Chapter 20 #2
“What I don’t understand is why didn’t Candace just expose you and Valerie. Okay, she hated my guts. But it seems like a lot of trouble and risk to punish me for your infidelity. What if she’d been caught?”
“She has been caught,” Jace interjected.
“Not soon enough to repair the damage she’s done.” Gina pinned Danny with a stare, waiting for him to answer her question. Everything Candace had done seemed so outrageous, so conniving that it was hard to believe.
“This wasn’t just about payback. It was a carefully orchestrated plan to win public sympathy and drum up enough publicity for her to become the new it girl…to be you and grab everything she could, including being the new face of ChefAid.”
Gina had never thought of herself as an it girl. In fact, she resented the label. An it girl implied that she was a flash in the pan, someone who wouldn’t last. To hell with that. She planned to have the same staying power as Julia Child or Martha Stewart.
“It was really quite genius from a publicity standpoint,” Danny continued.
“Not only did she ruin me but she got a complete career makeover in the process. Because let’s face it, before all this, she and I were second-string players.
Our show had become tired, unable to compete with the likes of you and the other young FoodFlicks stars.
“We were no longer getting invitations to host specials or judge the competition shows. It was just a matter of time before we were has-beens. Or maybe we already were.” He let out a bitter laugh.
“The thing is, I’d like to continue to have a career, even if it’s an off-season show at six o’clock in the morning.
After Candace gets through with me, I’ll need the salary. ”
Gina didn’t know if the public would forgive him. Although he hadn’t cheated with Gina, he’d been unfaithful in his marriage to a woman who had a significant following. Their show might’ve been limping along in the ratings, but Candace had been one of FoodFlicks’ pioneers.
Not her problem, she reminded herself. She had her own career to rescue.
“How do we get this out into the world?” she asked Sawyer.
Sawyer stood up, walked behind the couch, and put his hand on Gina’s shoulder, then turned to Danny. “Are you willing to go public with everything you’ve told us, including your relationship with Candace’s best friend?”
Danny didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“Why?” Jace asked.
Gina had the same question. From where she was sitting Danny still looked like a major POS. What did going public buy him?
“The truth: I don’t want her to win.”
Wow, and to think these two people once took vows to cherish each other until death did them part. Yet another reason not to surrender to love, Gina thought.
“We could talk to Paolo at Eater.” Sawyer came around the couch and sat next to Gina.
“Before we do anything, I want to loop your mom in on this.”
“Wendy Dalton’s your mother? That explains a lot.”
Sawyer shot Danny a look and Danny waved him off.
“I only meant that Candace had done her research. Everyone in the industry knew that Gina had hired Dalton and Associates to manage the crisis. Candace must’ve traced Wendy to you and the ranch and made an educated guess that it was where Gina had gone to lie low.
Then sent that wormy photographer to check it out and drum up more trouble. ”
So it hadn’t been Tiffany who’d blown the whistle after all.
“How did you wind up talking to the photographer?” Sawyer asked.
“He approached me and threatened to divulge Gina’s hideout if I didn’t pay him five-thousand dollars.” He addressed Gina: “I tried to contact you about it but you wouldn’t take my calls.”
“Did you pay him?” Jace asked.
“No, but I told him I’d have him arrested for blackmail. Frankly, I don’t think he feared my threat.”
It was another piece of the puzzle. They still had the man’s memory card and could use the pictures to prove that he’d been to the ranch. It wouldn’t take too much work to connect him to Candace. More damning evidence against her.
Sawyer asked Danny to retell the entire story. This time while Sawyer taped it on his phone. An hour later he sent the recording to his mother and sent Danny to the nearest motel.
It had been one crazy day.
“I can’t imagine that this won’t clear you,” Sawyer said as he walked her home. “When the news breaks about what a scheming liar Candace is, ChefAid will rescind their offer to her and come running back to you. You could probably jack them up for more money.”
Gina laughed, though none of it was funny.
“I don’t know about that.” She wasn’t even sure she still wanted to represent a company that had so easily dumped her after she’d put her heart and soul into promoting its products.
From now on, she planned to be more discriminating about the brands she represented.
She thought about today, slinging hash at the coffee shop and her gut told her that in a similar situation Laney would’ve stood by her. The Daltons sure had. They had never once wavered in their loyalty. The knowledge of that put a lump in her throat.
“This will be a big story. Probably even bigger than the original story.”
“You would know.” She flashed a weak smile. The idea of facing the press all over again, even if it was to absolve herself, was exhausting. If she could take a long nap while the true story came out and wake up when it was over, she would.
“You going home soon, huh?”
She wondered if she’d heard regret in his voice or had she’d imagined it? Gina remembered his earlier words.
“Besides the fact that I wasn’t looking for a relationship, our lives don’t mesh. Not even a little.”
She quickly replied, “Yes. I’ll need to be hands-on to clean up the mess Candace made.”
They’d arrived at the cabin and loitered on the front porch. She wanted so badly for him to come inside. To stay the night.
“I don’t know how I can ever thank you for…Danny. The questions, the recording, the way you handled it. If it had been left to me I would’ve driven to Candace’s house and strangled her.”
Sawyer’s lips curved up. “Probably not a good idea. Jace would’ve had to arrest you.”
Under the porch light, they held each other’s gaze, then he looked away. The break in contact left her bereft and a sudden wave of loneliness wrapped around her like a shroud of gray.
Was this what life was like before Sawyer?
She forced herself to believe that as soon as she got back to her old surroundings and buried herself in work, the melancholy would dissipate.
“I guess this is it.” He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and rocked on his heels.
The air was still, not even a light breeze. There was only the sound of the creek and the stridulating of crickets while she deliberated on whether to beg him to come inside. One last time together before saying good-bye.
But she could see in his deep blue eyes that he’d already cut the cord and that she’d only humiliate herself.
“I’m falling for you and I don’t like it,” he’d told her.
Well, she didn’t like falling, either. She abhorred the vulnerable way it made her feel. It was easier to be alone, to have only herself to disappoint.
“I guess so,” she responded and started to say she hoped they’d stay in touch but stopped herself. She didn’t want to go through this each and every time they saw each other.
“You left a bunch of cooking stuff at my house. I could bring it by in the morning, leave it on your porch.”
“Consider it my gift to you. Something to go with your mother’s All-Clad pots.”
He gave an imperceptible nod. “Safe travels then.”
She watched him cross the field in the dark, her heart breaking a little piece at a time, and went inside.