by Amy DeLuca
Hunter grunted a one-word answer. “Out.”
“We went out on Reid’s boat,” Kristal said. “I needed to get some shots of the mansions from the water and the Pell Bridge lights at night. It was beautiful.”
“Sweet,” Tucker said. “So, you two staying up for a while?”
“Oh, not me. I’m exhausted. I’m gonna head up to bed,” Kristal said.
She needed this night to end, and she prayed Hunter wouldn’t feel compelled to walk her to the door of her suite. Standing there with him and not kissing him goodnight after this incredible “date” would be too heartbreaking.
Hunter scrubbed a hand through his short hair. “I should probably get some work done. I was gone a long time. I’ll hang with you for a while, Tuck.”
“Look at Doc—burning the midnight oil,” Tuck said with a laugh. “Settle in bro. Plenty of junk food to share and a fresh pot of coffee in the kitchen.”
“Thanks.” Hunter nodded, but his gaze wasn’t on Tucker. Instead, his sad eyes locked with Kristal’s just before she turned to head up the stairs alone.
“Good night guys,” she called back over her shoulder.
“Night, Kristal,” Tucker replied.
Hunter said nothing, and she did not look back to see if he watched her go. It didn’t matter. As promising as their relationship had looked this morning, it was clearly over now.
And Snow White was done with waiting for Prince Charming’s kiss.
She was wide awake—and on her own.
Nineteen
Just Friends
One week later
The great room had never felt so small.
Hot, bright lights blazed from every corner, and no less than twenty crew members were crowded into every available space.
Guys in sneakers and backward caps held huge cameras on their shoulders and awaited instruction from Hap while two women with cosmetics cases moved from Aiden to Paul to Kristal to Hunter, making sure the “talent” was ready to begin shooting for the day.
Reid, who was still not thrilled with the whole thing, complained as he swatted away one of them, “I thought this was Tech House, not a makeover show.”
Hap had sent some dailies to the network he’d been talking to, and they were interested. Very interested.
They wanted to fast-track the pilot and have the shooting wrap up in a couple of weeks, which meant all hands on deck.
Even Tuck, who’d needed more undereye concealer than the rest of them, was there, though his mouth had been stretched in a semi-permanent yawn for the past half hour.
Following the loose script Hap had given them, the talent went through the motions of working, discussed the “software” they’d allegedly designed for the show’s competition, and argued a bit.
Hap had explained some conflict was important to keep things interesting and maintain the tension of the episode.
When it came to Kristal and Hunter, the tension was a hundred percent legitimate.
They weren’t fighting. No, it was far worse than that. She’d been nothing but pleasant and polite for the past week since their ill-fated date.
But she was distant. She rarely spoke to him directly and avoided eye contact.
When he’d asked how her job search was going, she’d given him a breezy one word answer, “Fine,” and found some reason to leave the room.
When he’d asked how her photos from the sunset cruise had turned out, she’d told him she hadn’t had a chance to look through them yet.
They’d agreed to keep their relationship limited to friendship, but honestly, it didn’t feel like they were even friends anymore. Even the other guys had noticed.
“Okay, cut. Let’s take a break everyone. Back in thirty minutes, okay?” Hap said.
Tuck, Aiden, Josh, and Paul dashed for the kitchen where craft services had laid out a spread. Several crew members filed out the back door to smoke on the terrace, and Kristal headed for the stairs as usual.
When she wasn’t at work, shooting photos, or filming the show, she was in her room these days.
When she was out of earshot, Hap turned to Hunter. “What is up with you two?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re moping around, and Kristal’s like a phantom. Neither one of you has said more than a few words the past few days. Did you have a fight or something? Did she shoot you down?”
“I hope it’s not my fault,” Reid interjected, walking over to join them. “I didn’t mean to mess up your game, man. I hoped the thing with the yacht would help make up for the way I acted before, but I guess it didn’t work.”
Hunter shook his head, his eyes downcast. “No. It wasn’t you. It was me. The yacht was great. The whole night was great.” There was a pause before he said, “But I told her we should be friends.”
“Excuse me, what?”
Hap’s arms flailed, and his eyes bugged out. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. This whole thing was because you wanted out of the friend zone. Although I’m not complaining about doing the show now that it’s about to be picked up by the network. But I don’t get it.”
“Why would you say you wanted to be just friends?” Reid asked, looking truly dumbfounded. “You’ve been drooling over that girl since the second she moved in. What—she’s not as great as you thought she was?”
Hunter gave him a sharp glance. “No. She’s incredible. It’s just… we’re not right for each other.”
“Does this have something to do with your dad being in jail?” Hap asked.
“Keep your voice down,” Hunter hissed. “I don’t want her to know about that.”
Just then the sound guy called out to Hap to come over and listen to something, holding out a pair of headphones for him to put on.
“Be right back,” Hap said.
Reid laid a hand on Hunter’s shoulder. “You love her, huh?” he asked in a low voice. At Hunter’s continued silence, Reid said, “Look, if there’s one thing I know… it’s unrequited love. It sucks, man.”
“Is that why you started StillYours-dot-com?”
Reid gave him a forbidding glance. “We’re talking about you and Kristal, not me and Mara. So… do you love her or not?”
What was the point in lying? The answer was already obvious to Reid and probably anyone else who had eyes.
“Yeah. I do. Always have. And I’m not even sure it was unrequited. But I blew it. Things were going great the other night… and then I freaked.”
“The famous Hunter Bestia lost his ice-man control? Hey, I’m just kidding. The right woman can do that to you, and a little polar-cap-melting passion’s not a bad thing.”
Hunter shook his head. “Some of the things she was saying about me… she thinks she knows me, but she doesn’t. She’s got me built up to be some kind of hero. I don’t want her to find out about my past… about my dad. And it’s inevitable. When she finds out, she’s going to be sorry she said those things to a white-trash nobody, a convict’s son, a—”
“Hold on there,” Reid interrupted. “You are not trash. And you’re not your dad.”
“I could be—easily. It doesn’t matter how much money I make, how much power I gain. I’m still his son. When I saw him that night he got arrested, he said…”
Hunter’s voice broke, and he shook off the thought. “It doesn’t matter. Kristal was right—you don’t really ever change who you are at your core. You’re always essentially the same person.”
Reid’s hand on his shoulder clamped down harder.
“That’s right. And you’re one of the best people I’ve ever known, now and back then. When Mara disappeared, you were there for me—you’ve always been there for me and everyone else. You’re good to everyone—except yourself. And that needs to change. You need to let other people do things for you for a change. I’m going to start by helping you fix things with Kristal.”
“How? She’ll barely even look at me, much less talk to me. It’s too late.”
“Don’t worry,” Reid
said. “I have a plan. First… we need to talk to Hap.”
Twenty
Good at Pretending
Later that night, Kristal’s gaze bounced from Hunter to Hap to Reid then made the rounds again.
“You want me to what?” She could hardly believe what she’d heard coming out of the director’s mouth.
“It’s just for the cameras,” Hap assured her. “The network looked at the dailies, and they like the show, but they want to see it ‘spiced up’ a little. They want an in-house romance. It happened naturally at the Boston Tech House, and they loved it.”
He’d been traveling back and forth between the houses, shooting in both locations to give the network an idea of how the competitive teams would look pitted against each other in separate houses. Now they were all gathered in the great room of the Newport house.
“If we had another girl on the show, I’d ask her to do it, but you’re all we’ve got. And I’m afraid everyone here is firmly hetero, so there are no other possibilities. Come on—it’s all fake. It’ll be funny.”
She shook her head. “I said from the start I wasn’t doing this if it was going to turn into some sort of dating show.”
“It’s not a dating show. It’ll be just a few scenes here and there. We’ve come this far—might as well finish strong. And it’s just for a couple more weeks.”
Kristal eyed him suspiciously. “Who would I be ‘involved’ with?”
“Well, I’m the director, so I’m out. No one would buy that you’d be involved with a dopey guy like Josh or a grumpy sod like Reid.”
“Hey,” Reid protested.
“Seriously dude, you’re about as charming as a hemorrhoid these days—no offense.”
Reid squinted and gave him a syrupy grin. “How could I possibly take offense at being compared to a swollen rectal vein?”
“Paul is out because of the allergy issue,” Hap continued. “No fun kissing a guy who’s got to stop and blow his nose every few seconds. Tuck’s barely around, and when he is, he’s yawning the whole time. Aiden’s so shy he can barely look at you, so it won’t make sense if he suddenly turns into some kind of lothario. I mean, everyone knows reality shows are fake, but we can only strain believability so much.”
He paused. “That leaves Hunter.”
“No,” was Kristal’s instant reply. “It’ll never work. We have zero chemistry.”
Hunter narrowed those spectacular turquoise eyes at her, and her stupid heart responded, revealing her lie by flip-flopping vigorously.
“Come on,” Hap cajoled. “All you have to do is flirt a little bit—some witty banter here and there. I’ll write it for you if you want. Maybe let us catch one little ‘forbidden’ kiss on camera.”
He held up his hands at her obvious bristling. “It’s all pretend. We’re really close with the network, and I know this will put us over the top. It would be a huge favor. I’ll owe you. Please Kristal… I’m literally begging.”
Sliding her gaze from one pleading expression to the next, it landed on Hunter’s.
“Fine,” she deadpanned. “I guess I can force myself to seem interested in him—if he can do the same.”
He smirked at her insult. “That should be no problem. I’m good at pretending.”
Getting a job out of state was starting to sound more appealing all the time. “When do we start?” Kristal asked.
Hap checked his phone planner app.
“The crew will be back tomorrow at one. You’ll go on your first ‘date’ then. We want it to be unique and picturesque for the cameras—one of our selling points is the beauty of Newport. Thankfully the Newport Winter Festival is going on, so we’re sending you guys to First Beach.”
She balked. “The beach? I’m not one of those Polar Plunge people, so if your idea of picturesque was my pale winter legs shivering in a swimsuit and my lips turning blue, you’re out of luck. This girl is keeping her coat on.”
As it turned out, Hap hadn’t planned for them to swim but to attend a beach polo match.
Normally Newport Polo matches took place on the grassy playing fields at Glen Farm in nearby Portsmouth—and in much warmer weather.
But as a special exhibition for the Winter Festival, it was being played today on the sand at low tide.
Kristal and Hunter stood side-by-side with about a thousand other spectators lining the playing field, which had been carved out of the intertidal area of one of Newport’s most picturesque beaches.
The sandy stretch was cradled in a cove between the famous Cliff Walk and the mansions on one side and, on the other, a public pavilion complete with a snack bar and a 1950’s carousel.
As opposed to how it had been on their real first date, the conversation between them was stilted.
They both wore microphones tucked into the necklines of their clothing. The wiring of Kristal’s snaked down through her bra and around her waist to the battery pack at her lower back.
Every time she moved, she felt it. It made her extra-conscious of the fact she was being listened to—and watched. Which made it a little difficult to even think of things to say—she should have let Hap write that dialogue for her after all.
Hunter was apparently handling it better. He leaned down to her, his breath fogging the cold marine air as he spoke close to her ear.
“I read that the thoroughbreds are accustomed to the sandy footing—it’s like their natural habitats. They play on similar footing materials in arena polo. But you probably already knew that. I’ll bet you’ve been to lots of polo matches, huh?”
“Actually no,” she replied, feeling contrary. His nearness was as unsettling as ever. “My family never went. I always wanted to go myself but never made the time.”
He gave her a charming smile, just perfect for the camera trained on them.
“I’m glad you made the time today. It’s nice to be with you—just the two of us.”
Kristal had to refrain from rolling her eyes. If she did, Hunter would have to repeat the cheesy line for take two, and she was eager to get this whole ridiculous experience over with.
It didn’t help that he was, as he’d said, really good at pretending. And her heart was apparently too stupid to know the difference.
When he smiled over at her, took her cold hand inside his impossibly warm one, murmured comments on the match and the view in her ear, it tripped all over itself, stumbling and rolling in her chest. It all felt so real.
After the second chukker, or period of play, they walked over to warm themselves by the fire pit. Hunter bought two hot chocolates from the cash bar and handed one to Kristal. She gripped it gratefully, lifting the cup to her chin to warm her face.
“Maybe we should watch the rest of the match from up there,” he suggested, pointing at the rocky cliff overlooking the beach.
Atop it, just on the other side of the famous Cliff Walk, sat the gracious Chanler Hotel. Housed in a twenty-room Gilded Age mansion, the Forbes Four Star hotel offered a birds-eye view of First Beach and luxury accommodations fit for royalty.
Kristal had never stayed there, but she’d eaten at its elegant signature restaurant, Cara, several times. She could see people watching the match from its outdoor terrace café, which glowed with the flickering light of towering patio heaters.
She nodded at Hunter. “That would be great.”
Together they strolled up the hill on the beachside sidewalk. She shuddered from the cold, and he slipped an arm around her shoulders.
“For the cameras,” he whispered when she stiffened in response.
Kristal allowed the contact but remained quiet for most of their walk. It took some self-talk to remind herself the warmth and solid feel of his tall frame were simply part of the show and not something to be enjoyed. Or craved, as she had been doing since their date night on the yacht.
Memories of the more pleasant parts of that evening continued to plague her, stubbornly intruding on her thoughts despite her best efforts to control them.
It just
didn’t make sense.
Why had Hunter so carefully planned out the perfect evening—the sunset photography opportunity, her favorite foods, the sweltering kisses on the deck—then shut her out?
She would probably never know, which was tragic considering the happy times she’d spent with him were among the very best moments of her life.
Kristal had intended to make a beeline for those heaters she’d spotted in the Chanler’s open-air café and bar area, but when she and Hunter reached the hotel, her plans changed abruptly.
A large, fragrant bonfire roared in the firepit at the center of the beautifully manicured lawn.
It drew her like the proverbial moth, especially since a hotel employee was handing out s’mores kits. She was starving, and s’mores happened to be a particular favorite of hers.
“Oh, this is good,” the cameraman said as he followed them to the blazing firepit. “Make sure you toast some marshmallows.”
“Way ahead of you,” Kristal assured him.
Five minutes later, she was warm and had a mouthful of chocolate, graham cracker, and marshmallow—the combination of which was proof that God loved humanity and wanted His children to be happy.
And she was happy. For the first time since the ridiculous faux-dating idea had been proposed, Kristal actually felt relaxed.
Hunter had enjoyed a couple of s’mores as well, though perhaps not as much as she had. Her gaze flickered to his face.
His very, very handsome face—the eyes that threatened to drown her in their blue depths every time they met hers and lips so sensuous, she could barely stand to watch him eat, much less keep from imagining kissing him again.
Which she’d been doing far too often. Relaxation—gone.
Licking those lips to remove a remnant of marshmallow, Hunter looked over at her and chuckled.
“You’ve got a little chocolate…”
He pointed at the left corner of her mouth, and she probed it with the tip of her tongue, understanding that she’d made a mess in her hurry to consume her own tasty treats.