Her TV Bachelor Fake Fiancé: Christmas Romance Series

by Krey, Kimberly

  “Wait right there in the corner,” Lisa said as she appeared in the doorway. Until this point, Stan had been the one giving orders. Lisa tipped her head back and motioned with her arm. “This way, dear. This way.” The host took several backward steps as a large smile appeared on her face. “Your lady,” she said.

  Anticipation had been eating at Canyon since they’d parted ways. Heck, he’d hurried through his shower for no reason at all and stared at the clock between rounds of golf, wondering what this night would be like. He wondered what was going through Cambria’s mind. And if the two had been alone earlier, would she have kissed him? Canyon was almost sure she would have.

  Even now at the recollection, fire roared hot and low in his belly. You’ve got to make it happen tonight, man. You’ve got to kiss her.

  He straightened his tie, vest, and tugged at the jacket of his tux while broadening his chest, eyes ever fixed on the open doorway.

  He heard hints of a small chuckle at first—unmistakably hers—and felt heat in an entire new spot in his heart. He liked recognizing that laugh of hers. Liked that she found so many reasons to use it. No wonder America liked her the best, dummy. She’s incredible.

  As if to prove that point with her flawless appearance alone, Cambria appeared in the doorway at last, that olive skin soaking up the warm glow of the lights. Her dress, the lightest shade of dusty blue, shimmered as it hugged every curve. And when her eyes met his, Canyon recalled every goofy thing he’d said about her on film. He already knew she was amazing. He just… hadn’t been ready for her before. But he was now.

  The growing warmth in his heart agreed. “Wow,” he said under his breath. He stepped out from behind the table and gave her a deep, gallant bow.

  “Wow, yourself,” she said with a careful-looking grin.

  Canyon stepped over to her chair. “Have a seat.”

  She did, and Canyon scooted it back into place and walked around to his own seat. He watched quietly as Cambria observed the fancy table setting. When her eyes settled on the plates with hand drawn artwork, hidden slightly by a tented napkin, her forehead scrunched. “What’s this?”

  “That’s a plate I drew when I was a little kid.” He removed his own napkin, shook it with a flourish before resting it on his lap, then waved a hand toward the plate resting in front of him. “And I assume you’re the one who drew this?”

  Cambria’s jaw dropped. “How’d they get those here?”

  Canyon handed it to her across the table so she could inspect it. “I thought I was a better artist than this,” she said, a smile pulling at her lips. She handed it back to him and then lifted Canyon’s childhood plate to inspect it next. “Oh my gosh, this is so cute! You had a dog?”

  “No,” he admitted.

  Cambria shot a questioning look at him.

  Canyon shrugged. “I wanted a dog. I’m pretty sure I was trying to paint a picture of how happy we’d be if my parents let us get a dog.”

  That full, brilliant smile lit up Cambria’s face, and heaven help him, Canyon felt it everywhere. And her laugh—that cute little trill— it was like hitting the jackpot every time he earned one.

  “So I got a note on the way down here,” she said. “I’m supposed to read it while Ralph brings in our food.”

  Canyon had almost forgotten their date was being recorded. That’s how natural things felt around this woman. “Okay,” he said.

  “According to Charles Dickens’ novel, A Christmas Carol, Ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Future can help put life into perspective. Your dinner guest for the evening is to be the Ghost of Christmas Future. While you dine on these special plates from the past, share with one another a vision of what your ideal future looks like.” She slid the tips of her delicate fingers along the fold in the card.

  “Christmas Future, huh?” Canyon said. “Who wants to go first?”

  “You,” Cambria said.

  Canyon lifted a brow. “I do?” He thought back on a silly game Rain used to play. She’d write out a bunch of options of what a person’s future might look like, then she’d use some sort of rhythm to narrow the selections down. By the end of it, his younger sister could tell Canyon not only the woman he’d marry but details all the way down to what kind of car he’d drive, the type of home he’d live in, and what he’d be doing for a living. He’d played enough rounds of the game to know just what he hoped his future looked like. But should he admit that?

  “Well,” he said, his cheeks warming as he realized Cambria’s expectant gaze was fixed on him. “If we’re talking a Christmas five or ten years from now, I hope to be happily married.”

  “I like how you inserted the happily part,” Cambria said.

  He grinned and gave her a nod. “Better than being miserably married, right?”

  She did that small little laugh in her throat. “Definitely.”

  He blew out a breath, feeling nervous suddenly under the gaze of those gorgeous brown eyes. “That picture wouldn’t be complete, in my book, without a couple of kids.” A thought occurred to him then. Hadn’t he heard that one of the bachelorettes wasn’t able to have children of her own? Another detail he hadn’t been able to trace to a name since he’d most likely eliminated the woman before learning who it was.

  On the chance it was Cambria, he added, “I don’t mind adopting of course, if that became necessary. I just want a family.” He paused to give Ralph a nod as he replaced their small plates for ones with a colorful salad. “Thank you,” he murmured.

  He looked down at the plate he’d colored, kept it there as he recalled a critical word his father had spoken about the drawing. “We’ll spend a traditional night in front of the fireplace, decorating a tree with cute little ornaments the kids made at school. And their mom and I, we’ll go on and on about how much we love each hand-crafted addition. And the funny thing is, we won’t even be faking it. We’ll love it because we’ll be crazy about them. Even if they glue the bowtie pasta onto the wreath an obvious inch below where it’s supposed to go.”

  The plate had become a blur, so Canyon pulled his eyes off it and glanced up at Cambria once more. She searched his face while hints of emotion toyed with her expression. Was it sadness? Happiness? A mixture of both, perhaps?

  “That sounds nice,” she said, her voice cracking. Again he had to wonder, just what was Cambria’s past like? The card said it was time to discuss the future. He hoped that meant they could finally dive into the past next.

  “What about you?” he asked. His pulse seemed to slow as he waited for her response. The show had discouraged them from talking too much about their past during the first few weeks of the dating process, stressing the importance of leaving something to discover along the way. But as he waited for the woman he was beginning to fall for to open up about her own past, Canyon couldn’t help but worry that she’d bring up something that might very well be a dealbreaker. Like maybe she didn’t want to have kids ever. Perhaps she had no intention of settling in one place. Maybe she had ambitions to travel and open her natural oils shops everywhere and if a man wanted to marry her he’d have to just travel around with her.

  “My picture of Christmas Future looks… very similar,” she said.

  Canyon’s body went from its rigid on-edge perch to a relieved slouch in the chair. He grinned like she’d just sent him some sort of I-like-you note back in grade school.

  “I plan to sing all sorts of praise over my kids’ artwork. And when each season comes, I want to be part of creating things with them. Snowflakes for winter that we can keep hanging throughout the house clear until Valentines Day, then we’ll replace them with pink and red paper hearts that they cut out themselves and glued to doilies. I picture spending time in the kitchen, making holiday treats to hand out to neighbors, and playing board games, when they’re old enough, while drinking eggnog and sharing stories about the time Dad fell off the sled while showing off for Mom.”

  Canyon cleared his throat as emotion took hol
d of him. Was it possible to fall in love so quickly? Because it felt very much like that. But what was he falling in love with? The woman herself, of the picture she’d so beautifully painted? Details of a life he wanted more than he could say. Oh no, please say my eyes aren’t watery.

  Canyon sniffed and straightened up. “That sounds perfect. Except, in my version, they talk about the way Mom fell off the sled. Wait, that didn’t sound nice.”

  But Cambria was already chuckling. “Fine.” She picked up her fork and eyed her salad. “I’m not too proud to go tumbling off a sled.”

  He believed it, and he liked that about her. He grabbed his fork as well and speared a grape tomato with it. “What about thirty years from now?” he said. “What would it look like then?”

  Cambria nodded as she finished chewing a crouton. “Goodness, that’s a long time from now. Could we be grandparents by then?”

  Canyon considered that. “I guess so.”

  And as Cambria answered, Canyon chimed in with a few details of his own. A big Christmas Eve dinner with the entire family. Lots of loud laughter and good food.

  “And once they all leave the house,” Cambria said, “we can sit down in front of a nice, quiet game of Scrabble, just the two of us, while Christmas music plays in the background.”

  Canyon nodded and grinned. “Sounds perfect.” It wasn’t until that moment, that awareness hit him. Somewhere along the way, they’d begun talking about their future as if it would be a shared experience. We instead of me.

  Call him sappy or even a total sucker, but Canyon was starting to believe they could one day have the perfect picture they’d created. Even more, he believed they could have it together.

  Chapter 11

  Cambria followed Lisa to the cabin’s small theater, thoughts of Canyon owning her mind.

  “Canyon just finished up. Now it’s your turn. Give the camera your thoughts, then join us in the front room where you and Canyon can spend the evening by the fireplace.”

  Cambria gave her a nod as she stepped into the room. The lights were still low, as they were before, but Stan was set up with a lighting crew in front of the love seat she’d shared with Canyon.

  Canyon! Yummy, swoon-worthy Canyon Byer who wanted the wife, kids, and grandkids too. Her heart had been swimming in some sort of sugar since their conversation over an hour ago. The remainder of their dinner had centered more around what the other Find My Fiancé contestants were up to now. Most were happily married, many had children or at least one on the way. She couldn’t help but get carried off into thoughts of becoming one of America’s darling couples. Oh, yeah, I remember Cambria and Canyon, or as they’re more popularly called, Double C.

  She smiled to herself. A nickname for the two as a couple, like Double V. She liked it.

  “Tell us how your expectations for this journey have changed in the last day or two,” Stan encouraged before ducking behind the camera and stroking his beard. He’d read the question off a cue card written by Marsha, Cambria assumed.

  She paused there, forced herself to abandon the urge she felt to play it safe. She was falling for Canyon, and there was no sense in denying it.

  “Let me rephrase it,” Stan said upon her delay. “On a scale of one to ten, how hopeful were you that Canyon could actually be your match?”

  That simplified it. “I’d say a good ol’ zero percent.” Only that wasn’t true, was it? “Wait,” she blurted. “We had a connection once before, and though he broke my trust before I left the show, I couldn’t deny there was something between us. I might have thought we had a …. fifteen percent chance that he was the one.”

  “And now?” Stan didn’t come out from his spot behind the large lens. He stayed tucked just behind it, a smile evident despite the large beard he kept.

  “Now I’m a lot more hopeful. I feel like we made a lot of progress with the counseling cook and—” She stopped herself from mentioning the apology he’d brought to her room that night. “And in the dates that followed,” she said.

  “So a percent?”

  Cambria tipped her head back, wondering if they’d asked Canyon this same question. If so, what had he answered? She wouldn’t want to say something exceptionally different. “I say maybe fifty, actually sixty percent chance that he could be the one.”

  A squeal sounded from just outside the door, telling Cambria that Lisa was listening in on her. She fought back a smile. “Is that it?”

  “Just one last thing,” Stan said, moving slightly to one side. “The screen is going to play a never-before-seen clip of Canyon talking about you the day before things went sour. We’d like you to watch it while we film your reaction. You can either speak on it or choose to be done at that point.”

  Dread rushed through her. Would it be an entirely new offense she’d have to forgive? Cambria wasn’t sure she could take another one. Canyon’s handsome face filled the screen. “You know how some songs just have a certain appeal that make them stick out more than others? Like you can hear it just once or twice, and suddenly it’s your favorite song and you want to hear it all the time. Well, Cambria’s like that for me. I’ve only gone on one date with her, but time and time again, after I get back from a string of other dates, I come home, and the first thing that comes to mind is Cambria. Her face, her laugh. Something she said. Doesn’t matter how many other songs I listen to in between. As soon as I have a quiet second, that same beat comes back to me.”

  Cambria felt the lens zooming in to get her reaction as the screen faded to black.

  “Well?” Stan asked.

  She smiled, her heart doing backflips in that sweet water even still. “I loved hearing that,” she admitted. May as well. Why hold back now?

  Suddenly Lisa stepped back into the room and Stan panned over to her. “We’re going to give Cambria two options now. Whichever of those two options she chooses will determine whether she and Canyon will continue with their date tonight, or they part ways now and meet up again tomorrow.”

  Great. A twist.

  The woman lowered herself beside Cambria in the love seat as Tina, the second camera operator, circled around her to get a different angle.

  “Are you ready to hear Option One?”

  Cambria pulled in a deep breath and sighed. “Sure.” A small chuckle followed the word. She didn’t feel at all ready.

  “We interviewed Canyon just moments ago with the exact question we asked you, and we’ve got his recorded response.” It took Cambria a second to call back just what that question was. Oh yeah, the likelihood that Canyon was her match. How she felt upon entering, and how and if that had changed now.

  Lisa held up one finger and leveled a look at Cambria. “You can choose to see Canyon’s response to that now, and if you do, you’ll move right into the rest of your evening date together. You’ll do that no matter what his response is.

  “However, if you choose not to share your response or watch Canyon’s in return, your night ends here. You’ll go to your separate quarters without saying goodnight and then start back up tomorrow morning.”

  Cambria stared blankly at Lisa as she tried to take in what she’d said. “I can watch what he said about it right now? The decision is up to me?”

  Lisa nodded. “And your answer determines whether Canyon gets to view yours.”

  What kind of odd setup was this? Cons… what were they? Having Canyon know—without a doubt—where her feelings were. Feelings she might not have expressed so liberally had she known they might show Canyon before they were even out of there. And what if he didn’t feel anywhere near the same?

  A horrible sharp pain gouged into her chest at the thought. She didn’t want to know yet. Especially not if they were going to have to spend the rest of the night together right after. She shook her head. That was enough to seal the deal right there and then. It wasn’t worth knowing how he felt. Not yet.

  * * *

  Canyon stared from his bedroom doorway, pulse pounding as he waited to see what Cambria woul
d choose. Just after he’d recorded his Q & A on camera, Lisa told Canyon the offer they would give to Cambria.

  At first Canyon had been certain she’d say, “Sure, let him see mine.” He hoped the main incentive behind it would be to spend the rest of the evening together. That’s what he wanted. To Canyon, it was hardly a consideration.

  But as he watched the theater entrance from down the hall, too anxious for the forced, casual-looking lean against the doorframe to the bachelor’s suite, doubt crept in strong. What if her feelings weren’t matching his at all? She wouldn’t want him to know that. Not if she was faking, anyway.

  What other reason would she have to say no, she didn’t want them to see each other’s answers? In essence, she’d be revealing herself either way. If she said yes, he’d get confirmation one way or another. But if she said no, Canyon would know that she didn’t feel the same.

  He gulped the dryness from his throat, eyes drifting to the slated stone beneath his feet, hating how very high the stakes felt suddenly. In his two year modeling career, Canyon had walked dozens of walkways. He’d been to go-sees that would determine whether or not he’d score jobs most models would give anything for. Heck, he’d starred in Find My Fiancé this entire time, hadn’t he?

  So why now did he have to feel so… desperate?

  “Alrighty, then,” came Lisa’s voice from down the hall.

  Canyon perked up and darted his gaze to the theater entrance. Lisa took a backward step into the hallway. Tina followed suit, camera fixed on the doorway as she moved. “Head onto your suite for the evening,” Lisa said. “We’ll let Mr. Byer know that you’ve made your choice.”

  Back to her suite for the evening? Canyon’s shoulders fell. Heat burned low in his chest. It felt hollow suddenly, like his heart had dropped somewhere on the porous rock floor. He pictured the moment she’d almost kissed him at lunch. Their conversation at dinner. Cambria wasn’t faking. She couldn’t be.