Maggie raised the hem of her dress as she skipped up the conference center steps, slick from the fresh evening rain. The muggy air swirled with the scent of wet clay. As she wound her way through the long halls of the conference center, she told herself to embrace the notion of being a princess in Silver’s beautiful ball gown, instead of giving in to the harrowing feeling of being an imposter. The dress resembled something Cinderella would wear to a ball with a v neck top, a tight beaded bodice, and an iridescent puffy skirt that rippled to the floor.

She stopped at the servers’ entrance to the grand ballroom and shook her hands out to stave away her nerves. If she ever wanted to take over Silver’s business, she had to get comfy catering to the highest classes of society and being in exclusive and unique situations real quick, or at least fake it.

“Fake it till you make it,” Maggie said with determination as she swung open the door and stepped into the lion’s den with an air of aristocracy to match her dress. She found herself at the front of the room. She made the quick decision to stay where she stood next to a table in the first row closest to the stage, but farthest from the table where the bachelors sat.

Her eyes bulged momentarily as she took in the grand ballroom with its gold embellished walls and mahogany coffered ceiling. Maggie gave a delicate smile and tipped her head to the women sitting at the table next to her.

If it weren’t for the toxic redolence invading her senses, she would’ve been able to pay attention to the happenings on stage. She instinctively covered her nose, preventing the stench of the disgustingly sweet mixture of lavish perfumes to burn through her nasal passages. This proved it; she was in high society. Realizing she couldn’t keep her hand over her nose all evening, she widened her smile to breathe cautiously through her slightly open mouth.

Maggie discreetly scanned the room for Silver but caught sight of Cole instead. Her insides tumbled. He sat at the front table with the other players up for bid. Her intense, contradictory emotions of anger, embarrassment, and insane attraction threatened to send her into a tizzy. She spun around in a quick circle, searching for a post, an imitation tree, anything to hide behind. Nothing. The first bachelor finished his auction and took his seat. She had to suppress a giggle; that guy did not want to be up there.

Her phone buzzed in her purse. Being as clandestine as possible, she removed it and opened her messages. Pineapple’s cousin texted to check on her. That was kind of him, but she really didn’t have the time or inclination to meet with him. She responded quickly, hoping to get off her phone before someone noticed.

The next player up for bid was announced as Riker. These guys had cool names.

Maggie’s phone buzzed again. She responded quickly. With all of the energy and glamour, this was a more exciting evening than she had expected it to be and didn’t want to jeopardize her job opportunity because of her phone.

She raised her eyes to the stage when they announced what Riker went for. Holy Cow! Forget who could, who would pay over two hundred grand for a date? For one stinking date with these self-centered…she couldn’t speak for all of them, only jerk-face. She was dying to know if he played the crowd as well as Riker.

Maggie’s curiosity got the better of her. She risked a quick glance at him. Not only did he notice her, she caught him staring in her direction. Correction: He stared directly at her. Her body heated up by a good ten degrees at his sweltering gaze. Good thing she had applied her antiperspirant before climbing into the dress, or her nervous sweating would be on display for everyone in the room. She finished her text then placed her phone back into her bag with a determination not to check it again until the event concluded.

She refocused her attention between the stage and the tables where it was now down to two women battling for a romantic date with a guy named Walker Kent. Oh my, Walker had some great teeth, but they had to be fake. Perhaps they’d been knocked out during a football game? Maggie never got a good look at jerk-face’s teeth and she had a nagging desire to know if they sparkled like Walker’s. She snuck another quick glance only to find him still making eyes at her, and dang those were gorgeous eyes.

Cole winked as he tipped an invisible hat to her. He could have meant a baseball cap for all she knew, but she envisioned him as her dream man in his cowboy boots and authentic cowboy hat. Her heart thumped in her chest at her whimsical daydream. She nearly smiled back. Luckily, she caught herself with an internal reminder that this wasn’t real. He wasn’t one of those kind, down-to-earth cowboys. He was a rude, mega-wealthy football star that treated commoners like crap.

The woman who’d won Walker strolled up on stage to claim her prize. To everyone’s shock—Scarlett Powers, the famous actress who just bought him, took the microphone and announced they were engaged.

Engaged? Maggie’s hand flew to her mouth in astonishment. The actress grabbed the distressed football player and kissed him. Why didn’t he look happy about that announcement? Silver needed to hear this.

“Where is she?” Maggie questioned aloud with impatience.

“Looking for me?” Silver said, stepping up from behind Maggie. “You know that rule…of every event?”

Maggie ventured, “No matter how well you prepare, something will always go wrong?”

“Yep. I’m still missing a bachelor. And let me tell you, when I find Wilder, he’s toast.”

“What can I do to help you?” Maggie questioned.

“Oh.” Silver blinked her thick eyelashes as if remembering something. “That’s why I came to find you. I need you to bid on him.” She lifted her chin to Cole as he stepped onto the stage.

Maggie’s thumb started to thump against her thigh nervously. “Him?” she squeaked.

“Yes. Go as high as you need to. This is important.” Silver thrust a paddle into Maggie’s arms. “Here. Now I need to find and kill Wilder.” She slipped out of the room without another word.

Maggie had never bid on anything in her life, let alone a live person; an annoyingly handsome and rude one to boot. She straightened her spine and prepared herself mentally as he walked onto the stage in a slow, deliberate stride.

The MC flashed a toothy smile and held her hands out to this guy like he was a sports car on a game show where contestants had a chance to win him. Maggie seethed. Did these ladies also know he would steal their sandwiches if they were starving, then make eyes at them—only to shrug them off when his friends showed up?

She glanced at the tables. The guests looked starved, either because they hadn’t eaten their food to keep their delicate figures, or because they were thinking he was their dessert. He had smelled good enough to eat—like freshly torched crème brûlée next to a steaming cup of hot chocolate.

The MC waved her hands for the crowd to stop clapping. “Tell me, Cole, what do you have planned for your date with one of these lucky ladies?”

Cole took the mic in one hand and motioned with his other as if he wanted the bidders to envision what to expect on their date with him. “A horseback ride to a private lake.”

Maggie went faint for a second. He rides? The bidding paddle burned in her hand. She had a sudden urge to start the bid and take him up on his offer to go horseback riding.

Cole continued, “There, we’ll have a picnic lunch and if it’s a hot one and she wants to cool off…,” he looked over at Maggie with a seductive smile, “…we’ll relax together in the refreshing water.”

Maggie held her breath as several eyes in the room settled on her. She tried to control her rapid heart rate and stop her chest from rising and falling so dramatically. She had to be professional. How she handled this moment could propel, or end, her event planning career right here and now. She wished she were clouded in a mask of sugar, instead of blushing a shade of red to match the stage curtains. She blew out her breath, mustered up a polite smile, and tipped her paddle at Cole as she cursed him under her breath for reeling her in.

The whole we’ll relax in the water as if she were just dying to see him with his shirt off made her livid. Even though he most likely had a cut abdomen that most women would coo over, he needed to get over himself. Almost every firefighter she knew was ripped and they never went around flaunting it like that. Her firefighter buddies might pose for a benefit calendar with their shirts off, but they wouldn’t have to beg women to bid on them.

She hated to say it, but Cole’s plan was working, and not only on the other women in the room. It was working on her.

“Folks, it looks like we have our first bidder!” the MC announced in her sweet, playful voice that Maggie wished would just hurry on with it. “Shall we start our first bid at fifty thousand?”

With a nod, Maggie held her paddle high in the air. She held back as three or four other women held up their paddles as the bid climbed. Maggie would wait until a few girls backed out, then she’d chime back in. As the bid rose to one hundred seventy-five thousand, she took a steadying breath and prayed that Silver really meant for her to go that high.

She sent a quick text off to Silver to verify that she wanted her to go higher, and if she expected Maggie to go on the date. She bit at her lip. The bid raised to two hundred thousand where it looked like it might stop.

Maggie couldn’t wait for a response. She raised her paddle at two hundred twenty-five thousand. Man, what her family could do with all that money. Some people worked their entire lives to pay off a house that cost that much. She had to remind herself that this was for charity.

It looked like it was now between Maggie and one other woman that sat precariously close to Cole’s table. Maggie had to wonder if the woman’s seating arrangement had been prearranged.

“Two hundred thousand even. Going once. Going twice,” the MC announced.

The MC hadn’t acknowledged Maggie’s bid.

Cole held up a hand and motioned to Maggie. “I believe Margarita still has her eyes on me.”

The MC adjusted her stance. “Excuse me. Two hundred and twenty-five.” She angled her body to Cole and raised a questioning eyebrow. “You’re on a first name basis with Margarita?”

Maggie cringed at how the MC pronounced her name.

“Yes,” he said with a broad smile. “I had an opportunity before the bidding to become acquainted with Margarita and Jackie.” He motioned to the other woman who was bidding against Maggie.

“I see.” The MC released a nervous laugh. “During the mingle,” she affirmed more to herself than to the audience. “Just checking that you’re not pulling another Walker on us. We wouldn’t want to think that the most determined bachelor on the team has suddenly altered his play.” She raised an eyebrow. “Or do we women?”

That got the ladies in the audience cheering.

Cole acknowledged their exuberance with a glowing smile and wink. “I’d say my time to settle down with a nice girl who catches me when I fall is not that far off in the future.”

A lump formed in Maggie’s throat, restricting her oxygen intake.

The MC rose up onto the balls of her feet. “Did you hear that ladies?”

Oh, yeah, Maggie heard it.

The MC continued, “This may be one of the last opportunities to go on a date with this stud. And maybe you’ll be lucky enough to be the lady who will claim his heart and catch him when he falls. Do I hear two hundred fifty thousand?”

A paddle went up in the back of the room.

Suddenly, two small but strong arms wrapped around Maggie, constricting her arm movement.

“I love you,” Gracie whispered.

Maggie laughed out her relief. “I love you too, Gracie, but—”

“Do I hear two hundred seventy-five?”

Maggie panicked. “Gracie, sweetie, can you please let go so I can raise my arm?”

Gracie looked up at her with a sad smile. “If you want me to. You look so pretty in Mommy’s dress.”

“I do want to hug you, it’s just—”

“Going once,” the MC announced.

“Oh good.” Gracie hugged her even tighter.

“Going twice. Sold! Congratulations, Jackie!”

Maggie’s eyes fell to the ground. “Hey, Gracie?”

“Yeah?” Gracie responded with excitement.

“Can we go out in the hall to hug? I think I might be sick and I’d rather not mess up this pretty carpet like I’ve messed everything else up tonight.”

“Don’t worry.” Gracie peered up at her with those big beautiful blue eyes. “I’ll help you clean up your mess.”

Even though Gracie had impeded Maggie’s bidding and Silver would be upset, Maggie’s heart melted at Gracie’s tender heart and sweet smile. “I wish I could just bottle you up and take you home with me.”

Maggie didn’t care to watch as Jackie claimed Cole on the stage. She shouldn’t be disappointed, but for some reason she was. She couldn’t put her finger on if her nausea resulted from losing the opportunity to go on a horseback ride with Cole, or because the entire evening had been a flop.

Gracie grabbed onto Maggie’s hand as they went into the hall. “Or you could stay?” she pouted.

“I don’t think that’s an option for me anymore.” Silver would never extend an offer to her after she’d botched everything up tonight. “Who brought you here?”

“Ace. He’s kissing Mommy right now in the kitchen.”

“Where’s the kitchen?”

Gracie pointed to an entrance about five feet down the hall. Maggie and Gracie entered through the kitchen doorway to find a muscular Hispanic man racing through the chrome kitchen, opening, one-by-one, every low cabinet.

“Ace?” Maggie ventured.

“Oh, Gracie,” he breathed out, pulling Gracie into a hug, “I thought you were playing hide and seek with me.” He offered his hand to Maggie. “Thanks for finding her. You must be Maggie.”

Maggie curtseyed. “Somehow bowing seems more appropriate in this dress. And I think Gracie’s the one who found me.”

He laughed. “My family told me I’d like you.”

“That’s where I’m headed, to the Dallas Dating event to check on your sister.”

He nodded as he blinked his intense, yet soft, black eyes.

Maggie gave Gracie a peck on her forehead then hurried back to her hotel to change. She threw her purse on the bed as soon as she entered her room and struggled to unzip the back of her dress. She resembled a crazed flamingo, hopping around on one leg to get the puffy dress over her head. After a few minutes of wrestling with the dress and throwing on a relaxed pair of jeans and a t-shirt, she sprinted for the door.

On her way out, she received a text from Silver. “No need to go back to the venue. I sent a cleaning crew over and Ariana left some food for you at your front desk. BTW, that cobalt dress looks amazing on you. Keep it. Let’s chat tomorrow.”

Maggie sank into the reclining chair that faced the window with a view of the parking lot. She was leaving Texas tomorrow with a puffy dress as a consolation prize. Silver had made it clear that she wasn’t wanted or needed any longer. Maggie allowed her self-pity to well in her gut.

A knock on her door jostled her from her disparaging thoughts. She opened it to an attentive, bug-eyed bellhop with a brown paper sack. “I was asked to deliver this to your room when you arrived,” his teenage voice cracked.

“Thank you,” Maggie tried to sound chipper and appreciate. The whole, We are no better than our worst thoughts. Be positive and a positive outcome will follow, was getting more and more difficult to articulate.

She handed the teenage boy a five-dollar bill and closed the door behind him before emptying the contents of the bag onto her miniscule nightstand. The leftover Mexican food had been tightly wrapped in shiny aluminum foil, but still leaked the scent of cinnamon and cilantro. She reached down to the bottom of the bag to find a petite white paper box. She knew exactly what it was, but held it next to her ear and shook it anyways; the way every child did with those little plastic eggs during an Easter egg hunt.

Maggie slowly opened the box to find a single macaron. She hadn’t won the sports car, but here was her second consolation prize of the evening. And that’s all she wrote, folks. It had been the story of her life since her teens; becoming good friends with guys was easy, it was how to establish a more intimate relationship that eluded her.

She sat in the comfy microfiber recliner and nibbled at her zesty lemon crème macaron and reminisced at how she had been moments away from spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of someone else’s money to possibly take a horseback ride with a gorgeous multi-millionaire, lawyer, pro-football player. But in the end, it was all a fantasy because she had met the real Cole in the market and he was no prince. Fairytales had a place in the hearts of children and were fun to imagine, but it was time for her to return to reality.

Maggie took a slow bite of her macaron, savoring the last morsel of her culinary marathon. She closed her eyes, allowing its creamy tart flavor to consume her senses as she drifted off with a prayer that her night demons had not followed her to the Lone Star state.

* * *

Cole rolled his eyes, opened his legs, and leaned back in his leather massage chair to enjoy the starry night from his large bow window. His bedroom, with its neutral colors of tan, cream, and hunter green, normally created the perfect ambiance for his mind to calm before he slept, but it wouldn’t happen tonight. Good thing Susan couldn’t see him, not just because he sat there at home in nothing more than his boxers; she wouldn’t appreciate his complete apathy toward the situation with Jackie.

“Let me get this straight.” Cole leaned forward in his recliner and spoke into his phone set on the armrest on speaker mode. “Not only is Jackie refusing to come tomorrow, she’s also demanding to spend a few days here at the ranch during the year end celebration?”

“Correct,” Susan, his PR rep. responded. “But her name is Josie, short for Joselyn. She wasn’t super happy about you calling her Jackie.”

He had refused to give Josie his number, or any other form of contact info when she’d requested it at the end of the auction. He’d told her every communication would go through his PR firm. The plan was to have this all over with tomorrow, but it looked like he was stuck. Josie had donated a pretty penny for him and now she was doing everything in her power to call the shots.

“Why does she want to wait?”

“Ah.” Susan paused. “She didn’t make that clear, but if I were to guess, I’d say it has everything to do with that reality TV show.”

Cole threw the stress ball he was working in his hands across the room. It bounced off the opposite wall and returned to him. “What options do we have here, Susan? Because this show is not about some bossy blonde. It’s about raising awareness for trisomy-21 and getting this program in every state.” He threw the ball again. “If she tries to steal the show, you know how I’ll respond. And there is no way she is spending a night here.”

“We have some time to come up with a plan for that. There is a more pressing matter that we need to address.”

Cole groaned.

“Can we discuss your comment? I quote, ‘I’d say my time to settle down with a nice girl who catches me when I fall is not that far off in the future.’ Can you please explain that to me, Cole?”

“No,” he said.

“I thought we’d agreed that you weren’t ready for a serious relationship,” she scolded like an overbearing older sister. “I’m simply reiterating what you told me you wanted. We’d discussed how we would capitalize on your current relationship status, and, if anything changed, you and I would sit down and discuss how you would make that public.”

“Okay. Let’s discuss it.”

“Are you in a relationship, Cole?”

“No.” Cole wasn’t in the mood for twenty questions tonight. He was already irritated Susan hadn’t come up with a solution to keep Josie from manipulating the situation to her benefit.

“Do you plan to be in a relationship in the near future?”

“Yes.”

“With whom?”

“Maggie.”

“Do you mean Margarita, the caterer slash firefighter?” she questioned is a derogatory manner.

He had only called her Margarita because Pineapple had advised him not to, but Cole wanted her attention and calling her Margarita and having her bid on him sure got her attention. “What’s wrong with Maggie?” Cole squeezed his stress ball as his heat rose. “Everyone loves firefighters. How can you not put a good spin on that?”

“Exactly. She’s a powerful, yet pouty hero. When you break her heart in two weeks, how’s that going to look? I know we’ve been going for the noncommittal thing here with you, but that’s only to make girls want you more, sell more seats to watch you play, make your jersey fly off the shelf, etc. We’ve already got plenty of bad boys on the team who play that card really well. I don’t want to see this girl get hurt and I really don’t want to see you get raked over the coals by the press. It’s one thing to avoid dating to steer clear of the crazy, selfish plastics like Josie. It’s another to hurt the girl next door. Women will sympathize with Maggie; they’ll want to be her.”

Cole placed his head back against the massage headrest of his recliner and rubbed his temples.

“You still there?” Susan questioned.

“Yeah.” He could have argued with her after that interesting monologue, but why? “All that aside, I need you to come up with a game plan in the event that I do date Maggie.”

Susan released a frustrated groan. “Didn’t you just hear me?”

“Yes.” But no one was going to tell him who he could or couldn’t date, especially someone on his payroll. “Here’s me giving you a heads up. The powerful pouty girl will have a presence in my life. I’ll expect you’ll want to figure out how to make that positive with the paparazzi.”

Susan huffed out a sigh. “Please keep me informed.”

“Always.”

He had his eyes set on Maggie and wouldn’t allow Susan to divert his gaze, even if her intentions were as altruistic as she claimed. He ended the call with a slow yawn, then stretched out his spine, followed by his legs and arms. He’d lost sleep the night before, thinking about the girl from the deli. Tonight, he’d lose even more sleep with new images of her with sugar puffing out of her mouth, her toned arms clutching him and raising him up, and her standing in the corner—stunning everyone, especially him, in that blue dress.

He grabbed his phone and started typing. “Meet me tomorrow?” Before sending the text, he glanced at the vintage clock on the wall with its exposed cogs and gears. 12:02. He closed out of his message app. It was too late to text. He’d check in with her first thing in the morning.