Marrying Mister Perfect (7 page)

“Is that really what you want to do?” he
asked. “Run that show?”

“It’s a stepping stone.” A successful run as
executive producer of
Marrying Mister Perfect
would open
doors for her, giving her the opportunity to create her own shows
like Bennett did and oversee them from on high rather than getting
in the dirt with the day-to-day production duties.

“Are you in town now? We should have a drink.
Discuss your career.”

Another delicious shiver worked over her
nerves. “We’re just starting another season. You know what shooting
schedules are like. I’ll be living at work for the next two
months.”
Literally
. Reality television didn’t have regular
home-by-dinner hours. Most nights she’d be crashing in a spare room
at the Marrying Mister Perfect mansion.

“Are you sure you can’t make time for
me?”

There was something in his voice. Some
lingering trace of the last time she’d seen him, before she’d left
American Dance Star
to take a field producer position on
Marrying Mister Perfect
. She’d been working late in one of
the editing bays, going over the rehearsal footage, when he’d come
down to see how she was getting along. It wasn’t the first time
she’d realized she was attracted to him, but they’d never been
alone, just the two of them, in a small editing bay that suddenly
seemed much, much smaller.

She hadn’t been certain he felt it, the
sizzling chemistry that made it hard for her to breathe.

He hadn’t been inappropriate with her, but
she’d been hyper aware of his presence, of the scent of his
aftershave as he’d leaned over her shoulder to point out a moment
she’d missed.

She’d also been acutely aware of the fact
that they wouldn’t have been the first people to use the editing
bays for something other than editing. The hours in reality
television could be hell on relationships and more than a few
workplace affairs sprang up during the late nights.

Bennett had absently tapped his wedding ring
on the back of her chair as he leaned over her toward the
screen—and she’d known she had to get away from
American Dance
Star
. She loved the show, but she’d known that if she stayed,
she would end up lunging at her boss one night.

It would be a nightmare if he rejected her in
favor of his wife and even worse if he didn’t. She would always be
his protégé, never his equal. And everyone in Tinseltown would look
at her differently. Bennett’s little pet.

So she’d left. Promising herself that she
would keep her distance. Even when she’d read about his divorce she
hadn’t contacted him, wanting to come to him as an equal or
nothing.

She wasn’t quite there yet.

“I’m sorry. You know how it is.”

She could feel the force of his personality
pressing through the phone, see him raking a single long-fingered
hand through his brown-beginning-to-silver hair. “I do. Take care,
Miranda.”

“And you, Bennett. I appreciate the
call.”

She hung up before her willpower evaporated.
Tossing her phone onto the hotel bed so she wouldn’t have to look
at it, she went back to the desk and pulled her tablet toward her,
trying to focus on the notes she’d been making regarding Jack’s
initial interviews.

She needed to stay focused. Glen was
officially out and Miranda was sending reports directly to the
show’s uber-executive producer, Wallace. Wallace who wouldn’t
hesitate to fire her rather than promote her if everything didn’t
go off perfectly this season.
Marrying Mister Perfect
’s
creator and head honcho, he was notoriously risk averse—hating the
unexpected, which was why most of his shows were thinly veiled
knock-offs of other successful shows. But Miranda was determined
that
Marrying Mister Perfect
was not going to be just
another dating show.

This season was going to be different.

Things were going well. The camera loved Jack
to a disgusting degree. The Suitorettes were going to be delirious
with joy when they laid eyes on him.

And Lou…

A little twinge of guilt threatened to
rise.

She’d had a feeling Lou still had feelings
for Jack. She thought if she dangled
Marrying Mister Perfect
in front of them, perhaps it would serve as a catalyst to push
their relationship in a new direction, but it was rapidly becoming
apparent that while Lou had never gotten over her crush as
thoroughly as she claimed, Jack was profoundly oblivious to her
feelings for him.

Miranda told herself she was doing a good
thing. Lingering in romantic limbo for years on end wasn’t good for
anyone. She was doing Lou a favor. At least this would be quick.
Like ripping off a band-aid.

She’d known that Lou was eavesdropping today.
Nothing happened on her set that she wasn’t aware of. She hadn’t
censored her words, perhaps because part of her still hoped Lou
would be driven to some action or declaration… which she could then
get on camera.

She’d instructed the roving behind-the-scenes
camera crew to get extra footage of Lou, making sure she caught her
gazing at Jack. It might become useful to the storyline later in
the season.

The Suitorettes hadn’t even arrived yet and
already she had jealousy and heartbreak in the making.

Miranda scrolled through her notes, Bennett’s
words rising up in her mind. Was she using her powers for good?

Chapter
Seven

Lou leaned against Kelly’s sliding glass
door, staring out at the back deck where Jack stood guard over the
steaks, his chest puffed out with the masculine pride of manning a
grill. Peter lazed on a deck chair with a cold beer and Lou kept
Kelly company as she puttered in the kitchen. The kids pelted
around the backyard in an inexplicably complicated version of tag
while the sound from the pregame show they were all ignoring
filtered in from the living room.

Their Sunday afternoon ritual. The last one
before Jack flew off to California.
The last one ever?

The TV crews had finally packed up and left
and Jack himself was scheduled to leave on Tuesday. Less than
forty-eight hours. The countdown had taken on an ominous edge.
This is the end.

“
Marrying Mister Perfect
. I still
can’t believe he agreed to it,” Kelly said behind her.

Lou forced herself to stop staring at Jack
like he was going into a warzone—
minefields of silicone and
spandex—
and took a chair at the breakfast bar as Kelly popped
an apple streusel pie into the oven and set the timer.

“You know how he is. Straightest path from
point A to point B. It seemed like the most direct way to fix the
problem.”

“What problem? I had no idea you guys were
having trouble.”

“Not trouble, just our rut. The codependent
pseudo-marriage thing. Typical Jack he was completely oblivious to
it—if it isn’t the thing he’s focused on right this second, it’s
like it doesn’t even exist for him—but as soon as he noticed it, he
had to fix it. The TV show thing sort of fell in his lap at around
the same time, and he thought it was a great way to force us to
move on with our lives.”

“Is he wrong?” Kelly reached for the “Mommy’s
Special Lemonade” pitcher and poured two tall glasses of her
modified lemon drop martinis.

Lou accepted her glass from Kelly and took a
long drink, tasting the tang of the lemons even as the vodka burned
its way down her esophagus.

She wanted him to be wrong. She wanted
everything to stay just as it had been before… with one or two
romantic changes that were never going to happen. “He’s not
wrong.”

She hated this feeling. Like this entire mess
with the reality show was somehow her fault because she hadn’t been
able to just be happy with the life she had. And now she wasn’t
going to have it anymore, courtesy of
Marrying Mister
Perfect
and their team of internationally renowned
matchmakers.

Kelly took the place Lou had occupied at the
glass door, watching the action in the backyard. “You know, with
his single-mindedness,
Marrying Mister Perfect
might be
perfect for him. When he’s with one of the Suitorettes, he’ll be
totally focused on her and not distracted by the other girls.”

Lou sipped at her lemon drop, not wanting to
admit he was sort of amazing at it so far.

“What do your families think?”

“His parents are…I guess guardedly supportive
would be the best way to put it.” The Doctors Doyle had a
complicated relationship. Doctor Doyle Senior had been openly
disdainful of the idea of going on reality television until Jack
had explained how he could use the exposure to benefit the
hospital. Then he’d seemed almost grudgingly admiring of the balls
it took to go on the show.

Lou’s mother had been more direct. “My mom
said, and I quote, ‘Thank God, Louisa. Now you can finally get on
with your life.”

“Tactful. What will you do? Go back to…”
Kelly had been looking out the window, her eyes absently tracking
the kids, but now she twisted to frown at Lou. “I don’t know what
your job was. That makes me a terrible friend, doesn’t it? All I
remember about the time you moved in was that the twins were
starting to walk and refused to sleep at the same time so I’d
become this zombie-mommy monster who never had enough hands—”

“But still managed to make me insanely
delicious deserts and stop by three times a week just to make sure
we were doing okay.” Kelly had probably saved her sanity in those
early months.

Kelly blinked. “I did that? Huh.” Then her
lips curled in her usual crooked smile. “When you put it that way,
I sound pretty fabulous. You’re lucky to have me, you slacker.”

Lou grinned. “Amen.”

“So what
did
you do, pre-kids?”

“I studied languages. I wanted to be a
simultaneous translator—mostly because I wanted someone to pay me
to fly to exotic locales. I was working as a French tutor and
teaching English as a second language when Emma was born.” And
Gillian had passed away and suddenly Jack had needed her. “I took a
couple weeks off to help, just to get Jack through the funeral and
help him find someone permanent.”

“Long couple weeks.” Kelly’s bright eyes were
unusually serious.

“That was the year of the teacher
strike.”

Kelly shook her head, not comprehending. “But
TJ and Emma would have been too young for school.”

“They were. But all the kids who normally
would have been in school were home. There was a run on qualified
childcare. Daycare waiting lists were a hundred names long and a
good nanny could name her price. I hadn’t been making that much at
my teaching jobs and so I offered to play nanny for Jack for a
while. It was never supposed to be permanent, but I fell completely
in love with those kids. TJ was such a charmer and Emma was growing
so fast.” And she’d been hopelessly in love with their father.

“So are you going to go back to work? Now
that you’ll be able to?”

“I don’t know if I could. I’m so out of
practice. And the idea of starting from scratch and pinching
pennies for a room in a tiny apartment is pretty unappealing.”
She’d been spoiled by this life. By not having to worry whether the
bills would be paid. She felt like a divorcee who’d been out of the
workforce for four years, but she wasn’t even going to get alimony.
“I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Which sounded too much like
I don’t know
who I am
for comfort.

She’d gotten so comfortable in this life. Lou
knew she used to feel passionately about things other than the kids
and Jack, things that were just about her, but now she couldn’t
even remember what that passion felt like.

“Do you ever feel like you’ve forgotten how
to be the kind of person who chases her dreams?”

“Truthfully? Not really. But I’m not a big
dreamer. Give me a peaceful afternoon with a good book and I’m
happy. But that doesn’t mean the way you feel is wrong.”

“Yes, it is,” she insisted. “Because it’s all
a lie. A giant game of freaking pretend and there’s no magic wand
to wave to turn it into a real life.”

Kelly frowned. “You lost me. Or I’m already
drunk.” She eyed the glass in her hand. “This batch is a little
strong, isn’t it?”

Lou shrugged and took another drink. She
could use strong today. The last few weeks had been hell on her
emotions—a part of her almost wished Jack would go already so she
could stop praying for a stay of execution.

The sliding door whooshed open.

“Lunch is served.” Jack stood in the opening,
carrying a tray piled high with meat and wearing the expression of
a conquering hero. Lou felt something tight in her chest loosen at
the sight of him—and as soon as she realized it had, her stomach
soured.

That
was who she was. The girl who
silently adored Jack too much for her own good. The girl who pinned
her entire future on the fantasy that someday he would love her
back. Jack was right to do the show. She couldn’t be that girl
anymore.

#

“The Challenges are character tests—do
not
keep the girls who fail or America will hate you,
because you’re a shallow loser who doesn’t care about moral fiber.”
Kelly made air quotes around
moral fiber
, nearly flinging
her forkful of pie across the table in the process, and Jack
suppressed a grin.

She’d been giving him tips on how to succeed
at
Marrying Mister Perfect
since he came inside after
getting the kids settled on the child-sized backyard picnic table
with their hotdogs. He knew he should be paying closer
attention—he’d probably kill for this information in the next few
weeks—but knowing it would be his last for a while, he just wanted
to enjoy the normalcy of this afternoon. Kelly yammering, Peter
tipped back in his chair nursing the same beer he’d been peeling
the label on for the last hour, and Lou beside him smiling an
absent
thank you
when she glanced around the table, looking
for something, and he put the whipped cream canister into her hand
without having to be asked.