Marrying Mister Perfect Read online

  She tipped her head to the side. “So you really think in six weeks you could propose to one of those women?”

  She had to ask the question he’d been trying to avoid asking himself for the last week, didn’t she? The idea of proposing to anyone in five weeks was flat out ludicrous, but he’d agreed to play along.

  “I don’t know. I definitely want to, you know, continue with the process.” When she looked askance at him, he shrugged. “That’s what Miranda keeps yapping at me when I don’t seem engaged in the moment. She’s all go with the process, Jack and don’t get ahead of your emotions, Jack. She seems to think it’s a foregone conclusion that I’m going to fall head over heels in love in the next month and a half.”

  “She probably thinks if she repeats it enough times, you’ll start believing it.”

  There was an edge to her voice he hadn’t expected. Was she mad at him? At Miranda? Or could that be jealousy?

  Jack mentally kicked himself. What was he thinking? Had he been totally brainwashed by the show? He was always reading voices and looking for ulterior motives now—and assuming everyone woman on the planet wanted him or wanted something from him. A week of trying to figure out which women were playing him and which were being played by the producers was messing with his brain. He’d even started thinking Lou had ulterior motives.

  “Can we talk about something other than the show?” he begged. “Anything else. I’d just like one day when we aren’t talking about the public circus my lovelife has become.”

  Lou was silent for a long moment. “Don’t you have a date to get to?”

  “Not until tomorrow morning. I’m base jumping with Piper in the morning and then I can have a late lunch with you and the kids before your flight and my evening at the symphony with Missy and Marcy.”

  Lou’s eyebrows flew up, telegraphing her shock. “You’re going to the symphony? Mr. Rolling-Stones-or-Nothing is actually going to sit through Beethoven? I’m gonna have to watch that episode to believe it.”

  He shrugged, but he felt a flush creeping up his neck. “It’s romantic.” Or so they told him.

  “It’s cliché.”

  “Lou.” Her name came out as a growl.

  “Fine. No more Marrying Mister Perfect talk. Would you like to hear about the wild and wonderful world of kitchen renovations instead?”

  “Yes, please.” Jack dragged over a bar stool and settled himself, relieved to be talking about something so normal as fixing up their pathetic excuse for a kitchen. “Did the second contractor actually come through with an estimate?”

  “He dropped it off yesterday and while it is more money, it’s also really gorgeous. I think you’re really going to like it.” From the way her eyes lit, he knew they’d be going for the second, more expensive estimate. “He says kitchen renos tend to get like a ninety percent return on your investment when you sell.”

  “Since when are we planning to sell?”

  Lou looked away, her eyes tracking the kids in their antics. “Emma, don’t hit your brother in the head with a bowling pin,” she called.

  He stood and shifted to stand next to her, laying his arm along the bar at her back, but she still avoided his eyes. “Lou? Why are we selling?”

  She spoke suddenly, rushing the words out, “What if she doesn’t live near you? What if you want to move to be closer to her? I just think you need to be considering resale value, that’s all.”

  Jack had thought about those questions, but he figured he’d deal with the problems if and when they arose. Honestly, he hadn’t really expected to fall head over heels in love with anyone, so he hadn’t wasted much time worrying about the aftermath of the show. Lou obviously had.

  Katya didn’t seem the type to want to live in the Chicago suburbs, but Marcy…

  There was no sense worrying about it now.

  “Let’s not borrow trouble, okay?” Normally he would have tugged on her ponytail and given her a smile, but today there was no pony tail, no easy smiles. He settled for catching her hand and squeezing it gently. “For today can it just be you and me and the kids? No show. No girls. No looming proposal deadlines. Just us.”

  Finally, Lou looked at him. Her eyes were shadowed, but she smiled gently. “Sure. I can do that.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  On Sunday morning, Lou woke in an enormous canopy bed, nearly falling off the edge to avoid the two children sprawled spread-eagle in the center. Neither Emma nor TJ had been able to sleep in the palatial rooms the show had assigned them. After their first attempt at bedtime failed, Jack and Lou relocated both of the kids to the same room, right next to hers, but Lou wasn’t surprised they’d both ended up crawling in with her in the middle of the night. Neither of them had ever slept well away from their own beds.

  Lou stroked the tangle of Emma’s baby-fine dark curls back from her forehead. Whose bed were they going to crawl into when Jack married his new wife? They’d gotten in the habit of going to her room, rather than his, because he was often on call at night.

  Would whoever Jack chose mind the invasion? Would the kids feel comfortable going to their new mommy for midnight cuddles to chase away the nightmares? And why did the thought of them running to someone else for comfort feel like such a betrayal? She wanted them to settle easily into their new life, didn’t she? She wanted their happiness with all her soul. She couldn’t be jealous of Jack’s new wife just because the kids might like her.

  Lou slipped out of bed, careful to tuck the covers back in around TJ and Emma where they sprawled in blissful oblivion. She trailed her fingers over the duvet, trying to engrave this moment into her memory. Who knew how many more mornings like this they would have before she was out of their lives?

  She just couldn’t imagine it. She couldn’t imagine not being the one who knew the right lunches to pack and the right way to make grilled PBJs.

  And she couldn’t imagine how any of those women in the house next door could possibly love these two kids a quarter as much as she did. She was their mother in everything except fact. Whenever she stopped to actually think about how much she loved them, it seemed like her heart had gotten a little bigger, with just a little more room for them, since the last time.

  Lou quickly dressed and brushed her teeth. Under Kelly’s orders, she took a few extra minutes to fuss with her hair and slap on a few make-up touches, thinking the entire time about how her life was suddenly slipping away. She felt so helpless. It all came down to Jack.

  Lou wasn’t sure she could wait for Kelly’s plan to work. Jack had seemed… different at first when they arrived the day before, but as the day went on, they’d fallen into their usual pattern and she had completely failed to seduce him. Talking, playing with the kids, pizza for dinner and then a movie in the massive screening room with all four of them piled haphazardly on the couch. Hardly the stuff passionate affairs were made of.

  Kelly had filled her head with tips about holding his gaze just a little too long, trailing her fingers along the neckline of her dress to draw his attention to her assets, and speaking soft and low to engender a sense of intimacy—but whenever Lou tried to implement the advice, she felt like an idiot. Kelly wanted her to unleash her inner sex goddess, but Lou still wasn’t sure she had one.

  And part of her resented the fact that she had to pretend to be someone else, someone sexier, in order to attract his attention. Why couldn’t she just be herself?

  Oh right, because he was never interested in you as you are.

  She just wasn’t confident that he would ever see her as a potential lover.

  If the makeover wasn’t going to change the way he saw her, she needed to tell him the truth. Maybe not the truth about how she felt about him, but at least the truth about how she didn’t want the kids and her home and the life they’d built together yanked out from under her. They had to be able to work something out. She had no idea what, but there had to be something. She didn’t know why it had to be all or nothing.

  Lou slipped quietly
out of the room, leaving the kids sleeping, and went to look for their father. She heard heavy footsteps and hurried down the hall after them.

  “Jack?”

  She pulled up short as she came around the corner, seeing instead a massive crewman with a black headset and three walkie-talkies clipped to his belt. “He’s on a date,” the crewman reminded her. “You need something?”

  Of course. He was off jumping off cliffs to create a false sense of intimacy through near-death experiences. How could she have forgotten? Lou mentally scrambled for a plausible reason she would be looking for him. “Breakfast?”

  “Right. Chef’s over at the chick house doing omelets and stuff. Or there’s pastries and fruit and stuff on a buffet where craft services set up over on the east terrace.”

  There was no way in heaven or earth she was going to the women’s mansion for breakfast, no matter how gourmet the chef. The muffins and fruits sounded great, but she couldn’t leave the kids alone. “Is there any way we could have a plate brought up for me and the kids?”

  “Lady, this ain’t no hotel. We don’t do room service.”

  Great. Now the crew guy thought she was a diva—like he didn’t get enough of that from the “chicks.” She smiled her most non-diva smile. “I’m sorry. I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Lou, Jack’s, ah, sister-in-law.”

  She waited with a big smile plastered on her face until he grunted, “Dave.”

  Lou would count that grunt as a victory. No matter how small. “I don’t mean to be trouble, Dave. I just don’t want Emma and TJ to wake up in a strange house and not be able to find me.”

  The crew guy’s stop-being-a-pain-in-my-ass expression eased. “No problem. I gotta be up here to make sure none of the chicks sneak over to leave love notes while Dr. Jack’s out. You want I can keep an ear out for ‘em. I’ve got three of my own at home.”

  “Would you?”

  He actually gave her a reluctant smile. “Here, take one of these.” He unclipped a walkie and shoved it at her. “Keep it on channel five. We’re not using that one for crew chatter. I’ll call you if the kids need anything.”

  Lou took the walkie and squeezed his hand once before letting go. “Thank you, Dave. I won’t be long.”

  After the excitement of the day before and the restless night, the kids would probably sleep a while longer, but she hurried anyway, down the hallway and down the stairs. She got a little lost, going out the wrong door twice before she finally found a terrace occupied by a white tent and cafeteria tables groaning under the weight of food platters. She’d just fill a couple plates for her and the kids and they could have a floor picnic in the room when they woke up.

  Lou grabbed a couple plates, surprised to find they were china rather than paper, and began stacking them with pastries and melon slices.

  “Lou!” She looked up at the click of high heels on the terrace flagstones as Miranda swept forward and plucked and apple off the table. “I almost didn’t recognize you. You look fabulous!”

  Her gaze raked over Lou’s post-makeover outfit of a light fitted blouse and khaki shorts. It wasn’t glamour girl, but it was a long way from Mom Jeans. “I thought you’d be running the date with Jack.”

  Miranda rolled the apple between her hands. “Most of the actual dates are coordinated by field producers and segment producers. I like to be here where I can oversee everything. The only hands-on stuff I still do myself is the confessional footage. I love it.”

  “You seem to be good at it. I’ve never seen Jack open up like he does with you.”

  Miranda grinned. “It’s a gift. How are you enjoying your visit?”

  “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. Twistin
g 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.”