Romancing Miss Right (21 page)

Something shuttered in her eyes, though she
didn’t show even a flicker of surprise. “Okay.” She swallowed
again, taking another slow breath. “So why should I take a chance
on you?”

“You shouldn’t. Marcy, you should send me
home.”

This time she did react, irritation flashing
in her eyes and tugging at the corners of her mouth. “You want me
to kick you off the show.”

It didn’t sound like a question, but he found
himself answering anyway. “It isn’t about what I want.”

“What’s it about then, Craig? Because I don’t
know what the hell is going on with you today.”

He had to tell her. He had to confess about
the job. As soon as he told her about the offer, she would
understand. He wouldn’t need to say he was choosing money over
love. She would know. Marcy got him.

That’s what you’re giving up, dumb ass. The
one woman who gets you.

But if he stayed there was no guarantee it
would work anyway. Relationships failed every day. Especially
relationships formed on reality television shows. The job was a
sure thing. A shot at the life he’d always wanted. He could buy his
mom that house. Get her out of her shabby neighborhood. Bird in the
hand…

“Marcy, there’s something I need to tell
you—”

“I swear to God, Craig, if you are really
dating that bimbo from San Diego—”

“It isn’t that.”

“Then what? What is this big dramatic secret
that’s had you being a dick all day?”

He swallowed. Rubbed the back of his neck.
Now he was the one with the nervous ticks. He didn’t want to say
it. As soon as he said it, it was real. It was over. They were
done. And he wasn’t ready to be done with her yet.

But he wasn’t sure he ever would be and the
clock was ticking. Better now. He’d never have a more perfect
opportunity.

Craig leaned forward, bracing his hands on
his knees. “Miranda came to see me the other day with an
interesting offer—”

“Marcy!”

The distant shout froze the rest of the words
in his throat. There was something in it—some edge of fear or
urgency that made Craig’s stomach automatically clench with dread.
Bad news
. Footsteps thudded rapidly down the hallway. A PA
appeared in the doorway, out-of-breath, eyes seeking out
Marcy’s.

“It’s your father.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

The county hospital was
too cold, overly air-conditioned. Marcy wrapped her arms tight
around herself, trying to find some warmth, and speed-walked down
the corridor away from the ICU where they wouldn’t let her see her
father. Her chest felt tight, her face hot. Her eyes ached and
burned, but still no tears came. She’d forgotten how to think
actual words.

Heart attack. Surgery. Complications. Wait
and see. Prepare yourself…

She was so good at words, knowing the right
thing to say, the right description, but now her thoughts were
devoid of words. Only emotion was left. It had cleared out her
brain, a flash bomb going off inside her head to incinerate all her
coherency and replace it with a sucking void, an empty, confused,
achy, echoing chasm of thoughtlessness.

She didn’t know how to feel yet. She was in a
holding pattern, circling in the air above the twin airports of
relief and grief, not knowing which was going to clear her to
land.

The corridors weren’t crowded this late at
night, but she kept walking. Away, always away. Mama was down in
the cafeteria with Laurie and Dinah. They were trying to comfort
her with ice cream. Marcy didn’t want to be that far away from her
father, separated by floors and floors, in case he woke up. Or in
case…

Her footsteps slapped against the freshly
mopped linoleum as distant monitors beeped—as oddly soothing as
crickets on a country night. She kept moving until even those
sounds faded behind her, turning through a maze of halls until she
had no idea where she was anymore.

She only knew it was quiet. And empty. A tiny
stub of a hallway, shooting off another corridor, dead ending in a
large window that reflected the white hallway back to her.

It was after midnight. She wished she could
see the moon, or just the blackness of the night outside, but all
she saw was her own face, the blank, shell-shocked expression, the
shaking of her hands.

Marcy put her back to the blank wall to her
left so she didn’t have to look at her reflection anymore. The wall
felt unaccountably good, firm against her spine. She slid down it
until her tailbone touched the floor and drew her knees up to her
chest, wrapping her arms tight around them.

She stared straight ahead, looking for
something inside her head, some thought, some clue as to what she
was supposed to do now, but she only felt blank.

She couldn’t say how long she sat there,
staring sightlessly at the opposite wall and thinking of nothing.
The world had evaporated.
She
had evaporated. Reality was
just vapor and mist.

Until decisive footsteps gave the world shape
again. Confident footsteps. Probably a doctor’s. But when the shoes
came into view, they were ratty Converse All-Stars with her
initials scribbled across the instep in silver Sharpie with a
heart.

The school in Fiji. Some of the girls had
wanted to use the new supplies to scribble MH+CC on his shoes.

Craig.

He sat beside her with none of Daniel’s
compact grace, folding his long limbs awkwardly. Six foot four men
were not built to squat on floors. But he didn’t make a single
sound of complaint. That wasn’t Craig.

“Hey,” he said softly. Just that. His arm
bumped hers, then sort of nudged and shifted until she was leaning
against his arm and it was the most natural thing in the world to
let her head tip to the side and find his shoulder.

He smelled good. Was it wrong to be thinking
that right now? Wrong to be so grateful there was nothing
antiseptic in his scent?

“What have you been told?”

His voice was low. Grim. She’d never heard
such ultra-seriousness from him before. He didn’t sound
fakey-solicitous or hyper-sympathetic. Craig sounded like he was
asking what the weather in Hell was going to be like this week so
he would know what to pack because he wasn’t going to let her go
there alone. He was here.

The tears arrived. They streamed silently
down her face, hotter even than her flushed cheeks. “They say
there’s a fifty-fifty chance he’ll wake up.”

She felt his nod move through his body. “A
coin flip,” he repeated, as if branding the odds in his memory.
“What do you need?”

What did she need?
When had Craig
become the considerate one? When had he expressed even a passing
interest in her needs? No, that wasn’t fair. He wasn’t a bad guy.
He was just… frivolous. About everything except his own career.

But he wasn’t frivolous now. And he needed an
answer. One she didn’t have with her brain hollowed out.

“I don’t know.”

A feeling, strong and distinct, flitted
through her heart and she tried to capture it, to contain it and
identify it, like a scientist examining a specimen.

Guilt.

Yes. That made sense. She’d done this. She’d
put him through the stress of the show for the last several days
and the stress of worrying over her for the last several weeks. She
knew he didn’t eat well, but she’d brought him artery clogging
salami and fried chicken.

She may not have blocked off his arteries
herself, but she’d done her part to make sure it happened.

A razor-edged sob scratched its way up her
throat, leaving bleeding tracks. Swallowing, speaking, they were
suddenly too painful to contemplate.

Craig removed the arm she was leaning against
to wrap it around her, pulling her against his side. He crooned
nonsense, little nothing syllables that didn’t quite add up to
words with a few stray
Babys
and
I knows
thrown in
for good measure.

Marcy held onto him, intensely aware of
tactile sensations. The softness of his shirt against her forearm,
the firmness of his abs beneath the cloth. She pressed her face to
his neck. It felt warm to her chilled skin, heated and
soothing.

Craig tucked one arm beneath her knees and
lifted her easily, settling her onto his lap and winding both arms
around her. He was long limbed, almost gangly, with none of
Daniel’s sleek, puma grace, but now she was grateful for that
length of limb as he wound them around her, a cocoon of comfort
where she finally felt safe to feel.

As if his warmth was the key, a flood of
sensation rushed in to fill the emptiness in her mind. Her fears
took shape and suddenly there were a thousand words to describe
them, a thousand syringes of doubt with
What Ifs
as the
needles to pierce her skin.

What if her father never woke up? What if she
never got to speak to him again? They’d spoken again after Craig
left, but had she told him she loved him? What if that was the last
chance she had? He was supposed to be an ever-present force in her
life, always there, always big and strong and larger than life.
What would she do if he wasn’t there anymore?

What if he never got to meet the man she was
going to marry?

No, he’s met Craig
, a small voice in
her heart whispered. A voice she somehow heard over the clatter of
what ifs in her brain. Her heart stuttered a beat.

She didn’t want Daniel. It wouldn’t have been
the same to be here with Darius or Aidan or any of the other guys.
Only Craig could have given her this cocoon. Only Craig – who
seemed so flippant and unconcerned about the whole business – had
managed to slip past her defenses and carve his name on her
heart.

She loved him. It wasn’t a question of
whether she would let herself do it. She did.

And tonight she wouldn’t let herself worry
about whether he would ever love her back. Right now, with her
father connected to tubes and monitors down the hall, with the one
man she’d always loved fighting for his life, she was cradled in
the arms of the other man she loved. And tonight, that was
enough.

Marcy closed her eyes, huddled warm and safe
in Craig’s arms.

#

Miranda didn’t know what to do. The hospital
administrators were stonewalling her. She had the release waivers
in hand, ready to prove that she had the right to film the
Romancing Miss Right
participants and their family members,
but the administrators were refusing to allow the camera crews
access into the building. She’d managed to smuggle in a couple
producers with button-cams, but the picture quality would be
terrible. She needed to get a real crew in here. This was drama. It
didn’t get more real than this.

She’d been considerate and persuasive,
promising discretion, donations to favorite charities and excellent
free advertising, but nothing had worked. She was drawing a
blank.

Miranda strode away from the administrative
wing, back down to the lobby where she could use her cell phone,
running her hand over the slim rectangular shape in her pocket
until she was free to pull it out and use it.

She could call him. He would know what to do.
Admittedly, they hadn’t spoken since their rather unfortunate
parting in LA, but he would take her call. Wouldn’t he?

Miranda strode through the lobby, past the
indoor fountain and out the automatic doors into the chilly Ohio
night beyond. It was late spring in this part of the world. Warm
enough that the picnic had been pleasant this afternoon, but with
nights still cold enough for the air to bite. She didn’t have a
jacket, but she liked the cold air on her arms and slapping her in
the face. It helped her think.

She dialed the number by heart.

She half expected to get his voicemail, but
he answered promptly. It was only nine-thirty there, she realized.
“Miranda?”

“Bennett, I need you.”

His sigh was loud and filled with relief.
“Thank God. I thought you would never call. Are you in LA?”

“No. Ohio. Miss Right’s father had a heart
attack and I’m having a hell of a time getting the hospital staff
to let me bring in a camera crew. And then I remembered all the
hospital shoots you’ve done for Renovation of the Heart, when the
needy families have a sick kid, and I figured you must have tricks
for getting hospitals to grant permission.”

A pause.

Miranda rubbed at her upper arm with her
opposite hand, starting to feel the chill more keenly.
“Bennett?”

“Is that the only reason you’re calling me?
Because you want my help to exploit a family’s pain?”

“We’re not exploiting. We’re documenting.
This is a pivotal moment for Miss Right. If we don’t have footage,
the viewers won’t get the full impact—”

“Goddamn it, Miranda, can you even hear
yourself? It’s too far. You’re a parasite on their pain and you
don’t even see that what you’re doing is wrong anymore, do you?
It’s
disgusting
.”

The words were a barrage, but they bounced
off her. Harmless and distant. “Are you going to help or not?”

He made a soft, frustrated noise. “No. I’m
not.”

Miranda hung up the phone without another
word. She had lawyers to call.

#

“What do you mean you lost her?” Miranda
tried to keep her voice at hospital appropriate levels, but she and
legal had been doing battle with the hospital administrators for
the last two hours only to discover that when she finally won that
battle the producer she’d assigned to shadow Marcy with a hidden
camera had misplaced Miss Right. She was on her own, somewhere in
the vast hospital that served this county.

Linus stood his ground. “She needed to take a
walk. Clear her head.”

“And we need footage of her walking and
clearing her head,” Miranda snapped, her temper frayed by hours of
legal wrangling and that universal hospital scent in her nostrils.
She refused to blame Bennett. He was nothing. “That’s why you’re
here. Not so you can sit on your ass after you lose our Miss
Right.”