Marrying Mister Perfect (14 page)

“This place is insane,” Lou said, indicating
the epic view with a nod. “I think the kids aren’t even bummed that
we couldn’t fit in Disneyland this trip because of all the
entertainment options here.”

Miranda grimaced. “Yeah, Jack mentioned he
wanted to try to fit in Disneyland, but this week the schedule is
just too tight. And we wouldn’t be able to bring the cameras into
the park to get footage of them together anyway. Disney can be such
dicks about that sort of thing.”

“They’d still love to go, even if it isn’t
filmed.”

“Of course!” Miranda exclaimed. “And we’ll
definitely try to make that work, but I think it may be better
timing-wise if we put that off until we’re back here for the Finale
Ceremony. Jack won’t have a full day off until then, but I’ll see
if we can get some sort of multi-day passes to reward the kids when
this is all over. And in the meantime, maybe we can grab some
footage of everyone playing together in the pool. The reunion
footage we caught yesterday was absolutely precious.”

Lou felt her stomach plummet. “You were
filming us?”

“Honey, this is
Marrying Mister
Perfect
. We film everything.”

“I didn’t see any cameras.”

“The whole mansion is wired for candid
footage,” Miranda said cheerfully, as if she wasn’t destroying
Lou’s comfort in the luxurious house.

Her shoulders tightened with the knowledge
that they could be watched even now. She’d known that Jack had
signed up to have his privacy violated, but she hadn’t thought they
would film her with him. She thought they had been alone
yesterday—which just went to show they were
never
alone
here.

“Are there any places that aren’t wired?” she
asked, using Miranda’s lingo.

“Bathrooms. And the strictly crew areas like
the basement. It’s the same in the Suitorette Mansion. Most of the
girls get used to it in a hurry, though I think they’re always
aware of it. Why else would they run to the bathrooms when they
want to have a cry? Of course, they always forget that they’re
still wired for sound and we can hear every word.”

“That’s… disturbing.”

“You mean creepy and stalkerish?” Miranda
laughed. “Welcome to reality television. Jack seems to have adapted
to it pretty well though. He’s a very straightforward guy. I think
the people who keep the least distance between their public image
and their private selves do the best on shows like these because
they don’t have to worry about keeping up a deception.”

“That sounds like Jack.” He was honest. Even
with himself. What you saw was what you got. Lou wasn’t sure
whether she was like that or not. She wasn’t sure she wanted to
know what a show like this would reveal about her. Jack may not
have secret passions, but Lou certainly did. For him, mostly.

Miranda’s assistant appeared, handing her the
tablet that was normally an extension of her arm. “Missy will be
ready for her pre-date confessional in five. Would you like me to
run it?”

“No, I’ll do it myself,” Miranda said, then
turned back to Lou. “Would you like to watch? Get a peek behind the
scenes? Missy’s one of my favorites.”

“Won’t she mind?”

Miranda shook her head. “She’ll just think
you’re another producer. None of the girls know who you are
yet.”

And why should they? Jack probably hadn’t
even mentioned her.

Part of her was tempted. Tempted to see one
of the women vying for Jack’s heart. Especially a favorite. “I
should check on the kids…”

“Sweetie, we have people for that.” She waved
to the plates Lou held. “I’ll have someone bring the kids down here
and ride herd on them until we’re back.”

The curiosity was going to kill her. Lou set
down her partially filled plates, snagging a muffin off one to take
with her. “Lead the way.”

Miranda rattled off a series of instructions
for Todd, tucked her tablet under her arm and guided her on a
mazelike route through the mansion to a spot where the two
properties—the Mister Perfect and Suitorette Mansions—connected.
She waited until they were past the security guarding the boundary
before she asked, still walking, “Lou, can I ask you a personal
question?”

The question sounded like it came from
Miranda-the-friend rather than Miranda-the-producer, so Lou
answered automatically. “Of course.”

“Are you in love with Jack?”

She tripped over her own feet. Twisting her
head around wildly, she tried to spot any hidden cameras. Miranda
drew to a stop beside her.

“This is a dead zone,” Miranda explained,
reading her frantic glancing at the bushes. “We’re past the
security to keep the girls out of the Mister Perfect Mansion, but
not yet to the security to keep the Suitorettes inside the camera
range. Crew only here, so no cameras. And I’m not on a mic so you
can speak freely.”

Lou’s face flamed. “No. Of course not.” She
didn’t know why she denied it. It was automatic after all these
years, but it was more than that. Some instinct screamed at her not
to tell Miranda. Especially not before she told Jack. She didn’t
want to be just another Suitorette.

“You’re sure? Because I may be a soulless
reality TV hack, but you’re my friend and I don’t want you getting
hurt.”

“I won’t.”

“Good.” Miranda smiled and started walking
again through the grounds toward the other, larger mansion that
housed the women. “So are you cockblocking him intentionally or
inadvertently?”

“
What
?” Lou stumbled again.

“No offense. It just seems like you two have
developed the kind of friendship that keeps either of you from
developing strong emotional ties elsewhere. At least that’s my
theory. Jack isn’t very open to love—and I know he’s a man and men
aren’t always in touch with their emotions, but I’m trying to
figure out how to help him find what he’s looking for—and that
doesn’t mean just showing him beautiful girls. Often we also try to
help people learn how to let their guard down and be vulnerable to
others. How to really let love in.”

“Right.” She had no idea what Miranda wanted
from her.

“And I figure you know him better than
anyone, so you could help me figure out the best ways to get past
his emotional guard.”

Lou almost laughed. If she knew how to get
past his emotional guard in a romantic sense, she’d have done it
years ago. “He’s unguarded when he’s relaxed, when we’re just
hanging out, but that isn’t exactly romantic.”

Miranda sighed. “Oh well. It was worth
asking.” She grinned. “Come on. Missy should be ready in
Confessional Two.”

#

“Jack is such an amazing man,” the stunning
brunette gushed enthusiastically. “I’ve been hurt by men who
weren’t faithful in the past, but
Jack
…”

Lou stood in the background, trying to stay
out of the way, as a four-man camera and sound crew captured
footage of Missy in preparation for her evening out with Jack.
Something about the fervent, almost desperate way Missy said Jack’s
name had disconcerted Lou as soon as she started speaking into the
camera. She was almost obsessive in her intensity.

As Missy waxed poetic about Jack’s amazing
fidelity, Lou’s disquiet increased. The man was simultaneously
dating thirteen women at last count and Missy thought he was a
paragon of faithfulness? Just how disconnected with reality was
she?

“I feel very confident about getting the last
ring. As our journey progresses, I think Jack is realizing which of
us are here for the Right Reasons and which aren’t. I have so much
love in me to give and I want
so badly
to be loved. He has
to see that.” Missy started to get teary as she professed her
enormous capacity for emotion. “I never expected, when I came here,
to be falling in love, to be really, genuinely
feeling
the
way I feel for this incredible man, but you just can’t control your
heart.”

Lou rolled her eyes. If she thought it would
do any good, she would sit Missy the Gorgeous Doormat down and have
a talk with her about how “genuine” the emotion she’d developed
over the last week was in comparison to the emotion Lou had been
developing over the last decade.

Though maybe Lou was the one who was
delusional. Jack was no more likely to return her feelings than he
was to return Missy’s.

“I just know he will see that I am here for
him, for all the right reasons, and I
feel
more for him than
any of the other girls.”

Lou had heard enough. As Miranda stepped in
and started asking pointed questions to guide quotes out of Missy,
Lou slipped away, heading back up the flagstone path leading to the
other property and the craft service tent.

Missy had some hard life lessons to learn.
First among them being that this competition wasn’t about who loved
Jack the most, but who
he
wanted the most. If it had just
been about loving him, Lou would have won hands down. It was that
reciprocation element that was so tricky.

No wonder these shows were so rarely
successful at pairing couples up. That they were
ever
successful was a small miracle.

Lou set off to track down the kids. Miranda
had certainly given her a lot to think about.

Chapter
Fourteen

When Jack arrived back at the mansion after
his extreme date, he wanted nothing more than to find Lou and the
kids and unwind for a couple hours before they had to go back home
and he had to go to the symphony. He would have rather had four
hours on a plane with two hyper children than two hours with
Bach—or whoever it was who’d be assaulting his ears tonight.

He jogged up the stairs, intent on grabbing a
quick shower to rinse off the dirt and sweat from the base-jumping
expedition. He heard splashing coming from the direction of the
pool. It sounded like the kids were enjoying the house, at least.
He’d wanted more time with them than just a thirty-six hour
layover, but the producers had talked him out of keeping the kids
longer. It was a simple matter to take a first-grader out of school
for a week or two, but even if TJ and Emma were here, he wouldn’t
be. A wine tasting in Napa, a ski weekend in Aspen—the destination
dates only got more elaborate as the weeks wore on and even though
there were fewer women, his time would be less and less his
own.

He couldn’t complain. This was exactly what
he’d signed up for. He just hadn’t realized how much of a homebody
he’d become over the last four years. He hadn’t lost the taste for
new experiences and adventures, but nothing felt right without Lou
and the kids around. Everything he saw, he wanted to show them and
see how they reacted to it.

After his shower, Jack yanked on swim trunks
and a T-shirt, relieved to have a few more hours before he had to
strangle himself in one of the designer suits the show had picked
out for him. He slipped out into the hallway, pulling up short when
he saw Miranda striding toward him with her ubiquitous tablet in
hand.

“Jack! Just the man I wanted to see.” She
beamed a bright smile that made him intensely nervous.

“I was just on my way to the pool to see the
kids.”
Please don’t stop me. Let me have just one afternoon of
normalcy.

“I won’t keep you. I was just going over the
schedule for the next week and thinking about what we talked about
yesterday. About being open to love?”

“Uh-huh.”

She smiled, undeterred by his unenthusiastic
response. “I talked to Lou earlier and it’s occurred to me that
while the whole purpose of this is to shake you out of your
romantic rut, we may have inadvertently brought your rut with
us.”

“I have no idea what you’re saying.”

“Lou.”

He nodded. “Lou is here.”

“Exactly. Lou is here and you’re relying on
her, your emotional crutch, rather than opening yourself up to the
possibility of finding someone else to rely on. Do you see what I
mean?”

Jack’s shoulders tightened. “My kids are
coming to visit every weekend, Miranda. That was the deal. I’m not
negotiating on that.”

“No, of course I’m not arguing that. As long
as we’re able to make it work with the schedule, we’re going to
bring them out here. They’re fantastic. And the fact that you’re a
great father is one of the primary reasons you were selected, so we
could ask nothing less of you.”

“Then what’s the problem?” he asked,
impatient to get downstairs so he could see his kids and start
being this epically great father they were billing him as.

“Lou is your crutch.”

“You said that already.”

“So maybe next week when the children come to
visit, we could have one of our producers fly with them and Lou
could stay in Chicago. I’d hate to think that your reliance on her
was undermining your romantic efforts here the way it has for the
last four years.”

“She isn’t undermining anything.”

“Jack, I’m not attacking Lou. I adore her.
But I have to think about what’s best for your romantic future and
maybe it’s time to cut the umbilical.”

“There is no umbilical.”

Miranda smiled, flapping a hand. “Forget I
said anything. I’m probably imagining things. But if she decides
she wants a weekend without the children hanging off of her,
remember we have staff who can travel with them.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

#

The afternoon passed too quickly. He played
with the kids in the pool until Emma was so exhausted she threw a
screaming fit the likes of which she hadn’t thrown in years when
they tried to get her out of the water. Lou had carried her off to
the showers, muttering that at least she’d sleep well on the plane,
leaving Jack to ride herd on TJ to get him into his own plane
clothes.

It felt like they’d only just arrived and
soon they’d be leaving to go to the airport and he’d be off to wine
and dine a pair of beautiful brunettes whose names were so similar
the blooper reel was already full of him tripping over them.