Chapter 21

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

KENNEDY

“Stop glowering at them,” Tina tells Zach, but from the way she’s beaming at him, it’s obvious she kind of enjoys the glowering. Turning to me, she says, “So which one is he, Kennedy? It’s that Marcus guy, isn’t it? He’s pretty.”

Zach shifts his glower to her. “ Pretty? ”

“What? He is!”

It’s Friday, family day, thank God, and Zach and Tina are here. Tina, at least, seems pleased about it. Zach, who’s usually the life of any party, looks like he wants to be the death of this one.

Then again, he’s made it very clear what he thinks of me doing this show. Unlike our parents, he isn’t worried about how the publicity will reflect on him. His objections are twofold. He doesn’t think much of Maeve Mayberry—join the club—or of the kind of man who would willingly appear on a dating show—fair enough, as I’ve come to realize. We’re at a happy hour in the ballroom, enjoying appetizers and another champagne tower that Jonah hasn’t learned enough to stay away from, and Tina and Zach have hustled me over to a corner of the room to discuss the various guys. It would feel more intimate, more like a real family meeting, if there weren’t a cameraman hunched on his heels across from us, soaking in every moment and making it belong to Matchmaking the Rich.

I keep looking at the doors as if Rowan might stroll right in, but there’s no sign of him, of course. I haven’t seen or heard from him since he left, and even though it makes me feel helpless and angry and sad to admit it to myself, maybe I won’t. I tell myself it’s for the best. Yes, I feel a deep connection to him. He’s gorgeous and intense and soulful and so much more than the front he puts on for the world. But he’s also the man who turned me orange.

The room is warm tonight because he isn’t downstairs messing with the radiator, but I can’t deny that I want to be here about as much as Zach does. I don’t want to do this anymore. I do want Leto’s Hands to survive—I need it to—but it’s starting to feel like I’m no better than these guys. None of us are here because we believe in the show’s premise.

Worse, Harry has been giving me knowing looks for the past two days, but he refuses to tell me anything. Admittedly, I haven’t gotten a good chance to try to pry anything out of him. Yesterday, we all went to a chocolate factory, which sounds amazing, but Nana Mayberry convinced me to wear a white dress, of all things, saying I’d look like an “ethereal snow angel.” If I’d known about the chocolate, I would have refused, but she didn’t tip me off. So I only got to try a few non-messy things, although Jonah kept offering to feed me every thirty seconds. Two of the other guys, Quinn and Ray, got into a lengthy discussion about the subpar quality of the cocoa beans.

The cameras kept following me around, obviously hoping to catch some act of physical affection on tape, but I couldn’t bring myself to act my part. I kept seeing the look on Rowan’s face when he told me that if we really did this, if we really had sex, he couldn’t bear to watch me flirt with the guys.

He’s not here. He walked away from me. But even so…

“I have eyes,” Tina continues, gesturing to Marcus in a way that is sure to attract the attention of every single person in the room. I’m still getting used to her overenthusiastic physical gestures. She claims it’s because she’s Italian American and was taught to communicate in hand gestures before she learned to speak. “You definitely can’t send him home, Kennedy.”

“I like your eyes,” Zach says to Tina. “You have fine eyes.”

“Fine?” Tina quips. “As in adequate?”

“I meant it in the Regency sense.”

They’ve been on a Regency and Victorian movie kick since they run the Highland Hills branch of Tea of Fortune, and Tina has become obsessed with stories that include tea service and high tea.

“Well, my fine eyes have informed me that Marcus over there has a nice ass,” Tina says.

“It’s not him,” I blurt, without having meant to say anything.

The look of excitement on Tina’s face—and dourness on my brother’s—tells me what a big mistake I’ve made. Crap.

“Colton?” she asks, tipping her head. “He has a certain I’m a banker something.” Zach’s glower deepens. “Or maybe.” She snaps her fingers once. Twice. Makes a face. “Eh, I’m hazy on the others’ names.”

“Tell me it’s not Jonah,” Zach says, taking a gulp of his champagne. “For the love of Christ, tell me it’s not Jonah.”

I can practically feel the camera narrowing in on me, and my stomach feels sick. I was so looking forward to talking to Tina and Zach, to unburdening myself to them, but I can’t tell them anything real, because whatever I say will eventually end up on millions of television screens.

“Jonah has really nice hair,” I say flatly, recycling the line I used with Meathead.

“You know what, he really does,” Tina says, nodding adamantly. “I’d already decided to ask him about his conditioner.”

“You’re not going to ask him about his conditioner, Tina,” Zach says with a scowl. “It’s probably made out of the tears of virgins.”

Tina snorts. “Your sister’s almost thirty. She’s not a virgin. She’s safe from becoming part of Jonah’s conditioner.”

“Jonah claims he’s a virgin,” I interject, unable to help myself.

Zach chokes on the champagne he was downing but still manages to empty the glass. A production assistant hustles over with a silver tray to collect it and gives him a replacement. Zach takes it so quickly he almost knocks the tray over. Something sparks in Tina’s eyes, and she gestures for the PA to come closer. The production assistant looks like a cornered fly, but he takes a couple of steps toward her.

“I need some privacy with my future sister-in-law,” Tina says in an undertone. “She has a surprise visitor.”

“Oh, did they bring in Phillip?” the guy asks with interest. “I heard he refused.”

Zach swears under his breath at the mention of our brother. Of course Phillip refused. He’s our father’s second-in-command, and my father’s made it very clear that he is displeased with me and my refusal to walk the line that’s been painted for me.

“No, not that kind of visitor,” Tina says with another overeffusive wave of her hand. “The kind that comes once a month and ruins very expensive gowns.” She gestures to my blue silk dress. “You can see our predicament. Luckily, I always walk around with tampons in my purse. Never go anywhere without at least six, so I got her covered. We just need some alone time to get her all settled and ready to come back. But you can understand why we wouldn’t want to get all that on camera. Men can be a little squeamish when it comes to blood.”

Zach looks like he’s on the verge of laughing. But the PA, who doesn’t know it’s a ruse, looks liable to pass out.

He glances at the cameraman, as if hoping the other guy will bail him out, then returns his gaze to us. “B-b-by all means. It’s just…we were going to do some thirty-second waltzes in a few minutes, so try to come back quickly.”

“What the fuck is a thirty-second waltz?” asks Zach, whose look of horror is back.

“It’s a thirty-second waltz,” the PA says slowly, as if my brother’s a fool.

“Isn’t a waltz, by definition, longer than—”

Tina grabs my hands and waltzes me to the door.

“What on Earth?” I hear Nana Mayberry snap, to which the PA very loudly announces that I have my period.

Fantastic. My ears are burning, and I feel like the little girl who had to ask Nanny Rose what a period was because my mother had never told me.

But Tina has us out and through the door in seconds. “Okay, let’s find a bathroom. Do you know where we can find one? I haven’t spent time in this part of the house, and this place is laid out like one of those murder houses in movies where everyone gets killed but none of the other people hear it happening.”

She’s not wrong. I lead her to a bathroom, even as I say, “Do we actually need to go to one? I don’t have my period, obviously.”

“They don’t know that,” she says. “And yes, at least we can be pretty sure the bathroom’s not bugged.” She makes a face. “Reasonably sure.”

My heart beats faster, my mind dredging up that night down at the pool. Rowan, with his head between my legs. Rowan, without a shirt on. Rowan .

“You’ve got that lovesick look again,” Tina says as we reach the bathroom. She drags me in and turns on the lights. It’s not until she shuts and locks the door that she takes in the room’s theme—gnomes. There’s a gnome toilet paper holder, and the toilet is designed so the bowl looks like it’s being held up by two gnomes. The water dispenser in the sink is shaped like a gnome’s mouth.

“Seriously?” she says, making a hand gesture that bumps into my arm. “What the hell is wrong with these people?” After giving herself a full body shake, she skewers me with her gaze. “Okay, spill. You’re into someone, I can tell. Who is it? I have to warn you, though, I’m pretty sure Zach would challenge, like, ninety percent of these guys to a duel to the death rather than let them marry you.”

I laugh at the thought of Zach challenging Jonah to a duel. I’m pretty sure Jonah would tuck tail and run, or maybe he’d blurt out that he’s a virgin so Zach has nothing to worry about. Then I feel tears tracking down my cheeks.

“Oh, shit,” Tina says, instantly drawing me into a hug. “I didn’t mean it. Well, okay, I sort of meant it, but I’ll keep him from doing anyone bodily damage. Plus, let’s be honest, Zach’s not the type of guy who’d get into a physical brawl. He’s more likely to poke holes in a guy’s ego or order him a shitty drink on purpose.”

“It’s not that,” I say, pulling away. “It’s just…”

“What?” Tina asks, then tilts her head, studying me. “Wait…it’s not one of those guys, is it? To be honest, they all seem…”

“Like stuffed shirts?” I offer, because I’m sure that’s how Tina sees them. She’s one of the most light-hearted people I know.

“No,” she says. “They seem like they’re not for you. Is it one of the PAs? Crap. Was it the guy I told the period lie to?”

Sighing, I close the lid of the gnome toilet and sit. I probably shouldn’t tell her. There’s obviously no future with Rowan, the only man who’s ever turned me orange. Truthfully, though, the whole orange debacle doesn't hurt nearly as much as the way he walked out on me. It made everything we’d shared, which had felt so special, feel cheap and meaningless. Like a one-night stand, not that I’d ever had one of those.

But the words pour out anyway, like maybe they need to.

“It’s Rowan Mayberry,” I say on an exhale. “He’s been working on set as a handyman. Or at least that’s what I thought. He acted like he was helping out, but he admitted that he’s been trying to sabotage the show.”

“Oh, shit ,” she says with feeling, then gives a nod. “I can see it. He’s hot in this severe mountain man way. I guess you fought about the show?”

“Of course,” I say, getting worked up by the memory. “He knew why I wanted to do the show, why Harry wanted to do it, and he was still trying to mess things up.”

Tina nods again. “So what’d he do, anyway?”

I tell her, and she gives me an unreadable look. When I finish, she says, “Those aren’t the actions of a ruthless man, Kennedy.”

I kick at the base of the sink, a gnome, of course, with one foot. “I know that.”

The thought kept recurring to me last night, right when I was on the verge of falling back to sleep.

He has a heart.

In fact, it’s his warm heart, the secret tenderness he buries down deep, that has endeared him to me from the beginning.

“Tell me more,” she says, her eyes shining, as she perches on the edge of the sink.

“What about Zach?”

She waves a hand dismissively. “I told him I’d drive. He can get drunk on champagne and insult all your suitors.” A grin stretches across her face. “It only makes it funnier that he won’t be making jabs at the real one.”

I can’t tell her everything. I’ll keep Rowan’s secret about his parentage for as long as it is a secret, and my future sister-in-law definitely doesn’t need to know that I slept with him, or opened my legs to him that night at the pool, but I find myself telling her about most of it. The Christmas tree farm. Jay’s heart attack. Rowan bringing me the tree. His visit the other night…

When I finish, I pause, waiting for her response. I realize I don’t know how I want her to respond. I’d like her to be fired up on my behalf, definitely, but part of me also wants to know that she doesn’t judge Rowan too harshly for the role he’s played. I’m mad at myself for feeling that way—he left me as if I were nothing to him—but like most people, I’m not always logical.

“Okay,” she says slowly. “I ship it.”

“What?” I ask, but I’m laughing. Tina has that effect on me. From the moment I met her, I knew my brother had found the right person for him, the person who would be his partner and other half. One thing’s for sure, she will absolutely tell him whenever he’s being an idiot. Which is why I’m relieved she’s not calling me one now, I guess.

“You heard me,” she says.

I did.

“By the way, how freaking amazing are Harry and Oliver together?” she asks.

A smile stretches across my face. “Very. Harry seems really happy. He hasn’t even mentioned his hives today.” They’re barely hives at all at this point, just slight bumps that Nana Mayberry, of course, commented on several times, calling them everything from pimples to welts to warts.

“They’re coming by the tea shop tomorrow,” she says. “I can’t wait to tell them both they’re going to fall madly in love.”

My smile widens. What sets Tea of Fortune apart is that its servers are taught to interpret their guests’ tea leaves. “You’re not supposed to pretend, you know.”

She waves this off. “I won’t have to. Most of the tea leaves people leave behind look like hearts anyway.” With that, she takes my hand and tugs me up off the gnome toilet. “Now, let’s get back in there before your brother finds out Jonah’s not really a virgin.”

Laughter bursts from me again, but I go with her. We link arms on our way back to the ballroom. Being with Tina and Zach is so different from the gaping loneliness I’ve felt since Rowan left that I’m almost giddy from it. Or at least I would be if I didn’t know they’re going to be leaving soon, and I’ll still be here.

Before we go back in the room, I turn to her and ask in an undertone, “What in the world am I going to do, Tina?”

She smiles at me, and for all her lightheartedness, there’s an edge of sadness to it. “You’re going to put on a show.” She tilts her chin to the side. “And you’re going to make that man grovel. I think this situation calls for some good old-fashioned groveling.”

“I don’t even know if he—”

“Oh, he wants you,” she says knowingly. “If he didn’t, it would have occurred to him that the very best way to interrupt the show would be to steal the star out from under it. But he never tried to make what was happening between you public, did he?”

I consider it. Nana Mayberry knew things she shouldn’t have known about our night down at the pool, but Rowan had seemed pissed as hell about that. In fact, he’d stormed over to check my room for bugs.

“No, he didn’t.” I tell her, thoughtful. It feels like I’m missing something important, a revelation that’s hiding just beneath the water like a fish that won’t surface. It’s chased away by a rumble that comes through the thick doors. Is someone shouting?

“Well, there you go,” she says—and swings the door open onto chaos.

Zach is laughing his ass off, tears in his eyes, while Jonah and Marcus try to scale the trellises nailed to the walls of the ballroom. The cameramen are capturing it all on tape—they’ve split up, each focusing on one of the guys, who are at about the same place in their climb. Nana Mayberry, it looks like, is directing them. Harry and the other guys are watching with no small amount of interest, half of them clustered near Jonah while the other half are around Marcus.

We walk over to Zach. “What the hell’s happening?” asks Tina, who has a way of getting to the heart of things.

“I told them I’d give my approval to whoever can climb a trellis the fastest,” he says through laughter. “I said my sister needs the best in everything, including romance, and they’re not romantic enough if they can’t climb a good trellis like in Romeo and Juliet .”

“Gee, I’m glad you’re taking this so seriously,” I tell him, kind of aggravated. He was acting overly protective earlier, and now he’s pretending he’d hand me over to the highest bidder.

“You told me to have fun,” he says through more laughter. “This is me, having fun.”

“What if they hurt themselves?” I ask, but I’m the only one who seems particularly concerned. Everyone else is getting in on the action. Colton is even collecting bets from the other guys about which of them will reach the top first.

It’s Jonah. Of course it’s Jonah.

When he gets back to the bottom, victorious, I reach out to shake his hand, and he pulls me in for a kiss. It’s chaste, it’s dry, and we have about as much chemistry as two alkaline substances. He pulls away from me and pumps a fist into the air. My brother no longer looks all that amused, and Harry’s making a face that suggests the kiss looked about as inspiring as it felt.

“Do you like winners, Kennedy?” Jonah says to me in an undertone. Maybe he means it to be sexy, but it’s off-putting. Gross.

I glance at Marcus, who’s sulking. His foot went through part of his trellis, so I suspect the production team will be getting a bill from the Labelles. Luckily, he made it down safely. I spoke to him briefly before Jonah swept me into that unwanted kiss, and he begged me not to eliminate him tonight. He said Jonah brings something out in him, which is clearly true, and that he’d love the opportunity to bring me on an individual date. I’ll be doing a lot of that next week—going on individual or two-on-one dates with the four remaining guys.

Colton is chatting with Marcus now. Between their easy camaraderie and the cocoa beans conversation between Quinn and Ray, it seems like most of the guys have managed to make nice with one another.

What other choice have they had, Kennedy? a voice inside me chastises. You’ve ignored them to moon over a man who is actively trying to sabotage you.

Except Tina’s right. If Rowan had wanted to use me, I’d given him the perfect opportunity to blow the show to smithereens. He hadn’t used it.

“I’m going to go get changed,” I mutter, my mind elsewhere. Apparently, it’s not enough for me to wear one expensive gown in an evening. I’m supposed to change before tonight’s Rolex ceremony.

“I’ll help you,” Tina immediately offers, stepping forward.

“Me too,” Zach says, though he grabs another flute of champagne from a production assistant before joining us.

“You’re going to help your sister change?” Jonah asks.

“No, I’m going to convince her to send you home.” His eyes are twinkling as he says it, but that’s because Zach could twinkle in his sleep. He very clearly means it, and Jonah can tell.

Jonah glowers at him. “Your suit is a knockoff.”

“No,” Zach says, uncaring. “You know it’s not.”

The three of us go upstairs, Zach casually sipping his champagne. “I hate this house,” he says. “Did I mention that? The show’s even worse because it’s taking place in this godforsaken house.”

“Yes,” I say with a sigh. “You did mention that. You know, they asked us to refer to it as Labelle Manor,” I add, because I know it will make him laugh.

It does, and he adds,

“Every ghost and poltergeist in the county is probably drawn here.”

I shiver at the notion, even though I’m pretty sure the only ghost is Nana Mayberry, skulking about and spying on people.

There are cameras following us, of course, so we stick to small talk all the way to my room.

By the time we get there, I feel drained and depleted. I want to lock the door behind us so we can finish the rest of Jonah’s Scotch. I want to forget about the guys gathered downstairs. I definitely want to forget about Rowan.

But when I open my door, a tiny little bulldog puppy with an enormous red ribbon around his neck trots out to greet me.

My heart explodes in my chest.

“Well, shit,” Zach says. “It looks like there’s a note on his collar.”

Then my heart explodes again, for a different reason. The note reads A princess for a queen. Love, Jonah.

“You think anyone told him this dog has a dick?” Zach asks conversationally.