Falling for Mister Wrong
Read Falling for Mister Wrong Online
Authors: Lizzie Shane
Tags: #musician, #contemporary romance, #reality tv, #forbidden romance, #firefighter, #friends to lovers, #pianist
Falling for Mister Wrong/Shane
148
by
Lizzie Shane
Copyright © 2015 Lizzie Shane
Smashwords Edition. All rights reserved.
Without limiting the rights reserved under copyright above, no part
of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced
into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any
means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright
owner and publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, brands, media and incidents are either the product of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.
Falling for
Mister Wrong
Between I will and I do, there's
room to fall.
Caitlyn Gregg just agreed to marry 'Mister
Perfect' on national television. There's only one problem: as soon
as the cameras stop rolling on their whirlwind reality show
romance, she realizes she doesn't love him.
Returning home to Colorado as the show begins
to air, she has only her doubts for company—until she accidentally
sets her apartment on fire and finds herself in the arms of
oh-so-sexy firefighter Will Hamilton.
Sparks immediately fly—and not just from her
singed apartment—but Caitlyn is engaged to another man and is
contractually forbidden from talking about the engagement, breaking
it off, or seeing other men until the show's finale.
Will doesn't know what to make of Caitlyn's
hot-and-cold routine, until he turns on the TV one night and sees
her being wooed by another man. Thinking she must be gun-shy after
what is about to be a very public break-up, he tells her they can
take it slow... but their insane chemistry has other ideas.
Falling hard for Will is against all the
rules and every week she dreads Tuesday, knowing any episode could
be the one that drives him away. When the truth comes out, will
Caitlyn lose the man of her dreams because she already said yes to
Mister Perfect?
Table of Contents
Dedication
For my mother, who shared with me her love of music,
and Mrs. Rios, the best piano teacher ever.
Chapter One
Her hands were shaking. That was normal,
right? After all, it wasn’t every day a girl had a fifty/fifty shot
of getting engaged or getting dumped on her ass on national
television.
Caitlyn curled her flawlessly manicured hands
into fists to still the trembling, wincing a little when the nails
bit into her palms, but grateful for that nip of pain. She’d been
drifting, floating in the surrealness that had become her life,
until that pinch gave her something to focus on. Something
real.
Real was in short supply lately.
She squeezed her fists tighter, wondering how
far she could go before she broke the skin. She wasn’t used to
wearing her nails so long—as a former child-prodigy pianist, her
nails were always neatly trimmed to prevent clacking against the
keys. She was probably already leaving marks—would one of the
production staff notice and stop her?
As if on cue, Miranda—the producer the other
producers feared—appeared over her shoulder, crossing to stand
behind her, both of them facing the mirror.
“Lovely as ever, Caitlyn. How are you
feeling? Excited?”
Caitlyn decided the question was rhetorical
as Miranda pointed out a red lock that had come loose from
Caitlyn’s up-do and a hairstylist rushed forward with a comb to
tuck it away. Miranda’s gaze evaluated every inch of her,
scrutinizing every seam of the designer fabric that hugged her
figure, pausing for a moment on her fisted hands—she didn’t miss
much—and Caitlyn forced her fingers to straighten.
“You’re doing great, hon.” Miranda’s hand
came to rest on Caitlyn’s bare shoulder, giving it a gentle
squeeze. “Not much longer now.”
Caitlyn nodded, unable to make her vocal
cords form words. She almost hoped she was the one Daniel decided
to ditch. At least then she wouldn’t have to croak out a response
to a proposal.
No. That wasn’t what she wanted. She loved
Daniel. Jitters. That was all this was. Stage fright. She’d had it
before and never let it defeat her. She would master this.
Caitlyn vaguely heard the crackle of voices
through Miranda’s headset, then the producer gave her an eager
smile and another shoulder squeeze. “Are you ready?”
No. Please God, don’t make me do
this
.
She wondered what the producers would do if
she made a run for it. Just up and bolted, sprinting out of the
hair and make-up suite and not stopping until she was curled up on
her couch at home, swaddled in her favorite comfy PJs.
They’d probably follow her with cameras,
trying to get the best angle on her freak-out. This was reality
television, after all. And they were good at what they did.
“Caitlyn?”
“I’m ready.” Huh. Her voice sounded so
normal. How did that happen?
She didn’t remember getting to the beach.
Only the vaguest impression of a long stone staircase and circling
cameras penetrated her haze.
The setting was breathtaking. The producers
would have made sure of that. The scent of tropical flowers in full
bloom permeated the air and Caitlyn’s nose twitched as she sniffed
back the urge to sneeze. A wooden walkway had been built over the
sand so she wouldn’t sink and break an ankle in her heels. Every
detail had been seen to—even the weathering of the brand new
walkway so it blended in with the rusticity of the secluded
tropical resort. The walkway stretched the last twenty meters to
the dock that thrust out over the lagoon.
He would be waiting there, surrounded by the
still Tahitian waters. Daniel.
Caitlyn’s stomach clenched painfully and she
stopped at the foot of the steps up to the dock. One of the
production assistants rushed forward to help her lift her skirt and
then faded back to let her navigate the steps herself—lest the PA
be caught in the shot and ruin the magic of the moment.
Her chest felt tight and heat pressed against
the backs of her eyes—she’d promised herself when she came on the
show that she wasn’t going to cry. Unfortunately she’d broken that
promise three weeks ago and once the seal had been broken couldn’t
seem to stop weeping at the drop of a hat. She wasn’t even sad. It
was the pressure. All the stress seemed to push against her tear
ducts with an alarming frequency.
She swallowed thickly, refusing to cry today.
He was either going to pick her or he wasn’t. He was going to
propose or he wasn’t. There was nothing she could do about it now.
The score had already been written—all that remained was for her to
play her part.
She flexed her fingers, moving them in the
opening bars to
Flight of the Bumblebee
. The music playing
in her head calmed her and Caitlyn stiffened her spine, lifted her
chin—and saw him.
Daniel. Movie-star gorgeous Daniel. Waiting
for her at the end of the dock, surrounded by tropical flowers and
a single high pedestal. A pedestal that would hold a ring.
Prince Charming couldn’t have been more
handsome. He smiled, and even though she was too far away to see
it, she knew his blue eyes would be sparkling. His dimples would be
flashing, emphasizing his air of boyish sincerity.
Mister Perfect. Sure, it was the title of the
show—
Marrying Mister Perfect
—but she hadn’t expected him to
actually be perfect. That he would want all the things she wanted,
and say all the right things. Caitlyn really hadn’t thought she
would get this far, but she’d been swept along, caught up in the
fairy tale of dream date after dream date until here they were. The
finale. The moment of truth.
She’d wanted this, dreamt of this. It was the
reason women auditioned for the show—the promise of that elusive
prize, true love. And Caitlyn had more reason than most to crave
it, but this might not be her happily ever after. She might just be
the obstacle to Elena’s dreams coming true.
Her stomach rolled. She forced her feet to
keep moving toward the end of the dock. One heel caught on an
uneven plank and she wobbled for a fraction of a second before
righting herself.
Don’t fall into the ocean. Don’t be that
girl.
In the water to either side, cameras were set
up on strategically placed platforms, so they could capture every
angle without ruining the illusion that it was just the two of
them, alone in a Tahitian lagoon.
Illusion. She felt the weight of the cameras
pressing on her, bearing down on her shoulders until it became a
battle to keep her spine straight. At first she had been one of
many Suitorettes and it had been easy to blend into the crowd, but
these last few weeks it felt like every eye in America was on her.
Homebody Caitlyn Gregg, on display for all the world to see.
She’d had to fight her natural urge to shy
from the cameras. For him.
Caitlyn lifted her gaze, eyes on the prize.
Daniel.
He was worth it. He was. Mister Perfect.
He smiled and the buzzing in her ears
receded. He took a half step forward, reaching out to catch her
hands as soon as she was within range, and her heart rate dropped
back down to non-life-threatening levels.
“
Together
,” he mouthed silently and
Caitlyn remembered how to breathe. He was her eye of the storm. The
still oasis of calm that kept her sane amid all the insanity of the
show.
We’re in this together
, he would say whenever she
confessed how much the constant attention wore on her, how often
she thought about giving it up and going home.
She could do this. Just a little more. One
last moment. One last scene. And then it would be done. Over.
The relief of that thought almost drowned out
her fear that she might be about to become America’s most famous
dumped girl—until the next reality television cycle rolled
around.
Daniel was speaking, she realized distantly.
Okay, maybe she wasn’t as together as she’d hoped. The words seemed
to be passing through some sort of distortion tunnel before they
reached her ears and all she could make sense of was the occasional
snippet.
“…journey together…never imagined…feeling so
strongly…”
She couldn’t seem to focus on his face. It
seemed broken into disproportionate pieces like a Picasso. A nose.
A mouth. An eye. A cheekbone. An ear.
Caitlyn reminded herself not to frown as she
concentrated on figuring out whether this was the pre-proposal
speech or the pre-break-up speech. She’d seen enough of these shows
to know those speeches often sounded almost identical to one
another with the exception of one very crucial word.
