Falling for Mister Wrong (16 page)

“Do what?” He wasn’t asking her why she’d
flirted with him, was he?

“You said I could just ask. So I’m asking.
Why did you go on the show?”

Right. The show. Now it was Caitlyn who
blushed, but there was no sense evading the question. He could just
watch the show to learn the truth. “Honestly? I wanted the happily
ever after.”

His eyebrows arched, a reaction she was
coming to expect whenever he was skeptical. “Hey, I get that. I
want a family too, but there are easier ways to get it.”

“Oh really?” she challenged. “When you’re a
hot male ski instructor who meets a dozen sexy little ski nymphs
every day, maybe. But some of us are homebody piano teachers in a
town with exactly five single men and every guy we spend time with
is either married to a friend or the married father of a
student.”

“Ski nymphs?”

She ignored the interjection, and the
wry—
sexy
—twist of his lips, plunging on. “So yeah, maybe it
was desperate and stupid to go on the show. But when you want
something, sometimes you have to be stupid.”

Though maybe agreeing to marry a man you
barely know is taking that stupidity a bit far.

Caitlyn pushed on, ignoring the little voice
in her head. “I love my life, but I was starting to hate my empty
apartment. I had to do something. Even if it was ridiculous and
even if I fell flat on my face. I had to take a chance on
love.”

Will blinked, his face—which had been
clinging to an unusual hardness all night—finally softening that
last notch. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I get the empty apartment
thing. I think you’re a lot braver than I am, and I should have
given you credit for that. Pax?”

She nodded, as Melissa returned with their
drinks. “Pax.”

Chapter
Eighteen

The tension, that awful stilted tension,
evaporated then, and soon Caitlyn found herself grinning, leaning
forward over the table, laughing and telling him things she’d never
have dreamed she’d blurt out on a first non-date.

He was a great listener—when he wasn’t
silently judging her, so thank God that had stopped—and everything
she’d told Daniel on the show was public record anyway. For the
first time, being exposed like that felt sort of freeing. Like the
normal restrictions she placed on herself had been lifted.

By the time their burgers arrived, Caitlyn
was sharing stories about the show, her musical career, even her
deeply dysfunctional childhood—and Will seemed genuinely
interested.

“Are you glad you did it?” he asked, sinking
his teeth into his own burger as she shook ketchup onto the corner
of her plate.

“The show?” She stalled for time by swiping a
fry through the ketchup and popping it into her mouth, chewing
slowly. Was she glad? She
was
glad. Before. For those few
little slivers of time in there when everything had been perfect
and she’d thought her happy ending was assured. But looking back
she was starting to realize that by the time the exotic two day
dates had rolled around, she’d begun to have doubts. Now she wasn’t
so sure. And without that certainty… “I don’t know. Ask me in a few
weeks.”

“Mysterious,” he murmured.

She hummed around a bite of burger and for a
moment they fell silent, eating. This time the silence was
comfortable, but she didn’t let it stretch too long.

“I learned a little something about your
history too,” she admitted.

“Oh?”

“My friend Mimi wanted to set me up with you
as soon as I got back. She said you were engaged last summer before
I auditioned to be on the show, but you aren’t any more?”

“Jilted.” Will set down his burger, reaching
for his soda. “Not quite at the altar, but close enough that we had
to return a lot of gifts.”

“Ouch. Sorry. I guess I just assumed it was
you who…” She couldn’t imagine a woman deciding she didn’t want to
wake up next to Will Hamilton every morning.

“You though I was the dumper, not the
dumpee.” His face moved the right muscles for a smile, but it
didn’t look right. There was too much suppressed emotion beneath
it. So much pent up inside. “I guess it was naïve of me to think if
you promise to spend the rest of your life with someone, then
you’re expected to keep that promise.”

Wow. He really was not over that. Not that
she had any right to tell him when he should have emotionally
processed something, but
wow
.

And here she was, the girl who had
impetuously agreed to marry a man she barely knew and now was
wavering on whether or not she could keep that promise.

He splashed ketchup over his fries. “I guess
you understand about people like that, don’t you? The
vowbreakers.”

“I do?” She swallowed past a knot of guilt.
Was she breaking a vow to Daniel?

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have… I just thought,
from what you said about your mom—”

“Oh! Oh, yeah, there wasn’t a vow she didn’t
break. To my dad or to me. I guess I just hadn’t thought of it that
way.”

Was it the same? She certainly hadn’t had a
Brady Bunch upbringing, but she’d fantasized about one and Daniel
had seemed like her hope to get it. If she broke her word to him,
was she just like her mom? Lying and not caring whose feeling got
stepped on as long as she got what she wanted?

Her mother had been the last person Caitlyn
had wanted to grow up into, so she’d run as far from her mother and
all her mother wanted as possible. Tuller Springs had been a far
cry from the Upper West Side, and about as close to paradise as she
could have imagined. The only thing that could have made it perfect
was a partner to share it with.

Daniel. Except he didn’t seem to want the
Tuller Springs life. But relationships were about compromise,
weren’t they? They would find a way to build a life that was the
culmination of both their dreams.

Will’s face was set again. Stiff. His eyes
shadowed. Caitlyn regretted bringing up his ex, but she had a
feeling if she apologized that would only make things worse.

She dragged a French fry through her ketchup.
“What made you want to teach skiing?”

The darkness in his expression eased. “What
made you want to teach piano?”

“I wanted to stop performing and it was
pretty much my only marketable skill.”

He blinked, seeming startled by her honesty
and she shot him an arch
I showed you mine
look. He
half-grinned. “Would you believe skiing is my only marketable
skill?”

“This from the man who also fights fires and
repairs houses and… I’m sorry, how many other jobs do you have? I
can’t keep up.”

His grin spread until it started to look
genuine. “Okay, fine. You want the real story? I warn you, it’s
pretty boring.”

“Bore me,” she dared him.

“I was a slacker in college, skipping classes
to hit the slopes whenever the powder was fresh. I
graduated—barely—with a degree in sociology and zero marketable
skills. I came back home for a few months to get my shit together,
crashed at my parents’ house and picked up a job as a chair lift
operator so I could ski for free. The resort wanted all their
instructors to have basic first aid training and the best paid guys
on the mountain were on ski patrol, so when they offered to promote
anyone who took the EMT training, I signed up. After that it was
only an extra couple classes to get the certification I needed to
volunteer at the fire department and once I had that training I was
more valuable as a river guide—since I could revive any idiot who
fell into the river and drowned. I never really thought about a
career or picked a path, I just fell into what I was good at and
patched it together. Then suddenly I’m twenty-eight, still working
on the mountain, and I realize I’ve got a pretty sweet deal going.
My 401-K is for shit, so of course my sisters nag me about doing
something real with my life, but to make more money doing what I’m
doing now, I’d have to leave Tuller Springs, and I don’t want that.
So I keep on doing what I’m doing.”

“Wow. I can’t imagine not having a plan. I
feel like every day of my life has been scheduled since
birth—either by me or someone else. And here you are, playing it by
ear and patching it together.”

“Don’t act too impressed. I’m just a ski bum
who’s never played Carnegie Hall.”

“There’s more to life than Carnegie Hall.”
Something it had taken her far too long to figure out.

#

The weather had shifted while they were in
the pub. The wind was biting and the footing more treacherous as
they made their way back to the row of chalets that included their
building. Caitlyn hooked her arm through his for balance and Will
kept her tucked tight to his side, as much for the feel of her as
to use his bulk to buffer her from the wind. The top of her white
knit cap came just above his shoulder and he could feel the soft
warmth of her pressed against his arm as she leaned in.

The night hadn’t gone at all how he’d thought
it would on Friday when she’d asked him to dinner. Nor how he’d
envisioned after his shock last night after realizing she was a
reality TV diva.

But she wasn’t a diva and after he’d gotten
over his prejudices, he realized a lot of things made a lot more
sense.

“The show explains the hot and cold
routine.”

She looked up at him, cheeks rosy and eyes
bright from the chill. “Hot and cold?”

“Mixed signals,” he clarified. “One second I
think you might be into me a little and then…”

“Oh.” He had a feeling the rosy cheeks
weren’t just from the cold as her gaze skittered away from his.
“That might have just been me being completely inept at social
cues. I don’t think I would know how to send a clear signal if I
tried.”

“So if I kissed you right now…”

Her head jerked up so fast she would have
clocked him if he’d been leaning in to try to get some sugar. “I
couldn’t! I really can’t date.” Her face was definitely flaming
now. “The show. It’s against the rules.”

“Did you really buy into the show?” he heard
himself asking. “Were you really into that guy?”

Her gaze skittered away again. “It’s easy to
get caught up in it,” she murmured. “Last night, the date I won, it
was heavenly. One of the most romantic experiences of my life.”

“But is it really romantic if it’s all
fabricated? I feel like real romance is about an honest connection
and I don’t know how anything can be honest when the trappings are
so obviously fake.”

“The settings are carefully controlled by the
producers, but the people involved are real. The emotions are real.
Amplified, maybe, because of the circumstances, but real. When
Daniel kissed me last night, I really did think he could be the
one. That it might be the last first kiss I ever had.”

Will found himself staring at Caitlyn’s lips.
A little pang struck him at the idea of another guy kissing those
lips and he knew he was in trouble. Maybe it was the fact that he
couldn’t kiss her, but he suddenly wanted to more than anything in
the world. He wanted to prove to her that she hadn’t had her last
first kiss yet, because she hadn’t had
his
.

He didn’t realize he was leaning toward her
until she pulled away.

“I can’t,” she said again, disentangling her
arm from his. They were at the entrance to the chalet now. As soon
as they were inside, she would head upstairs and he would stay down
and their Just Friends date would be over. “I do like you, Will,”
she said softly. “But there isn’t room in my life right now for
anything more than a friend. Even if I wanted more, it’s just…
complicated.”

There was a hitch in her voice, a hesitation
that spoke of something she wasn’t saying.

He’d been there for too long to hold it
against her. He slid his key into the lock and opened the door,
holding it for her.

Caitlyn slid past him. She paused on the
first step, the shadows of the foyer obscuring her face.
“Friends?”

“Absolutely.”

A flash of teeth in the dark, a little spark
of a smile, and then she turned away, climbing the stairs.

“Thank you for dinner, Caitlyn,” he called up
after her, leaning a shoulder against the door to his
apartment.

She paused with her key in the lock. “Thank
you for everything, Will.”

Then she was gone.

He watched the door close behind her like a
lovesick idiot before unlocking his own. He stripped out of his
jacket, replaying the evening in his mind. He wanted more than
friends, and now that he could read the code of her hot and cold,
he was pretty sure she wanted the same. She’d never said no. She’d
only said she couldn’t
now
. He could be patient. He could be
her friend. He could woo her slowly and when her obligation to the
show was over, he’d be there with open arms as soon as she was
free.

He hadn’t realized how closed off he’d been
until something happened to make him want to throw himself open
again.

Or someone happened.

Above him, the sounds of the piano crept
through the ceiling. The tune wasn’t one he recognized. Dreamy and
romantic, the song wove around him like a magic spell, dripping
with sweet, soulful longing.

He’d made her feel that.

Unless it was the other guy. The famous
one.

Will kicked aside the thought. He refused to
make himself crazy. If she was still pining for the other guy, he’d
be able to tell, wouldn’t he? But that wasn’t what he saw when he
looked in her eyes. He saw hesitant hope and the promise for a
future. He would just have to hang onto that look until she was
free to say the words.

Chapter
Nineteen

“Quick, turn on TMZ!” Mimi yelped as soon as
Caitlyn answered the phone.

Caitlyn’s stomach bottomed out. It had been a
blissfully quiet three days since the second episode aired. She’d
almost felt normal.
What now?
“Oh God, is it Daniel?”