She hadn’t fought to be heard when Luke left college, when she lost her job, when she knew, with every part of her being, that she wanted to be with Luke instead of Marc. Her whole life, it had been easier to go along with what other people decided about her, said about her.
She was only just now beginning to see what that had cost her.
Charley didn’t wait to hear more. She needed to get out, needed air. She made it to the end of the hall and turned again.
She spied a familiar-looking figure standing in the same hall, her head down. She peered closer. “Mila?” What was Marc’s ex doing here?
The other woman looked up and Charley saw tears streaking her face.
Mila straightened, turned away to swipe at her eyes, and then back. “Charley. Hi.”
“Is everything okay?”
“I’ve just had a long day, that’s all.” Squaring her shoulders, she extended a damp hand. “I’m sure you and Marc have a great chance of winning, so congratulations in advance.”
Charley shook Mila’s hand. “I don't know about that, but thanks. I appreciate it.”
“Of course.” Mila’s smile wobbled, but it was a brave attempt.
Uh-oh. “Do you still have feelings for him?”
“No. Well, I mean, yes. Of course. We were together for a while. So it would be kind of hard not to. But there’s nothing to worry about.” Mila nodded. “I would never get in the way of his happiness.” More liquid filled her eyes. She blinked hard. “I have to go now. Nice seeing you again.”
“Why not?”
“What?”
“You wouldn’t get in the way, even if you thought he was making a mistake?”
Mila looked away.
“Because if you care about someone,” Charley continued, “that’s what you do.”
“I have to go.” She half-ran, half-walked to a door at the end of the hall.
Charley called, “Your best friend. I don’t think she is. I think she lied to you.”
Mila stopped, her fingers on the handle.
“Who knows why—maybe she was jealous or she didn’t want to lose you as a friend,” Charley continued. “Or she made a mistake and doesn’t know how to get out of it. But she wasn’t telling the truth. Plus, I know Marc now. He wouldn’t do that.”
Mila hesitated and then pushed the door open and went through it into the night.
And Charley had thought it would be so much fun to come on the show, win the money for Second Chance, and find love in the process.
She couldn’t have been more wrong.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Interlude
Between Episodes Eleven and Thirteen
“I have never been so angry.” Dr. K.’s hands shook.
“Agreed,” Bill snapped.
Brooklyn leaned forward, elbows on the table, head in her hands. “I can’t believe this. Are you sure?”
“I wish I could say I was surprised,” Addie said drily.
Luke, for his part, was relieved he wasn’t in the executive producer’s shoes, with a nephew who screwed up big time championing a computer program that didn’t work like he said it did. Then he found Jesus and a conscience, so he confessed to his uncle. Blake should have kept this all to himself, at least until after they’d filmed the live finale.
Jonathan had intended to do exactly that, but according to the attorneys—in a tense three-hour meeting Luke, Tasha, and Jen had sat through—Jonathan was required to provide full disclosure.
The hard lines around Jonathan’s mouth deepened, his eyes flashing fire and his jaw working furiously.
“I’m confused,” Dr. K. said, in that way that meant he wasn’t confused at all. “We relied on Blake to merge our recommendations with MATE’s findings and come up with the matches. You’re saying that the merge didn’t work. Are you saying MATE did nothing or MATE did everything? And before you answer, I’ll remind you that each of us was careful not to share our individual findings with the others, as you instructed. If we had, we might have realized something had happened.” He slapped the desk.
“As I understand the situation,” Jonathan said slowly, carefully, “MATE was solely responsible for the matches.”
“Based on what?” Bill asked.
“Keywords, essentially.”
Luke had to give it to Jonathan. The guy was remaining calm. He hoped Blake wasn’t lying bruised and battered somewhere. Jonathan’s boots could kick serious ass.
“Keywords?” Brooklyn put a hand to her mouth, horrified. “Like what?”
Jonathan’s hands formed fists. “Like gay, bowling, arm wrestling…” He made a sound of derision. “When he realized MATE wasn’t working as designed and had also sent your recommendations into cyberspace, he panicked. So he matched people based on keywords from the questionnaires and—” He looked as though the next word physically hurt him to say. “Names. The names he thought went together.”
“Oh my God.” Bill’s face crumpled. “You’re telling us that all of the interviewing we did, all of the work we did to analyze and find truly compatible matches, none of it mattered.”
“The questionnaires did. To an extent. And you all developed those.”
Luke, Jen, and Tasha exchanged looks.
Jonathan rubbed his forehead. “As I said at the beginning of this meeting, no one is sorrier than I am that this happened. I take full responsibility.”
“You’d damn well better,” Dr. K. said.
“Don’t talk about this with anyone other than the people in this room until we decide what to do,” Jonathan instructed. “And in the meantime, thank you for your work, your on-camera interviews, all of it. You are a big part of the success of this show.”
His last words sank like a balloon hissing air.
One by one, the panel of experts left the room, each with a disgusted look. They thought this was real, Luke marveled, a thought that was quickly taken over by another that played over and over in his mind. Marc isn’t Charley’s perfect match. He never was.
When the door closed, Jonathan looked at his three producers. “We’re fucked. They’re gonna talk before the finale. Even Addie knows how to use social media.”
Tasha looked at Luke. Jen looked at Luke.
Jonathan stared at the table. “I knew that kid was trouble. But I hired him anyway.”
“We only have one episode left,” Luke said. “So we focus only on the contestants, not how they were put together. That’s what this show has been about all along, anyway. The contestants. We don’t even put the experts on camera during the finale.” Luke studied Jonathan’s face. “They’ll still be in the credits, and if we have to, we’ll thank and mention them.”
The hard lines on Jonathan’s forehead began to relax. “I like it. Yeah, we’ll go with that. When do we know the voting results? Do we even have one viable couple to win this thing?”
Luke answered the first question. “We should have the results any minute.”
Jen tried to tackle the second question. “Michael blew it in the family meeting, but a lot of people still like him and Brittany, for whatever reason. Marc and Charley, they have a good shot?” She turned to Luke for confirmation.
He shrugged. No way was he confirming his worse nightmare.
“People love Jason,” Tasha added. “He’s got this giant teddy bear thing going for him.”
“They’re not too sure about Trevor, though,” Jen said.
Tasha tipped her chin in agreement. “I’m not too sure about Trevor, either.”
A knock sounded on the door. One of the production assistants entered, carrying a sealed envelope. He handed it to Jonathan, who glanced at it and thanked him. The assistant left, closing the door behind him.
“Results?” Luke asked, his stomach doing a weird thirty-floor elevator drop.
Jonathan opened the envelope and drew out the piece of paper inside. Once he’d read what was on it, he put it down and picked up the pencil again and resumed tapping it, harder this time. “We�
�re going to need to add something big, something flashy, to take the place of all the crap about the matching process that the experts were going to talk about.”
“You have something in mind?” Tasha asked, with a nervous glance at Luke and Jen.
“Who won?” Jen asked. “We have to know that first.”
Jonathan shoved the envelope across the polished table to the three producers. They opened it and, one by one, read the contents. They looked at each other and then back at Jonathan.
He snapped the pencil in half. “I know exactly what we’re going to do. It could be great; it could blow up in our faces. But we’re gonna do it.”
CHAPTER NINE
Make Me a Match
Episode Thirteen
Rings and Strings
“Are you sure, honey? Really sure?”
“That I want to win the $150,000? Yes.” Charley played with the paper napkin in front of her, rolling it first one way and then the other. She and her family had finished lunch, but the waitress hadn’t yet collected their dishes.
She had to win that money. In the time she’d been home, while the show was airing, she’d returned to work with a vengeance. She’d cajoled and pleaded with several companies for donations to Second Chance, but nothing had come through as yet. Meanwhile, Second Chance had been forced to turn away three transports of puppies from high-kill shelters across the country. Three transports.
Her father frowned. “That’s not what your mother was asking. Aside from the money, what sort of responsibilities do you have to Marc if you win?”
“None. That I know of.” She really should have read that contract more carefully.
“I don’t know, Stan,” her mother said to her father. “Does that sound right to you? Why would they give her the money if she didn’t have to do anything for it?”
He shrugged, causing her mother’s worry lines to deepen.
“I have had to do something for it,” Charley pointed out. “I’ve had cameras following me everywhere for weeks on end. They once even tried to follow me to the bathroom.”
“No,” breathed her mother. “That’s not right.”
“It was a public bathroom,” she admitted, “and the only reason I went in there was to get away from them, but still. And I competed in those challenges, remember? They were tough. It was fun, though, to climb that statue.”
“So cool,” Brett agreed.
“I didn’t like watching that. You could have hurt yourself.” Her mother shook her head.
Her dad was not so easily distracted. “Here’s what I want to know. Are we going to be welcoming this Marc to the family?”
During the agonizing long weeks after filming, she’d heard nothing from Luke, but plenty from Marc. She knew Luke had gone back to L.A., but he had a phone, didn’t he? She didn’t have his number, but he had hers.
She’d tried to call him once, through the production company, but had been told to leave a message. When she heard the beep, she’d hung up. It just seemed so…desperate. And familiar.
So she’d gone out with Marc regularly, and they talked and texted all the time. The votes had been compiled weeks ago; there was no reason they couldn’t be seen in public. The show had encouraged it. Several people had recognized them; one had even asked for an autograph when they’d been in line to get on the Seattle Great Wheel, down on the waterfront.
Marc and Charley had looked at each other, signaled why not with their eyes, and signed a Starbucks cup. Then they’d laughed through an entire rotation of the Wheel.
They’d had fun together, held hands when they walked. Hugged, kissed. Charley had never let things go any further, though Marc had tried. He felt like a buddy. A buddy with kiss-on-the-lips privileges.
Welcome him to the family? There could be worse things than marrying a buddy. So he didn’t set anything on fire inside her. Maybe that was because she wouldn’t give him the matches.
The experts had put them together for a reason. She had to believe that.
As for Luke… She wasn’t going to think about Luke anymore. He obviously wasn’t thinking about her. Ow. There went that knife that seemed to float around inside her 24/7, stabbing her whenever she thought about him or said his name.
“I don’t know, Dad. But there’s a chance. You guys like him, don’t you?”
“Well, sure,” said her mom.
Her father nodded.
Brett said, “Not me.”
Charley looked up from the paper napkin that her fingers had turned to shreds. “Why?”
“You don’t want to marry him. If you did, he’d be fine. But you don’t, so I don’t want him in the family.”
Three pairs of eyes trained on her.
Brett had his moments.
All six contestants were included in the live finale taping, even Trevor, who had betrayed Jason by briefly getting back together with his former lover after the exes episode. Jason had been heartbroken. Recently everyone had heard that Trevor had once again ended things with his ex and pleaded with Jason for a second chance.
They were now huddled in a corner of the Green Room the contestants had been confined to. Trevor was talking intently and gesturing with his hands. Jason had his massive arms crossed over his chest and a polite smile on his face. Charley hoped Jason, who was one of the nicest and most genuine men she’d ever met, didn’t give in and take Trevor back.
Brittany and Michael were pacing the floor, in opposite directions. Every few minutes, they would stop to face each other and then resume their pacing. Charley suspected they were racking up steps on their Fitbits while fighting.
Marc dropped onto the leather couch, sitting beside her. He picked up her hand and kissed the top of it. “Nervous?”
Hell, yes. But it had nothing to do with Marc. Or the show. She still hadn’t seen Luke. A messenger had delivered her instructions for when and where to arrive at the live taping.
“A little nervous, I guess,” she answered.
“Don’t be. We have the best chance of winning this thing. We’re the only ones who are actually together.”
She turned to him. “Are we?”
His eyes narrowed. “What?”
“Together.”
He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
She sucked in a breath. It had to be said. “I think Mila still loves you.”
He looked away. “I told you. That’s over with.” His voice was flat.
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“I won’t be with someone who doesn’t trust me.”
“But that’s the thing. I think she does.” Honesty really sucked sometimes. “You owe it to yourself to find out.”
“I have you now.”
Charley recognized the flicker of doubt in his eyes. “Maybe. Maybe not,” she said under her breath.
The door opened and Luke entered the room, followed by Tasha and Jen. “Could I have everyone’s attention?”
It was a good thing Charley was sitting down. Her legs turned weak while her pulse skittered like a mouse frantically seeking an exit and her hand felt like a lead weight in Marc’s grasp.
Brittany and Michael stopped their pacing to face Luke. Jason walked over to stand by the producers, leaving Trevor in the corner.
“We’re going to have you all come with us now so that we can get everything set up. Rob starts the show in fifteen minutes.”
All the contestants nodded. The instructions they’d received had been detailed, so there weren’t any questions to ask.
“Remember this is live, so watch your language.”
Nervous laughter rippled through the room.
Rob would be onstage first welcoming the TV and live audience in the elegantly restored theater. After, he would introduce the contestants one by one. Each would enter, wave to the crowd, and take a seat next to his or her partner. Rob would talk with each couple about the experiment and show clips from the episodes and filmed dates on the huge screen behind them, chronicling their on-show relati
onship.
Then he would announce the winners.
For some reason, the experts weren’t included on the schedule Charley had received, which surprised her. Maybe that segment had already been filmed.
Now that they were close to the end, Charley’s nerves ramped up. She smoothed her dress, another that had been sent over by the show. It was a form-fitting black lace pencil dress, with the top giving the illusion that it was sheer except for a band of black across her boobs. Sophisticated, sexy, and far more expensive than she could have ever afforded.
The contestants filed out. Halfway down the hallway, Luke gently pulled her away from the group. Marc didn’t notice; he’d been walking in front of her.
It took Luke a minute to speak. He rubbed the back of his neck and then grabbed her hand, just as quickly releasing it. “How are you?”
She felt the color rise in her cheeks. “Good. I’ve been spending a lot of time with Marc. You?”
He flinched, likely at the stiff formality of her tone. “I’m okay.”
“Good.” She’d meant to sound breezy, as though she didn’t care, but her voice came out unnaturally high-pitched. She cleared her throat and tried again. “I’d better get to the stage. Nice seeing you.”
“Charley. Wait.” He put a hand on her arm.
Her heart made a gigantic leap, lodging in her throat, where it beat out a slow, cautious rhythm, hoping he’d say not to go with Marc.
He smiled, but it wavered and disappeared. He looked down the hallway and back at her. “Things might happen on the show tonight that you don’t expect.”
So it was about the show, not the two of them. She fought unsuccessfully to keep her voice even, to keep sarcasm from poisoning her words. “When has there been anything about this show that I expected?”
He bit down on his lip then released it. “Point taken. The thing is… I wanted to say…”
“Hey.” Tasha appeared in the now empty hallway. “Come on. We need you.”
“Coming.” Charley began walking.
Luke caught up with her and said, his voice urgent, “None of this matters. Nothing’s real about a reality show.”
Kiss and Confess (Love Unscripted Book 1) Page 15