Chapter 27 Reasons to Say No
REASONS TO SAY NO
THE DAY OF THE live finale and wedding, I was nervous, but I figured everyone was nervous on their wedding day.
I hadn’t been allowed to see Aaron that day, and I’d only had a few moments with my family before I was ushered into a trailer for hair and makeup.
They’d put me in a wedding dress like one I could’ve gotten from LuAnne’s.
It was fifty percent tulle and fifty percent sequins, which the director had assured me would look amazing on-screen.
There was a cameraman capturing B-roll footage of me getting ready, but the atmosphere was relaxed until an assistant rushed in and whispered something to Sloane.
The assistant’s voice dropped, and Sloane started typing frantically on her phone.
I could tell that something was up, but beneath it all was the buzz of excitement that I assumed was pre-show enthusiasm.
It wasn’t until later that I realized all that excitement was coming at the expense of my heartbreak.
Sloane ducked out and reappeared minutes later with Aaron trailing behind her. A cloud of hairspray still hung in the air as he stepped toward me.
So much about our romance was out of the ordinary, but I remember a rush of disappointment that our first look wouldn’t be down the aisle. I’d already compromised on so much, it hurt to have another part of the dream whittled away.
Another cameraman followed behind Aaron, which wasn’t out of the ordinary on the LovedBy set, but the hum of anticipation vibrating from the producers was.
Aaron cleared his throat. “I have to tell you something.” He had on a white tuxedo jacket. The bloodred rose pinned to his lapel had come loose and sagged toward his armpit. He leaned against the makeup counter and folded his hands together, then refolded them.
It was unnerving to see him looking so uneasy.
One of the things I’d loved most about Aaron was his confidence.
Other people described it as cocky, but I’d always admired people who seemed to know exactly what they wanted and then put the work in to get it.
And that was what I thought I was getting with Aaron.
A professional athlete, who’d devoted himself to perfecting his game, and then, once he realized that work wasn’t everything, that he needed someone by his side to make everything worth it, he’d taken a leap and signed up for a reality TV show just like I had.
Then he’d applied that same confidence and diligence to winning me over.
I’d never had that kind of self-assuredness.
I wanted to succeed, but I’d always needed someone to point me in the right direction. For most of my life it was my mom.
I floundered a little bit after college. I didn’t have any more classes to ace or dance routines to nail. It’s part of the reason I went on LovedBy. Emma signed me up for it, and I didn’t have a better plan, so I went all in, and ended up with the grand prize—the perfect husband.
Except, he wasn’t looking too perfect right then.
And it was in that moment, I just… knew.
SINCE THEN, PEOPLE WONDERED—OVER and over again on Reddit and Instagram and TikTok—how I could’ve been so blind to Aaron’s deception.
For months after, I beat myself up over not being able to tell there was someone else.
For glossing over all his red flags—the narcissism and the arrogance, the pride and the vanity.
If I didn’t let myself see those traits—which were right there, on full display during our brief engagement—it’s no wonder Aaron was able to also hide his relationship with Cara from me.
It was especially easy because we weren’t allowed to be together after the show except in highly controlled settings for very brief stretches of time.
After Aaron and I had ridden off into the sunset together, we’d been flown to Cabo for a weekend in a villa, then had taken staggered plane rides home so no one could figure out that we ended up together.
After the show was over, we’d visit each other every other weekend in a safe house where no one could see us.
The whole time, we were planning a wedding.
I watched our episodes as they aired while we were apart, and I felt myself falling in love with him all over again.
I ignored the interviews with the other guys saying he was antagonistic and combative, chalking it up to his competitive nature and his love for me.
He truly cared for me, so of course he’d do whatever he needed to win.
And the weekends we were together that he spent glued to his phone for “work,” I explained away as ambition.
The snide comment about how many more followers I had on social media was a joke that landed poorly.
We had about two weeks between the final episode of our season airing and the wedding that the producers had talked us into.
It didn’t happen after every season of LovedBy, but there was always the possibility.
I hadn’t been keen to do it, but Aaron was adamant.
We knew that we loved each other, why not get the rest of our life together started right away?
Wasn’t the paycheck we were going to receive just a bonus?
How could we turn down this perfect nest egg on which to build a future?
So, I’d said yes. Because I did believe my future was Aaron, and I did want to give us the best financial start.
Most of the planning fell to me. I made decisions about table settings and flowers from the limited options I was allowed by the show, and I made them alone. What should have struck me then is that I didn’t wish I was making those decisions with Aaron; I wished I’d been making them with my mom.
The closeness we’d had on the show, the certainty I felt when I said “yes” to him strained across the distance, but I convinced myself whatever issues we were having would fix themselves once we were able to be together.
We’d “put in the work” on the show, and we were ready to move forward into our Happily Ever After.
On LovedBy, we’d laid out all of our past relationships. And I talked about my high school boyfriend and the two guys I dated in college, but they were all kind of typical relationships that ended without much drama. None of it even made the edit.
Aaron’s romantic history had a touch more going on. He’d had a pretty serious relationship in college and was heartbroken when that ended. So the show really leaned into how guarded he’d been ever since. Hadn’t allowed himself to fall in love in years. Until me.
We’d been having a conversation on a Venetian gondola when he looked in my eyes and said, “I’m ready to love again.
” In that moment, the Italian sunset glinting off the canal around us, I’d felt so lucky.
I’d convinced myself we were meant to be, and the producers had encouraged that feeling.
I was so lucky he let his walls down for me.
What a gift it was that this great guy was willing to open himself back up to love for my sake.
It was a testament to the fact that we were the real deal—not just a made-for-TV romance.
And I really believed that. Until it all came crashing down—on the very day that was supposed to launch our happily ever after.
AARON STOOD AWKWARDLY IN the hair and makeup trailer. I waited for him to say something, but he didn’t.
“Okay… so what’s going on?” I asked him, sure that it was something bad, but still hoping, praying internally that maybe my instincts were off, and he was just having jitters.
But the nerves that had been bubbling up through the morning started boiling.
I wanted to ask for the cameramen to leave the room.
I wanted to have whatever conversation Aaron and I were about to have in private, but there was no universe where that would happen.
I could feel the gravity of the situation begin to descend, and I hated that I’d bartered away such an important moment of my life for a paycheck.
Finally, he cleared his throat. “There’s this girl who I was kind of seeing before the show—nothing serious.
I was always completely up-front with her.
” He didn’t look me in the face though. He addressed the entire conversation to a point over my left shoulder.
“But she’s going to the press and saying that we were dating during the show. ”
“Okay.” Now it was my turn to fold my hands together. I placed them carefully on my lap. “Why would she think y’all were still dating?”
“I don’t know. I think she’s crazy.” Aaron ran a hand through his hair, disturbing the carefully coiffed part. “Women get that way around pro athletes, you know?”
“If it’s not a big deal, why are you telling me?”
“Sloane thought you should know.”
I look over his shoulder to the producer hovering behind the cameraman.
“There’s an article coming out,” she said. “I think you should read it.”
Aaron tensed as she handed me an iPad.
I caught sight of myself in the mirror. Even with my carefully applied spray tan, the color had drained from my face.
For the first few seconds, I didn’t even really see the screen in front of me. A sharp whine started in my ears, and the shapes of the letters stopped making sense, the lines and curves that I’d been able to read for two decades splintering apart.
I blinked and forced myself to focus. I knew that the cameras were zoomed in, desperate to catch my reaction, but in that moment, I didn’t want to give them anything. I pulled in a deep breath and tried to project cool serenity.
The image on the screen was a screenshot, but I was able to zoom in to see the words.
Some girl named Cara was saying she and Aaron had been together for a year.
There were quotes from this girl Cara’s friends confirming their relationship.
There were multiple photos of them together.
One where he was kissing her on the cheek and one at a major golf tournament.
Then there was a photo that made me gasp.
My calm exterior shattered. In it, he was wearing a shirt I bought for him that first weekend we were in Cabo.
“This photo is from after we got engaged.”
“I’d gone to break things off with her,” he said, quickly.
“If it wasn’t serious, why did you need to break things off with her?”
“It wasn’t. But I wanted a clean slate for us. I know how it looks—”
The high-pitched whine crested into one long scream and the snapped into silence. “It looks like you were lying to me.”
“I wasn’t—” he started, but I didn’t let him finish.
“Get out.”
“Babe, it’s not serious. She’s nobody.”
“We’re over.” My voice shook, but my hands were steady on Sloane’s iPad.
They escorted Aaron out, and ten million people watched me burst into tears.