Chapter 16

Two weeks were not a long time. Even less so if you had to find a slutty dress that wouldn't be torn apart by the press, and that flattered your figure to boot. After three fruitless shopping afternoons, Emma was convinced that her body was simply shaped in a way dresses didn't like. Why else would they all look as if she was wearing either a sack or a sausage skin?

Then she remembered how Michelle had conjured a fitting dress for her at the auction. Three days before the event and panicking more than a little, Emma called her to ask for help.

Michelle was more than delighted by the idea of finding the perfect dress for Emma – she was practically red-hot. Four hours and some guilty feelings (for Michelle declared how happy she was that Luke had finally found someone who deserved him) later, Emma knew that it wasn't the dresses who had conspired against her, it was simply that she had no taste and no inkling of what suited her well.

Michelle not only managed to find a red dress, which made Emma feel a little more beautiful than average for once, she also materialized a pair of shoes that were comfortable and still made her legs look longer – and all that for a price she could afford.

Well, okay, she could not really afford the dress. It was scandalously expensive, but also looked scandalously amazing. Luke had offered to pay for her outfit, but Emma had refused to accept a single cent from him. Hence there was now a several-hundred-dollar hole in her bank account.

In the meantime the press had calmed down, though Emma and Luke had made it to the front page of InTouch two more times.

The first time it had been:

Moving in: Will Carter settle down with his Cinderella?

And then there was:

Do we hear wedding bells? Did Luke Carter elope with his German gal?

Emma had no idea how they came up with the second headline, but she didn't care. The rumor would die this Saturday. Yesterday Luke had confessed that there would be a red carpet, and his agent had asked him to give an interview, together with his girlfriend. For only when a couple had given an interview, the press would file it under ‘really an item' and ‘apparently happy.'

Who had come up with all these bullshit rules? Could you sue them and take them to court?

But even if Emma had been given the opportunity to sue or beat up the culprit, that wouldn't have dissipated her nervousness. She knew she could talk; she did a lot of it every day, also in front of an audience. But not into a camera, for an imagined audience, who would be sitting in front of their TVs.

Luke promised that it would only take a few minutes, before they could escape into the gala hall, but that didn't help either. Emma simply didn't think she could tell anyone with a straight face how much in love she was and that she actually felt like Cinderella – for Wes thought they should pick up the magazine's headline.

The thing was, she didn't feel like Cinderella. She felt more like Sleazerella, at least in comparison to all the other beautiful women who were sure to attend the event as well.

"Then let me do the talking. I've been lying to the press for ten years now. Not a problem," Luke had said, slapping on the kind of grin that made Emma want to hit him and kiss him at the same time.

"But what if they address me directly?"

"Then you nod and smile, and show them your tits."

That had made her slap him, and rush back to her room in a huff.

But no matter how big the fear monster was, the day arrived, and Emma had only the gorgeous dress to brighten up her mood.

***

What did women do to their faces, that justified spending this much time in the bathroom?

Luke was sitting on the armrest of his couch, thinking that the only legitimate reasons were a nose job or a complete facial reconstruction. Why did women need false lashes when they had real ones? And why did they have to curl their hair if their natural hair was straight? Why was no woman ever satisfied with what she had?

"I'm coming out now," he finally heard a voice from the bathroom. "Don't you dare say anything but ‘hot!'"

The door opened, and Luke suddenly wished she was wearing a sack instead. Because then maybe he wouldn't feel this aching tug deep in his loins, searing his brain with the thought that there was no need to go out tonight, but an absolute necessity to take off that dress again and do some things the press must never find out about. At least once in each room.

She turned around in a circle.

Twice. At least twice in each room.

Good God, she was pure, scarlet-red temptation. The dress had thin straps, both front and back neckline were dangerously low-cut, but not low enough to offer more than an appetizer for the imagination. And while the fabric clung rather tightly to her breasts, it fell softly and flatteringly from the waist downwards. She looked like snow-white's apple, luring him to take a juicy bite.

"Hot," he said and swallowed, his eyes glued to the apparition before him.

You're older than fourteen,he warned his groin as he rose to his feet. "I'm thinking I should forbid you to go out like that. I'm worried you might become somebody else's mock girlfriend in no time."

He had meant it as a joke, but he couldn't shake the feeling that the assumption wasn't too far-fetched.

Meanwhile, he saw the relief in Emma's face. "You like it! Oh thank God."

Like it?

That was the understatement of the century. He was of a mind to pull her close and show her just how much he liked it.

"Can we go? Are you ready?"

His throat was dry, so he merely nodded. "Don't you have a coat?"

It wouldn't be quite so tantalizing if she wore a coat.

Emma put on a thin, black coat, and as soon as she buttoned it up, Luke couldn't think of anything but what was underneath that coat. That had been a lead balloon.

"Let's go," he said and headed out the door before her. He didn't know how else to handle it, so he took recourse to a little rudeness.

For once, they left the building through the front entrance, not the parking garage. Despite Emma's protest, Luke had insisted on renting a limo.

That was the way the red carpet world worked. If you drove up in your own car, you were greeted by contempt.

During the first few minutes of the ride, they chatted, but Luke quickly realized that Emma became increasingly taciturn, the closer they came to their destination. That was not only untypical for her, he also didn't like it at all. She shouldn't have to feel uncomfortable. She was usually so self-confident, his heart tightened with a bittersweet ache at her shyness.

"No need to be scared," he murmured next to her and took her hand in his. "They're more afraid of you than you are of them."

She tried to smile, but failed. "That's a lie and you know it."

He knew it, but it had been worth a try.

"Just remember," he tried a different tack, "it can't get any worse than what was already in the papers."

Emma looked out the window with an agonized face, and took off her coat for her grand appearance. She was wearing her hair loose tonight, tucked back a little on one side, giving it an asymmetric look.

"Yes, it can. My mother could fly over and try to bring me back to Germany, thinking I've been spoiled and corrupted by the Americans."

He chuckled. "She wouldn't do that."

"You don't know my mother."

She was right about that, but he couldn't think of a better way to dispel her fears. He had to reassure her.

"We're here, Mr. Carter," the driver chimed in at that moment. "Shall I open the door for you?"

"Give us one more minute," Luke said and took Emma's chin in his hand, turning her face towards his.

"Hey," he said softly and stared into her dark eyes, which for the first time since he knew her were not filled with flashes of light, but rather something akin to fear. Emma Sander was a fearless woman – and he hated to see her like this now, simply because a few cameras would be waiting for them outside.

"I'm going to protect you, Emma. You might not want to hear that, being an emancipated woman and all, but I'll take care that everything goes smoothly. You look incredible, and that's the thing you'll read in the magazines tomorrow. We're going to speak with the press people for two minutes, let them take a photo of us together, and then it'll be over. Okay?"

He could see her lips tremble, but she nodded. "Okay."

"Good." He kissed her on the lips, gently and fleetingly. The gesture felt more intimate than it should have, Luke thought, and he didn't even mean that in a sexual sense. He pulled away with a smile. "Let's get it over with. Bill, would you please open the door for the lady?"

***

The frenzy of flashing cameras began, before Emma could do so much as set foot on the red carpet. Her heart beat so fiercely that she was scared her heart would be pumped through her body in double time, and she would end up fainting. But Luke held her hand tightly in his, and when he leaned down and whispered into her ear, "Smile, beautiful," she actually managed a genuine laugh.

The whole situation was absurd. She was standing on a red carpet, hand in hand with what must be the most coveted baseball player in the United States, about to head inside and drink two-hundred-dollar champagne. Maybe telling the press hounds that she felt as if she'd woken up in a fairy tale wouldn't be so hard after all.

Luke pulled her along the red carpet with him, until they stood in front of a screen that spelled out the gala's motto, and the frenzy of flashes began again. Only now a bunch of different people yelled over each other and demanded various poses. One request was repeated several times.

"Kiss your girlfriend already, Luke!"

He gave her a wide grin. "Alright, let's give the jerks what they want," he murmured, before putting an arm around Emma's hips and kissing her. Not the light, gentle kiss he'd given her minutes earlier, but the kind of kiss that made the photographers go crazy, and made Emma forget where she was, if only for a second. Even made her forget for a moment that it was only for the cameras, and had nothing to do with any feelings Luke might harbor for her.

But the moment ended as soon as someone called: "An interview, please, Mr. Carter!"

He pulled away from her and resumed walking with the assured steps of a man who had done this kind of thing a thousand times before. Emma had to force herself not to cling to his arm like a small, frightened little girl. She hardly knew herself anymore. She was a strong woman! A strong woman who was afraid of cameras, it seemed.

A microphone was stuck in their faces. "How did you and her meet, Mr. Carter?"

He laughed. "We met in Germany. She was a waitress and refused to give me a table in the restaurant. She didn't know me and had no idea what I do or who I am."

The reporter laughed and focused on Emma now. That was enough to make her blush. "That must have come as quite a shock to you, when you found out who he was."

Emma ignored the panic in her gut and nodded. "You can say that again."

The man was obviously satisfied with that, for he turned back to Luke. "There were rumors about a secret wedding; do you want to comment on that?"

Luke laughed again, interlaced his fingers with Emma's, who admired his casualness. "Let's just say that you can be sure about one thing: If I had gotten married to Emma, the diamond on her ring would refract all the light, and none of you people would get a decent picture because of that. Have a nice day."

He nodded at the team and pulled Emma along with him, until they reached the door. No more cameras were in sight, and Emma's pulse was slowly going back to normal.

"That was it," Luke smiled. "Are we headed for the bar now?"

She sighed and looked up at him. "You must be a mind-reader."

This party was a far cry from the bowling gala or the engagement party. There was a live band and only little food, but even more alcohol to make up for it, and many more famous people, even some that Emma would have recognized on her own – apart from the baseball guys of course.

They were led to a table close to the stage, and then there were a few speeches up there. After an hour of those, she still couldn't have said what this gala was for, but at least she knew for a fact that money didn't automatically equal mastery of rhetoric or elocution.

Luke seemed to know everyone and no one. He greeted everybody, shook hands, distributed kisses to the cheek, but eighty percent of the time, when Emma asked who the last person had been, he furrowed his brow and shrugged his shoulders.

"Maybe a politician? Or a singer? No idea, sorry. Could have been somebody's gardener, too."

Emma couldn't blame him. There were simply too many people who called themselves celebrities and stuck their noses up in the air to prove it. Just such a person was headed their way now, and Emma got the impression that this woman was even more stuck-up than the rest of them. Which was not simply due to her eight-inch heels.

"What about her?" Emma touched Luke's arm and nodded in the Barbie's direction. She thought the woman looked familiar. Maybe she had seen her in a magazine? "Let me guess: She's a playmate?"

He grinned, followed her gaze with his eyes, and inhaled with a hiss. He turned his back on the woman and looked at Emma. "This one I happen to know, and yes, she's a playmate," he finally said under his breath, and with a certain expression. Emma didn't have to think long to know what his look meant: It was guilt.

She squinted and nodded slowly. "Okay, so that means you slept with her," she concluded and instinctively grabbed his arm more tightly, though she barely noticed that.

"How could you …"

"Your face, Lucky. Your face."

He gave a resigned nod and then a sigh. "But only once. And it was more of a slip anyway."

"When you say ‘slip,' do you mean there was a banana peel in your way, and you didn't pay attention and ended up on top of her?"

He made a face. "No, more like, I didn't plan on sleeping with her, and as I said, it was only once, without due consideration. That's what I call a slip."

She frowned. "Like me, then? Only once and a slip?"

His expression darkened. "Emma, you can tell yourself that if you want to, but you were anything but a slip. I wanted you, you wanted me, and you were lucky enough to get me."

She raised her eyebrows in slow motion and stared at him with an open mouth.

"Uh, I mean … I was lucky enough to get you."

"Ah."

He swore under his breath. "I know that wasn't the best way to put it."

It wasn't. But Emma knew he had no reason to justify himself. It was his life, she wasn't his girlfriend, and even if she were – the playmate was a notch in his bedpost, and probably an older notch, at that. And yet she had a sinking feeling in her gut, wondering how many women might have screamed Luke's name in the bed that was only five yards away from the one where she was currently sleeping. There was a sudden lump in her throat. Not a comfortable feeling. It even hurt a little.

"Emma, I …"

But Luke couldn't finish his sentence, for the playmate had reached them, and now she was tapping his shoulder with her long, red plastic nails. She was tall, almost reached his eye level. Which only meant that she was in a better position to look down on Emma.

"Luke! Fancy seeing you here! What a coincidence! I haven't seen you in ages!"

Coincidence? Half of Philadelphia and half of New York City had assembled here tonight. The blonde pulled Luke into an embrace, causing Emma to let go of his arm if she didn't want to be crushed in the fray.

"Well," Luke wriggled out of her embrace and threw Emma an apologetic glance, "it hasn't been that long, actually. Don't you remember the bowling gala?"

"Oh, right." The blonde giantess threw her head back and laughed – and Emma's jaw dropped.

Of course she seemed familiar! She was the woman in the picture. The picture from the bowling gala!

"My memory is like a sieve. Silly me."

Emma agreed with the silliness.

"No big deal," Luke said politely and put a warm hand on the bare part of Emma's back. "May I introduce you to my girlfriend? Emma, this is Brittany. Brittany, this is Emma."

Emma smirked to herself, thinking that Luke must have practiced. The word ‘girlfriend' hadn't left his lips this smoothly before now.

The playmate blinked and turned to Emma. "Nice–meeting–you," she said loudly and slowly, as if Emma was not only German, but also dumb and deaf.

Emma gave her mock boyfriend a doubtful look and switched to German. "And you really slept with her? Do her breasts feel as fake as they look?"

"What did she say? Why does it sound so strange?" Brittany's voice was like a fire alarm.

"It's called a foreign language, darling." Emma's face reddened. "If her breasts are fake, they obviously used her brain matter to boost them."

Luke was choking on something – maybe his own tongue – and coughed under his breath. It was obvious that he didn't know what to say, and the tension in his shoulders subsided only when Jake patted them and announced that the press wanted to get a picture with the entire team.

Emma gave her mock boyfriend a grave look, hoping he would read her thoughts, which threatened bad things if he left her alone now.

But his telepathic skills seemed to work only before sunset, since he gave her a kiss on the cheek and whispered: "I'll be right back; don't run away."

Then she saw only the back of his tuxedo, and was left facing Brittany, who could easily suffocate her with her breasts, or stab her with her heels. None of those options seemed an easy way to die.

"So you're Luke's girlfriend, huh?" The smile on Brittany's face was as fake as her breasts, and the sugary sweet undertone in her voice made Emma stand up straighter of her own accord.

"In the flesh," she forced out and crossed her arms. She wanted to run away, but she didn't know where to run.

"How long do you expect to survive?"

"Excuse me?" For a moment, Emma thought of the ‘death-by-breast-suffocation' scenario again, but then she realized what Brittany was getting at.

The blonde laughed. "You don't really believe he's going to be satisfied with someone like you for long, do you? What are you, a size ten? Or twelve?"

Emma felt her palms starting to sweat, and she couldn't stop the blood rushing to her cheeks yet again.

"What does that have to do with anything?" she asked coolly, but she already knew the answer.

It had everything to do with all of it. She only had to remember Luke's conquests so far.

"You know, you might be wearing a nice dress tonight, but that's not going to turn you into a model tomorrow morning. Luke is going to dial my number again, before your hometown will be connected to the internet." Brittany's voice was still as cloyingly sweet as before. "And everyone knows it, little Emma. What did the press say? You're like Cinderella. But this is not a fairy tale. Maybe you're a nice girl, and thus a nice distraction for someone who's already had everything else, but you cannot seriously believe that you will ever be enough." Her laugh was high-pitched and jarring, showing her too-white, too-regular teeth.

Emma did her best not to let it get to her, but a lump was rapidly forming in her throat again, and spreading down into her lungs.

She wasn't enough.

Couldn't fulfill the ‘demands' befitting a certain position. The words echoed in her head, and she wanted to shake them, wanted to tell herself that Stefan wasn't worth worrying about the words he'd said a long time ago. But it didn't matter whether he was worth it. The words had been spoken and had taken root. Had festered inside her. She was only a mock girlfriend, and who knew if she would ever find someone who wanted to erase the ‘mock' before the ‘girlfriend.' Someone for whom she was enough. The way she was.

"Least of all for a man such as Luke," Brittany went on and laughed again. "All he has to do is snap his fingers. Every single starlet in Hollywood would jump at the chance."

She snapped her own fingers to illustrate it, and Emma blinked, warning her burning eyes not to lose it now. She was stronger than this. She wouldn't allow her ex-fiancé to ruin her life. Fine, so he had dumped her one month before the wedding. Yes, he had sent her a fucking text message that said: I am sorry, Emma, but we're not a good fit. A man in my position needs a wife befitting that position, meeting a few basic demands. I'm sorry that I've only now realized you cannot fulfill those demands.

But that was long past. Stefan had been wrong. He had been the one who wasn't enough, couldn't fulfill her needs and demands.

She swallowed hard and looked Brittany in the eye.

"And yet you're the more pathetic one," Emma said in a quiet voice, turned away, and headed for the terrace. She needed fresh air.