Falling for Mister Wrong (9 page)

“I have to leave? But my piano…”

“Is it insured?”

“Well, yes, but…”

“I’m sure you love it like family, but it’s
an instrument. No instrument is worth dying for. Do you have
someone you can stay with tonight?”

“Yes.” The word was whisper soft.

“Hey.” He hooked one finger under her chin,
tipping her face up so he could see those dark blue eyes again.
“Hopefully we’ll both get to come home soon and you can serenade me
some more, but better safe than sorry, right?”

She wet her lips, staring at his eyes and
giving a minute nod. Then her gaze slid, heavy and slow, down to
linger on his mouth.

And suddenly he couldn’t help himself from
looking at hers. The curve of it. The lush, rosy temptation.

His breath grew shallow. And damn if hers
wasn’t coming short as well.

He hadn’t really looked at a woman in so
long. Hadn’t been interested. Hadn’t
wanted
. Not like this.
Attraction hit him like a mule kick to the gut. Suddenly her pale,
soot-stained skin looked pearlescent in the lights from the
mountain. Her eyes were huge and vulnerable—but not weak, just
hopeful, like everything she had ever wanted was piled into each
look and it all hung on him. She looked at him like he was a god or
a genie—or the angel she’d called him when he first
appeared—someone who had the power to make all her dreams come true
if he just said yes.

And damn if he didn’t want to say yes to her.
He didn’t know how a man would ever be able to tell this woman no.
Not when she was looking at him like that.

His free hand lifted of its own volition to
tuck a stray auburn curl behind her ear, the little brush of her
skin against his finger impossibly soft. And still she watched him.
He couldn’t tear his eyes away. She listed forward, just an inch,
her eyelids going to half-mast.

“Caitlyn…” He breathed her name like a
caress, soft and inviting, but it broke the spell.

She flinched, blinking rapidly, jerking back.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what I—” She shook her head, hard.

“No.” He came to his feet in one movement,
occupying himself with the flashlight. “No, it was me.” He yanked
his cell phone out of his pocket, extending it down to her. “You
should call your friend. It’s late.”

“Right.” She took the phone, blushing,
looking down, whispering again, “Right.”

The wail of the approaching siren sounded
like salvation on multiple levels.

Chapter Nine

Caitlyn groaned at the throbbing in her
skull, then coughed as the groan shredded against the rawness in
her throat, then whimpered as the volume of the coughing made the
jackhammer in her head pick up the pace.

Hangover with a side of inferno.

And deathly embarrassment.

She hauled the comforter up to her eyebrows,
wondering how long she could pretend the last twenty-four hours
hadn’t happened. Though if she was erasing history, maybe she
should go further back. About six months should do it.

No more Mister Perfect. No more public
humiliation or setting her apartment on fire and making an idiot of
herself in front of insanely hot fireman neighbors.

She lowered the comforter enough to peek at
the clock on the bedside table. Ten sixteen. She had no idea when
she’d finally gotten to sleep the night before, after the rest of
the fire-fighters showed up and Mimi arrived to pick her up. She’d
left her apartment in their hands, Will promising to lock the
building’s exterior door, since hers no longer sat right on its
hinges after he’d kicked it in to get to her.

She wasn’t worried about her stuff. It was
Tuller Springs, after all, where crime was pretty much limited to
the occasional act of vandalism or reckless endangerment by
thrill-seeking snowboarders and no one was more than two degrees of
separation away from anyone else.

Which didn’t explain how she’d never met
Will.

She’d had no idea her downstairs neighbor was
so hot. Tall and rippling with muscle, with dark brown hair a
little on the long and shaggy side and the most soulful brown eyes
she’d ever seen in her life, fringed by lush black lashes that any
girl would kill for.

He must be taken. It was the only reason Mimi
or one of her other friends wouldn’t have tried to set them up with
one another. Not surprising. That body, those eyes, a core of
heroism—guys like that were never single.

But there’d been a moment last night when
she’d been so certain he was about to kiss her.

Probably her imagination. She’d never been
very good at reading signals. Homeschooling and world concert tours
hadn’t exactly done her any favors when it came to social
interactions with the opposite sex. She’d been so relieved when
everything was so natural and easy with Daniel.

Daniel.

Her stomach rolled nauseously.

And kept on rolling.

Caitlyn scrambled out of bed and bolted for
the bathroom, making it there just in time to empty her stomach in
a wrenching heave. She flushed and groaned, sagging to the floor
beside the toilet in case her stomach decided it wasn’t done
rejecting the vodka. “Never again,” she promised the sink.

“That’s what they all say.”

Caitlyn looked up, grimacing as the bathroom
light hit her squarely in the eyes. It was tempting to tell Mimi to
get lost and let her wallow in peace, but then the objects in
Mimi’s hands registered – a jumbo bottle of aspirin and a glass of
water.

“Bless you.”

Mimi handed over the goods and folded herself
down onto the bathroom floor beside Caitlyn, in the narrow space
between her feet and the vanity. Today her yoga pants were hot
pink, the streak in her hair was electric blue, and layered tank
tops of yellow and purple completed the color assault. “I believe
this is what is known in the business as a cry for help.”

“What business is that?” Caitlyn rinsed with
the water, downed the aspirin and let her head thunk against the
wall—it was entirely too heavy for her neck right now.

“I think getting drunk and setting your own
house on fire is a cry for help in pretty much every business ever
invented,” Mimi said dryly.

“I didn’t set my house on fire. It was a tiny
little electrical issue.”

“Of course it was. But to ease my mind, you
won’t be watching any more episodes by yourself.
Capisce
?”

“Yes, Don Mimi.” She should get up. The last
thing she needed was for Mimi’s two kids to see Auntie Caitlyn in a
hangover sprawl on the bathroom floor. “How long do we have before
Trent and Mia Grace come investigating?”

“I had Ty drop them off at Monica’s for a
play date. Figured you could use the peace and quiet. I need to
pick them up at noon, but until then I’m all yours.”

Caitlyn cringed. She knew Mimi valued
kid-free time like manna from heaven and jealously guarded her play
dates. “Sorry you had to use one for me.”

“Shut up,” Mimi said mildly, and when Caitlyn
looked over there was a suspicious shine in Mimi’s eyes. “I wanted
some girl time. And I’m worried about you. Since when do you drink
alone? You barely have a glass of wine with dinner and suddenly
you’re binge drinking like a rock star and burning down
houses?”

“I didn’t try to burn my house down, Mimi. It
really was electrical. And minor. The firefighter guys said it
would have happened even if I’d been stone cold sober.”

“I’m a bad friend. Friends don’t let friends
get drunk and watch their hearts get broken on national television
alone. I should have been there.”

Caitlyn swallowed hard. She wanted so badly
to tell Mimi everything. That it wasn’t a broken heart that was
making her feel sick every time she thought of the show. That she
was engaged to a man she was terrified she didn’t love—and that she
was becoming more and more sure she didn’t even know who he really
was beneath all the layers of reality-TV hype that had been piled
on him. That she’d actually agreed to
marry
him on the
reunion show and every time she thought of walking down the aisle
with America watching she had to reach for her Tums. That she
wanted nothing more than to run and hide until the show was all
over—but she was terrified this was going to be her only chance at
the life she wanted and the universe wouldn’t give her another if
she wasted it.

“You aren’t a bad friend,” she whispered. If
anyone in that bathroom was, it was her. With all her damn
secrets.

It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Mimi. She
did. She trusted her not to tell on purpose—but she knew her friend
well enough to know sometimes things just popped out of her mouth
when they weren’t supposed to. She’d get so caught up in a story
she wouldn’t even remember that part of it wasn’t supposed to be
told.

Five million dollars. The nondisclosure
promised to sue her for five million if she let the truth slip. So
she sat on the bathroom floor and hated herself for the lie of
omission, but kept her mouth shut.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Mimi asked
hesitantly. “About watching the show last night?”

Caitlyn grimaced. What she wanted was to
pretend it wasn’t happening.
Cowardice, thy name is me.
All
she could think about was Daniel’s smile—which she’d never thought
was smarmy and smug before last night. She’d freaking
loved
his dimples. Maybe that was the alcohol talking. Or her own doubts.
Maybe she just needed to hear his voice on the phone and she’d
forget all her fears.

Damn. She’d left the MMP cell phone at her
apartment.

Though that was probably for the best. She
hated that she’d become this girl—this needy creature who was
desperate for a call from her fiancé. She didn’t want to be that
girl. Maybe she should drop the phone down the garbage
disposal.

“You looked gorgeous in that silver dress,”
Mimi said hesitantly, when Caitlyn had been silent for too long.
“He wasn’t lying when he said you looked like an angel.”

Angelic.
Caitlyn cringed. She’d been
so focused on making a good impression, she couldn’t even remember
what she’d thought of her first glimpse of him.

Not like last night. The moment Will burst
into her life felt like it was branded into her memory, never to be
erased. It was probably the adrenaline from the fire that made him
seem larger than life in her memory. A dark god come to save her.
The adrenaline and the alcohol. He was probably just another guy.
Normal. Average. Forgettable.

But she hadn’t been scared as soon as he
appeared. And then, when he’d thrown her over his shoulder like she
weighed nothing…

“Are you okay?” Mimi asked. “Your face is
turning all red.”

Damn redhead complexion.
She’d never
been able to hide her feelings. “Do you remember the first time you
met Ty? Like the very first second?”

“Not really. He was a friend of a friend and
we were all just sort of hanging out. I remember he said something
funny, but I don’t think I even knew his name until my friend said
he wanted to take me out. Not like the movies. Why?”

Caitlyn shook her head. “It’s weird. The show
makes such a big deal of first impressions and tries to add
romantic impact to all these moments, but I can’t remember a thing
from meeting him. I must have thought he was handsome, because…”
She waved a hand in a
well, obviously
gesture. “But I was so
swallowed up in nerves, I probably wouldn’t have noticed even if my
heart
had
skipped a beat and the world stood still.”

Mimi frowned. “So you were really into him? I
saw your hair a few times in the preview footage for coming weeks
and thought you might have gone pretty far since at least one of
the locales looked tropical, but I wasn’t sure your heart was in
it. But it was?”

Again, the truth burned on her tongue. The
Rock of Ages was tucked in the bottom of the overnight bag she’d
brought. She could just put it on and wag her hand in front of Mimi
and she wouldn’t even have to say anything.

And then get sued for five million dollars
when Mimi accidentally blabbed.

“He seemed really nice.” She carefully
selected her words, trying for truth without giving anything away.
“He always knew the right thing to say and I thought I might have
really strong feelings for him—even when I left—but now when I
watch it back, I don’t know what to think.”

“I sometimes wish I could watch pieces of my
life over again without the perception filter of whatever I was
feeling at the time,” Mimi said. “Maybe this’ll be, like, the best
break-up therapy ever. Just no more watching by yourself.”

“I repeat: the fire was not my fault.”

“Hey, no need to get testy. I believe you.
But just in case we should probably head over to your place and
make sure the arson investigator isn’t going to press charges.”

She’d been feeling much better—the aspirin
had kicked in and her brain was no longer trying to escape her
skull through brute force—but at the mention of arson charges, her
stomach did another backflip and probably would have hurled its
contents toward her throat if there had been anything left to
hurl.

She needed a T-Shirt.

I went on a reality TV show and all I got
was this lousy prison sentence for arson.

And a fiancé she wasn’t sure she wanted
anymore.

Some years needed a reset button. And this
one had just started.

Chapter Ten

From the outside, the chalet looked perfectly
normal. The fire hadn’t made it all the way through the exterior
wall, so when they pulled up in Mimi’s Mini Cooper, Caitlyn had a
moment of idiotic hope that maybe the entirety of last night had
been an alcohol fueled hallucination.

But inside, reality intruded. The door to her
apartment was lying on its side on the landing with a note taped to
it. Caitlyn plucked up the note and trailed Mimi into the
apartment, nearly knocking her friend over when Mimi stopped
suddenly, gaping at the damage.