Falling for Mister Wrong (13 page)

A blush instantly painted her cheeks. “No, of
course not. It’s a thank you meal. Between friends. Just
friends.”

She was so cute when she was flustered he
almost wanted to let her keep babbling, but he took pity on her. “A
friendly dinner sounds nice,” he said, smooth and calm, holding her
gaze.

If anything, her blush deepened. “Good.” Her
voice was surprisingly husky. She looked away, breaking the
connection. “This weekend?”

He grimaced. “I can’t this weekend.”

“No, of course you have plans,” she instantly
began chattering and he cut her off before she could really get
going.

“I traded shifts with another of the ski
instructors. I’m gonna be doubled up all weekend covering his
schedule and doing ski patrol for night skiing.”

And he had no intention of telling Caitlyn
he’d switched up his schedule, getting Ray to cover his Friday
classes so he could be here with her, giving his brother-in-law an
extra pair of hands so all the work would get done before Caitlyn’s
students were scheduled to come back. It was a small thing to him,
but would make a big difference to her, so the decision had been
easy, but he had a feeling she’d get all tangled up in misplaced
guilt if she knew. She was already trying to guilt feed him.

“Tuesday,” she blurted. “How about
Tuesday?”

He grimaced. “I have a family thing. Every
week my sisters ritualistically dissect my life and tell me what I
need to be happy. Usually it’s the love of a good woman, so if I
told them it was a date they’d probably let me play hookie—”

“Wednesday.”

Okay then. Apparently the word date was off
limits even for jokes. “Wednesday sounds great. I’ll be looking
forward to it.”

“I…” She hesitated. “Me too.”

#

Caitlyn sat staring at the door long after
Will had gone back downstairs, citing an early morning as he made
his escape. She had a date. Though it wasn’t a date because of
course it couldn’t be a date.

But it felt like a date.

Butterflies in her stomach. Anticipation.
Counting the days, the hours.

She might as well admit it. She had a
freaking enormous crush on her neighbor. Which was fine. He was
decidedly crushworthy. As long as she didn’t do anything about
it.

Like go on a date with him.

Oh, Chopin’s Pinky Finger, she was so
screwed.

She went to the Steinway, lifting the dust
cover off the keys, though she left it draped over the body of the
grand. She slid back the key cover and let her fingers whisper over
the keys, letting her mood seek out the perfect piece. Mozart
erupted into the air—bright and sparkling, dizzy and effervescent,
bursting with possibilities and hopes. Her fingers danced and as
always happened when she played, she let herself feel it—whatever
it was she couldn’t let herself feel any other hour of the day, it
came out at the keys.

Caitlyn played, and smiled.

#

Will tipped his face up, listening to the
flurry of notes dancing through the ceiling, and he couldn’t help
but grin.

He remembered the first song he’d ever heard
her play, that first night when he’d moved in. He’d been broken,
newly jilted, forced out of the home he’d thought he would raise
his children in. He’d wanted to block the rest of the world out.
And then he’d heard it. A slow, aching ballad reaching through the
ceiling and wrapping around his heart. He’d sat in the dark and
listened to the music for hours. Sad and sweet, poignant and
piercing in its loneliness.

He’d heard her play hundreds of times, always
seeming to resonate so perfectly with his emotions, but now it
wasn’t his own emotion he heard in the music. It was Caitlyn.
Everything she held inside pouring out. And tonight that was
happiness. And hope.

She could say it wasn’t a date all she
wanted. He could hear the difference.

Will sat in the dark, listened, and
smiled.

Chapter
Fifteen

“Would you care to tell me why I had to hear
you’re dating someone from Julia? You know I hate it when she gets
the good gossip before I do.”

Will leaned against the ski patrol shack at
the top of the chairlift, cell phone pressed to his ear as he
scanned the mountain for problems and listened to his oldest sister
air her grievances. “I’m not dating anyone,” he told Claire.

“Julia said Dale said the pheromones were
stifling.”

Dale needs to keep his mouth shut
.
Though he had a feeling Dale had said nothing of the sort. “Julia
needs to stop reading so many romance novels.”

“Bite your tongue. You never would have
gotten laid in high school if we hadn’t forced you to read romance
novels to understand the female psyche.”

“And I’m forever grateful.” He even had a few
choice romances on his bookshelf now. “I only meant Julia was
getting carried away with accusations of pheromone saturation.”

“She does buy into the sappy, angsty stuff a
little too much,” Claire admitted. “I pretty much only read them
for the sex.”

“Another sentence I could have lived my
entire life without my sister saying to me.”

“I’ll stop telling you about my sex life if
you tell me about the girl.”

“The family that blackmails one another…”

“If you need tips on cunnilingus, Don
can—”

Will choked. “Jesus, Claire,
stop
, for
the love of God. I’ll tell you whatever you want. Just stop.”

He could practically hear his sister bouncing
with glee. “Is she pretty?”

“She’s gorgeous, but we’re not dating.”

“You can’t say gorgeous and not dating in the
same sentence. It doesn’t work that way.”

“There are lots of gorgeous women I’m not
dating. Scarlett Johansson. Emma Stone.”

“Oh my God! Does she look like Scarlett
Johansson?”

Will rolled his eyes, safe in the knowledge
that Claire couldn’t see him and smack him upside the head for it.
“More like Emma Stone actually, but more, I don’t know,
delicate.”

“Dale said she was a redhead.”

“She is.”

“And a piano teacher.”

“Do you really need me to tell you about her?
Or did you get all you needed from Dale already?”

“You’re sure you’re not dating?”

“We’re not dating. But we are having dinner
next week.”

Claire squealed at an ear-splitting decibel.
“Will! Oh my God! I’m so proud of you!”

“It isn’t a date, Claire. I like her, but
neither of us is in a place right now to want that.”

“That’s what people say right before Cupid
cold-cocks them!”

“Cupid isn’t going to—” About fifty yards
down the hill, a snowboarder took a facer that looked like it
rattled his bones and didn’t immediately pop up. “Shit. Claire,
I’ve gotta go. It’s not a date.” He folded the phone and clicked
into his skis, grabbing the back-board just in case and skiing down
to where the boarder still lay motionless. His friends had stopped
below him and were making slow, hopping progress back up the hill
to the crash site.

Will had work to do. Arguing about his love
life would have to wait until Tuesday when all his sisters could
gang up on him.

#

“This is so cool! I’m watching
Marrying
Mister Perfect
with an actual Suitorette! Do you have any idea
how exciting this is for me?”

Caitlyn grinned at Mimi’s enthusiasm.
“Believe it or not, it isn’t half bad for me either.”

She hadn’t been sick with nerves at all in
the last few days—which may have been a function of the fact that
she was getting used to the show, or relaxing knowing she would
have Mimi’s support when she watched it… or it could have been
because she was more nervous about her secret not-date on Wednesday
than her very public one on Tuesday. She was almost glad Will had
his own plans for tonight and she hadn’t been able to use him as
Marrying Mister Perfect
avoidance. For the first time she
felt brave and strong sitting down to watch.

Which lasted until the end of the opening
credits. Then her stomach began to roil and she started regretting
the Chinese take-out feast she and Mimi had ordered in.

They huddled around her tiny television,
Caitlyn on the couch and Mimi curled in the matching chair, eating
chow mein directly out of the carton and punctuating her comments
with her chopsticks. Ty had been told to call if one of the
children needed to be rushed to the ER, but barring that Mimi was
taking a Girls’ Night In and he was on his own.

Caitlyn’s nerves came back the second Elena
was selected for the first date. She was about to watch her fiancé
romance the woman he’d
almost
asked to marry him.

Mimi snorted. “Of course he picks Boobs
McHottiepants as the first individual date. Tell me the truth, is
she a total bitch?”

Thank God for friends and distractions.
Caitlyn let the images on the screen wash over her, not really
penetrating. “Actually, she isn’t that bad. Most people forget it
when they look at her, but she’s hella smart. She wants to be an
actress or a dancer or something and I’m pretty sure she came on
the show for the exposure—”

“Like Craig from last season.”

“Yeah, but she was more subtle about it. When
she realized she was going to be portrayed as the show’s
villainess, I think she started playing it up more, but she was
never actually mean to anyone. Just sort of snarky and smug—like
she knew she was the hottest piece of ass in the house. Which she
totally was, so what are you gonna do? And she could be really
nice. I’m sure they won’t show those parts. But she could.”

“So you guys are friends?”

“I wouldn’t say that. It’s more like we’re
both survivors of the same natural disaster.”

Mimi blinked. “Ouch.”

“No. I didn’t mean it like that. Daniel
wasn’t a natural disaster. It’s the show. It’s this insane
experience that distorts your reality for months and it feels like
only the people inside that echo chamber with you really understand
what you went through, so there’s this bond. Does that make sense?
There’s no television, no books, no cell phones, no
computers—you’re completely cut off from the world. If war broke
out while we were in there, we would have had to wait until the
producers decided it was the right time to tell us so they could
film the moment.”

“Jesus.” Mimi looked back to the television
with a dubious expression.

“Yeah. The women with children got to call
home, but only on designated phones at designated times when they
could be recorded telling their babies how much they missed them
and how hard it was to be apart.”

“That’s messed up.”

“Yes it is.”

Mimi eyed the women on the screen. The
current scene involved all the Suitorettes sitting around the pool
at their mansion, talking about how great Daniel was. “Did you make
any friends? Samantha seems pretty great.”

“She is. And intimidatingly together. She’s
so…
perfect.
I was so certain she was going to go all the
way—”

Caitlyn swallowed the words, her face turning
red as she realized what she’d almost revealed. Stupid
nondisclosure. Luckily Mimi was only giving her half her attention,
the other half on the screen and didn’t seem to have noticed the
slip.

Mimi frowned. “Where are you? Did you forget
to pack your bathing suit or something?”

Caitlyn turned her attention to the screen.
The time at the mansion was a bit of a blur—not helped by the
alcohol that had always been on hand—but she hadn’t spent much time
by the pool so it wasn’t surprising she wasn’t in the shot. “I was
probably hiding in the music room. They had a piano and I spent
most of my time there. You know how shy I can be and it was such a
strange situation. Like living in a sorority house where everyone
is chasing the same guy—they sabotage one another and gang up on
one another, but then air kiss and gossip and everything is
forgiven. Some of the girls do seem to really form friendships—I
think mostly because you have nothing to do but talk and work out
and lay by the pool and write in your journal. I think I would have
lost my mind if I hadn’t been able to sneak off and play. I would
close the doors to the music room and stay in there for hours. They
probably won’t show that on the show.”

The scene changed and abruptly, Daniel and
Elena were being strapped together, chest to chest, for the show’s
inevitable bungee jump-into-love segment. Daniel was flushed, Elena
was practically purring.

She did not want to watch this.

Caitlyn looked anywhere but at the screen,
searching for anything else to talk about. “I got along really well
with Sidney.”

“The hot blonde wedding planner? Oh my gosh,
I
love
her.”

“Yeah, she’s fantastic. And she wasn’t into
the competition aspect of the show as much as some of the other
girls. Sidney was the one I could relax with, you know? The only
one who made me feel like I wasn’t alone. I just wish she’d stayed
longer.”

“Oh, no! Sidney goes home soon? She was one
of my first night favorites.”

Caitlyn winced. “You can’t tell anyone I told
you that. I could get sued for like a bazillion dollars for leaking
results.”

“Lips sealed. Scouts honor.”

Caitlyn was going to have to watch what she
said more carefully. When she’d signed the nondisclosure
agreements, she’d thought it would be easy—just avoid talking about
sensitive details. Easy. But now, after filming the show and living
through it, it felt like there was a giant gaping hole in her life
that she couldn’t talk to anyone about. Even calling Sidney was
against the rules because she wasn’t allowed to know any of the
results beyond her own departure.

What would Mimi think when she found out that
Sidney went home of her own volition, taking herself out of the
competition? She’d said she just wasn’t feeling it with Daniel and
wasn’t going to stay any longer for a guy who wasn’t her prince
charming.