Daisy felt the blood drain from her face as the truth dawned. Joel was her Big Ben?
It... That...
It was impossible. Big Ben had been sweet and lovely and nice. Not that Joel wasn't but... "Go- Go on," she stammered.
"There's not much else to tell."
"But that nickname? Why call you Big Ben when your name is Joel?"
"I went to a boys' school. A very conservative one and they call students by their last names. I was Benjamin right through five years of secondary school. Most of the time it was Ben to my classmates. Big Ben. Big Benny even." He shuddered and Daisy slumped back against the chair and just stared at him.
Stared at him so closely she could see it. She could actually see it now. The eyes, the bone structure hidden beneath the cute, chubby cheeks.
"You're Big Benny?" she said slowly.
He nodded, then narrowed his gaze at her. "Why do you say it like that?"
She straightened. "No reason," she lied.
He gave her a suspicious glance before he pulled his phone from his pocket and checked it.
She watched him cautiously. Maybe he didn't even remember that night?
She'd been nineteen or so, and he'd been a few years older and it wasn't as if they'd been intimate. They'd just been two rejected people who'd been thrown together for twelve hours. Yet she'd never forgotten it. That night had in her memory become almost a benchmark of how it could feel to be with someone and just be yourself and not be judged.
But it didn't mean to say that he remembered.
He was staring closely at her now. "Do I know you from somewhere?"
She pressed her lips together. Was it worth mentioning? Just because she had never forgotten that night?
Slowly, he put his phone back in his pocket and murmured, "We've met someplace else. Haven't we?" He stared at her. "Obviously not at university."
She glared at him. "Why is it obvious it wasn't university?"
"You told me you'd never gone."
"Of course." Her sensitivity was reaching new depths of crazy. She plastered on a smile. "Actually, we have met. Years ago. Around ten or so."
His eyebrows arched. "Really?"
"We were on a double blind date. We both got stood up."
His forehead creased. The door suddenly opened and Kelly came through clutching a tray of coffee and chocolate biscuits. She set the tray on the table.
"You should know," she announced as she paused for breath, her hands on her hips, "that this has hit the fan. Big time." She gestured to the coffee. "We could be here for a while. Help yourselves."
She spun and whirled out.
The door shut behind her and Joel turned, stared at Daisy a long, long time. Finally, he said, "You're that girl? From the restaurant?"
She nodded.
He stared at her, speechless.
"So you remember?" she said.
"Yeah. Sort of." He scrutinized her. "That was really you?" His voice was shrouded in disbelief.
She gazed heavenward. "So much for me looking like a teenager if you can't even remember me when I was one."
"I'd had a lot to drink."
"We had one bottle of wine between us and a meal. Even I wasn't drunk on that."
He grimaced. "I'd had a couple before I went in. To calm the nerves. I didn't as a rule drink much. Tendency to get hung-over pretty quick."
Oh.
Her heart plummeted.
So when she was thinking he was holding her romantically close, he was more likely in the early stages of a hangover.
While she was being enveloped in his cute, cuddly warmth admiring the sunrise, he was leaning on her so he didn't collapse into a drunken heap on the waterfront.
And that nice guy, that cute, cuddly guy who had laughed and listened and made her feel so alive, was this man, this supercilious...
The silence in the room grew, save for the ticking of the cartoon clock on the wall.
“Look, we need to focus," Joel said finally. "About this trip.”
She'd forgotten about the trip.
Just like Big Ben had forgotten about her.
But Joel was right.
“You're right. We should focus on the trip. Although I’ve never even heard of this Golden Grove place before. It sounds pretty tacky and cheap.”
He narrowed his gaze. “I have heard of it but I can't think where.”
"Probably in ten places to stay away from before you die," she muttered.
He laughed. "You are funny."
"I was being serious," she remarked coolly.
He said, "Did we have fun that night?"
There was an intensity to his expression that put all sarcastic barbs out of her mind. He really wanted to know.
She sighed. "Yeah, we did. We were two rejected people but we had a lot of fun and we laughed a lot and not all of it was because of the wine."
"Interesting. I'm sure it'll come back to me."
This was worse. He didn't remember any of the details?
"Did we–" He stopped abruptly.
She was about to ask what he was going to say when she saw a slight flush to his face.
She went still. Surely he wasn't going to ask if they'd had sex?
Could he seriously not even remember that?
He said, "I recall we were awake at sunrise."
"Yes, we–" She was about to say "yes, we were awake at sunrise" when his eyebrows shot up.
He clearly wasn't really expecting her to say, Yes. To come right out and admit that, yeah, they had in fact done it. Been lovers.
She gave a morose sigh. "Yes."
He frowned, "Yes what?"
She said, "Yes. We did it."
His eyebrows rose alarmingly high.
She said, "We did it. I got pregnant. Unfortunately, I couldn't for the life of me remember your name for the birth certificate. You have a ten-year-old daughter." She lifted her chin. "Her name is Myrtle."
His eyes bulged and he spluttered incoherently.
She sat back as his face went pale.
How was it possible to do that when he was so tanned?
"Relax," she said finally. "Of course we didn't do it."
He gave a visible sigh of relief. "It wasn't that." He regrouped with amazing speed. "It was the shock that any child of mine would be called Myrtle."
She tut-tutted. "That's what happens when you guys take off after a one-night-stand. No naming rights on the progeny."
He gave an amused albeit, she suspected, mightily relieved laugh. "Myrtle," he mused. "Myrtle. That's just cruel. It rhymes with turtle."
"But it's not a bad name. Those older names are back in fashion." There were times she thought she'd like a baby. A daughter. "Myrtle Miller does have a ring to it. I might keep that in mind for the future."
"It's all yours, Daisy," he said. "You can name your firstborn Myrtle and I'll be first in line to offer sympathy for the haranguing she's going to get at school."
Myrtle Miller. The more she thought about it, she liked it. It was keeping in with the botanical tradition of the family although... Was Myrtle a weed or a flower? And if Joel had been the father, would she have inherited his amazing looks? Although what if she was definitely a plain Miller but she took after Joel's adolescent tendency to be heavy and you combined that with Daisy's hardly slender build and... Daisy's heart sank. Poor Myrtle. Myrtle the Turtle was nothing on a name like Massive Myrtle.
"There's an odd look on your face," he observed suspiciously.
"I was just thinking." Thinking about Myrtle. Poor tubby darling little – big – Myrtle.
Whose mother was about to lose her dream shop. Focus, Daisy. Focus.
"About why I came on this show," she fudged.
"The million dollar question. Why did you?"
Daisy got up from her chair, suddenly restless. "I'm rebranding my book store. I need to attract new people and I'm calling it Dreams by Poppy. The store's in bad shape." She added, "Really bad shape. So in a last ditch effo
rt to get free promotion – I tried out for the show. And incredibly, I got on."
"I wondered the reason. You don't look the dating show type.”
Was that a compliment or a put down? She didn't know.
He went over to the table, poured coffee, and glanced back to her. "Sugar?"
She nodded. "Yes, please. One. With milk."
He added sugar and stirred it several times, then back around the other way to make sure it dissolved. Lionel had barely stirred it and he'd never been compulsive enough to reverse stir it which meant the sugar was left sitting in a sludge at the bottom of the cup. If you were going to be compulsive about something then stirring sugar was, Daisy had long believed, the right compulsion.
Joel handed the cup to her and asked, "Chocolate biscuit?"
Daisy was about to say yes, she was starving, when an image of herself in a bathing suit on a South Pacific island flashed in front of her.
She shook her head. "Better not."
The door suddenly flew open and Rob came hurtling into the room. He loosened his tie, pulled off his jacket, and flopped down on his chair to gaze painfully at the ceiling.
After a moment he said, “I’ve been talking to Bill Rollins. He’s the Executive Producer.” He took a tissue from his trouser pocket and mopped his brow.
“And?” Joel prompted.
“He claims that because you two had already met, the opportunity was there – although I know it wasn’t the case, Joel – that you may have picked Daisy deliberately because you knew her. You vetted the name list.”
"There's more than one Daisy in town. My sister went to school with a heap of them."
“And I had no idea Joel was on the show,” Daisy put in.
“I know that, Daisy.” Rob paused and glanced from one to the other. “But the ruling from Bill is – look, I’m sorry guys. The decision’s been made at executive level. You can’t take the trip to Golden Grove. Our advertisers will bolt. Viewers will have us over the coals.”
There was silence as what was happening hit her.
She had gone on TV, had risked potential humiliation, she had actually won something and now she wasn't going to be left even with that?
She had never travelled even though she updated her passport when it was due. But there were no stamps on it.
Not even one to show a trip across the ditch to Sydney.
Her life had been about making ends meet and it still was. Maybe now more than before, if the shop didn't work out.
She folded her arms across her chest. "I won this trip," she told him.
She frowned. Did she want to waste a few days swanning around some grotty resort when she had a business to save? Not to mention wearing a swim suit in public?
But she'd won a trip.
Damn it, yes, she did want this excursion to this South Pacific hell hole. “I have never won anything in my life and I won this trip fair and square and the viewers at home witnessed the whole thing, not to mention this dress damn well filled my visa up to the max."
She realized she was now stabbing the air with her finger and she promptly stopped.
Rob said, “We have to be transparent and the fact you know Kate isn't helping, even if it is in a business capacity. It’s kind of double jeopardy. Well." He frowned. "It's not actually double jeopardy but it's some legal term. Like that.”
Daisy felt something – she didn’t quite know what – float away from her. There had been nothing unethical about this. Aside from her unromantic motive for entering.
Out the corner of her eye she observed Joel lean against the wall, the coffee abandoned.
He was watching her. As if trying to read her mind. She looked away.
Big Ben.
A man – boy, really – she had once spent the best twelve hours of her life with, even though he didn't remember.
And maybe there was part of her that wanted to see if that guy was still there.
She glanced back at him. "What do you think?"
He pushed himself away from the wall but he was silent a moment. He rubbed his chin and looked at Daisy as if trying to work her out.
Finally, he sighed. "What I think is what I know for a fact. There was nothing dodgy about this and we won the trip. Therefore it stands to reason that..." For a moment he closed his eyes, then he seemed to grind out, "We should get the trip.”
Daisy felt her spirits lift.
Rob leaned back and raised his arms to the ceiling. “Oh hell,” he muttered. “Oh bloody, bloody hell.”
Chapter Six
The meeting was held an hour later in the network's boardroom with Daisy, Joel, Rob, and the Mystery Date producers in attendance. Joel sat across from Daisy, cupping a mug of black coffee. He was deep in conversation with Rob.
It was funny that even on that night she'd been a little attracted to him.
Had been drawn to him the more they'd talked.
Had even felt herself maybe fall a little bit in love with him. But it had been a slow kind of thing, warm and nice and comfortable over the hours.
Yet she'd laid eyes on this Joel that night at the lecture and her insides had turned to mush.
A woman would have to be blind not to be attracted to him, she suspected. He probably emitted atomic-strength pheromones.
He suddenly got up from his chair to re-fill both their cups.
“I’m sorry, guys,” Kelly was saying. “But the fact is, Joel, that you signed the disclaimer and you knew Daisy beforehand. It comes down to rules, and you have no idea how the public react if there’s any hint of foul play. They suspect something and we’re–” She made a slit-the-throat gesture. “We’re history. The network can't afford that kind of publicity.”
Her fellow producers muttered their agreement.
Joel remained silent as he set Daisy’s coffee in front of her. She murmured her thanks and tasted it. It was sweet. He’d remembered she liked a spoon of sugar, even though the first time he’d ever fixed her coffee had been back in that office. She'd never met a man who could remember a detail like that unless they’d been doing it every day for twenty years.
She took another sip. At least this whole TV thing meant she had an experience to tell the grandchildren – or more accurately the grandnephews and grandnieces the way she was going.
“So about this Golden Grave – I mean Grove,” she said. “I’ve never heard of it.”
Bill let out a laugh. “There’s a reason for that.”
“That bad?”
Kelly’s eyes widened. “That good. Golden Grove is the hottest private resort in the South Pacific. It’s where the stars go, the billionaires, royalty. Celebs have taken honeymoons there, even the odd wedding. It’s only been open a year and it is exclusive. It took a miracle to pull this prize.”
Daisy went still inside. "Really?" There had been no honeymoon on her first marriage, and her second had been one night at a cheap motel out of Dunedin when Lionel had been attending an anesthesiology conference. They'd combined business with pleasure. She took a sip of coffee. Although the pleasure had been disappointing on so many levels. “So," she murmured, "it's really luxurious?”
“And exclusive. You get reflexology, massage, European spa treatments, cuisine to die for, and service like no other place. Beauty treatments. All in the Mystery Date package. They've gone all out."
Daisy went completely still inside. It was a dream holiday. It was Fantasy Island.
And she had won that holiday.
“That’s where I’ve heard of it," Joel murmured. "There was talk about it on the movie set. It’s so exclusive the rumor is they have their own air space.”
“As good as,” Kelly agreed.
“Then how on earth did you get this as a prize,” Daisy asked.
Kelly met her gaze warily. “You don’t want to know. Suffice to say it involved a rock star I dated and a momentous indiscretion by a member of the staff. Believe me, Golden Grove does not need to advertise but they don't mind some promotion to enhance i
ts exclusivity."
"So they want people to know it's there but they don't really want the hoi polloi coming to stay?"
"The hoi polloi can't afford to stay. I can't afford to stay. However, rest assured this is all completely legitimate and there's even spending money thrown in. The prize is two nights on Golden Grove. First class travel, transfers at both ends. The lot.”
"And if I hadn't picked the envelope with that prize?" Daisy asked.
"It would have been picked by next week's contestants. You are so lucky, Daisy. It's just a damned shame about this whole legal complication." She sighed. "It really is."
There was silence.
Daisy glanced at Joel.
He was watching her thoughtfully.
Waiting for her to say, fair enough. I'll take the chocolates instead.
Only she didn't want the chocolates now. She wanted this trip. She needed this trip. Maybe she even actually deserved this trip.
And it was drifting away from her.
Joel suddenly turned to Kelly and Bill. “Perhaps,” he said, “we could look at this from a different point of view.” He leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head. “Put yourself in the place of the Mystery Date viewers.”
Executive Producer Bill Rollins began to tap his pen on the table. In his late forties, he was bearded and balding with a substantial stomach hanging over his belt.
Joel went on. “Imagine you’re the Mystery Date viewer. You’re sitting in your living room, watching from your recliner chair, and you’re trying to work out who I’m going to select. Daisy or–" He snapped his fingers and Molly put in, "Amber and Flora?"
Bill Rollins stopped tapping his pen.
Joel went on, “The audience at home is going to figure I’ll select Amber or Flora, right? They wouldn’t have remotely considered I’d select Daisy.”
Daisy put her coffee cup down. She wasn’t sure she liked where this was heading.
Joel shot her a smile laced with – something. Apology? Regret?
“I think you’re treading on shaky ground,” Rob murmured.
“Of course he’s not,” Daisy said, not taking her eyes off Joel. “Go ahead, Joel. What did you mean? What sort of woman would viewers assume a man like you would choose?”
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