Planning on Prince Charming

by Lizzie Shane

  “I wasn’t supposed to fall for him.” She propped her elbows on her knees and dropped her forehead onto her palms. “I knew it was a fling. Impossible for it to be more. So why can’t I make myself feel as little for him as I’m supposed to? So we’re done. Why does it matter?” Pressing on her temples felt good, so she did it harder, trying to push all the hurt back inside, as if she could cram the unwieldy feeling bursting out of her brain back into place.

  “Should I break out the ice cream?” Tori offered. “We don’t have any more appointments today. We can close up early and watch The Expendables until our eyeballs burn.”

  “I don’t need ice cream or action movies,” Sidney insisted, lifting her head and turning to face one of her very best friends in the whole wide world. “Why aren’t you gloating?”

  “You’re my sister,” Tori said simply, ignoring the obstacle of basic genetics. “I’d rather be wrong and have you be happy.”

  “I let myself believe he was my Prince Charming, but he was just using me and I was letting him. I can’t even blame him because I knew exactly what I was getting myself into. I was his accomplice.”

  He couldn’t be with her because of the show, but when he’d said he wasn’t sure he liked his job anymore, a tiny part of her had hoped that he would leave MMP for her. She’d spun that dream out of thin air, telling herself it was possible, but she’d just been fooling herself.

  “Don’t blame yourself. At least you followed your heart. That’s more than I ever do.”

  “A lot of good it did me.”

  “Hey.” Tori nudged her shoulder with hers. “This is a bump in the road to your happily ever after, right? Isn’t that what you’re always telling Parv when she meets another dud? You’ll find someone who deserves you. Someone who is crazy about you and treats you right.”

  “That’s the problem. I can’t even look at someone who might deserve me because all I want is him. That’s what happened on Marrying Mister Perfect.”

  “Well, the first step is ending it. Now you just need to get over it and then you can get down to the business of picking the right guy.”

  “He asked me if I wanted to be the next Miss Right. Can you believe that?”

  “He’s a dick.”

  “He didn’t mean it like that.”

  “I don’t care how he meant it. He’s a dick.” Then Tori paused, her ivy eyes going distant. “Are you going to?”

  “No.” But then the idea rolled through her brain. “Maybe. No. Only if he isn’t the host.”

  “You could make that a stipulation—”

  Before Sidney could explain that she hadn’t meant it, the back door burst open and Lorelei bolted inside. “Mom!” she shouted, her backpack bouncing on her shoulders as she sprinted to where they sat at the foot of the stairs. Sidney swiped quickly at her cheeks, relieved to find them dry.

  “He kissed me!” Lorelei squealed with unchecked glee.

  Tori visibly paled. “What?”

  “Hunter! Hunter Fraser! He kissed me by the swings in front of everyone! And he held my hand on the way back from recess!”

  “My baby has a boyfriend,” Tori moaned under her breath before rising to hug Lorelei. “That’s great, sweetie. But if he tries to get more than a kiss, you just tell him I have a shot gun and I’m not afraid to use it.”

  “Mo-om,” Lore groaned, embarrassed as only a pre-teen daughter could be.

  Sidney stood to offer her congratulations as well—shoving down the stupid pang of envy that wanted to rise up. A ten-year-old boy wasn’t afraid to show his affection in public. He was proud to be Lorelei’s boyfriend—and why shouldn’t he be?

  Didn’t she deserve as much?

  *

  “Josh, you know I love you, but why do you insist on making my life difficult?”

  “Hey, Harry.” Josh panted into his hands-free headset, not slowing his pace on the treadmill as his agent bitched in his ear. “What have I done now to damage your zen?”

  “It’s what you haven’t done. Would you like to explain to me why you’re still dragging your feet on signing the extension contracts?”

  “I’m not dragging my feet. I just haven’t gotten around to it.” He had a month before the contractual deadline to sign them and the next season of Romancing Miss Right looked like it was going to be pushed back anyway, so it had been easy to put off. “What’s the big hurry all of a sudden?”

  “The big hurry is they’re talking about replacing you and we don’t have a signed contract in hand.”

  “What?” Josh stumbled, catching himself on the side bars of the treadmill before he did a facer onto the spinning belt. He braced his feet on the side panels and slapped the emergency stop. “Are you screwing with me? Since when are they looking at someone else?”

  “They aren’t talking to anyone yet, but apparently the new Suitorette they’re considering for the next Miss Right is asking for a different host. Did you do something to piss her off?”

  Dread tightened his gut. “Which Suitorette is it now?”

  “That Sidney girl.”

  He was glad he wasn’t still running because the words hit him hard enough to knock him down if he had been. Even though he’d been half-expecting them. “I thought she wasn’t interested in doing the show.”

  He’d meant it when he told her she’d be great as Miss Right—but the thought of coaching her through her romance with thirty other men still went down like acid. He didn’t want her dating anyone else, but he didn’t have any right to be possessive. He couldn’t have her and he wanted her to be happy, so he’d man up and host her fairy tale romance if that was what she wanted.

  Except apparently she didn’t want him anywhere near her.

  “All I know is she’s talking to them,” his agent said. “And they’re talking to me about why you haven’t signed. So what’s the hold up?”

  “There’s no hold up.”

  “Good. Then sign. And make peace with the Suitorette. You’re the most likeable man in show business. I don’t want the producers to start questioning that because you ruffled some reality diva’s feathers.”

  “She isn’t a reality diva.”

  “It doesn’t matter who she is,” Harry said with his usual tact. “All that matters is that we get you locked in for four more years before the network starts asking questions about why little Miss Right doesn’t want you hosting her season. So work it out.”

  “I will,” Josh promised. But when he disconnected the call, he just stabbed the button to resume his workout on the treadmill, the pounding rhythm of his feet doing little to erase his tension like it usually did.

  The contract would keep for another few hours. And Sidney?

  He couldn’t call her. There was nothing he could say that would magically make the situation better. They’d both let their off-the-books relationship get a little too real. It was time to get back to reality and talking about it more wasn’t going to make it any easier for either of them.

  And if she wanted to be Miss Right…and she didn’t want him anywhere near her while she was doing it… he wasn’t going to fight her on it.

  It had been a week since they’d wrapped shooting on the special. After the wedding they would add in some still photos of the final product and some voice-over descriptions of the event, but all the work they had to do together was done. He didn’t have any reason to see her again until the big day.

  Josh put his head down and ran, sweating through the miles on his treadmill. Better that he stayed away. A clean break.

  It didn’t matter if he missed her.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The day the Veil list would be published dawned sunny and clear—which considering it was Southern California wasn’t much of a shock but Sidney decided to take it as a good omen anyway. She would take good signs anywhere she could get them today.

  The issue would be posted online any minute, but she and Victoria had made a pact that they were going to look together and somehow Sidney r
esisted the urge to sneak a peek on her tablet as she got dressed, barely aware of what she put on.

  They had to have made the list. Everything they’d done in the last year to raise the profile of Once Upon a Bride must have paid off.

  She hit the showroom at seven-forty—nearly two hours before their usual nine-thirty opening time—and Victoria was already there, rearranging a plastic floral display in the front window.

  “How long have you been down here?” Sidney asked.

  Victoria jumped, whirling toward her with a hand pressed over her heart. “Sidney! I didn’t hear you.”

  “I figured. You okay?”

  “Couldn’t sleep,” Tori admitted. Her eyes flicked toward the office where the computer—and its access to the Veil website beckoned. “Are you ready for this?”

  “No changing it now. We might as well know.”

  Together they made their way back to the office and perched side by side in front of the computer. Tori selected the Veil website from their favorites list. As they waited for it to load, Sidney clasped Tori’s hand, squeezing tight. “We’ve got this,” she murmured.

  The website’s banner popped up, the rest of the page rapidly filling. The Top Twelve List was the featured article, a huge Best of the Best graphic filling the top half of the page. Tori clicked on it and they both rapidly skimmed through the introductory paragraphs—which told them nothing about the planners who had been chosen other than that they were the best of the best. They advanced to the next page—and the first selectee splashed large across the screen.

  Tyson Scott Weddings.

  “Of course,” Victoria muttered, already scrolling down to click ahead to the second selection.

  The Atlanta based wedding planner catered to high profile athletes, rock royalty, and in some cases actual royalty. He’d been a perennial feature on the list for the last four years, so it was no surprise to see him there again.

  The second and third choices were also repeats, but the fourth splashy graphic had both Tori and Sidney leaning toward the screen and frowning. “Who are I Do, I Do Weddings?” Sidney asked.

  “Never heard of them,” Tori admitted. “Do you want to read the details or skip ahead?”

  “Go,” Sidney ordered, too impatient to check out the new competition. “We can come back to them.”

  After they knew.

  Five through eight were familiar. Nine and ten unheard of. And eleven was so obvious Sidney was surprised they hadn’t been listed first—they did weddings for Khardashians, after all.

  Victoria paused with her hand hovering over the mouse. “Last one.”

  “We’ve got this,” Sidney said again, though her voice was weaker this time and a sick feeling had begun to coil and churn in her stomach. Please, please, please.

  Tori clicked the mouse.

  Sidney couldn’t speak. All the air felt like it had been sucked out of the room, leaving only a vacuum pressure on her lungs. Right. Okay then.

  “Dream Weddings, Inc.,” Victoria read, as if to reassure herself that she wasn’t seeing things.

  They hadn’t made the list.

  It wasn’t the only reason Sidney had gone on MMP, or planned Caitlyn’s wedding, or gone to the bridal expo. There was more to a successful business than one little list—which was probably all politics and who you knew anyway. But she couldn’t seem to wrap her brain around it. They’d failed.

  Only one phrase repeated in her head and she said it aloud to Tori. “I’m sorry.”

  “What?” Tori jerked out of her own haze. “Honey, no. If anyone should be sorry, it’s me. I practically forced you to go on that show and for what?”

  “No one forced me. I wanted to. Promoting Once Upon a Bride was a convenient excuse, but I wanted to get swept away in my own fairy tale romance so badly I probably would have gone on the show even if it would have hurt the business—God, you don’t think it hurt our chances, did it? My mother said something about the lowest common denominator of the viewing public—”

  “Stop. Business has almost doubled since the show began airing and it will do even better once the Wedding Special plays. We don’t need this stupid list to make rent—not anymore anyway and that’s thanks to you.”

  “I really thought we had it in the bag.” Sidney couldn’t stop staring at the screen. Dream Weddings, Inc. from Manhattan. They had a good reputation. Professional.

  “It’s just a list,” Tori said, though she sounded more like she was trying to talk herself into it than like she actually believed her own words. “There will be others.”

  “They’ll look like idiots for not including us when Caitlyn’s wedding is the event of the summer,” Sidney said—though she had no more conviction in her voice than Tori had in hers.

  “It’s arbitrary,” Tori murmured.

  “Favoritism and name recognition,” Sidney agreed.

  “Lots of people are successful who never get these random accolades,” Tori said. “It doesn’t mean we aren’t the best wedding planners for our brides.”

  “Happy clients are the best advertisements,” Sidney repeated the mantra they had lived by when she first started at Once Upon a Bride. “Who needs a list telling us we’re the best?”

  Tori didn’t reply, but they both heard the words hanging unspoken in the air. They did. They both wanted the validation—each for their own reasons—and they’d both fallen short this year.

  A firm knock rattled the frosted panes of the front door. Tori and Sidney exchanged a glance. “Parv,” Sidney predicted. “I’ll get it.”

  Parvati had been almost as excited about the release of the list as they’d been. Sidney only hoped she’d brought some of her muffins to go along with the sympathy.

  But when she stepped into the main room of Once Upon a Bride and looked through the glass front door, it wasn’t Parvati waiting impatiently on the front step, but Marguerite Dewitt in all her glory.

  “Shit.”

  Her mother’s laser-like eyes had already locked onto Sidney. She couldn’t pretend she hadn’t heard the door and disappear upstairs to mope until her first appointment of the day. No, she had to deal with her mother.

  Her mother never visited Once Upon a Bride. Trust her to pick the absolute worst morning to start.

  Or God, what if it was worse than that? What if her mother knew about the list and her failure to get on it? What if she was here to tell Sidney to give up her failing wedding planning career and go into corporate boredom?

  Sidney forced herself to keep trudging toward the front door. If she worked the locks more slowly than usual, could anyone really blame her? The chimes overhead jangled cheerfully as she pulled open the engraved door.

  “Mother. To what do I owe the honor?”

  “I needed to speak to you,” Marguerite said, as if the answer should be obvious—ignoring the fact that she had never once, in all of Sidney’s twenty-eight years, dropped by to chat.

  “Is everything all right?” Sidney stepped back to let her mother inside, closing and locking the door again behind her.

  “Of course,” she said, since to Marguerite every other option was an impossibility. “Can we go up to your apartment? I prefer not to have my conversations standing around in public if it’s all the same to you.”

  Sidney ground her molars, biting back the urge to tell her mother that Once Upon a Bride before they opened was hardly public, where only Victoria could possibly overhear them.

  It wasn’t worth the effort. “By all means. Let’s go upstairs.”

  She led her mother to the back stairs. Victoria popped her head out of the office long enough to wince sympathetically when Marguerite’s back was turned before retreating back inside. She was probably obsessively researching the twelve wedding planners who had been picked and why. That’s what Sidney would have been doing if she hadn’t had an unexpected visit from her mother to contend with.

  She opened the door to the apartment—silently thanking the fates that she’d been obsessively cl
eaning since the last time she’d seen Josh and her apartment was now a shrine to cleanliness. Though of course her mother still studied her shabby-chic furniture dubiously, as if wondering if any of it was safe to sit on.

  “Would you like some coffee?” Sidney offered, leading the way to the small table near the kitchen so her mother wouldn’t have to make the Sophie’s choice between the worn-out couch and the overstuffed recliner.

  “Strong and black,” her mother instructed, taking one of the chairs at the café table.

  Since coffee was one of the few things she and her mother shared a passion for, Sidney knew exactly how to make it and busied herself with the familiar task to avoid thinking about the fact that her mother was here—right when she had failed again with that damn list.

  “Your brother told me you didn’t make that list you were hoping for.”

  And she would be sure to kill him next time she saw him. “I see good news travels fast.” Thank you, internet.

  “Was it an important list?” her mother inquired. “A requirement for doing business?”

  “It’s good exposure, but we’re doing fine on our own,” Sidney said, sounding more defensive than she wanted. The words were one hundred percent true—thank goodness—so why did she feel like she was lying when she said them to her mother?

  “You’ll be on it next year, of course.”

  Sidney decided she officially hated her mother’s of courses. As if the option of not making the list for another year was unthinkable. But then, Sidney excelled at failing when her mother saw failure as absurd.

  She handed her mother her coffee before taking her own seat across the table, somehow managing not to slam her cup onto the wood. Maybe it was the disappointment, maybe it was the stress of the last few months piling up on her, maybe it was anger at herself for the fact that the one person whose shoulder she wanted to cry on right now was Josh—but whatever the reason, she said exactly what she was thinking.

  “Of course, we’ll be on it next year. Anything less wouldn’t be fitting for a Dewitt.”