“I hate him.”
Marcy cringed, but she couldn’t exactly argue with her father’s comment. From the moment he’d stepped out of the SUV, exclaiming “So this is what the flyover states look like,” Craig had been a world class douche today. It was no surprise her father despised him.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into him. He isn’t usually like this.”
“How nice of him to put on a show for us.” Her dad dropped the empty wine bottle in the recycling bin and reached into the fridge for another bottle of white.
Through the kitchen windows they could see the picnic tables where Craig was entertaining the rest of her family. He’d been in rare form today.
Her father shook his head. “For him to come right out and say he was only using you for his career—did he think we would let him disrespect you like that?”
“Dinah did ask him directly.” The little brat. “And if you recall, last year when I left to go on the show, I was only thinking of it as a publicity stunt too.”
“That’s different.”
“Why? Because I’m your daughter and I get the benefit of the doubt?”
He twisted the corkscrew with quick angry motions. “Because you gave that Jack a chance. You never disrespected him.”
“I wasn’t completely honest with him either. Not at first. Is that really better?”
“Lots of people hold things back at the beginning of a relationship. It’s called dating.” He jerked at the cork, cursing when it broke, leaving half wedged in the mouth of the bottle.
“So the fact that Craig was honest from day one is a mark against him?”
“Why are you defending him?” her father growled, prodding the cork fragment with the corkscrew. “You can’t actually prefer him. That Darius may not have the first idea who you are because he’s so focused on winning the show, but Daniel is everything you’ve been looking for. Why are you wasting your time with that Craig?”
“He isn’t a waste of time. I know he’s doing all he can to be a jerk today, but he’s a nice guy, under all that.”
“Do you hear yourself?” The second half of the cork came free and he tossed the corkscrew onto the counter. “He’s a nice guy, but only you can see it. It doesn’t matter that he disrespects you and your family because he isn’t usually like that. I thought I raised you to have more respect for yourself, Marcy.”
“And I thought you had a little faith in me.” She plucked the chilled bottle from his hand, pivoting and charging out the side door toward the picnic in progress.
Her father didn’t immediately follow and at the moment she almost wished he wouldn’t. Something was wrong with Craig. Off. She didn’t know what had happened since the last time she saw him at the Elimination Ceremony in LA, but she didn’t need her father frowning over everything and judging her while she tried to figure out what the hell was up with him.
“… of course my roommate caught me sneaking back into my suite, so the cat was out of the bag, but it was worth it for a little sugar—” Craig broke off when Marcy approached with the wine.
“Craig was just telling us how he snuck over to see you in Bora Bora,” Dinah explained, as Marcy handed off the white to her mother to pour. “It sounds so romantic.”
The dry tone of her voice said the same thing the slight frowns on everyone else’s faces said. So full of himself. What do you see in him? Such a smug bastard.
And they were right. Today he was all those things. She just couldn’t figure out why.
“Craig, can I have a word with you?”
“Sure thing, sweet cheeks.”
She didn’t take his hand, just led the way without touching him to the old barn. She stopped just to the left of the doors and turned, facing him and the barrage of cameras. “Sweet cheeks?”
“What? Is honey bun better? Or do you prefer sugar plum?” He propped one palm on the wall above her head, leering down at her.
“I’d prefer that you act like yourself.” She folded her arms tight around her middle, glaring up at him.
“I am being myself. Just a bigger, better version.”
“It may be bigger, but it sure as hell isn’t better. And you’re too smart not to know the difference. Are you deliberately trying to make my family hate you? Because it’s working.”
“So?” He shrugged, and some of the bluster and bullshit seemed to fall away. “They were going to dislike me anyway. I’m just making it a little easier for them to decide.”
Tears pricked behind her eyes, though she wasn’t sure why—frustration, no doubt. “So this sabotaging yourself... you want me to send you home, is that it?”
#
The words send you home hit him harder than he’d expected. That was the whole idea behind his behavior today, after all. So why did hearing her say it make his lungs seize and his heart clench?
He’d been an ass all day because he’d figured if she decided to send him home, she’d feel like she’d dodged a bullet and he wouldn’t have to be the one to hurt her. He wouldn’t have to tell her why he was leaving. And he wouldn’t have to choose between her or the job. She would take that choice away from him if he was just himself—the loudest, most obnoxious version of himself.
It was better for her to kick him out than for him to have to give her up. At least that had been his plan. Convoluted, but the best he could come up with.
He just hadn’t expected this spike of panic when he realized it might actually be working. And he sure as hell hadn’t expected to see the glimmer of tears making her green eyes glassy. She was supposed to kick him to the curb without a backward glance and go back to commiserate with her sisters over the near miss.
He’d been ready for anger. He didn’t know what to do with hurt.
He didn’t want to lie to her, but for once he didn’t want to tell her the whole truth either. Not when it might upset her.
So he settled for a fringe truth. He looked away, back toward the picture of domestic bliss that was the Henrickson family picnic. “Look, I’ve never been good with parents. Daddies take one look at me and reach for their shotguns. I guess I thought it would be easier when they hated me if I’d done something to deserve it.”
“They might have liked you. Now we’ll never know.” She frowned, studying him in the shadow of the barn. “Are you sure that’s all this is? Are you okay? Your mom is good?”
“Yeah, everything’s fine. Better than fine.” That was true. He’d been offered his dream job. Or at least the job that would put him on the road to his dream job. So why didn’t it feel like a dream come true?
He should tell her he was history, take the job and run. This was as good a moment as any. She was practically asking him to. But instead he stood in the shade of the barn and said something he wasn’t sure he’d ever said—and meant—to anyone other than his mother before. “I’m sorry. I really screwed up today. But maybe it’s for the best.”
“The best?”
“That happily-ever-after thing was always more your deal than mine.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Look, I’m gonna head back to the hotel. Tell your folks I’m sorry I had to leave early—though I doubt they’ll be sorry to see me go.”
“You could stay. There’s still time to try to make a better impression.”
“You and I both know there aren’t enough hours in the day for that. I’ll see you at the Elimination.”
#
Marcy watched the dust rise in the wake of the SUV carrying Craig as he retreated back to town and Murphysboro’s one hotel. The hurt she’d felt when she realized he was intentionally sabotaging his Meet the In-Laws date had faded into a bright, building anger.
He’d just given up and walked away. Hell, he’d given up before he even arrived when it came to her family. He’d just decided it was for the best that they hate him and made sure it happened.
She returned to the picnic tables, where her sisters were sitting with tall glasses of Chardonnay. “Well, Craig left.”
Cameras circled as Marcy flopped onto the bench next to Dinah with a sigh.
“We saw.” Laurie poured another glass, sliding it toward Marcy. “Mom went in to see if she could talk Daddy down and Rick is gathering up the monkeys. You wanna talk about it?”
“About how Craig was a complete and total ass and made everyone in my family hate him in less than three hours? Not especially.”
“It wasn’t as bad as all that,” Dinah protested. “I kind of liked him. He was pretty damn entertaining, even when he was being a dick.”
“He must have some redeeming characteristics for you to have brought him this far,” Laurie commented, sipping her wine.
Marcy took a swallow of her own, letting the cool liquid ease some of her frustration. “He was always honest with me. I appreciated that—especially in the show environment where you never really know what people want from you. He was so upfront about only being there for the publicity—it was refreshing.”
Dinah nodded sagely—and slightly tipsily. “And you never had to risk losing control with messy emotions with him.”
Marcy frowned at her over the rim of her glass. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” Laurie said, always the diplomat. “But you have to admit, you’re awfully type-A. Very firstborn child.”
“Control freak,” Dinah added.
“I’m not a control freak.”
“Of course you are,” Dinah said blithely. “You’ve always wanted to run the world. Why else would you write all those books where you get to be God and make everything turn out just the way you want it to?”
“Because I like happy endings!”
“When you get to orchestrate them from a safe distance,” Laurie said, and Marcy turned toward her other sister, eyes wide with the realization that they both thought she was some kind of puppet master. “If you’re up on high, pulling the strings, you don’t have to get into the trenches with all the rest of us messy mortals and feel all the crazy screwed-up shit that comes with love and marriage and your perfect happily-ever-afters.”
“You think I’m some kind of ice princess who doesn’t have emotions?”
What was it with everyone in the world thinking that of her? She felt plenty, damn it.
“Not at all,” Dinah countered. “I think you have all the emotions – and you probably feel them more keenly than most. You’re just terrified of engaging them because you think they will swallow you whole and ruin your neatly ordered world. Which they probably would. Emotions are rip tides waiting to drag you under.”
Laurie sipped her wine contemplatively. “I think I like Craig. He’s the only one who got you worked up.”
“Good point,” Dinah said. “If Daddy had hated Darius or Daniel, you wouldn’t even have blinked.”
“I like Daniel,” she protested. She felt like she’d been moving toward the inevitable—an engagement with him—since the second they met.
“Do you ever call him anything other than Daniel?” Dinah asked. “Dan? Danny?”
“Your relationship with him did seem awfully formal,” Laurie agreed.
“He’s a very traditional guy,” she said, hearing the defensive edge to her own voice.
“Are you sure that’s all it is?” Laurie pressed gently.
Marcy laughed bitterly. “Right now I’m not sure of anything. This was supposed to make things easier, having you guys here, getting fresh perspective on them, but now I feel like every decision I’ve made to this point is being questioned.”
“That’s because you made them with your head.” Dinah punctuated the statement with a wave of her wineglass. “What does your heart say?”
“My heart doesn’t have an opinion, because like you guys said, I haven’t engaged it once since I left to go on the show.”
Maybe it was the wine, or her sisters, or the disastrous afternoon with Craig, or the entire weight of the show catching up to her, but Marcy felt something crack and shatter—that thin shell that had been keeping all the pieces of herself neatly together—revealing a truth she wasn’t sure she wanted to see.
She’d told herself she was going on the show for the publicity because she’d been terrified of risking her heart. If she went on the show looking for love and failed, how could she ever expect to find it? Everything on the show was designed around giving her the perfect man. If she couldn’t find love as Miss Right, how would she ever? So she hadn’t looked. She’d told herself it wasn’t about love.
“Oh God, I really am the ice queen!” She burst into tears—she’d blame the wine—and her sisters immediately swarmed around her, hugging and patting her shoulders.
“You aren’t,” Dinah protested. “You just need to get your heart in the game.”
“I don’t know how!”
She’d been going through the motions, her head making all the decisions while her heart stayed quiet because she couldn’t let herself love Craig, knowing he would only hurt her, and she didn’t actually feel anything for Daniel.
But if she chose Daniel, she would get the life she’d always thought she wanted.
Had she been sabotaging her relationship with Daniel because she knew it could be real? Or was whatever messed-up attraction she had with Craig standing in the way?
But when she thought of getting rid of Craig, her heart squeezed. Maybe it hadn’t been silent. Maybe she just hadn’t been listening.
He’d said all along he was only in it for the publicity, but maybe he hadn’t been listening to his heart either. She had to find out. If he loved her…
Hope surged. Marcy sopped up her vino tears and turned to the nearest segment producer. “I need to talk to Craig. Before the Elimination.”