by Lizzie Shane
She was in this to win—and not to moon over Josh Pendleton. No matter how he kissed.
Chapter Four
“Josh Pendleton, you’re an imbecile.”
Josh opened his eyes, moving just his pupils and keeping the rest of his face completely motionless as the makeup artist smeared the necessary pastes and products over his skin to make him look natural on camera. His boss glowered on the threshold of his dressing room like an angry goddess.
“Nice to see you too, Miranda,” he said to the executive producer looming in the doorway when Eunice stopped dabbing at him and stepped back to survey her work.
“Give us a minute, Eunice,” Miranda commanded, her expression not lightening in the slightest.
Eunice quickly gathered her things and ducked out of the room—but that gave him a solid twenty seconds to wonder which of his indiscretions Miranda had discovered and whether he’d be allowed to finish out the season before he was fired. Was it the divorce? Sidney’s kiss?
“Did you really think we wouldn’t find out?” Miranda asked as soon as the door closed behind the makeup artist—giving him no freaking clue what it was she had apparently found out.
But regardless of what they’d discovered, the answer was the same. “Not really.” If there was gossip, Marrying Mister Perfect would uncover it. “But I thought I’d see how long I could maintain the head-in-the-sand approach.”
“You’re a celebrity, you moron,” Miranda said with her usual tact. “And divorces are public record. Did you think entertainment reporters would just give you a pass because you’re such a nice guy? Or do you have a better reason why I had to learn about your marital problems from an online gossip magazine?”
“Denial?”
“Cute,” she snapped. Then she grimaced. “Sorry about your divorce though. She always seemed like a nice girl. Though I’m sure she was an evil cow and I’m one hundred percent on your side.” She continued to glare at him, though he knew her words were sincere—Miranda’s sympathy just usually came attached to mild irritation. “You could have told me, you know. We have you running around extolling the glories of marriage. I could have cut in footage from another season if you weren’t up to it.”
“So I’m not fired?”
“For not telling me about your divorce? I’m annoyed to learn about it from a fucking online rag, but I don’t think I’m allowed to fire you for irritating me.”
“You told me when Elton hired me that I was only getting the job because I was happily married.”
“Did I? That’s a stupid reason to give anyone a job. And you believed me?”
“It seemed plausible after the last host…”
“Got caught in bed with three of the girls playing Suitorette roulette? Yeah. Don’t do that. In fact, you probably want to be even more careful than before that nothing that could even remotely be construed as flirting goes on between you and the girls, but as long as you toe the line on that front no one cares that your vile wife got her walking papers.”
Sidney flashed through his brain, along with the vivid memory of the kiss, but Josh ruthlessly suppressed the image. Probably best not to tell Miranda about that. “I thought you liked my wife.”
“I’m being supportive,” Miranda snapped. “We’re friends. And friends don’t let friends learn about important news items from crappy gossip rags, especially when we want to carefully spin the stories to our own narrative. Am I clear?”
“Crystal. I promise next time I get divorced, you’ll be the first one I tell.”
“Good. Now go be charming and calm Daniel down. He needs more gravitas for the second Elimination Ceremony tonight—and to look a little less like a kid in a big-breasted candy store. The home viewers hate it when Mister Perfect isn’t respectful of the hearts he’s breaking.”
“He’ll have gravitas. Don’t worry. This isn’t my first rodeo.”
Miranda frowned. “Speaking of rodeos, I need to check on the set-ups for the cowgirl date.”
A soft knock on his dressing room door preceded one of the story producers popping her head inside. “Miranda? It’s Sidney.”
Josh’s heart rate quadrupled. “Sidney?”
“Did she tell him?” Miranda asked the producer.
“No.”
“Tell who what?” Josh asked, trying to keep the note of panic out of his voice.
Miranda thanked the producer and turned back to Josh as the woman retreated back to the editing bays. “Damn it.”
“Problem?” Josh swallowed when the word came out a croak.
Distracted, Miranda grimaced. “She’s holding back. Her story makes her a lock for a sympathy ring, but if she doesn’t tell him before the Elimination Ceremony we can’t coach him into keeping her.”
“Her story?” Encouraging the Suitorettes to exploit their personal tragedies was standard operating procedure on Marrying Mister Perfect, but Josh hadn’t been aware Sidney had a tragedy to exploit.
“A girl like her should be a front runner by now,” Miranda complained, barely paying attention to Josh, “but she’s barely said two words to him. Or about him. We barely have any useable confessional footage. She’s even avoiding the cameras. None of us can figure out what’s up with her.”
Maybe she’s distracted by the fact that she made out with the host before filming began.
“I’ll need you to talk to her about opening up to Daniel. The usual drill. I’ll get it set up and let you know when we need you to work your magic.”
“Are you sure I’m the right person to talk to her?”
That got Miranda’s attention. She never liked the word no—or even the implication of it. “Is there a reason why you think you can’t talk her into opening up to Daniel?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Then we’re fine.” She turned toward the door. “Be good, Pendleton.”
“Aren’t I always?”
The EP didn’t answer, already halfway down the hall, moving off to avert another catastrophe.
So the divorce was public knowledge.
And Sidney had a secret and wasn’t invested in the process.
It could have been much worse. And if they ever found out about him kissing Sidney in his hotel room, it would be. But there was no reason for them to ever know. Nothing had happened and nothing was going to happen. She was a Suitorette. End of story.
He hadn’t had a chance to talk to her about that night, but he thought she was clear that there could never be anything between them. Maybe he needed to be more clear.
Even if she hadn’t been a Suitorette, nothing would have happened. Josh Pendleton didn’t believe in happily-ever-after anymore.
*
The soles of her sneakers smacked against the hard-packed dirt path in a steady, hypnotic rhythm, the repetitive thump-thump-thump taking her brain to that quiet place where all her troubles receded into the distance. Running had always been the one thing that never failed to make all her stress melt away—at least temporarily—and over the last two weeks Sidney had found herself running a lot.
There wasn’t much to do at the Suitorette Mansion as she waited for her turn to date Daniel, but the paths that ran around the perimeter of the estate were always open.
Books, magazines, computers, televisions—all of them had been taken away from the Suitorettes in an attempt to encourage them to interact with one another, and give the cameras more juicy confrontations when boredom erupted into petty arguments. Most of the girls spent their days lounging around the pool, doing yoga and gossiping—but Sidney was attempting to avoid being caught on national television in a bikini at all costs.
So she hid in the music room with Caitlyn and she ran.
Two weeks. They’d barely begun, but already it felt like a lifetime.
She missed her friends. She missed her life. She missed having something productive to do with her days. Sidney had never been good at being idle, but active moments at Marrying Mister Perfect were few and far between.
&nb
sp; There were other Suitorettes who were thriving. They cavorted for the cameras and for Daniel, worked on their tans and their yoga poses, and gossiped about celebrities and each other. They argued passionately about who had the most genuine connection with Daniel and threw down over who was there for the Right Reasons.
And Sidney bit her tongue.
Because she didn’t have a genuine connection with Daniel and she wasn’t sure she was there for the Right Reasons anymore.
She’d seen him a grand total of four times in the last two weeks. And three of those times had been at Elimination Ceremonies when he was slipping a little gold band on her finger as a symbol of his desire to continue their journey toward love and commitment.
Sidney had been one of the unlucky girls who didn’t get a date with Daniel at all during the first week, but he’d kept her around at the Second Elimination Ceremony anyway. She’d been rewarded for her patience with a private date the second week—and it had been fun. Just not life-altering. Daniel was a nice guy. On paper he was exactly what she wanted, ticking all the boxes, but the more the other girls went on about connections the more she realized she just didn’t feel one.
At least not the instant one the producers seemed to want her to feel. Or rather, not with the man they wanted her to feel it for.
Other girls were already starting to drop the L word and she couldn’t stop thinking about someone else.
Someone she should not still be thinking about. Especially because Josh Pendleton seemed to be going out of his way to avoid her. He wouldn’t even look at her during the Elimination Ceremonies he officiated.
The truth was that while she really liked Daniel, it was Josh she couldn’t wait to see. Josh who made her heart race and had her counting down the hours until the next Elimination Ceremony.
She wished she could feel that way for Daniel.
And that she didn’t have the tiny niggling voice in the back of her head telling her that Daniel looked at her like a trophy.
Her perspective was warped. That was all it was. She had a stupid crush on the host—a feeling that was obviously not mutual—and it was interfering with her ability to fall madly in love with the man she was supposed to be falling madly in love with.
Even now she felt that irresistible sizzle in her blood when she thought of Josh Pendleton—every cynical, muscular, surly inch of him beneath his flawless host façade. But when she thought of Daniel…nothing. He was a nice enough guy, but he might as well have been her brother for all the romantic zing she felt when she was with him.
Not like the other girls seemed to feel.
A branch snapped and Sidney looked toward the sound, slowing her stride. Another few seconds and she would have been a dozen feet farther down the path and may have missed it entirely, but her timing was perfect to see the bushes rustle as a figure emerged from the brush.
A very familiar figure wearing only a bikini top and tiny denim cut-off shorts.
“Elena.” Sidney stopped on the path a few feet away.
Dark eyes turned toward hers, wide and startled. Her hair stuck out at odd angles—as if a man had been fisting his hands in it. “Sidney. What are you doing out here?”
“I could ask you the same thing.” Though by her rumpled appearance, she could easily guess.
Elena was this season’s siren. The sexy Latina oozed seduction from every pore and never missed an opportunity to flaunt her assets for the cameras—or to taunt the other contestants with her superior connection with Daniel. She made no secret of the fact that she had Daniel’s hormones on a tight leash, seeming to revel in the villainess role and leaving a trail of resentment wherever she went. Sidney had pegged her as one of the girls who was only looking for her fifteen minutes of fame, but there were no cameras out here to capture her exploits. And as she smoothed down her tangled hair, something almost guilty flashed across her face.
Had Elena and Daniel had a private rendezvous? Or could she have been sneaking off to meet someone else? An illicit affair with a cameraman perhaps?
“Are you sneaking around with a crew member?” Sidney blurted. With her feelings for Josh Pendleton, she was hardly one to judge, but she might ask for tips on how to get away with it.
“Of course not.” Elena drew herself up to her full height—which was still a good six inches shorter than Sidney. Superiority suffused her face, washing away any traces of guilt that might have lingered. “I was just visiting Daniel.”
“You climbed the wall?” She’d heard of Suitors and Suitorettes scaling the wall between the two estates over the many seasons of Marrying Mister Perfect and Romancing Miss Right, but she hadn’t pegged Elena for the rock-climbing type. It reeked of desperation, whereas Elena seemed more like the goddess of sex who sat back and let men flock to her. But if Elena could do it, Sidney could too. And Daniel wasn’t the only gorgeous man residing on the other side of that wall. “How?”
“If I tell you, do you promise not to tell all the other girls you saw me?”
Sidney frowned, confused. “I thought you would want them to know. You seem to like lording your connection with Daniel over them.”
Elena shrugged, but her face wasn’t nearly as unconcerned as the gesture, her eyes too intent. “It was obvious from the beginning that the girls were going to see me as a threat no matter what I did and playing the villainess role gets me more screen time, but I really did come here for him.”
“But Mister Perfect never picks the villainess in the end.”
Elena shot her one of her patented are you really that thick? looks that had so endeared her to the rest of the house. “He picks the woman he wants the most. And you can bet your ass there’s no way I would put up with being tarred as the catty villain bitch if I wasn’t one hundred percent certain he’ll be giving me the final ring. But I’ll put up with it until I get my guy. Now do you want to know how to get to his mansion or not?”
“You would tell the competition?”
Elena snorted. “No offense, chica, but no one here is my competition.”
And that attitude is why everyone adores you. “I want to know. And I won’t tell anyone I saw you if you don’t tell anyone I’m going over.”
“Deal.” Elena waved toward the bushes behind her. “There’s a door connecting the two estates back there. About ten yards in.”
“You mean all these seasons when Suitors and Suitorettes climbed the wall they could have just walked through the door?”
Elena shrugged. “I think climbing the wall is a metaphor. The producers don’t want us breaking our necks.”
“So you just waltz on over there to see him whenever you like while the rest of us are begging for scraps of his attention?”
The Latina goddess arched a brow, utterly unperturbed by Sidney’s veiled accusation. “If you want to see him, take the initiative to figure out how to do it. I’m not going to feel ashamed for doing what it takes to keep his focus on me. And I don’t just waltz over whenever. Sometimes it’s locked.”
“That hardly seems fair.”
“All’s fair in love and Marrying Mister Perfect,” Elena said dryly. “Just keep it to yourself. If all the girls find out about it, we’ll all be locked out.” She smiled, the look somehow both catty and sweet. “Have fun, Sidney. But go easy on Daniel. He’s exhausted.” With that parting shot, Elena turned back toward the mansion and sauntered off, hips swinging.
Leaving Sidney alone with the temptation of the door.
She could keep running. Play it by the book. Go back to the mansion and wait around for the next chance to see Daniel and the next Elimination Ceremony when Josh would make an appearance.
Or she could take initiative to see the man she wanted, like Elena said. Find out where she stood with him without the cameras on them.
Sidney stepped into the brush.
Chapter Five
Josh was not in the habit of taking strolls around the grounds. He liked the noise and chaos of the crew area in the basement of the Mister Perf
ect mansion. He could count on one hand the number of times over the years the frenetic pace of crew activity had gotten to him and he’d needed to step outside for some fresh air.
So it was pure dumb luck—or unholy coincidence—that he happened to be walking to clear his head near the back wall when the access door to the Suitorette Mansion swung open and a blond in a bright purple hoodie and hot pink running pants burst through, nearly taking him out in the process.
“Whoa.” He caught her arm, steadying her when she stopped too abruptly to avoid colliding with him. Teal eyes gazed up at him and his lips curled up in reflex. “Sidney Dewitt. We have to stop meeting like this.”
Her smile echoed his. “Maybe the universe is trying to tell us something.”
Yeah, like abandon hope all ye who enter here. He dropped her arm, putting distance between them. “Are you sneaking over to see Daniel? I know the producers were hoping you guys would steal some alone time today. He’s up at the house resting up for the Elimination Ceremony tonight. Give me five minutes and I can get a camera crew on you—”
“Actually, I was hoping to see you.”
Danger, Will Robinson! “Go back.” He couldn’t be alone with her. He would lose his job. But hurt barely had time to flicker to light in her eyes before a second thought tripped over the first.
He could fix this.
He couldn’t talk to her bluntly on camera, couldn’t give her the hard facts with America watching, but if he could set her straight about That Night now, he could undo any damage he’d done. “Hang on.” He caught her wrist, glancing around them to get his bearings on the expansive property. They weren’t far from the Old Grotto. “Are you wired for sound?”
Sidney shook her head. “They don’t make me wear a mic pack when I run. It’s too bulky and throws off my stride.”
“Good.” He nodded. “Come with me.”
He tugged her along behind him, leading her away from the main area to the far northwest corner of the property, where a set they hadn’t used in years was gathering dust among the overgrown plants. Sidney’s jaw dropped as soon as she recognized where they were.