Chapter 6
It’s too damn weird having cameras in the honeymoon suite. I know they’ll leave soon, but hotel rooms are a place I generally associate with privacy and quiet. Right now, the producer is crammed into a corner of the room with a cameraman named Steve tripping over suitcases trying to get the right shot.
Andie’s hands are balled into fists, her fancy hairstyle—twisted and pinned, curled and sculpted—frizzing around the edges, when she announces she’s going to get changed into pajamas.
“Why don’t you ask her if she needs help out of her wedding dress?” Cassidy, our assigned producer, prods me as Andie steps out of the bedroom, beelining toward the bathroom.
I fight the urge to roll my eyes, asking with gritted teeth, “Do you need me to help you get out of your dress?”
She shoots me a glare over her bare shoulder. I know that look; I remember that look. If the cameras weren’t here, she’d have flipped me off for suggesting she needed my help with anything. Ever.
I press my fingers to the bridge of my nose and close my eyes. If the cameras weren’t here, she wouldn’t be either. This is so beyond fucked; I have no idea what to do. Signing on to marry a stranger and then spend the next eight weeks being filmed up to twelve hours a day suddenly seems like the dumbest idea I’ve ever had. I’m just lucky they’ll let me keep working. My bosses don’t need to know what I’ve gotten myself into.
“Let me know if that changes, sweetheart,” I mutter around the lump in my throat that tells me I somehow fucked everything up beyond repair. I shouldn’t have been so sharp with her earlier, but she hit me below the belt.
“Not likely, honey,” Andie scoffs and picks up her skirt to disappear behind the bathroom door.
After the latch clicks, I shrug out of my suit jacket, taking care to hang it up in the closet. I know we’re only here for one night before we jet away on our honeymoon to … somewhere tropical, I guess. But I’m used to taking care of the few things that belong to me.
I shoot Cassidy a look. “You’re not going to film me undressing, are you?”
“Of course not.” She taps Steve on the shoulder and nods her head toward the living room portion of the hotel suite.
I quickly do the math in my head: I turned up at this country club to film having drinks with the other two grooms this season—Jamie and Patrick—at nine in the morning. I made it through that, confessionals, a ceremony, more confessionals, then a farce of a reception I’m sure they’ll edit into something that looks like we’re falling in love already.
It’s now after ten at night.
I read that damn contract through and through. I’ve met my minimum hours of filming requirement for the day, and I’d be surprised if Andie hadn’t. One look at the producer and cameraman assigned to us tells me they’re dead on their feet too. For as long as we’ve been filming, I know they’ve been here longer and will have more to do even after our day is done.
Clearing my throat, I tell Cassidy, “I don’t think you’re going to miss anything if you decide to leave.”
“We’re not supposed to leave until you’re ready for bed.” She yawns anyway.
I offer her a pleasant smile, the one I use to charm board members. Sometimes women at a bar. One that I know wouldn’t do a thing to win Andie over, anyway. “You’ve been watching us for the last several hours; do you really think we’re going to do more than avoid each other tonight?”
She snorts. Steve too. “No. I suppose not. But we can’t leave until you two are in bed.”
I undo the knot in my tie, chuckling in a way that says I don’t care if Andie talks to me one way or another tonight. It’s easy enough to ignore the bile climbing up my throat at the thought. “Why don’t we just call it a night? You both must be exhausted, and we’ve got a travel day ahead of us tomorrow.”
Cassidy hesitates. Steve says nothing but meets her gaze. She clenches her jaw, and he tilts his head, communicating something only they know. But with the way his eyes go soft as her shoulders slouch, I’ve got a few guesses.
I don’t know much about Andie now, but I know something about being raised by a fiercely independent and driven woman. Trying to talk her out of the notion that she could get everything on her list done today was a regular part of caring for her. Steve looks like he knows this game too.
My attention focused on my cufflinks, I ask casually, “How long have you two been together?”
Stever’s soft laughter doesn’t cover Cassidy’s gasp. I glance up and catch them lost in their silent conversation again.
Finally, Cassidy sighs and clicks off her headset, sliding it off her head. Steve knocks his headphones off his head too, removing his camera from his shoulder with a grunt as he turns it off. “Six years.”
I smile. “That’s a long time.”
“Best six years of my life, man.” Steve says it without irony or expectation. “She hated me at first too.”
Cassidy rolls her eyes. Just to show she’s not giving up, she says, “This is all very sweet, but I mean it. We need footage of you two getting ready for bed. Together.”
“Of course.” I nod my agreement, setting my cufflinks aside. With a smile, I offer, “If you need shots of us brushing our teeth together or whatever, I’ll see if I can’t talk her into it in the morning, eh?”
Cassidy shoots me a look I don’t dare cross. Steve slips his headphones back on and hoists the camera back on his shoulder.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Andie’s in the bathroom and hasn’t made a single noise since she got in there.
She may not be happy to be legally married to me, of all people, but I’m still a fucking gentleman. Most of the time. I work the buttons on my shirt loose as I make my way back to the bathroom door. I knock gently on it with one knuckle.
When I don’t hear a reply, I say, “We need some footage of us getting ready for bed.”
A rustle of fabric is the only sign that she’s still alive in there, but she doesn’t come out.
“Please, Andie.”
No answer.
I sigh. She’ll come out of there when she wants to. She always did everything when she wanted to, how she wanted to, holding onto control of her situation until her knuckles were white.
I duck around the corner in the bedroom to tug off my shirt and hang it up, then my pants. A quick glance at the door says she’s not coming out right this second, so I slip off my socks and boxer briefs too. I’d like to shower before bed, but I’m not dumb enough to tell Andie that while she’s in there. So I find a clean pair of underwear and a pair of sweats and pull them on. I’ve just slid on a T-shirt when I hear the latch on the bathroom door click.
I stand, looking over my shoulder. As the door opens wider, I turn to face Andie. The camera on Steve’s shoulder gives a mechanical whir as he frames the shot.
She’s still in her wedding dress, full makeup, hair twisted and curled and pinned within an inch of its life. There’s something poetic in me being completely undone and her looking like some sort of fairy-tale princess.
Quietly, she says, “I, um, need some help. With the buttons.”
I don’t gloat, even though I probably should. It would be safer to keep that wall between us. Instead, I nod, gesturing with my left hand for her to turn around. My wedding ring feels at once completely foreign and just right. I clench my hand into a fist as I close the space between us, doing my damnedest to ignore Steve and Cassidy mere feet away.
There’s about a million tiny pearl buttons running down her spine from just below her shoulder blades all the way over the round curve of her ass. I’ve been with enough women to know she’s probably wearing shape-wear underneath, not sexy lingerie.
That knowledge doesn’t stop my mouth from going dry as I reach for the first button with shaking hands. At least she’s turned around so she can’t see me.
“Thank you,” she whispers. Her arms are crossed over the bodice of her dress, and her eyes are on an unknowable spot on the carpet in front of her.
Two buttons. Three. “Any time.”
Four, five, six. “You were kind to my mom, too.”
“She cares about you,” I murmur. Seven through ten. We never met each other’s parents the first time; our relationship was four months of heat punctuated by laughter. The thought of how we were still warms me through.
She takes a deep breath and shakes her head, dangly earrings brushing her bare neck. “I’m sorry your parents weren’t here.”
I freeze, button fifteen in my hands.
Before I can speak, she says softly, “I noticed the seats were empty. I just … don’t know much about your family.”
I clear my throat. My fingers resume my work on the buttons, and I give her the barest sliver of information. “My mom … couldn’t make it.”
“Oh.” The word is soft. Loaded. She probably thinks my mom doesn’t approve of me being on the show, marrying a complete stranger. The truth is far from it.
Button twenty slips free where Andie’s waist dips into the curve of her ass. I swallow. The back of her dress is open enough now she can probably handle it from here. My fingers move lower to button twenty-one.
It’s the closest to a real conversation I’ve had with her in ten fucking years. I’ll be damned if I just walk away now. She seems like she’s done talking, though. So there’s nothing left for me to do but to stare at the skin that’s making itself known on her back. She’s got freckles there too. The urge to trace them like constellations—like I used to—slams into me, and I let out a heavy sigh.
My breath skims down her back and she shivers, goose bumps rising on her exposed skin. Also making itself known are all the places the dress has been digging into her body.
There’s a spot just above her right hip that’s raw enough it looks like it’s bleeding. An unwieldy frustration slams into me so suddenly I flinch—why didn’t she say anything? I could have helped her with this earlier. Could have snuck away and loosened her dress or found a way to pad that spot or—
I close my eyes and take a shaking breath through my nose.
Andie looks over her shoulder, eyes wide and tired and apprehensive. “What?”
I slip the last button through its eyelet and run my finger down one of the red marks from her dress. “You should have told me you were hurting.”
Her eyes grow cold, shuttered. I somehow said exactly the wrong thing, undoing any progress we just made. Holding her bodice up with one arm and fisting her skirt in the other, she huffs, “I can take it from here.”
She used to go soft for me, warm and pliant in my arms, trusting me to keep her safe. Now all I get is her gleaming armor, reflecting all my mistakes back at me.
Steve and Cassidy stick around while we brush our teeth and wash our faces. Andie climbs into the big bed with me just long enough to hear the latch close behind them when they finally leave.
Andie throws off the comforter, mumbling, “I’ll sleep on the couch.”
I don’t argue with her. Not because I won’t gladly take the couch, but rather because I know she’s too far gone to change her mind now anyway.
Only when she turns out the light in the living room do I turn out my light too.
I should have kept my mouth shut about the marks on her back. She’d never liked to hear she was human. In her mind, she’s some sort of warrior who can handle anything. In a way, I suppose she is. She hadn’t run screaming from me at the altar today, even when I gave her the option. Rubbing my hand over my mouth, I can’t fight a smile—her stubborn pride might be exactly what I need.