Marrying Mister Perfect (6 page)

“That’s what editing is for, darling,” Todd
purred. “Sweet Lou is going to spend a lot of time on the cutting
room floor.”

“I’m more worried about the girls. If he’s
talking about her in front of them constantly, they’re going to
start to wonder if he’s really emotionally available.” Lou heard a
staccato rattling sound—acrylic nails drumming against a tablet
case. “Especially since they live together.”

“It won’t just be the girls. She’s cute, in
that wholesome Midwestern way. Viewers are going to wonder if
there’s more to that relationship than just a live-in nanny,” Todd
commented.

Miranda hummed again—a sound Lou remembered
from when she was thinking. “We might have to cut her out of the
footage entirely.”

Lou sucked in a breath. Of course they wanted
to cut her out of her life. It wasn’t really her life, was it? Just
a borrowed family. But to hear Miranda say it. Her supposed
friend…

“It wouldn’t be hard,” Miranda went on.
“During the Meet the Family episodes, we can focus on the kids and
how maternal the various candidates are.”

“Or how maternal they aren’t.” Todd
snickered. “Make sure he keeps in a couple of the worst mommy
candidates until the family visit. The ratings will be great for
sweeps. You know how the viewers love having someone to root
against.”

Miranda snorted. “I don’t think that’ll be a
problem. Even for Sexy Jack. The hottest ones are almost always the
most self-absorbed and they tend to last without any help from me.
One of them is bound to be a train wreck with kids.”

Lou held herself perfectly still behind the
screen. She couldn’t reconcile Miranda her friend with the woman
who spoke with mercenary glee about the ratings spike if Jack
brought home someone who was a disaster with children.

Did he know what he was getting himself into?
It had all happened so fast, a whirlwind of psychological
evaluations and screen tests and nondisclosure agreements.

“Oh good, Jack, you’re back. Shall we get
back to it?” Miranda’s heels clicked on the hardwood floors as she
crossed to the fireplace. “Why don’t we talk about some of the
qualities you’re looking for in a wife?”

Lou couldn’t have moved then if she wanted
to. She needed to hear this answer. That was the fifty million
dollar question, wasn’t it? What
was
he looking for in a
wife?

A small part of her still hoped he would
describe her—and realize he was describing her and leap up from the
chair and declare that he couldn’t do the show because he was madly
in love with her and had been for years without even realizing
it.

Yeah. It could totally happen.

From her hiding place, she could see half of
a monitor filled with Jack’s smiling face. He twinkled for the
camera in a way that doubtless made Miranda giddy just thinking of
the rating jump.

“I’m looking for someone I can share life’s
adventures with, whether that means skydiving in Tahiti or running
into the kitchen with a fire extinguisher because my kids have
tried out a new experiment in the oven.” He gave a low chuckle and
Lou smiled softly to herself. She wasn’t much of a skydiver, but
when it came to domestic adventures, she was a pro.

“I’d like to find a woman who really
wants
to be a mother, not just someone who is willing to
tolerate my kids. That’s crucial. She has to love Emma and TJ.
There’s no negotiating on that point.”

Lou’s stomach curdled as she thought of the
show dragging the worst mommy candidates through the process until
the home visit. She didn’t like the idea of Emma and TJ meeting any
of the women, but it wasn’t her decision. Jack had signed them up
for this, embracing the whole experience with his usual
single-minded determination. Lou could choose not to sign the
waiver to be included in the show, but she couldn’t keep Emma and
TJ from being used for ratings. Another bitter reminder that they
weren’t really hers to protect.

“What attracts you to a woman?” Miranda
prompted.

“What attracts me?” Jack’s brow furrowed, as
if he was reaching way back into his memory for the answer.
“Energy. I’m definitely attracted to vivacious women.”

Lou felt the hope that had been growing
inside her at his earlier answers start to shrink. Gillian had been
vivacious. Lou had always been quieter. People used words like
reliable
and
nice
to describe her. She’d never had
Gillian’s bounce. Jack had loved that bounce.

“Passionate, definitely. Driven.”

Lou cringed. The part of her that went after
her goals with passion and determination had gone dormant somewhere
in the last four years of her stable, comfortable routine. She
hadn’t dreamt of Paris and Prague in so long it almost felt like
her ambition to see the world belonged to another person. Along
with the passport she’d gotten years ago. The one that was about to
expire without a single stamp in it while she was here, waiting for
a kiss that was never going to come.

“She has to be fearless and confident. There
is something so sexy about a woman who will take a risk with her
heart.”

That had never been Lou. She wasn’t
sexy—
wholesome
—and she didn’t take risks. That was why she
was infatuated with the man she’d lived with for the last four
years and he didn’t have a clue how she felt. Because she was a
coward to the bone. Not that it would make any difference if he
knew.

Would it?

What would happen if she told him? She’d
always hesitated for fear it would ruin their friendship and she
would lose him. But she was already losing him. Everything was
changing.

He was going to LA in just a few days to look
for the love of his life, but maybe the one he was supposed to fall
in love with was right here under his own roof. Didn’t he deserve
to know the truth before he left? Maybe if he knew, he would stay.
Maybe, just maybe, he secretly loved her too.

Could those comments about being brave enough
to take a risk with her heart have been meant for her? Could it
have been a hint to wake her up and get her to tell him how she
really felt?

“Great, Jack, that’s just perfect!” Miranda’s
voice intruded on Lou’s fantasy world and reality smacked down on
her.

Jack wasn’t giving her a hint. He didn’t even
know she was hiding there.

“We’ll stop there for the day and pick up
tomorrow with some action footage.”

“Action?” Jack asked.

“Jogging, working out, saving lives at the
hospital. Just some shots to give people an idea of your day-to-day
life. Is there a beach near here we can shoot you jogging on? Do
you have swim trunks you can wear? Have you ever waxed your
chest?”

Lou decided the time was ideal to sneak away
before the crew dismantled her hiding place. She didn’t want to
listen to Miranda’s plans to get Jack shirtless for the cameras.
She slipped out of the room and up the stairs before anyone saw
her, retreating to one of the few parts of the house that hadn’t
been taken over—her room.

The guest room was tiny, the double bed and
armoire crammed together in the narrow room. Lou had never minded
the lack of space before, but now it was just another reminder that
she’d never been a permanent part of the household. This wasn’t her
home. She was the guest, not the mommy. And definitely not the
wife.

Lou sank down onto the bed and put her head
in her hands.

She had to tell him. She would regret it for
the rest of her life if she let him fly off to Los Angeles without
telling him what she wanted. How badly she wanted him.

She’d do it tonight. Before she lost her
nerve.

Just as soon as the TV crew cleared out.

#

“Crazy day, huh?” Jack stood at his bathroom
sink, grimacing as he wiped TV make-up off his face.

Lou leaned against the doorjamb, watching the
play of muscles across his arms and shoulders as he scrubbed. “Get
used to it. You’re going to have a lot more like this if you go to
LA.”

“When,” Jack muttered into the washcloth.

“What?”

He dropped the cloth and turned his head to
meet her eyes. “
When
I go to LA. Three days, Lou. It’s not
an if anymore.”

She cast her gaze down to study the tiles on
the floor. “No. I guess not.”

The press release announcing him as the next
Mister Perfect would go out the following morning. It was about to
be very official.
Last chance, Lou
.

The last crew member had finally left. The
kids were still at Kelly’s, having begged to stay over for chicken
taco night. Lou wasn’t going to have a better chance to talk to him
than this.

She gathered up her courage. She could do
this. Now or never.

Jack spoke before she could. “I knew before I
agreed to this that some days were going to be bizarre.” He
shrugged out of the shirt he’d splashed water on while cleaning off
the make-up. “You take the bad with the good. That’s just part of
the
process
.” He grinned at her, wadding up the shirt and
tossing it in the general direction of the laundry hamper.

It hit the side of the hamper and the cotton
caught on the wicker for a second before it slithered down to join
the pile of clothes heaped in a sloppy mound at the foot of the
hamper. The man couldn’t pick up after himself to save his
life.

Lou tried not to overtly drool over his
shirtless chest. She’d seen it before, too many times to count, but
the sight never failed to hit her where it counted. “You don’t have
to take the bad. You don’t have to go at all. There are simpler
ways to date. You don’t have to go a thousand miles away to find a
girl.”

He didn’t have to leave his own house.

Jack grabbed a worn grey T-shirt hanging over
the rim of the hamper. “You’ve seen what happens when I try to date
here.” He sniffed the shirt once before tugging it over his head.
“Our life is too comfortable. I’m too happy in our routine. Work,
the kids, you. I never have any reason to go out and meet someone.
And neither do you. I have to go away or that will never
change.”

Lou knew exactly what she needed to say.
I
don’t want it to change
. She loved their routine. She wanted
him to be happy with their life. All she had to do was say
I
love you. Don’t go.
She just had to open her mouth and let the
words out. Easy.

“Maybe you’re just dating the wrong women
here,” she argued softly.
Maybe if you went out with me…

“Well, the women on the show will certainly
be different. It’s like Miranda said. This show is just the wake-up
call we need.”

Spit it out, Lou
. “I heard some of the
producers worrying that the women would think that you and I were
more than just friends,” she croaked.

“I guess it is hard for most people to accept
that a man and a woman can be friends with absolutely no sexual
feelings between them. They’ll see as soon as they see us
together.” His eyes met her reflection in the mirror, glinting with
amusement. “Can you imagine anyone who knows us thinking we were a
couple?”

And Lou’s heart curled up and died.

She could imagine. That was the problem. She
had always been able to imagine. But he never had.

She’d been playing at happily-ever-after and
he’d been completely oblivious. If she told him she wanted him now,
Christ, the embarrassment!

She couldn’t play pretend anymore. She needed
a real life. And she wasn’t going to get it with Mister Perfect
living in the bedroom down the hall, feeding her fantasies.

“I’m glad you’re going,” she said softly,
frustration and hopelessness making the words the absolute
truth.

Maybe the show was all about ratings, but not
all the women would be there for their fifteen minutes of fame.
Maybe some of them would be looking for Mr. Perfect. Maybe one of
them would be perfect for
him
.

And she would finally be able to let go of
the dream of him.

Chapter
Six

“Miranda Pierce. Are you using your powers
for good?”

Miranda had answered her cell phone on
autopilot without looking at the caller-ID and now an entirely
inappropriate shiver of excitement worked its way down her spine.
She set aside her tablet and stood from the desk in her room at the
Evanston hotel that the production crew had been using as a base of
operations, wanting to be on her feet for this conversation.
“Bennett Lang. I haven’t heard your voice in a while.”

An omission that had been entirely
intentional. Her former mentor was too domineering and overpowering
a presence—everyone around him couldn’t help but live in his shade
and Miranda was bound and determined to find her own place in the
sun.

He was also too old for her and entirely too
married for the way she felt about him—at least he had been until
recently.

Miranda had zero desire to be the other woman
and even less interest in being that woman who slept her way to the
top, so when her feelings toward the illustrious Bennett Lang had
begun to veer in a less-than-platonic direction, she’d put as much
distance between her and the King of Reality Television as
possible.

“I saw that Forbes article on you. The Ten
Most Influential Men in Television. Very impressive.” It had also
mentioned his divorce, but there was no way in hell Miranda was
opening that can of worms.

“It sounds like it might not be too long
before you’re on a list like that of your own. But that’s no
surprise. I always knew you were going to rise straight to the
top,” he replied smoothly. “I hear there may be a promotion coming
your way.”

“You always did have good sources,” she
purred. Damn, it was heady stuff, hearing him say he knew about her
success. Not that she’d done it to impress him, but she still found
her back arching like a cat who’d been stroked.