Mix 'N Match (No Match for Love) (7 page)

“Why aren’t we following them?” Mitch demanded.

“I’m making sure they get away.”

Alan burst onto the path behind them, the camera raised to his eye. Zoey whirled, planting herself right in front of him. “Why are you following me?” she demanded, her voice louder than it needed to be.

Mitch thought a much better question was
Zoey, why are you confronting the crazy reporter?
But at least Brooke and the rest of the women had disappeared into the crowd.

Alan froze, his eyes flickering back and forth between Mitch and Zoey. “Surprise,” he said, his voice cracking on the word. He leaned forward as though to give her a hug, but Zoey held up a hand.

“We haven’t even been on a date. Following me here is grade-A creepy.”

Alan swallowed, and Mitch had to admire Zoey’s forthrightness. It was knocking Alan off his game.

“I . . . ended up coming here for work last minute,” Alan said. “I didn’t think I’d run into you.”

Zoey planted her hands on her hips. “You mean your work as a reporter?”

Alan furrowed his brows in a pathetic attempt to seem confused. “What are you talking about?”

“What paper do you work for?” Mitch demanded. “How much are they paying you to do a story on Brooke’s bridal shower?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Alan said. “I’m just trying to pay the bills, like everyone else in the world.”

Zoey let out a laugh. “You disgust me.” Then she raised her voice again, and Mitch finally knew what Zoey was doing—causing a scene. “I never would’ve agreed to a date if I’d known you were a crazy stalker.”

Someone gasped, and a few people stopped to watch, creating a bottleneck that only attracted more tourists. A trickle of perspiration trailed between Mitch’s shoulder blades when someone pulled out a cell phone and snapped a picture.

Alan dropped the camera so it hung from the strap around his neck and ran a hand through his hair. “I really need to go. I didn’t come to interrupt your girls’ night.”

“Kick him to the curb, honey!” someone yelled from the crowd.

Zoey grabbed Mitch, yanking him to her. He stumbled, placing a hand on Zoey’s waist to steady himself.

“What kind of a man takes advantage of a girl fighting with her boyfriend?” Zoey said. “I won’t let you come between me and Mitch.”

Zoey’s hand rested on his chest, making it hard to think. Was he supposed to play the boyfriend in this little charade of hers? He did so much better with a script.

The gig was up, and Alan knew it. He clenched his jaw and stepped to the side, his neck craning for a view of Brooke. Mitch stepped in front of him. No way was he going to let this guy ruin the night—or publish his shots in the paper. Maybe he could pay Alan off.

“I didn’t know you were dating anyone,” Alan said.

“Oh, that is
sooo
typical.” Zoey flung out an arm. “And I suppose you didn’t
know
it was stalking to climb in my window at three a.m. either. You didn’t know it was stalking to keep track of a girl’s location through the GPS on her phone.”

The crowd gasped and broke out in whispers.

“I’m not stalking you!” Alan exclaimed.

Zoey let out a loud, hysterical laugh. “I haven’t slept in weeks because of you. Do you even care? I can’t go anywhere without seeing your face. Restraining orders mean nothing to you.”

A woman in a horned Maleficent hat scowled from her spot in the crowd and called Alan a foul name. Mitch had to agree with her, even if Zoey’s story was complete crap. He had to give Zoey credit for thinking fast. He almost believed the tale himself, she told it with so much conviction.

“She’s making this up,” Alan said. He lunged to get around Zoey, but Mitch blocked him once again.

“I’ve moved on.” Zoey wrapped an arm around Mitch, snuggling up against his side. Mitch swallowed hard, suddenly not loving this plan, or maybe loving it too much—he wasn’t sure which. “Mitch is a hundred times the man you can ever hope to be.”

“You tell him, lady!” Maleficent shouted.

“You’re crazy,” Alan said. He raised his voice. “She’s crazy! I barely know her. We haven’t even gone on a date.”

“Oh, so now—after terrorizing me for months—you’ve decided to accept the fact we’ve never dated?” Zoey said. “It’s too little, too late. Don’t make me throw your butt back in jail.”

Okay, this had gone far enough. It was time to end this charade and let the crowd disperse. Camera phones were everywhere, and Zoey was still present enough in the media that someone might recognize her and make the connection to Brooke. The maid of honor sash definitely didn’t help matters.

Mitch tugged on Zoey, trying to pull her away. “I think you’ve made your point. Let’s go, dear.” If only he could figure out how to take Alan’s camera with them. Buying him off was out of the question, now that they’d attracted so much attention.

It was like Zoey read his mind. An overweight and balding man edged his way through the middle of the crowd, unconcerned with the argument going on. Clutched in his hand was an oversized drink.

Zoey reached out and grabbed the cup from the man’s hand.

“Hey!” he shouted.

Quick as lightning, Zoey had the lid off. The dark cola hit Alan’s camera right in the lens and soaked the front of his shirt. Ice dropped to the floor like breaking glass. Someone in the crowd shrieked, and a flash went off from a camera.

“You don’t deserve a woman like me,” Zoey told Alan.

Maleficent clapped, and a few others joined in.

Alan cursed, calling Zoey a name that had Mitch wanting to punch him in the throat. “That was a two-thousand-dollar camera! I don’t have the money to replace that.”

“Try selling the photos to the tabloids now,” Zoey said. Then she grabbed Mitch’s hand, and they disappeared into the crowd.

Last night had to be some sort of awful dream.

Zoey burrowed deeper into the fluffy blankets on her bed, fighting to return to the warm comfort of sleep. But sunlight streamed through the open curtains in her bedroom, making her squint.

Surely Alan hadn’t shown up at the bridal shower and taken photos. At least she’d ruined his camera so he couldn’t post them.

Mitch hadn’t seemed especially thrilled with her solution to The Alan Problem, if his huffy departure last night was any indication. At least Brooke was happy. She’d laughed when Zoey related the story, and they’d spent the rest of the night enjoying Disneyland. Mitch and Alan aside, Zoey was confident last night had been the best bridal shower any of the guests had ever attended.

Zoey stretched, raising her arms above her head and letting out a loud yawn. Another two and a half weeks, and she could stop worrying so much about the dang press. And when Brooke got back from her honeymoon, Zoey would turn in her two weeks’ notice. Probably. Maybe she’d just tell Brooke about her side business and see if she could cut back her hours until it really took off. Brooke was counting on Zoey to help train the new matchmakers, and she didn’t want to disappoint her.

Zoey exhaled, puffing her teal-streaked bangs out of her eyes. “Stop being a wimp,” she said aloud. Why was she so worried about what Brooke would think? This wasn’t about Brooke—it was about Zoey wanting to lie down and die every time a client cried over another failed date.

But makeup . . . Just last week, Zoey had done the makeup for a bride who’d been burned in a grease fire. The bride had barely held back tears at the finished product. She told Zoey it was the first time she felt beautiful since the accident. Toujour was all computer databases and guesswork. But Zoey’s talent had helped give that bride confidence.

Zoey just needed to tell Brooke the truth and quit. Brooke would understand. Hopefully. Worst case scenario, Brooke would hate her, the business would tank, and Zoey would end up unemployed and homeless.

Yeah. Easy, peasy.

Zoey grabbed her phone and swiped a finger across the screen, bringing it to life. She’d received at least a half-dozen emails from prospective makeup clients while at the shower yesterday that she needed to respond to. Hopefully she wouldn’t have to turn anyone away. Her schedule had been packed lately, and she was starting to run out of excuses to explain away her absences to Brooke. If not for Brooke’s preoccupation with the press and the wedding, Zoey knew her secret would’ve been blown long ago.

A message icon blinked. She opened the text, surprised to see Mitch’s name and two cryptic words:
call me
.

Zoey’s nail clicked against the screen before she swiped the message away without a response. If Mitch wanted to continue harassing her about last night, she could do without talking to him. Anything important, and he would’ve called. No, scratch that—he would be banging on her door, demanding answers.

She checked the views on her latest makeup tutorial video—nearly five thousand in less than forty-eight hours, not too shabby—then flipped over to her emails, deleting the spammy ones and leaving the Toujour-related messages for Monday. She responded to a few emails from makeup clients and added their appointments to her calendar, relieved she could fit them all in. Then she checked Instagram before moving on to Facebook.

It only took three seconds of scrolling for the first trending news topic to appear. Zoey yelped, sitting bolt upright in bed. How had a photo of Brooke, her tiara and sash glittering in the street lamps of Disneyland, found its way to Zoey’s newsfeed? The photo also showed Zoey at Brooke’s side. The other party guests were partially hidden due to the angle of the picture, the Haunted House clearly visible in the background. They all looked tipsy.

Bachelorettes Gone Wild.
What a headline.

“No no no no no.” Zoey clicked on the article and rapidly scanned through it. Well, those wedding date predictions were all wild speculation. Still, the article was right about one thing—the wedding date was sooner than Brooke and Luke were letting on to the press.

Wait. Was that a picture of Zoey? She zoomed in, muttering curses under her breath. The photo was grainy—definitely of the cell phone variety—but still worth at least a thousand words.

Someone had caught the moment she threw soda on Alan, then sold it to the press. Alan had probably been the one to buy it. The article didn’t have a byline, but she’d bet money he’d written it.

Zoey closed her eyes. The phone loosened in her hands, then fell forward and hit her on the brow before tumbling into her lap. Zoey growled, rubbing at her forehead.

Brooke was going to freak.

How had Alan gotten the photos off his camera? There was no way it had survived that soda explosion. Had there been another photographer she hadn’t noticed? Had Alan had another camera? The photo quality of everything but the soda picture was too high quality to come from a cell phone.

How had Zoey gotten them into this mess?

Zoey clicked over to the trending topic. The story had already been picked up by nearly a dozen different magazines.

Brooke’s wild night on the town was a result of a big fight between her and Luke. No, it was a bachelorette party, and the wedding must be in L.A. this weekend. Or maybe Brooke’s unstable maid of honor had hosted such a raucous party that they’d been kicked out by security an hour before the park closed. Each article gave a different spin on the night’s events, and all claimed to have insider information.

“I’ll show you unstable,” Zoey muttered. The story by itself wasn’t that awful. The speculations about the wedding date were. Now every paparazzi in the city would tail Brooke and Luke, hoping to be the first to leak photos of the most anticipated wedding of the year. No wonder Mitch wanted to talk to her.

A cry of outrage echoed down the hallway. Looked like Brooke was awake and had seen the story, too.

Zoey’s bedroom door burst open, revealing Brooke in a camisole and pajama shorts, her brown hair disheveled. She brandished the phone at Zoey. “He got pictures. It’s everywhere!”

And it was all Zoey’s fault. “I know. I am
so
sorry. I thought I’d taken care of it.”

Brooke’s eyes brimmed with tears. “All I want is to marry Luke without the world watching. But they’re never going to give me that, are they?”