Romancing Miss Right (11 page)

Miranda knew how to keep Craig Corrow, the
Biggest Pain in her Ass, in line.

“Craig, I think we might be able to help you
get exactly what you want.” She smiled, all teeth. “On the
condition that you stop fucking with my Miss Right’s head. Play
nice and I’ll see what I can do for you. Make my life hell and I’ll
return the favor. Got it?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He grinned, smug and easy, but
now Miranda didn’t find that grin unsettling. She had his puppet
strings now. She was back in control.

Chapter Thirteen

High watt lights angled at
the pool simulated moonlight glittering on the water as Aidan
tilted toward her on the loveseat.

“Marcy, I just want you to know how badly I
want to be here—how sexy I think you are—” Aidan leaned in, his
slurred words and the fumes wafting off him letting her know in no
uncertain terms that he had been partaking liberally of the liquid
courage before this attempt at seduction. “If you want to test our
chemistry, I am ready, willing, and able, baby.”

His lips puckered, eyes falling closed and he
swooped closer. Marcy squeaked and scooted backward on the couch.
Aidan kept listing forward, tipping precariously when he didn’t
bump into her face-first as intended. She braced a hand on his
shoulder to keep him from tumbling to the floor. “Aidan.”

“
Marcy
,” he crooned, still in romance
mode.

She cursed under her breath. Aidan really was
a sweet guy. A little too likely to reach for a bottle when he was
nervous, perhaps, and definitely too inclined to cave to peer
pressure, worrying about what the other guys were saying and
fixating on what he
should
be doing to win her, but he was
so adorably earnest she’d wanted to give him the benefit of the
doubt.

If she hadn’t felt like she was being
attacked lips first for most of the week, she probably would have
had a little more patience for his amorous efforts. It was like
someone had painted a target on her mouth. Every guy in the house
had been on a mission to kiss.

The only date that hadn’t been dominated by
clumsy make-out efforts was Paul’s Napa Adventure—which had been
dominated instead by Paul’s tragic history. Neither of them had
felt much like making out after he’d confided in her that he
donated a kidney to his diabetic sister only to have her die in a
car accident two months later.

But with everyone else, it had been a race to
her mouth.

Aidan swooped in for a second attempt and
Marcy gave him a gentle shove until he collapsed back into the
depths of the plush loveseat.

“Aidan, who put you up to this?”

“What?” he blinked at her blearily. “Put me
up to what?”

“Who told you that you had to kiss me,
Aidan?”

“I
want
to,” he insisted.

“I’m glad, but why are you suddenly in such a
hurry? Why are all of you suddenly all about making out?”

Aidan shrugged. “I dunno. Craig said… you
know.”

“Craig said. Of course he did.” She stood and
Aidan’s head wobbled on his shoulders as he tried to track the
movement with his eyes. “Let’s find you some coffee.”

Then she had a piece of her mind to give to
Craig.

#

“You warned me that you were a bad influence,
but I somehow thought you were only trying to influence
me
.”

Craig looked up from his game of
solitaire—minding his own business like a good boy like he’d been
doing all week—to find Marcy standing over him with her hands
planted on her hips. Tonight was the Elimination Ceremony and he
was laying low, hiding out in the card room and trying to avoid
confrontations, but Marcy had found him and she looked pissed.

Wasn’t that how it always went? Just when he
started actually behaving himself, he got accused of all manner of
nefarious things he didn’t actually do.

He gathered the cards into a stack. “Who am I
influencing now?”

She ignored the question. “Did you start some
kind of competition to see who could kiss me this week?”

“Ah.” He might have done that. Not in so many
words, but he’d known the effect his challenge would have. On the
plus side, at least he was being accused of something he’d actually
done. “It wasn’t a competition, per se.”

“I can’t believe you.” She threw up her hands
and the cameramen swiveled to get a better view. She really was
something when she was pissed off. Face flushed, eyes flashing—it
was a good look on her.
Eat your heart out, America.

“In my defense…” He trailed off. He didn’t
really have anything to say in his own defense. Apologizing,
justifying his actions, they weren’t exactly activities he had a
lot of practice with.

“You did it on purpose. You knew exactly what
would happen.”

Craig slapped the cards down on the table.
Fuck it. Being good was boring as hell. “Of course I did. We’re
competitive beasts, princess. I didn’t even have to say much to
bring out the Neanderthal brigade.”

“That’s your excuse? It was easy?”

“It’s not an excuse. Just a fact.” He rose,
tired of giving her the high ground—literally—in the argument. On
his feet, he had several inches on her, even in those pointy
heels—
don’t get distracted by the legs, Craig
. “How many of
them see anyone beyond Miss Right when they look at you? They’re
competing for the prize. At least I see that there is more to you
than just the girl we all want to win.”

“Do you want to win? Or are you just here to
make a splash so you can become a star?”

“Can’t I do both?” he asked, though he knew
he couldn’t. The winners tended to fade from memory, riding off
into the sunset together. It was the runners-up who stayed in the
public eye.

“I don’t know. Can you?”

“Look, Marcy…” He reached for her, certain
that if he could just touch her, he could bring them back to a good
place, but she shied away from him, stepping back quickly.

“Just stop sabotaging the other guys, will
you, Craig? You may not want to find love, but some of them do and
I’d like them to have a fighting chance.”

If his mediocre efforts could derail them,
they didn’t deserve her, but before he could say as much, Marcy
swept out of the card room, in search of comfort from some other
Suitor.

Craig threw the cards and cursed vehemently.
Let them bleep it out.

#

Marcy moved quickly through the mansion,
needing distance not just from Craig but from all the Suitors, from
the show itself. She was so sick of this. Sick of always being on
display. Sick of having every second of every day planned out for
her. Sick of the illusion that she was in control of the situation
when really she was just a plaything, America’s toy, a doll
supposed to love and laugh and cry on cue.

She tried to block out the sound of the
camera crew behind her. They rushed to keep up as she lifted up her
train and half-jogged in the excruciating high heels into the
courtyard garden. If she never saw another camera crew again her
life, she could die happy. And as for the Suitors, never would be
too soon—

Daniel stepped out of a break in the sculpted
bushes. “Marcy, I’ve been hoping to catch you alone. I have a
surprise for you.”

Her hand went automatically to her face and
she only realized after she brushed her cheeks that she was
checking for tears of frustration. But her cheeks were dry. And
Daniel didn’t even seem to notice she was upset. Perhaps she really
was an ice queen, keeping all of her emotions bottled up behind
Midwestern reserve.

“Daniel, I’m really not in the mood.” Her
voice surprised her with how calm and collected it sounded—further
evidence that she couldn’t show her emotions, no matter how
violently she felt them.

“Let me put you in the mood,” he said. “I’ve
been wanting to do something special for you.”

She wanted to argue. To scream that none of
them ever listened to her—except Craig, which she didn’t even want
to consider. She sighed and extended her hand, letting Daniel lead
her to whatever surprise he’d cooked up for her since it would be a
battle she didn’t want to have to resist him.

Daniel guided her through the courtyard
gardens, back into the mansion, along the west wing—where she’d had
her room when she’d been one of the Suitorettes—and onto the pool
deck. Several of the Suitors were gathered there, looking
incongruous in their suits on the lounge chairs, but Daniel didn’t
pause, taking her around the pool to the edge of the lawn. He then
turned to her and swept her up into his arms—which had none of the
impact of the first time he’d done it—and carried her over the
grass until they were back at the gazebo. Only this time, in
addition to the fairy lights, it was stuffed to the rafters with
roses.

The smell of them hit her first, cloying and
sweet, and she almost sneezed.

Some devil inside her—influenced by Craig, no
doubt—urged her to tell him that she was more of a daisy kind of
girl, loving the happy little faces of the flowers, and that she
actually preferred carnations, with their carefree petals, to
rosebuds. But he hadn’t asked. So she didn’t volunteer.

Then she noticed the cameras. They were
stationary—like the ones that were set up for some of the longer
dinners and events where they didn’t need cameramen chasing them
with steadicams. The kind of cameras that were operated by a
producer by remote, so the cameraman wasn’t even present, giving
them an illusion of privacy they didn’t really have, but at the
moment, Marcy was grateful for even that much space.

“Thank you,” she said to Daniel, glad to have
found a way to mean it. “This is lovely.”

He set her on her feet and took her arm to
help her up the steps into Flower World. It was surprisingly dark,
the flowers blocking out most of the moonlight and making the fairy
lights seem dimmer. Marcy wondered if the stationary cameras would
be using night vision, if her face would be green and her eyes
glowing demonically for whatever romantic scene Daniel had
planned.

“I wanted to make this place for you, where
you can get away from the competition and the stress and just be
with me.” He took both of her hands. “I want you to know that I
know about the kissing gauntlet that one of the Suitors threw down
and how the other Suitors reacted to it and that’s why I’m not
going to kiss you this week.”

Marcy blinked. Daniel was generally pretty
predictable, but she hadn’t seen that one coming.

“I want to be your safe haven,” he went on.
“I want you to know there will never be any pressure from me and
you can always come to me when you need someone who doesn’t want
anything from you beyond the right to guard your heart.”

Would America be swooning, she wondered? Was
there something wrong with her that the line did nothing for her?
She was officially a cynical bitch, letting her skepticism rule her
heart.

“Thank you, Daniel.” She squeezed the hands
that held hers. “I know I can trust you.”

At the word trust, his face screwed up as if
he were in pain. “Marcy… there’s something you need to know.”

He’s gay
.

Shut up, subconscious, that is not helpful
commentary.

While she argued with herself, distracted,
Daniel forged on.

“I thought we had to let you make your own
decisions, your own mistakes—”

How magnanimous of you.

“But I worry that you are acting without all
of the information. I didn’t want to get involved in your
relationships with any of the other Suitors—”

Then don’t
.

“But I can’t in good conscience let you
continue being deceived by this man for another Elimination
Ceremony.”

Marcy searched her feelings—trying to figure
out how to react, to determine what the producers would want her to
feel in this moment, but all she got was a vague curiosity if the
lighting was good enough for them to be having this conversation.
The night-vision feature was typically reserved for blurry make-out
sessions because it wasn’t that sharp.

“I appreciate your candor,” she said.
Even
as I find it slightly insulting that you think I’m oblivious to
everything that’s happening here.

Daniel’s shoulders relaxed at her words. He
was visibly relieved at that slight encouragement. She tugged on
the hands he still held and urged him to the mouth of the gazebo
where the camera crews hovering on the lawn could get a clear,
bright shot of them during this discussion.

“It’s Craig,” he said firmly. “The guys and I
have been discussing it and we don’t think he’s here for the right
reasons.”

Marcy sank down onto the gazebo steps and
Daniel hesitated only a moment before brushing off the other side
of the step and perching on it.

“I know.”

His jaw dropped like a character in a
cartoon. “You know?”

She patted his knee and he caught her hand,
lacing their fingers together. He probably wouldn’t believe her if
she told him that Craig had already told her what he wanted out of
the show. Any more than he would understand why she still wanted
him to stay, knowing that. Sometimes it seemed like he was the only
one here who really got her.

What would Daniel think if he found out that
Marcy
wasn’t here strictly for the right reasons either? How
would he react if she told him that she thought coming on a show
like this for the sole purpose of finding love was an exercise in
naivety and self-delusion?

Daniel thought she was a romantic because she
was a romance writer. He didn’t have a clue that her bar for
romance wasn’t set at roses and moonlight, but rather at a real
connection. The trappings of love just brought out her cynical
side—which inevitably made her feel like a fraud. Like she was
faking her romance expertise. What the hell did she know about
happily-ever-after anyway? She’d never had one. She feared every
day that her readers would figure out she’d been putting one over
on them and the dream job she had would vanish in a cloud of
smoke.