Planning on Prince Charming

by Lizzie Shane

Screw that princess nonsense. She was going to be the queen of her own story.

  Chapter Ten

  Sidney ambushed Victoria as soon as she emerged from her apartment the next morning.

  “I have a plan.”

  Victoria froze at the foot of the stairs, blinking sleepily at the sight of Sidney seated at the consultation table in the middle of Once Upon a Bride’s main room before dawn. “Does the plan involve going to Parv’s for a latte?”

  Sidney sprang up from her chair, grabbing her notes and a to-go cup filled with Parvati’s genius, thrusting the latter at Tori. “It’s a three-pronged plan.”

  Victoria took the cup. “Have you slept?”

  “Sleep is for the weak. And I am a goddess. Or a queen. I haven’t decided which.”

  Tori eyed the cup dubiously. “How many of these have you had?”

  “I’m sorry I bailed on the show and screwed up our chance to get all that free exposure.”

  Sleep cleared from Tori’s expression as she frowned. “I’m sorry for how I reacted yesterday.”

  “No, you were right. We had a plan and I lost sight of it, but I’m focused now and we can still make that list. Hence the plan.” A memory of Josh’s wry smile as he told her more people should say hence tried to rise up, but she smothered it. She was focused. She was determined. She was a Dewitt, damn it.

  “And there are prongs?” Victoria sipped the latte.

  “Three prongs. Prong One—Broader exposure. We’re going to need to start going to more bridal expos. Word of mouth got us started, but if we want to be the best, we need to be a household name in wedding planning. Prong Two—Exclusivity. We need to raise our prices. Being the best means catering to the best clients. Max didn’t just start a security service, he started a specialized celebrity bodyguard service catering to the elite of Hollywood. So we need to find our elite and cater to them. Landing a celebrity wedding is priority one.”

  “I thought priority one was broader exposure?”

  “Prong, not priority. And then there’s prong three: Excellence. Our clients won’t mind paying more because we will provide the absolute best wedding planning service money can buy—which will be the easy part because we’re already doing that.”

  “How are we going to get broad exposure if no one can afford us?”

  “Broader exposure isn’t about more clients. It’s about reputation. We want everyone to want us, even if they can’t afford us. We’ll be the fifteen carat pink diamond wedding experience. The one every little girl dreams of but only the select few can actually afford.”

  Victoria sank down at the consultation table, eyeing the scraps of paper Sidney had scribbled on during her night of frantic planning. “I’m not disagreeing—I think your plan could probably work—but are you sure this is the direction we want to take the business? When we started Once Upon a Bride, we talked about helping every bride—no matter her budget—get her perfect fairy tale wedding.”

  “And we will! But we can’t do that if we can’t afford to do business. You want to be able to afford to send Lore to a good school, right? We’ve barely been making ends meet, but when we hit the Veil list we won’t have to worry about next month’s rent anymore. We can still take on a pro-bono wedding every now and then, but this will set us up for life. Set Lorelei up for college.”

  Sidney knew she was playing to Victoria’s weaknesses—Tori’s mother was a single mom as well. She’d made a living as a housekeeper for Eden’s elite, but she had never been able to afford the Ivy-covered education other Eden kids got. Lorelei was smart enough to get into those schools, but they still had to pay for them somehow.

  Victoria grimaced. “So how do we land a celebrity wedding?”

  Sidney smiled. “It’s all about who you know. I’ll call Max. Find out if any of his clients are looking like they might be tying the knot. And I may not have made it to the finish line, but I still have the entire Marrying Mister Perfect franchise at my disposal. I’ll contact Miranda Pierce and see if any of the Suitors or Suitorettes from past seasons are looking to get hitched. We’ll find a bride. It may take a few months, but it’s going to work.”

  Victoria looked over the papers on the consultation table. “I guess it’s a plan.”

  *

  The star-filled Tahitian sky was annoyingly romantic. Josh gazed up at it from the balcony of his hotel room and wondered if room service had any crappy bottles of six-year-old scotch. He was in the mood to wallow in self-pity.

  Shooting had officially wrapped. At sunset Mister Perfect had gotten down on one knee, his Suitorette of choice had blushingly said yes, and Miranda was in raptures over the possibility of televising the upcoming nuptials. Josh, on the other hand, was biting his tongue on the constant urge to caution both Daniel and his fiancé to take their time and make sure they were really sure.

  Tonight the happy couple was ensconced in the resort’s finest suite, wallowing in their romantic euphoria. But tomorrow it was back to the real world. They would all fly back to the States, where the editors were already frantically piecing together the first episodes. Daniel and Josh would do numerous public appearances to promote the new season, but for the most part his work was done.

  When he’d first gotten this gig, he’d loved this part. He hadn’t been able to wait to fly home to Marissa, bringing her gifts and stories from all the places the show had taken him. Sliding back into his home life. When he got home after those first few seasons, they would stay in bed together for days, wrapped in each other. He’d stupidly thought it would always be that way.

  And now he was flying home to a depressingly empty one-bedroom apartment in Studio City. And realizing that the home life he’d always slid back into when he got back to the States was hers, not his.

  A brisk knock sounded on his bedroom door. Josh turned away from the irritatingly lovely night sky, crossing his suite to answer.

  Miranda barely waited until the door cracked open to begin speaking. “Change of schedule tomorrow. We’re putting Caitlyn and Elena on the first flight and pushing you and Daniel back to the later nonstop.”

  “Great. So I get to sleep in.”

  “Not exactly. We’re going to use the time to pre-tape some promo segments. Teasers we can use when the last couple episodes are about to air. Then when we get back to LA, we’ll need you at the mansions to pick up a few transitions and explanations for the places where the raw footage is weak. Shouldn’t take more than a day or two.”

  “Fine. Is that all?”

  Miranda pursed her lips, clutching her ever-present tablet to her chest. “I need you to be cheerful, Josh.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I know you’re going through a rough time, but we’ve been looking over the footage we have so far and you’ve been a little dour this season. That episode with Sidney is a perfect example.”

  A swift kick of regret hit him at the mention of her name, but he hid his reaction. “I hardly think—”

  “You’re depressing,” Miranda cut him off bluntly. “And the host of Marrying Mister Perfect can’t be depressing. We’re going to reshoot the parts where you let your game face slip, but I need you at one hundred percent. The network has already told me to focus group your viability as host.”

  “Are you kidding? I thought you didn’t hire me because I was married.”

  “We didn’t. But a grumpy divorced host may test differently with our audience than a happy-go-lucky schmuck with a ring on his finger. The network wants to make sure you’re still appealing to our target demographics.”

  “No.”

  Miranda frowned. “This isn’t the sort of thing you can say no to, Josh.”

  “You can’t do this. I’m the host of Marrying Mister Perfect.”

  “For now you are. But you need to find a way to be optimistic about love again, if you want to stay on as our host. We aren’t selling divorce. We’re selling true love—even if the way we go about it sometimes is genuinely screwed up.” Miranda tipped her h
ead, studying him. “You might want to consider dating when we get back to LA.”

  He recoiled at the idea.

  “Find a way to fit the image, Josh. Or there won’t be anything I can do to help you.”

  Happy. Cheerful. Optimistic about love. He needed to be a romantic idiot again. No more wallowing. He was over this.

  He just had to figure out how he was supposed to believe in the show when all he could think about was how often their Suitors and Suitorettes got hurt. And how this season he’d had a direct hand in hurting one.

  “Do you think he loves her?”

  Miranda’s attention had already wandered back to her tablet, but now she looked up, frowning. “What?”

  “Daniel. Do you think he’s in love with Caitlyn or is she just his prize for winning at life?”

  “He proposed to her. She said yes. They want to get married on the reunion special. Don’t look a gift engagement in the mouth. The ratings are going to be insane if we can get an actual on-air wedding out of this.”

  “But are they going to be happy together?”

  “Josh, what is this?” she snapped, impatient.

  “Do you still believe in the show?” he asked her. Because he knew he hadn’t been the only one who thought they were doing good work for the last few years. It was only recently, he’d begun to see the other side. “Do you really think we’re helping people find love or are we just exploiting their hopes and dreams—twisting them around until they wind up heartbroken and crying for our cameras? Are we really trying to match people up or are we just giving them a platform to hurt one another on national television?”

  The way he’d hurt Sidney.

  Maybe that was the difference. This season, for the first time, it had been him breaking a heart. He had hurt her. The guilt had always been there, waiting, but he’d never felt it until a direct hit pierced his bubble of obliviousness, letting all the rest in.

  “Are we doing more harm than good?”

  Miranda folded her arms, glaring up at him. “I don’t know where this little crisis of faith is coming from, but you need to get your head out of your ass before you have to be the face of the show next week with all the major publicity outlets. I get enough of this questioning-the-morality-of-what-we-do bullshit from Bennett and I don’t need it from you too.”

  Bennett Lang was Miranda’s on-again-off-again flame—and by the sound of things lately, they’d been more off than on. “Maybe he’s got a point.”

  “And maybe you need to think about whether you want to have a job next season.” Miranda put up a hand when he would have spoken. “Look. We’re all tired. It’s been a long season. More stressful than most. And I think we could all use some time off to get our heads on straight. Just remember who pays your salary.”

  And how much alimony you owe went unspoken, but Josh heard it loud and clear.

  He’d believed in the show once and unless he wanted to go into debt in a hurry, he needed to remember how that felt—or at least act like he did.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I’m so sorry, Sidney. You did such a great job. The wedding would have been just beautiful—” Allison, the would-have-been bride, dissolved into tears and Sidney reached for the box of tissues they kept on hand. They always hoped there would only be happy tears in Once Upon a Bride, but lately their luck hadn’t been so good.

  “Don’t apologize, Allie. These things happen.”

  The holidays were always hard on couples trying to blend their families and this year they had taken their toll. Allison was their third bride to call off a wedding this week.

  Love was most definitely not in the air.

  Twenty minutes later, after Allison’s tears had been dried and she’d sent the bride on her way with one last hug, Sidney pulled out her tablet and began the Sisyphean task of cancelling all the plans that had been put in place for the Valentine’s Day wedding.

  Allison’s parents wouldn’t get any of their deposits back—including the one they’d paid to Once Upon a Bride—but after the groom’s father had gotten drunk and called the bride’s mother a socialist before knocking over the menorah and lighting a family heirloom tapestry on fire, they were prepared to lose the deposits.

  Wedding dress. Cake. Venue. Band. Caterer. It was never a short list when a wedding called it quits, but it was part of the business.

  If only it wasn’t such a large part these days.

  Sidney’s plan was failing.

  Or perhaps failing was too strong a word, but her three-pronged plan had, so far, been a complete non-starter. There were no bridal expos scheduled until January, her brother Max didn’t know a single celebrity who was on the cusp of engagement, and even their normal holiday wedding business was so sluggish this year they’d been reduced to planning office Christmas parties.

  She could only hope there was a rash of engagements on Christmas and New Year’s Eve to stir up business, or they wouldn’t last long enough for her three-pronged plan to take effect.

  She’d put in half a dozen calls to Miranda Pierce’s office, but the show had only just wrapped filming somewhere exotic so she tried not to read anything into the fact that the producer hadn’t gotten back to her.

  She tried calling Caitlyn, eager to get whatever gossip her friend was allowed to share about what had gone down at the show after she left, but Caitlyn was dodging her calls. Had she made it all the way to the end? Was she nursing a broken heart? Sidney was dying to talk about the show with someone, but Caitlyn’s voicemail wasn’t helping. And every time she thought about bringing it up with Parv or Tori she just felt guilty again, reminded that she had let them down.

  The show would begin airing in under two weeks. She had no idea how much she’d be featured in the opening episode. She’d talked about Once Upon a Bride in all of her pre-taped interviews, but not all the girls were included in the Meet the Suitorette featurettes. Business could be booming by this time next month… or it could be more of the same, scrimping to get by.

  When she finished the online cancelation for her favorite florist, Sidney grabbed her cell phone, determined to give Miranda Pierce one more try. Telephone stalking would be worth it if she could land a Marrying Mister Perfect wedding. She owed it to Tori to swallow her pride. Tori who had believed in her enough to go into business with her when even her parents hadn’t been willing to invest in Once Upon a Bride.

  Sidney was accustomed to getting the run around from one of Miranda’s many assistants, but this time she was only placed on hold for a moment before Miranda Pierce’s no-nonsense greeting sounded in her ear.

  “Sidney. This is unexpected.”

  She immediately launched into her pitch, selling Miranda on Once Upon a Bride the same way she would any hesitant mother-of-the-bride, but Miranda cut her off before she could get going.

  “Sorry, hon. I like you, but we already have a wedding planner on retainer.”

  “So Daniel’s planning a wedding?”

  “I didn’t say that.” Miranda wouldn’t be caught dead leaking MMP spoilers. “But we always hope our Mister Perfect will find the woman of his dreams and we keep a wedding planner on hand just in case.”

  “What about the rejected Suitors and Suitorettes from past seasons?” Sidney asked, not above revealing her desperation. “Are any of them altar-bound? Have Marcy and Craig set a date?”

  A heavy pause. “Did your business suffer in your absence?”

  “We could use the exposure,” Sidney admitted.

  “Well, it’s not a wedding, but we are looking for a few Suitorettes to do publicity appearances in the LA area to promote the show over the next few weeks. You could mention your business. I would have called you, but usually the girls who leave on their own want to wash their hands of the entire franchise.”

  “Marrying Mister Perfect might not have been my path to love, but I still believe in the show. Daniel just wasn’t right for me.”

  “We’re talking mostly photo ops with fans of the show and
the occasional local day time television appearance—and the pay is terrible—but it’s free exposure, if you’re interested.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  *

  “Which one is this?” Josh asked the publicist riding opposite him in the limo as they pulled up in front of Planet Hollywood. He’d done so much promo in the last few days he’d completely lost track of where he was or who he was talking to. But he did the job. Smile, shake hands, answer the same questions and pretend he wasn’t jaded.

  “MMP Superfans—private Q&A for the online contest winners and then the autograph signing will be open to the public. Daniel has to shoot the Late, Late Show bit, so we brought in some of this season’s Suitorettes instead.” Cole checked his tablet. “Looks like Monica, Alicia, and Sidney.”

  Josh froze with his hand on the door pull. “Sidney?”

  “The wedding planner, remember? The blonde with legs up to her ears who walked before he could dump her.”

  “No, I remember her. I just didn’t peg her for the publicity event type.”

  “Last minute replacement. Ready?”

  Cole opened the door to the limo and jumped out before Josh could think of a coherent response.

  Josh climbed out after him, slapping on his public smile and waving to the small crowd of tourists who had pressed against the red velvet ropes in an attempt to see who was getting out of the limo. They cheered and waved back—even though Josh would bet his next paycheck half of them didn’t have a clue who he was except some random semi-famous Hollywood personality. It was all about image. Project an image of fame and the celebrity gawkers didn’t need to know who you were to be impressed by you. Which was why the show had arranged the limo and the red velvet ropes.

  So much of his life was staged for effect it could be disorienting. He’d seen Suitors and Suitorettes over the years get swept away by the glamour and always tried to remind himself what was real, tried to keep his feet firmly on the ground. Marissa had been good for that—until he realized his life with her was no more real than the red carpet set ups.