Chapter Five
Maxime’s blue-green eyes stay locked on mine. “You don’t have to. I understand the need to keep something like that to yourself.”
As I stare back at him, I see sincerity in his expression. I also see a man who guards his own privacy fiercely. How will he ever understand? How can I begin to tell him this story without him losing respect for me?
I sit up straighter as a realization hits me. This story is a part of my life. Whatever happens between Maxime and me, either as friends or something more, he has to accept it if he’s going to accept me.
“I went on Is It Love? because of my agent,” I say, wrapping my hands around the large ceramic mug and feeling immediate warmth. “My goal has always been to be on TV, not in a reality capacity but as a lifestyle TV host. I planned to start out as a correspondent. My parents work in the industry out in Los Angeles, and they helped me get some great internships. I worked my ass off, doing internships year-round while juggling my classes at UCLA. Thanks to my dad, I got agent meetings. I landed one: Charlotte. She’s the one who had contacts at Is It Love? and said she could get me cast.”
Maxime wrinkles his brow in thought. “So you didn’t want to be on the show?”
“No. I was appalled at the idea. I didn’t want to springboard because I was on a dating show. I wanted to land a job due to my skills and hard work and the enthusiasm I put into my features. Charlotte told me there were millions of girls like me trying to land one of the extremely limited jobs available in TV. She said I would need more than a good demo to make it, unless I wanted to toil for years in small markets and move all across America to get what I wanted. Which I was willing to do.”
“Why didn’t you?” Maxime asks.
I pause to take a sip of my latte. I place the cup back down and sigh. “She gave me the statistics for girls that appeared on Is It Love?, and it was hard to negate them. A lot of them come away with huge social media followings and become influencers on Connectivity and Instagram. They host podcasts and write books,” I say, thinking of the proposal that is in my Inbox. “Some are doing what I want to do. She said I would be wasting a tremendous opportunity, and it was hard to argue with her after thinking about it.”
I study Maxime’s face to see if he disapproves. His expression remains one of interest, not disapproval.
Yet.
I pause for a moment. “I let her handle everything, and that’s when things started to get out of control. Charlotte made up my backstory by saying that my life’s dream was to open a cupcake shop.”
I see nothing but confusion on Maxime’s face. “What? That was made up?”
My face grows hot as shame surges through me. “I’m done presenting an alternate reality. Yes. It was completely made up. I like cupcakes, but I’m a horrible baker. I don’t know how to bake. It’s a crapshoot if I can get a box mix to come out right. When I found out that was my casting description, I was livid. Charlotte told me to quit being overly dramatic. She said everyone embellishes to get ahead, and since I like cupcakes, it’s not a total lie, just a tweak. I’m not proud to say I went along with it. I regret it, but Charlotte represents a lot of successful TV personalities, and I was right out of college. What did I know? I didn’t trust my gut enough to say no to someone who was known to make dreams come true.”
“So you became Skye the cupcake baker,” Maxime says.
“More like Skye the cupcake faker,” I blurt out.
Maxime begins laughing, and I can’t help but join him.
“How does one be a cupcake faker?” Maxime asks.
I smile, relieved he’s taking my past so well. “Well, I talked about the joy cupcakes bring.”
“And?”
“How they have to have the perfect ratio of frosting—not too much—and of course, a generous amount of sprinkles. Because sprinkles make everything better.”
Maxime is smiling at me, and I feel the weight of my past fall away.
“Sprinkles are everything, I once heard,” Maxime teases.
I laugh. “Anyway, I go on the show,” I say, taking another sip of my coffee and setting the cup back down, “and they asked me what I needed to make cupcakes in the house kitchen for all the girls. That was written into the script. Luckily, I was able to talk them out of that idea, which would have been a disaster.”
“Script? I thought it was reality, outside of the cupcake fakery,” he says.
Then he winks at me.
“Silly Maxime, there is no such thing as reality TV,” I say, winking back at him for good measure.
A smile lights up his face.
Oh, he’s gorgeous.
I continue. “In fact, I’d say it’s a blurred reality.”
“You talked about that on your blog.”
My heart holds still. “You’ve read my blog?”
“Yes.”
Ooh!
“Well, thank you for reading it,” I say.
“You’re a good writer. You have an ability to draw a person into your world.”
“Really?” I ask.
Maxime nods. “Yes. I read a lot. Not only do you have that ability, but you do it with every post. That’s a gift.”
“Thank you,” I say, flattered by his compliment.
“Sorry, I drew you offsides,” Maxime says. “Go back to the show.”
“Right. Well, it’s not like you are given a script per se, but producers suggest things to you,” I say. “You are prompted in your ITMs—in the moment interviews—which, by the way, are not in the moment but often re-created later. They make you wear the same clothing and re-style your hair the same way to re-create the moment. Then they suggest things to you. They might say, ‘Tom should hear how you feel. You don’t want him to doubt that.’ So I would think, oh, I need to tell Tom how I feel so he’s confident in us. All prompted by the script they wanted us to act out.”
Maxime’s face turns to one of disgust. “Is anything real?”
“My actions, outside of being a cupcake faker, were,” I declare. “I’m a happy, upbeat person. That is why I want to be a lifestyle correspondent or host. I like bringing good stories to the forefront, things that entertain people or brighten their day. That is who I am. That part of me on the show—interacting with the other girls in the house and having fun on the group dates—was real.”
Maxime is silent for a moment. “Were your feelings for Tom real?”
“Yes. I never went on the show thinking I would find love, but I did. Tom was charming and very romantic. I found myself having feelings I never felt before. He was my first love, but I was just a game to him. I went on magical dates: a romantic dinner on a pink sand beach in Seychelles and a yacht trip off the coast of Monaco. I fell hard and fast, and the things he said to me, well, I believed all of them. I had no idea he was saying the same beautiful words to Miley.”
Maxime flinches. “I’m so sorry.”
“At that point, all that mattered was Tom,” I say, continuing. “I lost sight of everything else. I envisioned having my career and Tom at the end. I needed him. I couldn’t imagine a life without him. In private, in the time we had when the cameras were off, he told me his feelings were the same. So we shot the finale, and I’m standing there before him in my designer gown, thinking my future is about to begin and all Tom had to say was, ‘Skye, this is love,’ but he didn’t. That’s when everything fell apart.”
Maxime is studying me, and I see empathy in his eyes as if he understands the feeling.
“I knew what I was getting into when I went on the show,” I say slowly. “I was opening myself up for heartache. To be criticized on social media. To have photographers follow me. To have to watch the show back and see what really happened between Tom and the other girls. It destroyed a part of me,” I admit, something I have never said to another person. “I lost weight. My hair started falling out from stress. People criticized my weight, my hair, my cupcake dream. They said I was fake and that I was using the show to build a career. That one cut to my core because they were right. So I fled. I bought a book on traveling through Europe, flipped open to the map, shut my eyes and picked a spot. That’s how I ended up in Brussels. I needed to be alone, to figure myself out, to learn how to cope with the insanity that I brought on myself.
“You really don’t know what you are going to be in for until it all ends,” I say, continuing. “I don’t think I deserved death threats for being on a dating show.”
“What? People wished you would die?”
I nod. “Yes.”
“That’s an absolute rubbish thing to wish on anyone. Social media can bring out the worst in humanity.”
“It can, but I also have met a lot of lovely people because of it, people who were Team Skye and who want to see me happy and moving on with my life. Moving to Boulder is a start. While Is It Love? will always be a part of me, I won’t let it define me anymore.”
“What about your feelings for Tom?” Maxime asks softly. “Have you moved on from him, too?”
I smile. “My feelings ended after the show did. I realized I didn’t know him. I thought I did, but I didn’t. I didn’t even know how he took his coffee.”
“Did you know if he liked sprinkles?” Maxime asks, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Swoon.
“No, I never asked him about sprinkles. Obviously, it wasn’t meant to be.”
“Obviously,” Maxime says.
Maxime rises and so do his dogs, their tails eagerly swishing.
“You are going to get your kittens this afternoon, right?” he says, picking up his cup and going over to his coffee machine.
“Yes,” I say. “It was a complete surprise that I found them, but I’m finding out surprises can be exactly what you need.”
Like your invitation to come here, I think as I watch him.
“Would you like some help?” Maxime asks, pouring himself another cup of coffee and, this time, putting it into a portable tumbler. “I could drive you over, help you get your supplies and the kittens, and help you get them acclimated if you want.”
Excitement surges through me. There is nothing I want more than to spend more time with Maxime, and now I have it.
“I would love that,” I say, rising and bringing my plate and mug to the sink.
“Do you want me to make you a latte to go?”
“Please, that would be wonderful,” I say. “I’ll go get my coat on while you do that.”
Maxime nods, and I cut through the living room on my way to the hall closet. A book laying out on his sofa catches my eye.
I stop dead in my tracks.
I’ve seen that book before.
My memory quickly flashes to Brussels. The café. The antique Lord of the Rings book and the man with the baseball hat sitting at the table in front of me …
I go over to the book and pick it up, holding it with a shaking hand.
The guy with the antique book was Maxime.
A huge smile lights up my face.
I remember him.
I remember our beginning.