Second Chance Bride: A Fake Fiancee Romance

by Samantha West

  I glance from Mrs. Pathmoore to the two women sitting across the table from us, and they look at me with folded hands and judging scowls.

  “Like I said on the phone earlier,” Mrs. Pathmoore says, “it’s not good.”

  “No, it’s not good,” the VP of the whole shebang says.

  Vivian Rose Garnelle. Her reputation precedes her. I’ve never actually met her until now, and I’m just realizing this. She has a big, beauty queen bouffant atop her head, all southern charm on the outside and a sly, calculating, whip-smart tongue on the inside.

  “What am I going to do about it?” I say, partially defeated and partially hopeful. “I mean, if you guys called this meeting, I assume there’s a reason I’m here. Something I can do to make this whole thing go away. I have an interview a little later this morning, and I can say the whole thing was a big joke if that’ll make it better.”

  “No,” the pageant host, a woman in her late forties who is on one of those early-evening gossip shows says, “that is the absolute last thing we need. That would draw more attention to the problem.”

  “That’s correct,” the Ms. Garnelle says, “what we need to do now is change the conversation entirely.”

  I don’t understand what the hell is happening, and I suddenly become very aware of the possibility of getting kicked out of the pageant entirely. That would probably be the easiest thing for them to do. And talk about changing the conversation - removing me from it completely would certainly achieve that.

  “Please don’t get rid of me,” I say, searching the women’s faces for traces of sympathy. “I really love being here, and I’m really sorry about this whole thing.”

  “Darling,” the Ms. Garnelle says elegantly, flitting up from her seat to take a small waltz around the room, “we are not removing you from the competition. Trust me, the idea was floated, but the truth of the matter is that we need you just as much as you need us.”

  “You’re a real draw, Cassandra,” the host says. “My network’s polling shows that a lot of people tune in just to see you.”

  “Really?” I say in disbelief. I mean, I know I have a following and I knew that the pageant considered me a frontrunner - it’s why they paid for me to have my own room and gave me all kinds of little perks - but I thought I was kind of being kept around as a token competitor. It’s not a secret that I look slightly different from most of the other contestants.

  “Really,” Mrs. Pathmoore, putting her hand on my shoulder in a rare gesture that shows she really is human and not some perfect fembot with no real feelings.

  “Okay,” I say, “I mean, thank you. Please just tell me what to do to fix this.”

  “The whole problem stems from the fact that you were quoted as saying something that is completely antithetical to what your public persona is supposed to be...and, in addition to that, you were seen canoodling with a man who is not your husband, not your boyfriend.”

  “I thought we weren’t allowed to be married to compete,” I say, feeling my brow furrow. “So it would be a problem if I were married, and in fact would disqualify me, and it’s a problem that I’m not married?”

  “That’s not what I said,” Ms. Garnelle says impatiently. I can read that the whole mood of the room has shifted suddenly. Maybe it’s because I’ve actually hit on something that has the ability to strike a nerve. “The problem is what you said, coupled with how you said it.”

  “I can’t believe this is really happening,” I say, “all because of this stupid comment.”

  “You do have a clause in your contract that dictates you must adhere to a certain image,” Mrs. Pathmoore reminds me, as though I didn’t realize this is the topic of the whole meeting.

  I sigh deeply, my heart pounding deep inside me. I guess I allowed myself to get a little bit too caught up in Jason. Even though I stopped him before he put his lips to mine at the bar...even though I wanted him to take me right then and there. I shouldn’t have let him touch me the way he did.

  “We do have a way for you to walk this back,” the host says optimistically, snapping my mind back to the present.

  “What is it?” I ask, flopping my hands on down my lap. “What can I do to make this go away?”

  “Well,” the organizer says, “who was the man you were speaking with?”

  That’s certainly a fantastic question. Just the boy I don’t know if I can have. Just the man I want.

  “He’s an old friend,” I say. “We were neighbors back in our hometown.”

  “He’s actually already employed by the organization,” Mrs. Pathmoore says. “He came highly recommended. He’s doing security. He’s got a fantastic resume and an even better reputation.”

  I watch as smiles grow on the faces around me. Infuriating, annoying smiles, and I feel like I’m being left out of the best inside joke in the cafeteria.

  “What about him?” I ask, searching their faces.

  Ms. Garnelle slips back into her chair and smiles at me, folding her hands in front of her and picking up a pen, sliding a crisp sheet of paper out of a big leather portfolio on her desk that I’m just now noticing.

  “What if he were your boyfriend?” she asks, sliding the paper across the desk to me. “What if he were something more than that, even? Your fiancé?”

  I feel my jaw drop open as I am rendered speechless, snatching the document from her and scanning it from top to bottom. I’m no stranger to contracts in this business - I’ve even had a few endorsements in my time - but I’ve never seen anything like this before. It is boilerplate, with all of the pertinent details omitted, but it is specific. And specifically, it says I would be pretending that the man these people around me are talking about as if he’s no one at all is actually my fiancé, real as day and airtight as the black ink on the white page in front of me.

  “It’s a tidy solution,” Mrs. Pathmoore says. “If you think about it, it would make complete sense to move forward with this, or something like it.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, my fingers flying to my temple. “You want to essentially cover up the fact that I am single and some kind of pessimistic, love-hating monster, and make it seem as though I’m engaged? All to make me look like the good girl that...what? The good girl I’m supposed to be? The kind of girl you want in your pageant?”

  “Well, yes,” Ms. Garnelle says plainly, placing her elbows on the desk in front of her and folding her hands under her chin, “precisely.”

  I nearly choke on the air in my lungs.

  This is not going to work for me. It’s preposterous.

  Obviously, these people are high off their asses if they think I would go for something like this.

  “If you ask me,” I say, rising from my seat, “this is antithetical to the spirit of the pageant. This is a lie. This is…”

  I watch the three perfect, beautiful faces around me. I watch as they exchange glances, and the girl in front of them, struggling in this moment with the very real prospect of all she’s worked for going down the drain in one moment of stupidity and one moment of some unscrupulous reporter thinking she’s got the scoop on me, questions her resolve.

  I slowly sit back down and yank the contract off the desk.

  “It’s not crazy,” Mrs. Pathmoore says, “it’s a little white lie. It’s a way for all of us to move on from this. And most importantly, it’s a way for you to remain in the competition.”

  I imagine Jason Anderson’s name on the contract in front of me. I let out a chuckle as I remember how I’d once written a birthday card to him and snuck over to his house in the middle of the night to stick it in his mailbox before he got home from wherever the hell he was, doing everything forbidden and wrong with people I’d only ever heard about in the vaguest of terms.

  And I remember how my brother had looked over my shoulder when I was writing out the card, and how he’d said my handwriting looked different.

  That’s because it was. I wanted to give it a little bit of extra flair.

  I just wanted
Jason to see me as something...something else. Something other than what I was for all those years.

  “I would have to talk to Jason about this,” I say, my voice shrinking as I glance at the line mentioning a yet-to-be-determined amount of money Jason would earn should he go along with this circus. “I see here you guys would be paying him for this?”

  “So the mystery man has a name,” Mrs. Pathmoore says gleefully. “Jason...and what is his last name?”

  “Anderson,” I say, my voice coming out as barely a croak, “his name is Jason Anderson.”

  Jason Anderson, my soon-to-be-fiancé.

  This is great. This is everything I’ve always wanted.

  Yeah. Right.

  9

  Jason

  I have a full day of meetings and training ahead of me today, but my number-one priority is making sure Cassie is alright.

  When you’re on the road like I am, you tend to feel out of your element really quickly, and you have to recalibrate to make yourself ease into your own element again. Ground yourself in something. It can be anything, really. The point is that when home is so damn far away, you need something to tether you to the ground or you’ll be swept out to sea like a boat with its sails all fucked up.

  Or, at least that’s what Cassie’s always told me, if not in those exact words. I slide my hand into my back pocket and pull out an old, crumbled postcard she sent me from one of her competitions a couple of years ago. It had been post-marked six months prior to when I ended up seeing it, and it has a picture of the ocean on it.

  Make sure you come home, wherever that might be.

  That’s Cassie. That’s so fucking Cassie Blake.

  I turn the card over in my hands before putting into my pocket, hearing a door shut down the hallway from where I’m standing.

  She comes out of the secret room she’s had her meeting in, looking as sexy as all hell, even though I know the meeting was tense from the way she described the world of shit she’s in.

  But she is smiling, so that sets my mind at ease immediately.

  She’s with three older women. I recognize one of them from Cassie’s social media accounts. She’s Cassie’s manager or representative or something like that.

  The other one is a hyperactive talking head on one of those gossip TV shows, the kind that has a veneer of class about it but speaks in the same judgmental tone toward celebrities’ personal lives as the most pernicious magazines do.

  And the last one is an older woman, someone who carries herself with the air of a fucking boss.

  This is the one that barrels toward me with a flurry of grace, something I never thought would be possible.

  “Jason Anderson,” she drawls, putting a hand out to me. I put my hand out in turn to shake hers, completely confused as to why the hell this woman knows who I am.

  “That’s me,” I say, shoving my hands into my pockets after her hand slips away from mine.

  “Oh, he’s so cute,” the woman remarks, swatting Cassie softly on the shoulder. “I can see why you like this one!”

  I smirk and send a sideways glance over Cassie’s way.

  “So you like me?” I whistle.

  “No,” Cassie says with an insistent tone, waving her hands in the air like a crossing guard saying I can’t go any farther for my own safety, “I mean, yes, but…”

  “Young man,” the woman says, “we have a business proposition for you. It’s something I think you will be very interested in.”

  “Okay,” Cassie says, slipping into the room behind me. She shuts the door and we go over to the bed, where she perches carefully on the edge and I lay down with my hands behind my head. “Please don’t be mad at me.”

  “I’m not mad, Cass,” I reply, “in fact, I’m flattered.”

  “Don’t be flattered either,” she says, getting up from the bed. She begins to pace back and forth in front of me as I prop myself up on my elbows. “I’m sorry. I know this is like, a huge inconvenience for you. This is just panic mode for me basically.”

  “Well, the nice ladies did say I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to,” I tease.

  “Oh…” she trails off, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “Of course you don’t have to do this. I’m sorry, I guess I just assumed…”

  “Assumed that after last night I’d be unable to say no to you?”

  “No,” she says.

  I rise from the bed in front of her and wrap my arms around her shoulders. “It’s okay. I’ll go along with this. Come on Cassie, you know I’d do anything for you.”

  She softens under my touch and pulls away slightly. I just want to take her in my arms and tell her we should blow off this whole fucking pageant, tell them to go shove the crown up their asses, because she’s better than this and doesn’t need it. But it’s important to her, and that means it’s important to me.

  “You’d do anything for me?” she says, walking over to the small dresser near the window. “Would you eat a Hawaiian pizza for me?”

  “Please Cassie, now you’ve crossed the line,” I quip. “Pineapple and ham? Together? On a pizza? That’s like, some serial killer shit.”

  “Okay,” she sighs, taking a brush from her dresser and beginning to drag it through her long, perfect blonde locks. “I understand. It’s a good thing this is all just fake. It would never work out between us.”

  I walk over and stand behind her, putting my hands on her shoulders. She catches my eye in the mirror and looks away quickly.

  “I still have that meeting this morning with that reporter,” she says, busying herself with a bottle of perfume on the dresser. “Would you go with me?”

  “You’re still meeting that psycho?” I ask. “You’ve got to be kidding me, Cass.”

  “Yeah, I’m gonna still meet with her,” she sighs. “At this point I just have to follow the path of least resistance. Go with the flow. I can’t afford any more hiccups. And that means if I have a meeting with a reporter, I show up.”

  “Can I least give her a piece of my mind?”

  “No,” she says, “please don’t do that. That is the literal last thing I need. A confrontation with this woman? Please.”

  “Fine,” I say, “whatever you want. You’re in charge.”

  “So,” she says, taking a big breath, “we should probably define the parameters of our relationship.”

  “Oh,” I say, “that sounds so official. Is that your idea of dirty talk?”

  She just shakes her head and laughs as she slides off her sandals, trading them in for a pair of something else from her closet. The new shoes have a little bit of a heel. She always liked feeling taller.

  “Back to the parameters of our relationship,” I say, “like you were saying before. Clearly, what happened last night has to happen regularly. And clearly I have to buy you a ring. It might just be a ring-pop, but it’s going to be big.”

  “About that,” she says, pacing over to her closet, “I know it seems a bit silly, but we have to...how do I say this? We have to pretend last night never happened, at least just for the time being.”

  I feel like a spear has gone through my damn heart.

  “Can I ask why?” I say.

  “The pageant is very conservative, like I was saying earlier. They can’t have me showing any hint of impropriety.”

  “Even with your own fiancé?”

  “Even with my own fiancé,” she says, turning to look at me.

  “That’s not a problem,” I reply, “I’m just gonna have to sneak into your room at night.”

  She gives me a sexy little groan and goes over to the door as I follow.

  I’ll make this woman want me so fucking bad that she’s gonna be begging me to sneak to her room. Begging me to crawl into bed with her and slide between her legs just like I did last night. She’s gonna be panting all night long and screaming my name. I’ll make sure of it.

  Because this woman cuts me straight to the bone, and now that I’ve had a taste, I don’t think I’m
ever gonna be able to let her go.

  Impropriety? I’ll show her impropriety.

  10

  Cassie

  The first thing I have to do is text my family and tell them they are going to read some things in the paper that are not true. I shoot off a group text and tell them that I can’t say anything more, but will explain everything to them when I see them at the pageant.

  The next thing I have to do is get to this stupid interview.

  I spot Cynthia from the second Jason and I get out of the elevator. I wave at her with my big beauty-queen smile and I nearly feel sick on the inside.

  Nearly. Because if I get to be attached at the hip to Jason for the next several days, maybe this will not have been a bad thing. Of course, that’s if this whole thing doesn’t completely ruin my career.

  Jason slips his arm around my waist, low and steady, grounding me in the reality of what’s happening. The whole elevator ride down to the lobby was spent in silence, my heart pounding in my chest a mile a minute, so damn loud that I could hardly hear my own thoughts.

  “This fucking woman,” he says under his breath. He doesn’t sound angry, though. He sounds like he’s just really pissed off that she’s orchestrated this whole thing that’s threatening to destroy everything I’ve built.

  “Be nice,” I whisper. She might be the scourge of my world right now, but I have to keep it together for the sake of optics.

  “Why should I?” he hisses back at me, “she isn’t.”

  “Cassie!” Cynthia squeals, hopping up from the low-slung couch she’s sitting on in the middle of the hotel lobby. “I’m so glad you were able to make it.”

  “Oh course,” I say, smiling through gritted teeth. “Did you think I wouldn’t come?”

  She smiles in a half-genuine, half mean-girl way, the kind of smile that makes me think this is all a big joke to her. Of course, it probably is.

  “A teensy-bit,” she replies, squeezing her fingers together in front of her eyes. “You aren’t mad at me?”