony isn’t for ten days. If we want her gone before then, then we need solid proof for the show lawyers, like actually catching her red-handed.”

  “Wait...I’ve got an idea,” I said as a plan slowly formed in my mind. “We’ll need to go into town to buy some very specific stuff for tomorrow night’s date filming, though.”

  Candice winked. “Well, it’s lucky that we’ve still got the rest of the day off then, isn’t it?”

  ***

  “Tonight has been so wonderful, Blair. I’ve had a really great time, and honestly, I think I can see you going all the way to the end with me.”

  Troy looked into Blair’s eyes as he spoke, and Glenn silently commanded the film crew to zoom in and capture the moment. Blair had been scheduled to have a one-on-one date with Troy this evening as part of this week’s episode, and we’d taken the chance to enact my plan.

  “I’ve had a great time, too,” Blair replied, steadying herself on the rocking canoe they were sitting in.

  They weren’t actually out in the lake at all—the canoe was positioned on a machine that sat in a small pool and simulated the gentle rocking it would experience out on the water, so that the crew could get up close and personal during the ‘date’ without any risk of water damage to any equipment.

  Troy smiled and took Blair’s hand. “I actually have a little surprise for you. It’s just a small gesture, but I thought it was cute, and I thought of you when I saw it.”

  “Oh?”

  He reached into a gift bag that he’d left on the cramped floor of the canoe, and he smiled beatifically as he p
ulled out a teddy bear.

  “When I was a kid, I used to have a bear that looked just like this one. I always felt like he was watching over me and protecting me whenever my life got hard,” he said.

  “I know you had a difficult childhood,” Blair cut in, nodding emphatically.

  “Yeah. It was rough. Anyway, you’ve been having a hard time with finding love these last few years, among other issues, so I thought I’d give you your own bear. He can sit on your nightstand and watch over you. It’s totally lame, I know. I just thought it would be nice,” Troy said, giving her his best attempt at an embarrassed grin.

  God, he was good.

  “It’s adorable!” Blair cooed. “I love it. I’ll put him beside my bed as soon as we get back!”

  “Cut!” Glenn called out. “We need to fix Blair’s makeup a bit. She’s looking too shiny. But that’s fantastic work so far, everyone. Really nice touch bringing up your shitty childhood in such a cute way, Troy. Really tugs on the heartstrings; our viewers will eat it up. Whose idea was it?”

  “Eden’s,” Candice said. “She thought it would work well.”

  She winked at me, and I smiled at her. So far, things had gone perfectly to plan. Blair had accepted the gift and gushed all over it like we thought she would, now that Troy had told her she might go all the way to the end of the show, and she obviously didn’t suspect anything about the gift itself at all.

  Of course, the bear wasn’t just any old bear. It was a nanny cam bear that Candice and I had managed to find in a small electronics store in town, and anything it filmed would be transmitted wirelessly to my laptop. We’d have a perfect view of Blair’s bedroom and everything she did it in when she thought she was alone, and we were bound to spot something incriminating if she was truly our saboteur.

  Hopefully sooner rather than later.

  “Good job, Eden,” Glenn said before turning his attention back to the fake boat. “Oh, for the love of god…the canoe is going to tip right over on that thing. Get out, both of you!”

  Troy climbed out of the canoe along with Blair, and he made an ‘OK’ sign with his thumb and forefinger as he looked at me with a questioning expression in his eyes. I nodded and mouthed ‘you did great’ before turning my attention towards Candice, who was nudging me.

  “That went well,” she said. “But I know she’s your friend, so I hope it’s not her.”

  I swallowed hard, part of me hoping for the same thing. Maybe this was all a big misunderstanding, and Blair was completely innocent.

  All I could really do was wait and see.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Eden

  Three days had passed since Troy gave the nanny cam bear to Blair, and I was starting to think that we’d been wrong about her. I’d watched the footage from each day on high speed every evening, and so far I hadn’t seen her doing anything out of the ordinary. I’d even started to feel bad for spying on her, because for all we knew, our original suspect—Anya—was the real saboteur. After all, Emily had permanently left the show in a huff yesterday after her hair extensions had failed to mask her new bald spots properly, and Anya had simply snickered and said ‘bye!’ in a sing-song tone, before giving us a nice little interview about how she was glad that Emily had quit, leaving only four contestants still in the running.

  Troy really seemed to believe Anya was just playing up the mean-girl attitude for the cameras to boost her acting career, but I wasn’t sure. Honestly, I didn’t know what to think. Who was it more likely to be at this point—her or Blair?

  Or was it someone else entirely?

  Until now, I hadn’t considered this, but what if our saboteur was actually an angry crew member? That opened up the issue to a whole other realm of possibilities, and I felt like I was drowning in a sea of confusion as I considered it all.

  I got an answer to all my questions sooner than I thought I would, though.

  It was about seven o’clock P.M., and I had a rare night off while a small dinner party scene between Troy and the remaining contestants was filmed. I was in my trailer, eating a microwave meal and listlessly watching the empty footage from Blair’s bedroom, but I perked right up when something caught my attention on the screen.

  The time-stamp was from earlier in the day, and it showed Blair doing something strange on her dressing table; it looked like she was chopping something up with a knife. I squinted at the screen and zoomed in on her as much as I could, wondering what on earth she was up to, and then my blood ran cold. Right next to her was a bag, and I recognized the label because it was the same brand my parents used to eat on family movie nights. It was a bag of unsalted peanuts.

  Oh, shit.

  Blair really was the saboteur, and she was crushing up peanuts, most likely to slip them into Cailin’s food. Cailin was severely allergic, and something like this wouldn’t just hurt her.

  It could kill her.

  My whole body went numb with pure shock at my discovery, and the next few minutes flew by in a haze of fear and adrenaline. I quickly saved the video to a thumb drive and then left my trailer before dashing towards the mansion, where I knew the contestants would be starting the dinner party soon, and I burst into the main dining room five minutes later.

  “Wait,” I gasped out.

  Glenn turned to me and held his hand up. “Shh!” he said. “We’ve just started filming. I thought this was one of your scheduled nights off.”

  I turned and looked at the table. Shit. I was too late; they were already at least halfway through dinner. Cailin had just finished polishing off a small bowl of what looked like chicken curry, and she smiled as she finished chewing her last bite. “That tasted amazing,” she said, patting her stomach. “I love Indian food. It reminds me of the time I went to…” She suddenly coughed and squinted her eyes, and then she brought a hand to her chest.

  “Call an ambulance,” I said, whirling around to Glenn. “I think there’s peanuts in that curry she’s been eating, and she’s allergic.”

  Cailin nodded, her eyes watering now. “Yes,” she gasped out. “I’m having…I can’t breathe properly. Get my Epi-Pen!”

  “Where is it?” Candice asked, racing towards her.

  “My purse. Right…there. Floor,” Cailin managed to choke out as she gasped for air.

  Troy was sitting at the head of the table, and he got up so fast that he knocked his chair right over before racing over to Cailin, concern etched into his face. “Just try to breathe,” he said, gently patting her on the shoulder. “It’s gonna be fine, I promise. Candice is getting your medication.”

  Glenn dialed 911 as Candice went through Cailin’s purse in search of the Epi-Pen, and he barked orders at the operator to send an ambulance as soon as possible. Cailin’s neck, chest and arms were starting to break out in angry red hives, and I watched helplessly as Candice continued her search.

  “Where is it?” I asked. “What’s taking so long?”

  Candice finally tipped the entire contents of the purse on the floor, and then she stood up, her eyes wide.

  “It’s not here,” she said. “The Epi-Pen…it’s gone!”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Eden

  The next few minutes sped by in a flurry of panicked activity. Glenn shouted at one of the crew members to go to the first aid room on the ground floor and grab one of the spare adrenaline shots that were thankfully kept on site in case of emergency, and Troy continued in his attempt to keep Cailin calm as she gasped for breath. Even though her life was in serious danger, his words seemed to soothe her, and she nodded as he told her that help would be arriving any second now.

  I was so proud of him for being such a wonderful, calm person. He really had changed from the boy he used to be, back in the day when he was a douchey heartbreaker who didn’t care about anything but getting laid and starting fights. He wasn’t that boy anymore.

  He was a real man now.

  I kept my USB stick gripped tightly in my right hand, and I began to cross the room towa
rds Blair, ready to give her a piece of my mind before outing her to everyone.

  “Eden! Can you help?”

  I turned at the sound of my name to see Candice holding the adrenaline shot that’d just been brought in from the first aid room. “I have no idea how to do this,” she said. “You took an advanced first aid course once, right?”

  I nodded and dashed over to them before grabbing the little syringe and holding it above the muscle on Cailin’s left thigh. “This will only sting for a second,” I said before jabbing it into her flesh. She winced with pain, but the shot had its intended effect within a minute, and she began to take big gasping breaths.

  “Oh, thank god,” Candice muttered as she watched. “Thank god.”

  Two EMTs dashed into the room about ten minutes later, and Candice helped Cailin into the back of the ambulance after they’d checked her vital signs. They said she was going to be fine, but she needed to be taken to a hospital to monitor her condition for a while just in case.

  Glenn came running over as they got inside the ambulance with the EMTs, and he gestured to Troy. “Troy, you go with them as well. And you,” he said, pointing at a few filming crew members now. “Take a car and follow them with one of the handheld cameras. I want some footage of Troy holding Cailin’s hand in her hospital room.”

  I rolled my eyes, unable to believe that he’d turn a serious emergency into a plot device for the show. Actually, wait…I could believe it. He was totally and utterly shameless.

  Troy climbed into the ambulance with the others, and when they’d taken off, I turned and marched over to Blair, finally ready to let her know that I was on to her. She was standing at the far end of the room, silently watching everything unfold around her, and when she saw me coming, she hurried towards me, her eyes wide. “Oh my god, Eden, I can’t believe this happened!” she said.