Romancing Miss Right (14 page)

“Right,” her beleaguered assistant muttered,
switching the footage. “It might help if you told me exactly what
you’re looking for.”

“A spark,” Miranda said absently. “Scroll
through. It’s when they’re with the kids.”

Her assistant obliged until Miranda jabbed
her finger at the screen. “
There
.”

The footage froze on an adorable little girl,
maybe four years old, hanging back as the other kids rushed forward
to snatch cookies from the outstretched hands of Miss Right and her
Suitor.

“Get me the other camera, the one on Marcy,
and put the two side-by-side. Play from there.”

A few keystrokes and the scene began to play
out. The little girl stood in the background, drawing a circle in
the dirt with one bare toe. Marcy knelt, swarmed by kids, and her
Suitor glanced up, noticing the little girl. He made a face at her
and her little lips twitched, but didn’t quite smile. He dropped
down onto all fours—two slightly older boys immediately clambering
onto his back to ride him like a pony—and prowled toward the little
girl, baring his teeth and snarling until she giggled, squealed and
ran in a circle, far enough away to pretend to escape but not so
far that he couldn’t reach out and catch her with a roar, surging
to his feet with the two boys clinging, dangling from his shoulders
as he raised the girl high above his head.

“Pause.”

And there it was. On Marcy’s reaction shot.
As Craig cradled the giggling girl in his arms, Miss Right looked
at him like she’d been hit in the face with a two-by-four. A
two-by-four wielded by her biological clock.

Craig wasn’t supposed to be Daddy material.
He was supposed to be too cynical and citified to enjoy the river
tribe date. He was supposed to roll his eyes not laugh and add his
decidedly-off-key voice when the pre-schoolers started serenading
Marcy with an old One Direction song.

He wasn’t supposed to be Mr. Right, damn
it.

Miranda cursed. Ever since the fake
girlfriend incident—which had probably
helped
Craig rather
than taken away some of his influence over Marcy as she’d
hoped—Craig Corrow had been far too popular with their Miss Right.
He was starting to look like the goddamn
favorite
.

“What?” her assistant asked wearily.

Miranda jabbed a finger at the screen. “Every
woman in America just melted. Including Miss Right.”

He shrugged. “So he bought himself another
two weeks. He won’t make it past Meeting the Parents. That’s when
things always get real.”

“She’s smitten.”

“I’m sure it’s not as bad as—”

“See for yourself,” Miranda cut him off,
bringing up the rough cut confessional footage she’d been reviewing
earlier.

On screen, the lovely Miss Right smiled,
poised as ever, as she spoke about her remaining six Suitors. In
the last four weeks, they’d traveled to three different tropical
locales and the dates had run the gamut from putting the men in
loin clothes and teaching them warrior dances to a romantic dinner
on a floating platform in the middle of a lagoon, surrounded by a
thousand drifting paper lanterns. And through all the romance and
travel advertisements, Marcy had winnowed away at her Suitors until
only six remained. In a couple days, two more would be sent packing
and the rest would head to their homes to introduce Marcy to their
parents.

“
I wasn’t sure this would happen, but I
can feel there’s something real building with several of the guys.
I definitely feel most comfortable with Daniel. There’s never any
pressure when I’m with him. He’s such a gentleman. And then
Darius.”
She laughed, shaking her head.
“Darius has game.
There’s no denying that, but he’s very competitive. I worry it’s
all about the chase for him, the competition. Aidan is a
sweetheart, but I’m still waiting for him to make a big move. To
really open up. He’s so hesitant with me. Mark is quiet too, and
you might think he would fade into the background, but there’s just
something about him. He’s very charming, in his own way. And
Craig…”

She trailed off, her eyes going distant and a
flush rising to her cheeks. For all the others, she had clear eyes
and a ready line, but whenever she spoke Craig’s name, she’d forget
what she was about to say and have to start over several times.

Danger, Will Robinson.
“Smitten,”
Miranda snapped. “And sometimes smitten takes a guy all the way to
the final show.”

“So? What’s wrong with that?”

“He isn’t happily-ever-after material. A
dramatic break-up is all well and good as long as it happens before
she rides off into the sunset with Prince Charming. America needs
that cathartic happy ending and Craig is a bad bet.”

Miranda
needed that cathartic happy
ending.

She’d been off her game ever since they left
LA. Her staff had even begun to reflect her tension. She knew she
was driving them crazy with her nit picking and micromanaging, but
she couldn’t seem to stop. She needed this one aspect of her life
to be perfect. She may not be able to orchestrate a perfect happy
ending for herself, but she
would
create one for Marcy.

Marcy, who was still too guarded. Marcy, who
reminded her more and more of herself. Scared of the out-of-control
flying-leap-of-faith aspect of love.

Miranda had never felt in control growing up,
never trusted relationships to last as her mother went through a
revolving door of perfectly nice guys. Fathers for five seconds.
She hadn’t been able to control that any more than she’d been able
to control Bennett walking away. But she could control the show. It
was the one aspect of her life where her control had always been
perfect. She could make it perfect for Marcy. And she would, damn
it. Even if it drove her people crazy in the process.

Marcy wasn’t going to get forever with a guy
like Craig. Miranda had seen dozens of him and he had heartbreak
written all over him. Daniel was the forever guy and Marcy needed
to be falling in love with him, and she would if Craig could stop
getting in the way.

Miranda had thought the lie detector test
would trip him up but he’d been completely honest—even on the
difficult questions—and actually
gained
points in Marcy’s
estimation, as opposed to several of the other guys who had
stupidly tried to bluff. Of course, Craig’s honesty had never been
the problem. He’d been very honest about what he wanted.

He would do anything to get a job in
television.

It was time to intervene.

Miranda glared at the screen. “What time is
it in LA?”

“Ten in the morning.”

“Get me Wallace on the phone. I need a carrot
to get this asshole off my show.”

Chapter Sixteen

“Let’s get you set up
while we still have the sunset behind you.”

Craig froze as the producer’s voice carried
from the next balcony over. Danny Boy was back from his date
already.

The other Suitors weren’t supposed to hear
the recaps and confessionals. Keeping them in ignorance as much of
the time as possible was definitely part of the
Romancing Miss
Right
game plan. They must not have realized Craig was on the
adjacent balcony, blocked as he was by the high privacy walls
between the suites as he sprawled out prone on a lawn chair
watching the waves crash against the Bora Bora shore.

It was gorgeous. And boring. Whenever he
wasn’t with Marcy, there was nothing to do but sit around with the
other guys—no cell phones, no internet, no television. Hell, the
producers even forbade books, unless they wanted to journal about
their feelings. Craig found he wanted to spend less and less time
with the other guys. It had started to feel weird. So he’d come out
to the balcony of the room he was sharing with Aidan to watch the
surf and zone out.

And hit the jackpot.

He wasn’t about to announce his presence. Not
when eavesdropping on Daniel could give him an advantage in the end
game of the show.

And it was a game. A fact he had to keep
reminding himself of more and more lately.

Surrounded as they were by cameras, it
shouldn’t have been possible for him to forget, even for a second,
what he was trying to gain here. But lately it was easier and
easier to get caught up in the moments with Marcy. The dates were
designed to be entertaining, but she made them
fun
. Her wry
little comments, the devilish twinkle in her eyes, the hoarse,
reluctant pitch of her laugh when he was being particularly bad to
get a rise out of her. Sometimes he got so fixated on making her
laugh, he almost forgot he was there to make
America
love
him, not her.

He needed to keep his head in the game. And
eavesdropping seemed like the perfect place to start.

On the adjacent balcony, Danny Boy completed
his microphone check and the segment producer—Amelia, by the sound
of it—guided him into the first section of the recap with, “How did
you feel when you saw her standing on the boat, waiting for
you?”

The boat
. Lucky Craig hadn’t gotten
that date. He got seasick sitting at the dock. He felt queasy just
thinking about it. Surely that was queasiness and not jealousy
stirring biliously in his stomach as Danny Boy waxed poetic on the
feminine graces of Miss Right.

Wind through her hair… felt so connected…
blah blah blah.

It was all very perfect and predictable.

Craig began to wonder why he was bothering to
eavesdrop. Daniel was a walking romantic cliché. He didn’t need to
hear his confessional to know that. Or to know how to beat him.
Marcy was too edgy for Daniel. Too smart to be taken in by the
trappings of romance. She wanted the real deal.

Not that Craig could give her the real deal,
but he was at least honest with her and with himself.

He came to his feet, moving silently toward
the sliding door back into his suite, when the word “marriage”
stopped him in his tracks.

“It was the kind of setting where a man would
take his girlfriend to propose, so I suppose it’s only natural that
I found myself thinking a lot about marriage today. Before now, I’d
been enjoying myself and enjoying the time with Marcy, but today
was when it really hit me where this could be heading for us.”

Craig bristled at the casual, possessive
us
.

“I knew from very early on that she was the
kind of girl I always saw myself marrying, but now I’m starting to
think of her as not just the kind of girl, but
the
girl I’ll
marry. And I think she may be thinking of me the same way. When we
talk about the future,
our
future, everything just lines up
so perfectly. We want the same things. We value the same
things—”

If Craig could have been assured of hitting
Daniel in the head, he would have chucked something over the wall
between the balconies. Like a chair.

What kind of asshole talked about marriage
after only a handful of highly choreographed made-for-TV dates? It
was insane. Marriage was for
life
, not for ratings. It was
fucking sacred, damn it.

Though Danny Boy didn’t sound like he would
be proposing as a publicity stunt. For him it really would be due
to some delusional idea of who Marcy was. The image of Miss Right
he’d built up in his head.

“I could really love her.” Daniel’s voice
floated over the wall. “I’m definitely falling hard now. Every day
she reveals more of herself to me. More things that prove how easy
it would be to love her.”

Because that’s what love is—a series of
tests to see if the object of your affections measures up to your
standards.
The chair wasn’t good enough. Craig wanted to pummel
Daniel with his bare hands. Feel the skin of his knuckles splitting
with the force of his blows against Daniel’s perfect
cheekbones.

“Do you worry about her relationships with
the other men?” Amelia prompted.

“I try not to think about it,” Daniel said,
smooth and unruffled. “I know she’s seeing them, but I’d be
surprised if she sees herself having any sort of a future with
them. We have plans.”

Plans. The word was a mule-kick in the gut.
She didn’t talk about the future with Craig. Not that he wanted her
to—that wasn’t what they were about. They were fun and flirtation
and making out in the hot tub until he was left with the worst case
of blue balls of his life. So what if they hadn’t talked about the
names of their unborn children?

Fuck. Did that mean he was behind? Was Danny
Boy winning?

If Marcy decided to get rid of him before he
had a signed contract in hand from Miranda, would the producer
still be motivated to go to bat for him with the network higher
ups? Bribery, blackmail, whatever you wanted to call it, none of it
worked if Marcy kicked him off the show.

He’d thought he was doing fine. They were
having fun. But were they past the “fun” portion of the show now?
Was it all about feelings and connections and
love
now?
Because if so, he needed to step up his game before the next
Elimination Ceremony.

He’d been playing nice, doing as Miranda
asked, but now it was time to play to win.

#

Marcy sat on her veranda, trying not to
shiver for the cameras as the tropical night rapidly cooled now
that the sun had set. Just a few more minutes with the date recap
footage and then she could escape inside her nice warm room, pull
the comforter over her and get a few hours of sleep before her
sunrise date with Aidan.

“Daniel is always telling me how much he
cares for me and doing little things to make me feel special, but
sometimes I wonder how attracted to me he is. Maybe it’s just that
he’s such a gentleman, but he never grabs me and kisses me
senseless. All Craig has to do is give me that look and my heart
starts to race—he is far and away the best kisser of the bunch—but
life is about more than just chemistry—”