Summer Kisses (307 page)

Miranda had said the first night was a marathon, but that sounded like a nightmare.

“The Elimination Ceremony was the worst.”

This time she had no trouble reading his voice. Irritation twined around the tension in his words.

“They’re
rings
, Lou. Did you know that? Actual rings. I give each girl a gold ring and ask her if she will accept it as a token that I would like her to continue on the journey toward marriage with me.” He groaned. “Half of them were tipsy by then, a few were flat out drunk, and they were all so nervous it was like I was calling out the names of the last few people to get on the lifeboats for the Titanic or something. I’d call out a name and she’d rush forward. Every single time I had to say the line and then Josh—that’s the host—would say, ‘You are still in the running for the final ring.’ It was creepily ritualistic. And we kept having to wait for them to set up shots and angles. I couldn’t remember half of their names, so one of the producers would run over between set-ups with a picture flip book and remind me who was who. It took forever. By the time I got to the last girl, four of the ones I hadn’t called were in tears. I thought this one girl was going to attack me with her stiletto if I didn’t call her name.”

Lou muffled a giggle, feeling more giddy with every negative word he said about the show. “Did you?”

He snorted. “God, no. She scared the crap out of me.”

“So it was awful?” Lou asked, knowing she sounded a little too hopeful, but unable to help it. All he had to do was say yes and she would remind him he could always come home. No creepy ring ceremonies. No high-heeled attackers. Just the two of them living happily ever after.
Even if it was just pretend…

“Well, it wasn’t all bad. Some parts of it were actually pretty fun.”

Those words made Lou feel like the foundations of her world were sliding precariously to the side. “Did you kiss any of them?” She couldn’t help the little catch in her voice. She just hoped he didn’t hear it.

All night she’d lain awake, tortured by the thought of kisses. For every one time she’d thought of their awkward goodbye on the porch, there had been five times she’d visualized him locking lips with some hand-picked size two knockout. She’d pictured every possible variable—sweet kisses, steamy kisses, playful kisses and kisses with frenzied groping hands. Sometimes the girl in her head was a tall, svelte bleach blonde with a spray-on tan. Sometimes she was a Mediterranean beauty with dark flashing eyes and a lush figure. A Nubian goddess with sleek limbs and pillowy lips. The only constant was that she was a Perfect 10 and she was kissing Jack.

And when she asked him if he’d kissed any of them, he hesitated.
Shit
.

Lou closed her eyes and pressed a fist against her heart. “Jack?”

“Only a couple,” he said slowly. “And I didn’t keep them just because they were forward.”

Her heart thudded ominously against her fist. “So you kept them?”

“Well, yeah, but I just really liked their confidence.”

And I’m sure the fact that they had their tongues down your throat had nothing to do with it.
“Kel says the first kissers are always in it for publicity. Are they wannabe actresses or something?”

“One’s a lawyer.”

“And the other?

He hesitated again. Damn it.

“Swimsuit model,” he admitted grudgingly.

Lou felt ill. Physically ill. “Swimsuit model. I’m sure she’s just dying to move to the suburbs and live on a diet of mac n’ cheese and chicken tenders.”

“She seemed very down to earth,” Jack said and Lou heard the lie in his voice. “And she isn’t the only one I kept. Another one, Kim, she’s a single mom, so she knows all about chicken tenders.”

“Kim.” Lovely. Now he was calling them by name. Why did he have to give them names? That made them seem like real people.

“Angela—she’s the lawyer—she just goes after what she wants. No holds barred. But
Marcy
…”

Lou felt pressure start behind her eyes at the way he said that name. Like he was smitten already. She swallowed thickly. “Marcy?”

“She’s not at all what I expected. Not that she isn’t gorgeous, but there’s no pretension in her. When I saw her, I thought she was going to be just like the others. This petite, very put together brunette with her hair in one of those bun things you wear sometimes when we go out to nice dinners.”

“A chignon.”

“Yeah, that. But then we started talking and, I don’t know, Marcy has this sort of self-deprecating thing going on. She’s a romance novelist, if you can believe it, but she’s the first one to joke about it when the other girls get all holier-than-thou about her writing ‘smut’. She says they’re just jealous that she has an unfair advantage because love is her day job.” His low chuckled rippled through the phone.

Lou decided she hated Marcy. Where was a voodoo doll when you needed one?

“I think you’d really like her, Lou. There’s just something about her. She’s so natural. I felt comfortable with her right from the get go. And she was amazing at diffusing the other girls’ drama—especially during the challenge. My night could
really
have been hell without her there.”

Lou wrapped her arm around her abdomen and tucked her knees up to her chest, curling into a ball on the chair. He was supposed to be missing her. He was supposed to be fixated on how lost he was without her, not gushing over some self-deprecating, down-to-earth portrait of perfection who could de-drama any situation.

“I really do think you’d love her, Lou.”

And somehow, I really doubt that.
“She sounds great.” Lou forced a note of cheery sincerity she didn’t feel into her voice. She had to get off the phone. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could pretend to be happy for him and
Marcy
. “You can tell me all about her when we visit this weekend, but you really should get some sleep, Jack. Miranda’s probably going to be demanding you do push-ups in a Speedo later and you need your beauty rest.”

He gave a short laugh. “You’re right. You know, when I called I was this close to calling it quits and coming home, but you’ve made me feel a thousand times better. Thanks, Lou. You’re the best.”

She bit her tongue on the urge to make a snide remark about how apparently
Marcy
was the best. “That’s what I’m here for.”
Apparently
. “Sweet dreams, Jack.”

“Love you, Lou.”

The connection clicked dead. And Lou’s heart stopped.

He didn’t mean it like that. She knew he didn’t mean it like that. But had he ever said it before? Jack wasn’t much for confessing his feelings. She knew he loved her, just like she loved him—in a purely friends platonic way. Anything else was just wishful thinking. But he’d said it. He’d said it now.

Why now
?

Lou replaced the receiver and sank back down onto the uncomfortable kitchen chairs. Her head felt like it weighed a million pounds. She dropped it onto her hands and groaned.

Jack was infatuated with some goddess on the show. The producers would do everything they could to foster that infatuation and turn it into something more. Exotic locales, candlelit dinners, romantic getaways. Jack’s heart didn’t stand a chance under that kind of strategic assault.

Lou couldn’t take much more of this emotional yo-yoing. For years she’d loved him with a quiet, steady heart, but in the last few weeks she felt like she was on a rollercoaster—up and down and inside out. She kept telling herself she was over him and it was for the best, but it just didn’t stick. She loved him, then she gave up on him loving her back, but hope kindled again at the slightest provocation, only to be smothered again—but it never totally died. That stupid hope was bulletproof.

She needed advice. She needed reality to slap her in the face.

Confession was good for the soul. And so was chocolate.

“So let me see if I have this straight. You think you’re in love with Jack.”

“Yes.”

“In fact, you’ve always been in love with Jack, but now he’s a thousand miles away mooning over some Hollywood trollop and sucking face with a bunch of other size zero tramps, so you’ve decided next weekend in LA is the perfect time to unveil your hidden passion for him, even though you have no idea if he will reciprocate your feelings and cameras for a primetime television show are currently stalking his every move.”

Lou’s stomach rolled. When Kelly put it like that, her plan sounded mildly psychotic. “Yes?”

“Louisa Tanner, I have three words for you.”

You’re out of your mind?
No, that was more than three.

“About damn time!”

Kelly beamed at her. Lou leaned against the counter in Kelly’s designer kitchen while Kelly drizzled gooey ropes of fudge sauce over the sinful chocolate explosion that was her Double Fudge brownies.

Lou groaned. “This is a terrible idea, isn’t it?”

“Nonsense.” Finishing the fudge-drizzle with a flourish, Kelly shoved the thickly coated wooden spoon at Lou. “Here, lick this before you give yourself a nervous breakdown. Chocolate is the world’s best antidepressant.”

“I’m not depressed.”

“Whatever. Eat the fudge sauce. It’s a natural upper. It’ll keep you from freaking out when I tell you my plan.” Kelly smiled wickedly, her eyes lit with unholy glee.

“I don’t need a plan. I’ve decided I’m not really in love with Jack. Never was. Must have been indigestion.”

“Then I guess the thought of Jack sipping champagne in a Jacuzzi with some sexified Suitorette doesn’t bother you at all.”

Lou felt nauseated.

“That’s what I thought,” Kelly said smugly, correctly reading the expression on her face.

Lou licked the fudge. She needed all the consolation she could get. “I feel like the first wife being replaced by a young, sexy mistress. I’m the mom. I’m practically the wife, but I never got to be the lover. And now I’m being evicted from my position as wife and mom and I don’t even have justification to protest. He can just yank my life right out from under me, take the kids, the house, and everything I’ve been for the last four years and hand it someone else and I can’t say a word. It’s not like I have any claim on them. He’s not my husband. They aren’t my kids.”

“Yes, they are,” Kelly insisted staunchly. “You’re a better mom than half the biological incubators I know. And your life isn’t going anywhere. We aren’t going to let that happen.”

“I don’t see a way to stop it.”

“That’s because you’re overlooking The Plan. Trust Kelly, baby. I’ll take care of you.”

“I can’t compete with a swimsuit model, Kel. No one can.”

“You love him. And what’s more, he loves you. That’s a huge advantage right there. I know, I know, it’s just friend-love. For now. That’s what we need The Plan for. We have to get him to stop looking at you as a friend and start looking at you as a candidate for Mrs. Perfect.”

“And how are we supposed to do that? Look at me.”

Lou was wearing her standard uniform of jeans and a loose blouse that left everything to the imagination. Her hair was yanked back in a no-muss, no-fuss ponytail and she wasn’t wearing a drop of make-up. Her hips were too wide, her face too round, and her thighs were a crime against humanity. Hardly Suitorette material.

Kelly waved away her objections. “You’ve got the framework, darling. You just aren’t staging your property to sell. Some highlights, a new cut, a dollop of L’Oreal and some of Victoria’s Secret puts you right on par with all those overblown Suitorette floozies.”

“Did you just compare me to a house?”

“It’s HGTV. It’s taken over my brain. But the principle still applies. You need a makeover to de-mom you. You’re great with the kids, but a man is never going to rip your clothes off if all he’s thinking about when he looks at you is his children.”

“I’m going to be in LA
with
the children. I’m not sure how I’m going to keep Jack from thinking of them.”

“The children have to sleep, don’t they? The nighttime is the right time, baby. And it’s not that you want him to neglect his duties as a father. You just want him to be a man first and a daddy second when he looks at
you
. And since he’s had four years to get in the habit of
not
thinking of you as a sex object, we need drastic measures to shake things up.”

Lou fidgeted nervously. “I’m not sure I
am
a sex object, Kel. Even in college all my relationships were pretty tame.”

“Every woman is a sex object with the right man, Lou-la-belle. We just need to unleash your inner vixen. We’ll start with wardrobe.” Kelly bounced on the balls of her feet. “I love a makeover shopping trip!”

Just the thought of the mall made Lou cringe. “The kids are mayhem in department stores, Kel. We can’t—”

“The kids are in school. No excuses.”

Lou hesitated, drawn in by the idea in spite of herself. The thought of going shopping without the children was an aphrodisiac in itself. How long had it been since she went shopping for herself? Not just grabbing a fresh six-pack of panties at Target but actual
shopping
. An uninterrupted afternoon at the mall was a siren call she couldn’t resist.

Especially if it meant she might have a shot at changing the way Jack looked at her.

“I don’t know, Kel. How much good can a few clothes and a haircut really do?”

Kelly flashed a feline smile. “Darling, don’t underestimate the master. You’re going to steal that show and I’m going to teach you how. By the time I get through with you,
Marrying Mr. Perfect
won’t know what hit them.”

“Ally’s a great girl. When she told me she was afraid of heights in the helicopter and took my hand, it really made me think how important it is to have someone to rely on. Someone who has your back no matter what. That trust is definitely a quality I’m looking for in my wife.”

Jack felt like a total jackass as he mumbled the rehearsed, heart-on-his-sleeve BS for the camera. It was hard not to be a complete narcissist after ten solid days of the world spinning around what he thought and felt. But for a world that catered to his every whim, it was dizzying how out of control he felt.