Romancing Miss Right (12 page)

But Daniel didn’t know that because he didn’t
know her. Was that because he wasn’t looking? Or because she wasn’t
showing him?

And what could she tell him now to explain
why Craig was going to get a favor tonight, because Daniel was
probably the best Suitor she had and she didn’t want to lose him
over the guy she already knew wasn’t going to stick around long
enough to win her heart.

Marcy looked down at their interlacing hands.
“I don’t expect you to understand—”
Truth
. “But I’d like you
to respect that if I do keep Craig it’s because my relationship
with him—while unconventional—is still worth exploring to me.”
Truth.
“But I appreciate your desire to warn me.”
Bald-faced lie.
“And I will keep your reservations in mind.”
Because they are the same as mine.

Daniel’s mouth puckered for a moment like he
was sucking lemons, then his gaze flicked side-eye toward the
cameras and he lowered his voice to whisper—though the mics would
easily pick it up and subtitles would clarify it for any viewers
who might miss it. “Are the producers pressuring you to keep him
because he creates drama?”

“I can’t talk to you about the show,
Daniel.”

His face instantly cleared. Apparently her
evasion was as good as a confession. “I understand,” he intoned
gravely, though she was reasonably certain he didn’t. She thought
for a moment he would hug her, but he just sat there, holding her
hand. “If you ever need a respite from him, I am always here for
you. I’ll be your safe haven.”

But who will be yours when you discover I’m
just like him?

Chapter Fourteen

As soon as Marcy walked
into the library and saw the thick red folder sitting on the desk,
she knew exactly what was about to happen—she’d seen the show,
after all—but she played along, feigning ignorance as Josh
Pendleton led her to one of the chairs and sat down opposite
her.

His face was as somber as his dark grey suit
and the shadowy lighting the producers had arranged in the dark,
wood-paneled library only added to the funereal atmosphere. Josh
leaned forward, somehow managing not to wrinkle or crease his suit
with the action.

“Marcy, I know to this point you’ve been
enjoying getting to know the Suitors—the first few weeks really are
all fun and games—but this is when things start to get serious,”
the host intoned direly. “In a few minutes, I’m going to reveal to
you and only you the results of the compatibility tests that our
team of experts has prepared, evaluating your potential
relationships with the remaining thirteen men.” He nodded toward
the infamous red folder. “At that time it will be entirely up to
you what you choose to do with that information and whether you
choose to reveal it to the men themselves or to the viewers at
home. As you know, you have a few more days and two more dates
before the next Elimination Ceremony, but we felt you might like to
let this information guide you as you sort through your Suitors in
anticipation of the
most important
Elimination Ceremony
yet.” Josh straightened, meeting her eyes. “Are you ready?”

He made it sound like he was about to hand
her a loaded gun, not a file full of compatibility tests, but Marcy
managed to keep a straight face and meet his question with the same
degree of gravitas. “I’m ready.”

Josh stood, walked to the desk, collected the
red folder and returned to her, holding it out to her with both
hands. When she accepted it, he nodded gravely. “I’ll leave you to
it.”

The host exited, leaving her alone—if you
didn’t count the two camera crews, one mobile and one stationary,
that were there to catch her every reaction.

Marcy stood and moved to the chair at the
desk, making a show of taking a deep breath before she released the
string binding the folder together. The breath might be for
show—but it wasn’t entirely fake. She’d been nervous about this
part from day one.

What if she wasn’t compatible with any of
them? Or what if the person the experts wanted her to end up with
was someone she didn’t particularly like? Not that she
dis
liked any of the remaining men, but there were some she
wasn’t sure it was a good idea to be too compatible with.

Like Craig.

If Craig was her most compatible Suitor, what
would that say about her? He was openly materialistic, ambitious
and ruthless—which, okay, yes, was a lot like her, but she didn’t
want America to know those things about her. She wanted to be
compatible with someone wholesome and good—like Daniel—not someone
who openly admitted he wasn’t interested in love.

Marcy flipped open the cover. The
compatibility tests were always arranged from worst to best. She
flipped quickly past the first few—no surprises there. Her relief
grew as she didn’t see Daniel’s name at the top of the pile. But
she didn’t see Craig’s either.

Impatience grew and she flipped to the back
of the pile—her most compatible Suitor.

Ninety-two percent. Not the highest the
experts had ever given, but perfectly respectable. And the name at
the top of the page?

Not exactly respectable. Craig Corrow.

Shit
.

Daniel was next highest. Eighty-nine percent.
Almost as good. But not quite. No, her most compatible Suitor was
the one man she’d been afraid she was too much like. And there it
was in black and white. Romancing Miss Right had some smart
experts. He wasn’t in it for love and neither was she.

If she told America she was keeping him
because he was her most compatible Suitor, they would be less
inclined to think she was an idiot woman being taken in by a con
man. People didn’t buy books from authors they thought were morons.
But if she revealed that Craig was her most compatible, what would
that reveal about her? Would the viewing public figure out that she
was a romantic fraud?

What right did she have to write about
romance? What did she know about true love anyway? She was already
afraid she was a phony, was this just the last nail in the coffin?
Who would she be if she couldn’t be a writer anymore? She’d built
her whole identity around happily ever afters and she wasn’t even
sure she believed they existed.

One of the cameramen coughed and Marcy
reminded herself that she was on. She flipped quickly through the
rest of the files, nodding, smiling, and then looked up to the
camera with a grin. “No surprises here.” That was true enough. “But
I think I’m going to keep this information to myself.”

She closed the folder, tying it shut, and
wondered if she could sneak off somewhere and quietly burn it—not
that the producers wouldn’t have made copies. God, she hoped the
information never got leaked. She needed her illusions.

#

Miranda pinched the bridge of her nose and
closed her eyes, counting slowly to three before opening them again
in an effort to force her tired retinas to focus on the blurring
screen. She’d been reviewing the footage for hours, trying to avoid
the inevitable conclusion—the week was dull. Boring. Ever since
she’d put Craig on his best behavior, the drama of the show had
taken a marked drop.

She’d given the Compatibility Test results to
Marcy a couple days early in an attempt to drum up something
watchable, but Miss Right had chosen to play that one close to the
vest and the entire plan had backfired.

She needed a scandal. Something they could
promote the hell out of to tempt the viewers to stick with them
until they started forming emotional attachments and picking
favorites. It was too early for dull.

Tomorrow night was the Elimination
Ceremony—the final night of filming for this episode. She needed a
jolt of drama in the next twenty hours or she might as well start
brushing up her resume.

Hands closed over her shoulders and she
shrieked, half-leaping out of her chair. “Bennett! Crap, you scared
me. What are you doing sneaking up on me?”

He coaxed her back to her chair in the
editing bay, pulling up another beside her. “I wasn’t sneaking. You
were so engrossed I think a marching band could have walked in here
and you wouldn’t have noticed.”

She frowned, pulling her hand from his when
he started to massage her palm. “This isn’t a good time. I’m under
the gun.”

“I can help, remember? Partners?”

She shook her head, exasperated, but
desperate enough to take a genius idea from anywhere at this point.
“I need drama. Nothing happened this week.
Nothing
. Wallace
is going to fire me if I don’t come up with something good, but we
don’t have a single useable scandal. Unless I can somehow get the
guys to break out into a brawl tomorrow before the ceremony, I’m
screwed.”

She wasn’t paying attention to anything but
her problem or she probably would have noticed before the last
sentence the way Bennett’s expression closed off more and more as
she spoke until he wore a carefully expressionless mask.

“What?” she snapped.

“You want me to help you smut-mine?”

She narrowed her eyes. “I want you to not
give me a hard time about what I do for a living when I have enough
to deal with already, but it doesn’t sound like I’m going to get
what I want tonight.”

His face grew tense, as if the muscles of his
mouth were fighting themselves on whether or not he would speak.
“Are you listening to yourself? You’re fabricating scandal. You
know it’s wrong.”

“I know the viewers want it and the Suitors
signed up for it.”

“Those kinds of cheap stunts are what is
ruining television.”

“Yeah. So you’ve said. And you’re a god among
producers because you only work on high minded shows about finding
the next big dance star or renovating a needy family’s home.
Ratings are dropping across the board in reality television. The
eighteen to forty-nine demo is leaning more and more toward
scripted television. I avoided a dip last season by making Jack and
Lou the romance of the year, but I can’t slack off now. You know
better than anyone that getting to the top doesn’t mean taking a
holiday. You work harder.”

“By stirring up imaginary scandals? You’re
better than this.”

“And you’re wasting my time.”

His face tightened again, the lines jumping
out in stark relief.

Miranda looked away. “Maybe we should take a
break.”

“What?”

“I’m about to go on location anyway—”

“You don’t need to,” he interrupted. “Glen
never traveled with the show. You have a supervising producer for a
reason.”

“I want to keep a close eye.”

“You want to run away from me.”

“It isn’t always about you, Bennett.”

He shoved to his feet, stalking to the
opposite side of the small editing bay. “No. It’s never about me.
It’s always your show first and me last.”

Her heart was beating too fast. This was it.
They might really be breaking up. “You knew what you were getting
with me.”

“Yeah, a younger female version of me.”

“And that’s what you liked, right?” She threw
the words at him, as if she could blame him for getting involved
with her in the first place.

“I really owe my ex wives apologies.”

“Well, maybe you should go apologize. If you
remarry one of them, think of the alimony savings.”

“Goddamn it, Miranda.”

“I really need to get back to work.”

He yanked both hands through his hair, as if
by pulling the strands he could pull himself together. “I can’t
travel with you,” he snapped. “My show begins shooting in two
weeks. I’m needed here.”

“This is probably for the best.” Her throat
tightened but she forced herself to look unaffected. “It was never
going to last anyway.”

His mouth clicked shut and he swallowed hard.
“Yeah. I guess it wasn’t. Goodbye, Miranda.”

“Yeah. Best wishes, Bennett.”
Happy
fucking trails
.

He hesitated, as if waiting to see if she
would say more, then shook his head, sharp and aggravated, and
stalked out of the room. The door to the editing bay didn’t slam,
catching on the carpet. She swallowed thickly, turning back to her
tablet. She stared at it for a good three minutes before she could
focus her eyes.

Marcy. The show. That was what she needed to
be thinking about. Bennett was a blip.
Focus, Miranda
. She
needed scandal. Something juicy.

Miranda punched up her assistant’s number on
her phone, only glancing at the ungodly hour after the third ring.
She felt only the slightest flicker of guilt. You didn’t get into
this business because you liked normal working hours.

Todd answered groggily on the fourth
ring.

“Sorry to wake you,” Miranda said, more out
of politeness than sincerity.

“No, no, I was awake,” Todd lied. “What’s up,
boss?”

“I can’t find the background checks we did on
the Suitors.”
Because I’ve been awake for forty-two consecutive
hours and my heart just stopped beating
. “I need a deep dark
secret we can exploit. Secret families would be best, but right now
I’ll take anything.”

“They’re filed under the private
investigator’s name,” Todd said, “but it’s a pretty clean group. We
vetted them pretty thoroughly.”

“Crap.”

“Do you want me to check the tip line?” he
asked, sounding much more alert—which was how he’d gotten the job
as her right hand. “See if any of the crazies check out? Or we can
arrange a party crasher. That astronaut from two seasons ago is
always willing to fly in and stir things up.”

“Start with the tip line. If that fails we’ll
try the Space Cowboy in the morning.”

“On it.”

He hung up, not asking for thanks. And
Miranda went back to the footage, looking for some scrap of drama
she might have missed. Trying not to think about the drama of her
own shredded love-life.

#

“Jackpot!”