“Craig is very…” The kiss came back in graphic detail and she pressed her hands to her suddenly hot cheeks, words slipping out of her mind like water through a sieve. “He…” Is very good with his hands. And his tongue. And every other part she’d had the opportunity to experience. “Can I start over?”
“Just be honest,” Linus coached, his voice low and encouraging. “This is a safe place.”
This is national television and my mother is going to see it. “Right, I know. I’m good. Let’s go again.”
Linus nodded, counted her in, and the cameras rolled.
“Craig challenges me,” she said, smooth and composed. “I appreciate his honesty, but even though I enjoy spending time with him, he has been very clear about the fact that he isn’t here for love, so I have to wonder if it would be foolish of me to keep him around.”
Linus smiled, but it was tight-lipped, not even revealing the gap between his front teeth. “Good, sweetie, good, but let’s try it again and maybe not so cerebral this time. Think about how he makes you feel.”
How he made her feel.
Hot and achy and a thousand things she absolutely could not say on national television in front of her fourth grade Sunday school teacher.
Is that why people thought she was unfeeling?
So she was a little reserved. So she had boundaries on what she was willing to share with the viewing public. So she had dignity—that didn’t mean she was an ice queen or something.
“Can I speak with Miranda?”
The camera crew sighed—doubtless realizing they weren’t going to wrap production for the night any time soon—and Linus reached for his tablet. “Absolutely, sweetie. Whatever will make you more comfortable.”
“I’m not uncomfortable.” Nor was she cold and unfeeling, thank you very much.
Marcy fidgeted through the next several minutes as the crew all checked their respective phones until Miranda strode into the confessional. The room wasn’t tiny, but it was designed around one purpose and only the person being filmed had a comfortable chair. Linus rose from a folding chair as Miranda took in the crew members leaning against the walls and turned to Marcy with a frown. “What’s up? Do I need to get Pendleton?”
Get Pendleton. Marcy’s heart clutched with the realization that Miranda thought she wanted to send Craig home. It was the only reason the show ever woke up the host in the middle of the night. “No. Nothing like that. I just… Can we talk in private?”
Miranda’s lips pinched with irritation, but she nodded curtly and waved Linus and the crew out of the room. She knocked her glasses up her nose and sat down facing Marcy. “What’s wrong, hon?”
Marcy shifted uneasily in her chair. Now that she’d gotten Miranda down here, she felt like even more of an idiot for bringing it up, but she had to know. “Does America think I’m cold and unfeeling?”
The tweets and emails she’d received while the show was airing had been very supportive—filtered through her publicist as they were. And now here she was in a totally media-free bubble where she had no idea how the world was reacting to her selection as Miss Right. Was she hated? Did they all think she was some kind of emotionless diva?
Miranda groaned something that sounded like, “Fucking Craig,” and scooted to the edge of the folding chair Linus had vacated, resting her ever-present tablet on her lap. “Are you sure you don’t want to be having this conversation with Josh on camera? I am more than happy to wake his lazy ass up.”
“No, I don’t want to inconvenience him.”
“Sweetie, he’s paid very well to be inconvenienced whenever I want to inconvenience him.”
Marcy shook her head. “I’d rather not do this on camera. I just want to know. That’s all.” She swallowed around the knot in her throat. “Do people hate me?”
“Oh sweetie, no. No one hates you.”
“But they think I’m distant. Emotionless.”
Miranda sighed and Marcy knew what the answer would be before she spoke. “I’m not sure I should be telling you this, but you’ve always seemed to do best with honesty so I’ll be honest. It was my boss’s primary reservation about selecting you as Miss Right.”
Blood rushed to Marcy’s face, lingering to pound in her temples. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t see how the knowledge would help you open up.”
And apparently that was necessary. She needed help opening up.
Something thick and viscous clogged her throat.
The world thought she was heartless. How could they think that? Didn’t they see how hard it was to keep your shit together on a show like this? How it was all she could do to defend against the barrage of emotional stimuli? Did she have to shatter just to prove she could feel? What the fuck did they want from her? Her freaking soul?
“I have emotions,” she snapped.
“I know, hon. That’s why I picked you. I think you’re perfect. You just need to loosen the reins a little.”
“I’m supposed to what? Perform how I’m feeling?”
Miranda shrugged. “It wouldn’t hurt.”
Marcy’s teeth began to ache from grinding against one another. “It would be fake.”
“We’re not asking you to fabricate emotions. Just maybe don’t be so composed all the time. Let loose a little. Especially with the guys.”
“I jumped off a bridge today! How am I not loose?”
“That was fabulous! You’re amazing at the fun date stuff. It’s letting loose with the sappy emotional stuff that seems to be more of a challenge for you.”
“I’m not allowed to tell any of them how I feel about them,” she protested.
“That’s true, but you can imply more. And if you’re feeling overwhelmed, just let it fly, you know?”
Let it fly on national television. Her mother would be appalled. “I’m from the Midwest. We don’t broadcast our feelings.”
“Yeah, well. You’re not in Ohio anymore, Dorothy. This is Hollywood. And out here people feel all the feels. I know it’s hard, but you’ve got to open up to getting hurt. If you don’t risk your heart, no one can win it.”
Marcy finally managed to swallow the blockage in her throat. “I’ll try.”
#
Miranda slipped out of the confessional and waved Linus and the camera guys back inside to finish up Marcy’s post-date recap. She didn’t know what Craig had said to her on the date—she hadn’t seen that footage yet, but it had certainly done a number on Marcy.
Hopefully she’d managed to patch up the holes in Marcy’s leaking confidence—or punch more holes in her walls—hell, who knew? It was late and she was too tired to think of a decent metaphor. It was a miracle she’d been so coherent with Miss Right.
She’d been beyond coherent, if she did say so herself. She’d been so fucking profound she’d amazed herself.
“Miranda.”
Miranda stumbled, nearly dropping her tablet. “Jesus.” She saved the tablet from death-by-tile-floor but her heart rate stayed elevated as Bennett seemed to appear out of nowhere in the hallway in front of her. Or from the kitchen doorway, to be accurate, but it seemed like thin air to her.
“What are you doing here? How did you get past security?”
One eyebrow arched toward his salt-and-pepper hairline. “I’m Bennett Lang. Your minions are terrified I will destroy their careers if they deny me anything.”
“They should be more worried about me destroying their careers. Come with me.” She grabbed his sleeve, towing him quickly through the halls and down the basement stairs into the crew area of the house where she kept a small room to crash in. It wasn’t any larger than her first dorm room at USC, but it served its purpose.
She’d never noticed how small it was until she was enclosed inside the narrow space with Bennett Lang. She flung her tablet down on top of the daybed where a blanket was wadded up from her most recent three hour power nap, in lieu of a proper night’s sleep.
Bennett frowned at the bed. “I thought you were speaking metaphorically when you said you moved into the mansion during filming.”
“What are you doing here, Bennett?”
“I haven’t seen you since before you started filming. Have you even left this building?”
Irritation spiked. Would he ever stop trying to teach her things and see her as an equal? “This is the job Bennett. You know that.”
“It was the job when you were supervising producer. Now you’re EP. You don’t need to be involved in everything all the time. You’re big picture.”
“The devil is in the details.”
“Which is why you hire people to look over every detail so nothing gets missed. Those are their jobs. Stop micromanaging and come have dinner with me.”
She glanced at her watch. Just past midnight. “It’s too late for dinner.”
“Then just come away with me for a few minutes and get a break from this place.”
“I don’t want to leave my baby in anyone else’s hands. I thought you of all people would understand that.”
Bennett’s jaw worked and he raked a hand through his hair. “I’m suddenly realizing why both of my wives left me.”
Miranda folded her arms tight around her stomach, glaring at him. “You want to break up?”
He gave a low, humorless laugh. “After the years it took me to get past your defenses, you think I’m going to give up the ground I’ve gained?”
“You make me sound like a siege.”
“Am I wrong?”
She looked away, studying an irregular spot in the paint on the wall—like someone had patched the paint with a color that didn’t quite match.
“You have a strange profession,” Bennett grumbled. “Pushing everyone else toward happily-ever-afters when you have an aversion to letting yourself have one.”
“I don’t have an aversion,” she protested, still fixated on the paint mismatch. “I’m busy.”
“Learn to delegate,” he growled.
Something about his tone of voice hit her wrong and her gaze swung back to sear him. “Your show is on break right now. Stop pretending you’d still be here if your show were in the middle of filming, You’d be just as work-obsessed as I am.”
“I can be like that, you’re right. I understand what you’re doing, so I can be patient, but this is your life, Miranda. Do you want to spend it at work? Perfecting other people’s Happily Ever Afters? Or do you want one of your own?”
“Why can’t it be both?”
“Because you won’t let me be your partner. From the second this show started filming, you’ve cut me out. I could tell the second I walked in today that you’re stressed about something, but instead of using me, relying on me, and talking to me, you immediately start a fight about how I got past your security.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“I’m right here!” He raked a hand through his hair. “I’m offering. I’m not implying you need me, because God forbid I be anything other than a convenient body for you to use when you’re horny—”
“I didn’t mean that.” She looked to the paint splash again.
“So prove it. Talk to me. Let me be your goddamn partner.” He stepped forward, hands reaching to cup her face and from the second he touched her, her resistance unraveled.
The tension leaked out of her spine and she pressed her cheek against his hand.
“One of the Suitors is trying to manipulate the show. Sabotaging the other guys, getting inside Miss Right’s head. He’s making me nuts and I need to figure out how to get him on a leash.”
Bennett’s hands slid from her cheeks down her throat and around to the back of her neck. He began to gently knead. “What does he want?”
“Hmm?” she asked, leaning into his hands.
“You need to control every aspect of your world. What does he need and why? Find that and you have him.”
Miranda felt her eyes growing heavy. Her brain was thick with exhaustion and the words were slow to penetrate. What did Craig want?
She frowned, opening her eyes. What did Craig want?
“I have to go.”
Bennett groaned. “Miranda…”
“I won’t be long. Stay here if you want. I’ll come back and thank you for your help.” She went up on her toes and kissed him, quick and hard, then bent to grab her tablet, already halfway out the door.
“You’re welcome!” Bennett called after her and she grinned at his cranky tone.
“I’ll thank you when I get back.”
Striding quickly down the hall, she tapped a button on the tablet, bringing up the voice message function and calling up the number of the producer who was running the circus over at the Suitors’ Mansion tonight.
“Get me a twenty on Craig.”