I sat frozen, trying desperately to think of another thing to say, then he pulled his mouth to one side. “Actually,” he said slowly, “there might be one thing.”
“What?” I leaned forward. “I’ll do anything.”
His eyebrows rose at that, and I felt sleazy and terrified, but he said only, “Tell me where the honeymoon is.”
I stared at him. “What? Why? How would that help?”
“You don’t want the wedding on film, right? But I have to have something. So I’ll get Mimi and her camera crew to shoot them at the airport leaving Portland, and another crew to meet them at their destination, and then we’ll ‘lose’ them. They can have their honeymoon on their own and we’ll get shots nobody else could have. I assume they’ve booked under fake names?”
I nodded, thinking too hard to speak. Was this better? Should I take him up on it? I didn’t see how I could make Simon stop all filming, and at least this way the whole wedding and the honeymoon itself would be private.
“So nobody else will be able to find them. Which is perfect for us. And they get their wedding and honeymoon on their own, which for some reason is perfect for you. So? You like?”
I didn’t, but I liked better than I’d liked the other plan and I couldn’t think of a way out that involved no filming at all so I sighed and said, “Yes. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Red.” He gave me a smile with too many teeth. “So. Where is the honeymoon?”
An image flashed through my mind: Kent and MC getting off a plane in Florida to board their cruise and being ambushed by a camera crew. I could see the horror on their faces. I could not do this to them. But if I refused Simon would ruin the wedding. I took a deep breath. “Jamaica.”
My boss shook his head. “Don’t lie. I read the article. They said no island.”
I rolled my eyes, hoping it was convincing. “Of course they did. To throw people off their trail. Nope, it’s Jamaica. I can’t remember the name of their resort, but I’d recognize it, and I’d recognize the flight time too if I saw it.” I’d gone too far, and I hoped to hell there were flights from Portland to Jamaica, but I couldn’t back down now.
His eyes searched my face for a moment, and I said, trying to push him into accepting my words as truth, “You going to look it up or should I just email you later?”
He blinked once, then grinned. “Glad to see you being smart about all this, Red. Here.” He pushed over his computer. “Look it up.”
I did, my hands shaking, and to my delight found a flight the day after Kent’s wedding. “That’s the one,” I said, highlighting it with the mouse and turning the computer back to Simon. “That’s when they leave. Ten o’clock at night, and they get to Jamaica the next morning.”
“Find the resort.”
It was a command, not a request, and I didn’t see any way out. I pulled up a list of resorts on Jamaica and chose one at random. “This.” I pointed at the screen. “This one.”
He scribbled down the information on a scrap of paper, then looked up and said, “You’ve got a bright future here, Red. Mimi’s doing the interview with Angel Dove later this month, but I think next time I have something that big it’ll be yours. As long as you keep being so agreeable. So. I leave the wedding alone and film the start of the honeymoon. Just the start. Deal?”
I held out my hand, trying not to flinch when his cold one met it. “Deal.”
Chapter Fifteen
The next hands to touch me were Aaron’s and I didn’t have any desire to flinch away. In fact, I pressed myself even closer to him and let my own hands roam his strong back and shoulders.
Aaron had surprised me by meeting my flight home from Vegas, and when I saw him standing there with a single red rose in his hand I’d thrown myself into his arms and kissed him harder and deeper than ever before. He’d kissed me back the same way, as camera phone flashes went off all around us like fireworks, then whispered, “Want to get out of here?”
I had, and we’d gone out for dinner and then come back to his apartment where we were now locked together on his couch. He’d been so sweet and attentive during dinner, and his kisses were even sweeter, and though a tiny part of my mind was saying, “We don’t want to sleep with him,” the rest of my mind, and all of my body, didn’t agree at all.
His fingers brushed the button of my jeans, and I tensed, but they kept moving and slipped up to caress my stomach under my sweater. I’d always stopped guys from going under my clothes, at least until my wedding night, but his touch felt amazing and I couldn’t bear to stop him.
I’d had sex with Kent, after all. Lots of times. What did it matter if I--
My phone rang, with the “You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch” ringtone I’d assigned to Simon. “Sorry,” I said, gasping. “It’s my boss.”
“Tell him I hate him.” Aaron, breathless too, pulled away from me, and a sharp snap of electricity raced down my spine as I got up to fetch my phone and saw how the front of his khakis were stretched by his erection. I’d gone years without sex since Kent, and now I couldn’t imagine going another minute.
I cooled down fast, though, when Simon’s voice came slithering through the phone at me. “Red, you sound out of breath. Doing something fun, I hope?”
“I-- no, I’m just watching TV.”
He chuckled. “You’re an awful liar, you know. Anyhow, good news.”
“You’re not--” I cut myself off before I said, “going after their honeymoon”, since Aaron couldn’t know. “I mean, um...”
Another chuckle. “You are up to something. You’re not thinking clearly. I’ll let you get back to it. But first... wanna go interview Angel Dove next week?”
I blinked. “I thought Mimi was doing that.”
“She was. You want it or not?”
“I do,” I said quickly before he could change his mind. “Definitely. Thank you.”
“I’ll email you all the deets,” he said. “Get back to whatever, or whoever, you were doing.”
I hung up and said to Aaron, “What kind of man says ‘deets’ for ‘details’?”
He gave a fake shudder. “The twelve-year-old-girl kind. Ick. So, what’d he want?”
I told him, and when I finished he asked the question I didn’t want him to ask. “How come he took it away from the other one?”
I shrugged, trying to look innocent. I knew exactly why: because he was rewarding me for giving up what he thought was the honeymoon location. But I could hardly say that to Aaron.
He reached for me. “We should celebrate.”
I fell eagerly into his arms and we kissed for several amazing moments before his fingers again found the button of my jeans and he murmured, “Celebrate big time.”
I eased his hand away. “No can do, I’m afraid. It’s...” I sighed. “It’s still not right.”
“Still?” He stared at me like he was analyzing some weird creature.
I looked at my left hand. “I don’t seem to be married, so yeah.”
He moved to the far corner of the couch away from me. “Okay. I really don’t get this and I think I need to. Do you... I thought you liked me. No?”
“I do.” Remembering how good his kisses and touches felt, I couldn’t help a little shiver. “I really do.”
“I... okay, but I’m not planning to get married any time soon. Or maybe-- definitely not any time soon. So where does that leave us?”
I sat there, still turned on but also sad. “I don’t know. I just... can’t yet.”
I hadn’t meant to say “yet”, but when it came out I thought maybe I meant it. Aaron was sweet and fun and seriously sexy, and I did like him. And I’d almost been ready, before Simon called. Maybe I would be ready soon.
He must have come to the same conclusion because he slid back to me and said, “Okay. I can handle that. But can I kiss you some more?”
I didn’t bother answering. I let my kisses do the talking.
Chapter Sixteen
“Is it safe to come in
?”
MC laughed. “Yup. I’m out of the dress and the dress is back in its bag.”
“And you’re dressed?”
She confirmed this, and Kent opened the bedroom door as he said, “Bummer. No quick peeks for me.”
He slipped his arm around MC, and she said, “Is everything okay with the restaurant?”
“All set. The party should be great.”
She grinned at him, and I again wished they’d decided to have separate bachelor/bachelorette parties instead of combining it into one. I’d been to a bunch of bachelorettes and I always loved the energy of running around with a group of women. My own bachelorette had been amazing, and my outing with Liv before New Year’s had been too, and even our trip together last night to a bellydance class she couldn’t convince MC to attend. We’d had a great time, mostly because I really liked Liv and she seemed to like me too but also because the class was all girls. Hanging out with the guys as well wouldn’t be the same.
“And the dress?” Kent raised his eyebrows at me. “It’s all working out?”
I nodded and managed not to yawn. I couldn’t remember ever being this tired before. When I wasn’t frantically trying to arrange access to Angel Dove through her grumpy publicist I was spending eye-aching hours making MC’s wedding dress, and when I wasn’t doing either of those things I was slaving over swimsuits because Kia had again accused me of not caring enough and I knew I had to do better to make sure she didn’t ditch me. And even though I was working so hard that I was exhausted when I went to bed, I kept waking up worrying about everything falling apart. Even on the island I’d slept better, after the first night of shocked horror at where I’d ended up, than I had been lately.
Kent gave me a small smile. “Good, good.” He returned his attention to his bride. “You like the dress so far? It’s weird not knowing what you’re going to wear. I know it’s tradition but it still feels weird.”
I hadn’t wanted Kent to know what I was going to wear to our wedding either but we’d been out together when I saw the perfect dress, a long ivory slipdress with a lace overlay, in a store window and I’d been too excited to hide my desire for it. We’d gone in together and I’d tried it on, and though he hadn’t seen me in it until our wedding day he had definitely known what to expect.
“I’m wearing a dress,” she said, blinking innocently at him.
He laughed. “White? Long? Frou-frou?”
“Maybe. Maybe. None of your beeswax.”
He laughed louder and leaned in to give her a kiss. “I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.”
As she agreed with this, I began gathering up my pins and the notes I’d written about what I’d be adding to her dress, which was becoming more frou-frou all the time. Because of me.
I’d woken up in the middle of the night, in my usual cold sweat of horror at the idea of the wedding being ruined, to the thought that if I could somehow make MC look not like her usual self then if Mimi and Simon did arrive I might be able to convince them that MC was a look-alike and not the real person.
In the full light of day that idea seemed a lot stupider than it did at three in the morning, but before I’d gone back to sleep I’d put a lot of time into imagining how to change things up while not upsetting MC and I couldn’t let go of the possibility that doing so might save the day. I’d brought bows of all sizes and matte silver sequin appliques because I knew she’d never go for shiny ones and samples of all the white lace my old fabric store had in stock, and I’d managed to convince MC to let me add a little pizzazz to her dress.
I’d also convinced her to let me do her makeup, which I’d make much brighter than usual, and to do her hair in what she didn’t yet know would be as fancy a style as I could manage. I was trying to imagine what she’d have gone for if she’d liked her full name, Madeleine-Cora, instead of the short and boyish MC. That woman, I figured, would want frills and lace rather than the simple sleek styles MC favored.
Would all of that be enough disguise, though, if Mimi or Simon did show up at the wedding? Would it be possible to make them believe that the bride they were photographing was a stand-in and the real MC had snuck into the church and was safely hidden away? I couldn’t imagine it would be, but I didn’t know what else I could do.
Other than warn Kent and MC, but I couldn’t do that either. It would ruin their pre-wedding bliss. I had to fix it on my own. But nothing I came up with seemed guaranteed to fix the mess I was in, and spending my every moment in a state of dread was horrible.
I was doing my best to hide my sadness and confusion, though, and I thought I was succeeding. I tried to be my usual chatty self during the lunch Kent insisted on taking me and MC and Liv and Holly out for, teasing him about wanting to know what the dress looked like and having a fun competition with Liv to create the most unlikely concept for MC which we all agreed she won with her “butt-length skin-tight red leather dress with big blinking light-up hearts on the boobs” idea.
I really thought I was keeping myself together and hiding how I felt. But once lunch was over and we were about to head for our respective cars Kent pulled me aside for a moment and said, “You okay?”
“Sure,” I said brightly, wanting to burst into tears. “Why?”
My former husband laid his hand gently on my shoulder. “You seem... off.”
I wanted to rest my cheek against his hand, as I always did when we were together. Back then I’d usually gone on to kiss him, but I didn’t need that now. I just wanted to feel comforted and safe and cherished again, like he’d always made me feel.
But I couldn’t get that from him, so I shifted back so his hand fell away and said, “I am tired, I’ll give you that. I’ve been working crazy hard. But I’m fine.”
He didn’t try to touch me again, but his eyes locked with mine. “Summer. I know you. Are you sure?”
The urge to tell him exactly what I’d done and have him help me get out of it rose in me so hard it hurt, but I slapped it back down. I couldn’t do that. He was less than a month away from marrying MC and everything was set. If I told him, he’d have to find a new place for the wedding and they’d been lucky to find the church they had.
And he’d think I was stupid. Even as I shook my head and told him again I was okay, I knew that was more the reason I wasn’t telling. He’d think less of me for what I’d done, and I wouldn’t be able to bear that.
He nodded. “You... um... are you okay being in the wedding? I can see how that’d be difficult.”
I snatched at this like at the last pair of gorgeous sale shoes in my size. “It does feel a little weird, I admit,” I said. “Didn’t want to tell you, but yeah. But I am happy for you guys, and I’m honored you asked me.” I smiled at him, hoping I looked like I was trying to be brave. “And the dress’ll be ready on time, don’t worry.”
He grinned, looking more relaxed. “I trust you.”
“Good,” I managed, then took off for my car before I could give in and tell him exactly why he shouldn’t.
Chapter Seventeen
Mimi glanced up when I entered the open-concept office space, then turned her head away like she’d seen something disgusting.
Unable to resist, since she’d been giving me such a hard time since we met and I finally had a way to get back at her, I sang out, “Hi, Mimi! Have you had a chance to read my piece on Angel Dove?”
She looked up, doing a pretty good impression of surprise. “Hi, Summer, didn’t see you come in. No, I’m afraid I haven’t. I’ve been chasing down some rumors about Bart Miles. But I’m sure it came out okay, don’t worry.”
“Oh, I’m not worried. Not with the attention it’s gotten.”
Peter had called me, telling me he was hugely impressed and had told his bosses they should hire me in a few months when one of their current journalists went on maternity leave. I would have preferred to be hired right now, but still a good sign. On top of that, I’d lost count of how many retweets and comments my article had received, all ravin
g about the depth of what Angel had revealed about her difficult past and her determination to become the world’s top pop star, Aaron had loved my piece, and Liv had said, “I thought that girl was about as deep as a puddle in a drought but you brought so much out of her.”
And most importantly, Simon had been thrilled and had asked me to come back to Vegas so we could talk about where my career would go next. Maybe it was TV time for me.
No wonder Mimi was even less friendly than usual.
“Anyhow, I should go talk to Simon,” I said when she didn’t respond. “Have a great day.”
She mumbled something, sounding like her teeth were clenched together, and though I knew it was petty I went into Simon’s office feeling better than I had in a long time.
That didn’t last, though. His office reeked of newly applied cologne, which somehow seemed to be sucking all the oxygen out of the room, and though he didn’t look any different than usual other than an extra button undone on his shirt something immediately made my heart pound and nervousness flood my body.
“Simon,” I said, trying to relax since there was no reason for me to freak out. “How’s it going?”
He smiled at me, his usual slightly shark-like grin, but my fingers began to tingle with tension anyhow. “Great, gorgeous. Have a seat.”
I moved toward his guest chair but he said, “No, in there.”
I looked where he was pointing and saw a door I’d never noticed before. “What’s in there?”
He shrugged. “More comfortable chairs. Let’s go.”
I did, because I couldn’t see an option, but when he closed the door behind us and I stood looking at him in a dimly lit room furnished with only an oversized beige couch and loveseat set facing each other I wished I’d been smart enough to find a way out of this. Something wasn’t right, but I didn’t know what it was.
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