Romancing Miss Right (22 page)

“I didn’t lose her. I told her I’d be waiting
right here when she was ready.”

“She doesn’t decide when she’s ready. We do.
So go find her and get me some usable B-roll. Or better yet, go
home. I’ll take this segment.”

“It’s not a segment, Miranda,” Linus said
softly, but he stood and gathered up his bag, heading off down the
hall without further argument.

Miranda turned to the two man crew she’d
managed to talk the administrators into allowing into the building,
so long as they only filmed
Romancing Miss Right
contestants
and did not bother any of the other patients or visitors. It was
after two in the morning, but they just stood with their equipment
at the ready. Professionals. Ready to capture the next juicy
dramatic development at a moment’s notice. At her bidding.

Footsteps sounded down the hall behind her.
She knew who it was before she turned—clued in by the way Doug
snapped up his camera and instantly began filming as Jerry lifted
the boom mic into position.

Miranda pivoted and for a moment her cold
producer’s heart melted.
Now
that’s
good
television.

Craig strode down the hall, a quietly
sleeping Marcy cradled protectively in his arms. The shot was
perfect—fluorescent lighting notwithstanding. They were both
exactly as rumpled and exhausted as she would have arranged for
them to look. The expression on Craig’s face was ever-so-slightly
tender, but still macho and protective enough to remind every woman
in America that he was a
man
. Miranda couldn’t have coached
a better expression onto his face if she’d had three hours of prep
time.

But as he grew closer, that tender expression
hardened into something darker and he shot a glare toward the
cameras. “Is that necessary?”

“The show must go on,” Miranda said, careful
to keep her voice low so she didn’t wake Marcy.

Craig met her eyes, his own hard. “You have
your shot. That’s enough.”

She opened her mouth to argue and a little
sliver of misgiving stilled her tongue. This was Craig. The man who
would do anything to stretch his fifteen minutes of fame into
twenty, and he was telling her it was too much. He was showing her
the line… and exactly how far across it she’d already gone.

When she didn’t respond, Craig asked in a low
voice, careful not to rouse Marcy. “Do you know if there’s an empty
bed or a couch somewhere she can rest for a few hours?”

There was an empty room three doors down.
Miranda could direct them there. Craig and Marcy could curl up
together and she could get hours of B-roll of their cuddlefest.
Good television.

But it didn’t feel good. Not anymore.

“There’s a family waiting room on the second
floor. The couches looked pretty comfortable.”

And the hospital had flat refused to allow
any cameras anywhere near the other families in that room. It would
be private.

Craig nodded his thanks and continued down
the hall. If he was surprised the cameras didn’t follow him,
Miranda couldn’t tell. She watched until he was out of view around
the corner toward the elevators. Then she watched the empty hallway
where he had been.

“You guys can pack up and head back to the
hotel. We’re done for tonight.”

Doug and Jerry packed up their equipment with
a speed that showed just how eager they were to get the hell out of
there. Miranda still didn’t look away from the empty hallway.

The dry air tickled her throat and she
cleared it with a cough. God, she hated hospitals. They were all
the same. And every time she entered them she was five years old
again, watching her father die. The job wasn’t any different here
than on any other day, but today, here, it was hard not to feel
sickened by it. Here, it was hard to escape the feeling that it
should
be different.

That
she
should be.

She strode down the lobby and outside again,
out into the night. Her cell phone was in her hand as she shivered
in the cold, but she didn’t know who she would call.

She didn’t allow many people close to her.
Her mother and brother would both be asleep. It was late in
Chicago. No one else got inside the Citadel that was Miranda.
Certainly not Bennett.

But that was over now. If it hadn’t been
wrecked before, she’d certainly destroyed it tonight.

She hadn’t seen it. A man’s life hung in the
balance tonight and all she’d been able to think about was getting
the shot.

This was her dream job. Capturing true
moments, creating a sense of empathy, marrying reality and drama.
But today, for the first time, after all the things she hadn’t
blinked at doing, today it suddenly felt exploitative. Wrong.

You wanted her to cry, didn’t you? Happy
now?

She’d never thought what they did was slimy
before, but suddenly the fact that these people had volunteered to
have their privacy invaded and their emotions stripped bare for the
entertainment of the national audience just didn’t seem like
enough
.

She’d spiraled out of control, but maybe it
wasn’t too late to get back to her center.

She could make amends. Start listening. Start
delegating. Start letting Marcy and Craig make their own choices.
She’d been great last year with Lou and Jack because she saw the
love that they were missing. Now she was trying to force love where
it didn’t exist, flinging Marcy at Daniel.

She’d needed to control the show because she
felt so helplessly out of control with Bennett. He was gone now.
The bastard would never know how out of control he made her feel.
How much she felt. But she could do this.

She could pull back and let Marcy guide her
own love life. She could give Craig and Marcy a shot at love, if
that’s what they had.

Change of plans.

The question was still on the table. Love or
money. And they would get back to it because Marcy deserved to know
now whether she was getting a good guy or someone who would turn
out to be just like Miranda in the end. Incapable of letting
another person in. Consumed with her career.

For now, she had the shot she needed. They
would have Josh Pendleton fill with a tasteful fireside sit down,
explaining the situation.

The show could resume filming in a few days
time when they knew, one way or another, what was going to happen
to the gruffly sweet Mr. Henrickson.

Until then, Miranda would keep the cameras
out. Sometimes even reality deserved a little privacy.

Chapter Twenty-Five

There was a crick in her
neck and her eyes burned like someone had been rubbing rock salt
into them. Nearby someone was snoring. The dry overly
air-conditioned air and slight antiseptic smell made her nose
twitch with the need to sneeze and reminded Marcy where she was,
even before she opened her eyes.

Riverside County Hospital. Waiting for
news.

They would have woken her if anything had
happened, wouldn’t they? She jerked awake, her body pulled upright
into a sitting position by the sudden fear that they would have let
her sleep.

“It’s okay. No news yet.”

Miranda—of all people—sat across from her on
one of the narrow couches in the waiting room. It was Miranda who
had spoken, continuing, “I posted an intern in the hall outside his
room. If there are any developments, we’ll hear about them as fast
as possible.”

Marcy nodded, rubbing a hand over her face,
trying to scrub away some of the sleep and tear-tracks. “What time
is it?”

“Just after seven in the morning. Your mother
and sisters found some space in another waiting room one floor
down. Daniel’s with them. He’s been bringing them coffee and
looking after them.”

“Thank you,” Marcy said, then realized it was
Daniel she should be thanking, but she wasn’t ready to see him. The
snoring beside her faded into a snort and then started up
again.

Craig was asleep sitting up at one end of her
couch, his head flopped back to rest against the wall, mouth wide
open—the source of both the snoring and the crick in her neck since
she’d been sleeping with his thigh as a pillow.

Craig had looked after her. Daniel had taken
care of her family. “Where’s Darius?”

“He may still be at the hotel. I’m not sure
anyone told him.”

Marcy nodded, her brain processing everything
slowly, as if too much of her brainpower was dedicated to worrying
about her father and little was left for completing basic tasks,
like breathing and speech.

“I’ll call LA as soon as it’s a decent hour,”
Miranda continued. “We’ll put the show on hold for a few days,
until your father is doing better.”

Marcy wasn’t sure whether to be pleased by
Miranda’s positive thinking or annoyed by her assumption.
And
what if he isn’t doing better?
part of her wanted to demand,
but the words would require too much effort. Energy she didn’t
have.

“Would you like some coffee?” Miranda asked.
“The machine in here is watery crap, but there’s an espresso
machine in the cafeteria.”

Coffee sounded like heaven. “That would be
amazing.”

Miranda nodded, brisk, satisfied to have a
task. “I’ll just be a minute.”

She stepped out into the hallway, but the
door caught on something on the floor and didn’t close all the way,
so Marcy could still hear her, clear as a bell, when Miranda said,
“Darius. When did you get here?”

“Just now,” came his deep, clear voice.
“What’s going on? Is there any news?”

“Not yet,” Miranda replied. “It’s still wait
and see.”

“What does that mean for the show? I mean,
are we still having the Elimination Ceremony tonight?”

Marcy glowered toward the door. She couldn’t
have heard him right.

“Marcy’s father is in the hospital,” Miranda
said, as if explaining the situation to a small child. “She’s in no
condition for an Elimination Ceremony. The show is on hold.”

“Yeah, but for how long? Are we just supposed
to wait around indefinitely—”

Marcy was on her feet and bursting through
the not-quite-closed waiting room door before thought caught up to
instinct. But she didn’t need thought. Darius broke off at the
sight of her, eyes going wide as he realized he was busted.

“You know what, Darius,” she snapped,
everything in her burning righteous and clean, “let me make it
easier for you. You don’t have to wait around indefinitely to find
out whether my father—the man you spent the day with just two days
ago—is going to live. You can go home right now. And I hope I never
fucking see you again. There. Elimination Ceremony complete.
Happy?”

Darius gaped. “Are you serious?” he
sputtered.

“I think she is,” Miranda said when Marcy
didn’t have the words. Her little speech to Darius seemed to have
exhausted her verbal reservoirs and she was back in shell-shock
mode. “Goodbye, Darius,” Miranda said for her. “We’ll arrange your
flight back to Atlanta for this afternoon and see you at the
reunion show taping. Go on now.” She made a shooing gesture.

The big man looked back and forth between the
two of them, opening his mouth to say something, but Miranda held
her hand up, eyes narrowed behind her glasses. She was small, but
with that look in her eye, no one naysayed her. “Stop. Just
go.”

She turned her back on him, ushering Marcy
back inside the waiting room. “I know this sounds bad, but I wish
we’d gotten that on tape.”

Marcy frowned, looking around and realizing
for the first time that there were no cameras around. She’d somehow
thought with Miranda here that they would be filming everything,
but there wasn’t a recording device in sight.

“Do you need it on tape?” she asked, back to
feeling like her brain was on slow motion and she was trying to
play catch up with the world around her.

“We’ll have Pendleton do a nice little
explanatory fireside chat. Not to worry. Now. Would you still like
that coffee?”

Marcy nodded dazedly. The producer bustled
out of the room, making sure the door shut all the way this time,
and Marcy stared after her. The show really was on hold. No more
Romancing Miss Right
. Snoring came from her right. Craig was
still here.

She didn’t have the mental energy right now
to wonder what that meant.

#

Miranda turned her cell phone on when she hit
the lobby on her way to the cafeteria and it rang almost instantly.
The caller-ID showed the network offices, but gave her no clue
which of the Big Wigs was calling to rip her a new one.

“Hello?”

“Why weren’t we informed there was a crisis
with the
Romancing Miss Right
filming?”

Wallace’s bark. She’d know it anywhere.

“Obviously you were informed since you’re
calling me about it at four-thirty in the morning,” she said, after
some quick time zone math. “I was waiting until a civilized hour to
let you know there had been a snag and the filming would need to be
placed temporarily on hold.”

“Do you know how expensive putting a show
on hold
is?”

“Since I approve the budget reports for each
week of filming and know exactly how much it costs to keep a crew
around for a single day in which they aren’t working—yes, as a
matter of fact, I do. But I’m not sure what you expect me to do
about it. Miss Right’s
father
is in the hospital—during Meet
the In-Laws week, I might add—and he may not recover. She’s in no
state to be frolicking with Suitors.”

“All the travel arrangements for the
Overnight Dates will have to be rescheduled if we delay—”

“I’m aware of that, Wallace. I’m also aware
that Miss Right can barely form two coherent sentences at the
moment. If you won’t think of her, think of the optics. How would
it look if we forced her to run off to some exotic destination and
roll around in the sand with a Suitor while her father is lying in
a hospital bed, possibly
dying
?”