The real moment of truth Greer longed for was to tell Ford she loved him—and she would do it that very night. She’d wait until they’d packed everything up and left the beach. And then in her apartment kitchen, she’d make him some pasta carbonara, the way Jill had for her true love, and she’d confess her feelings.
She hoped he loved her, too.
She wouldn’t think about the future. All that mattered was now.
“There’s something I want to tell you,” he murmured in her ear. “Later tonight.” And then he squeezed her hand.
She smiled. “Me, too.”
And then they stood quietly waiting.
The cameraman with the stationary camera kept it poised on the two anchors beneath the painting over the mantel. And finally, finally, the anchors got to the crux of the matter … who had won the La Di Da Bridal contest? Who would get to wear the exquisite gown Royal Bliss at her wedding and keep it forever?
It would be something the winner could hold and touch, to remember her Perfect Wedding and the history associated with it! The fabulous royal story it came with, and the ones the winner would attach to it herself.…
“The public has voted, the race was extremely tight, but they’ve chosen a winner,” the male anchor said.
Greer held her breath.
“And that winner is”—the female anchor smiled broadly—“Serena McClellan!”
Serena gasped. Toni did, too. Lisa smiled and gripped her father’s hand. Greer felt a slow release of tension. She’d be okay. At least she knew that.
“Dr. McClellan, you’ve won Royal Bliss!” the female anchor said in a loud, clear voice.
With a happy cry, Serena turned to Wesley, who embraced her.
And Greer felt nothing. That is, she felt okay. She wasn’t torn up about it. It was odd. She’d thought she simply had to have that gown to be happy.…
Pierre would be ecstatic Greer had lost. So would Kiki. Ah, well, let them enjoy their petty revenge, Greer thought. She’d gotten a lot from entering this contest: new friends, a wonderful weekend with Ford. A sense that she could do anything she put her mind to doing, as she had in the bake-off. She smiled at the memory of the pink pegboard. Pierre would never be able to take those memories from her.
Wesley unfortunately made eye contact with Greer. For a split second, she froze. He did, too. But she clapped. She clapped and smiled, and she did her best to not only appear to be a good sport but to genuinely feel happy for Serena.
But how to do that when Serena’s fiancé had been so disloyal that very day?
Serena accepted a lovely trophy of a woman clad in a bridal gown from Henny and thanked the TV audience. Wesley stood beside her, his arm around her waist. “Thank you,” she said to her fellow future brides, her eyes wet with tears. “I got so much more from this contest than this beautiful gown. I made new friends.”
Exactly what Greer felt. And Lisa, too. It had been an amazing experience.
It wasn’t Greer’s fault, what Wesley had done. It wasn’t. But she felt terrible, nonetheless. She felt guilty. Now she realized that the other night he’d been playing footsie with her on purpose. Maybe he thought she’d liked it! She hadn’t said a word because she’d believed it had been an accident.
She should have spoken up sooner. Naïve, that was what she was. Naïve, and silly to have entered this contest, to have given up time at work for a gown. To have daydreamed about a gown—and not about what a wedding was truly about, the beginning of a day-to-day life of a couple who must always keep each other a top priority, who needed to communicate when things were going off the rails, as apparently they had with Wesley and Serena.
But did Serena know?
Greer clapped. And kept clapping. Ford did, too.
“It’s okay,” he told her.
“No, it’s not,” she said. She was worried about Wesley and Serena. And burdened by her unwitting part in the matter. She’d tell Ford later, and she’d ask him if she had in any way appeared to encourage Wesley that weekend.
And then the cameras were turned off.
The clapping stopped but not the talking. People were congratulating the couple.
“Excuse me,” said Kiki. “Excuse me, please.” She strode rudely through the crowd, blocking Lisa and Toni as they made their way over to speak with Serena. Greer didn’t move. She knew she had to go over there, too. She was trying to find the courage.
“Could you come with me and distract Wesley, please?” she asked Ford. “I-I want to congratulate Serena without him there. She’s right—we women did become friends.”
“Sure,” Ford said, and eyed her in a way that made her realize he knew something was up.
She’d told him as much when she’d denied that everything was okay. But she couldn’t explain, not right then. Later, she would.
They began to walk—but not hand-in-hand. She was too agitated for that.
“Everyone,” Kiki said, now at Serena’s side, “please be still a moment.” She raised her palms.
The room quieted. No one moved. Serena was still smiling, but she appeared overwhelmed. Greer wasn’t surprised when Serena put her head on Wesley’s shoulder.
Kiki glanced at Serena coldly—which Greer found shocking; something in her knew something was terribly wrong. She braced herself.
Kiki lifted her chin. “It has come to my attention in the last five minutes that we have had some unethical behavior in the contest. But to interrupt the broadcast would have caused a great deal of dissatisfaction among the viewing public. And truthfully, there is nothing we can do. The winner stands as is, unless she forfeits her status. But…”
Serena lifted her head from Wesley’s shoulder, her mouth agape. “Why would I ever forfeit my status?”
Lisa’s brows were raised in puzzlement. Even world-weary Toni was wide-eyed.
Greer looked at Ford. What could be the matter? He gave her a light shrug, as always, reading her mind. They’d have to wait to find out.
Kiki looked at Greer. “The people who ran the contest didn’t know that Dr. Donovan”—Wesley’s new moniker—“was your former boyfriend, Miss Jones.”
Lisa and Toni swung their gazes to Greer. Lisa’s eyes registered hurt. Toni’s jaw jutted out, and her eyes narrowed.
“That doesn’t matter,” Greer said instantly. “He’s not anymore, and he hasn’t been for four years. He’s with Serena, who knows all about our former history. And I’m happy for them both.”
“That’s a gracious statement.” Kiki tossed her hair. “But it’s come to our attention that today at the hoedown Mr. Donovan expressed his devotion to you, Miss Jones, not to his own future bride.”
Greer blinked. How had they known that? Unless someone had overheard. But it had only been a matter of seconds. How?
“Are you denying it, Miss Jones?” Kiki said. “Why would you? When you’re the one who told me yourself via text?” She held up her cell phone. “I have the message right here.”
“I couldn’t have,” Greer cried. “I haven’t been using my cell phone. You said you just received the message in the last five minutes.”
“You sent it about an hour ago,” Kiki said, “when you were outside. I only just now saw it. I was too busy preparing for the announcement party to check my texts.”
Greer was flummoxed. “Show me that message.”
Kiki held out her phone. The text read: I never told you this, but Wesley and I dated for many years. He came on to me at the hoedown. He said he’s getting cold feet and wonders if we should be back together. Someone needs to tell Serena.
Greer couldn’t believe what she was reading. “I never sent this!”
“Show me!” said Serena. “I want to see!”
She looked down at Kiki’s phone, and her face turned beet red. “Wesley?”
“What?” he said desperately.
Kiki grabbed her phone back. “Incidentally, you came in second place, Miss Jones,” she said. “You and Serena were neck-and-neck.”
But Greer didn’t care. She didn’t care at all. “What’s going on here? How did that text get on your phone?”
“Greer?” Serena asked her in an urgent voice. “Is it true? What did Wesley say exactly?”
She shook her head. “I can’t remember. But he never said he didn’t love you, Serena. He does.”
Serena looked at Wesley next. “What did you say to Greer?”
He winced. “Nothing. I mean, I said something very stupid. And I regretted it immediately and was going to tell her later what a mistake it was. I got caught up in the moment, and to be honest, I was panicked about getting married. I got cold feet. But I love you, Serena. I don’t love her.”
Serena’s lower lip trembled. “What did you tell her?”
“Serena, it was a mistake,” Greer said quietly.
Wesley gripped Serena’s hands, but she yanked them away. “I told her I wondered if I should try to win her back,” he said, “but I don’t want to! I was being a fool!”
Serena burst into tears. Then looked at Greer. “And you felt the need to share this with Kiki? Not with me? You want the dress that much? You were trying to sabotage me and Wesley? Because guess what, it worked.” She strode over to Greer and shoved the trophy at her. “I want nothing to do with this contest, or this gown, or any of you! I’m through!”
And she stormed out the door to the back porch.
Wesley ran right after her. “Serena!” he called. “Serena!”
She ignored him.
Greer watched in stunned silence as they disappeared down the stairs.
With trembling hands she put the trophy on the piano and looked back at Ford. “I didn’t do this,” she said. “I never told Kiki anything. I’m not someone who would ever sabotage another person, no matter how provoked I was.”
But his expression was grim.
A horrible feeling coursed through her, part shock, part anger. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
“Of course, I believe you,” he said. “But as you say, you were put in a very difficult position, very unfair to you, and I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to call Wesley out. What he did was wrong.”
“I agree, but I didn’t call him out.” She glared at him. “I told no one.”
“Then explain those texts,” Toni said. “You said yourself how much you wanted the dress. From the very beginning, you said you wanted it. You wanted it so much you entered the contest as a partnerless bride.”
Greer remembered telling Ford how much she wanted the gown that very day at the hoedown.
“But that doesn’t mean—” She looked wildly around. Everyone was staring at her. “How can I explain—?” She blew out a breath. “I keep my phone locked. But I went to MIT. I know high-level hackers. Someone messed with Kiki’s phone. It’s within the realm of possibility.”
“But when I hear hooves, I think horses, not zebras,” said Toni’s boyfriend. “The most likely explanation is that you sent that text.”
“I didn’t,” she insisted. “Besides, why are you so focused on me? As soon as Wesley spoke, I got away from him. I was hoping he was caught up by a sense of misplaced nostalgia, or panic. I want him and Serena to be happy. He said so himself tonight that he regretted what he said.”
“That may be, but why did you never tell us about you and Wesley?” Lisa asked, sounding on the verge of tears.
“I didn’t think it was important,” Greer said. “I wanted to move on. So did he.”
Lisa shook her head. “Still, it feels wrong somehow.”
“I’m sorry,” said Greer. “People break up. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Then why did you hide it?” Toni asked. “I thought we were your friends.”
“You are, but it was because of reactions like this, and the general sense of awkwardness I wanted to spare Serena,” said Greer. “The only thing that went wrong was when Wesley spoke out of turn to me, and he’s apologized to Serena. He really owes me an apology, too, but I’m fine without one. I only want those two to patch up their differences. I want Serena to wear Royal Bliss at her wedding.”
She looked around. “Someone else caused this problem. Not me.” She pulled out her phone, went to her text messages, and held it up. “Look. There’s nothing here to Kiki—” And then she stopped, horrified. There was a text to Kiki. With trembling fingers, she opened it and saw the damning words:
I never told you this, but Wesley and I dated for many years. He came on to me at the hoedown. He said he’s getting cold feet and wonders if we should be back together. Someone needs to tell Serena.
Her jaw worked. “I have no idea how this got on my phone,” she said. “Or who sent it.” She tossed her phone on top of the piano. “Someone is setting me up, and they’re very sophisticated.”
Everyone was completely silent.
“I want to find Kiki.” Greer picked her phone up off the piano and swallowed the lump in her throat. “I know she’s at the bottom of this, she and Pierre. They both wanted me to lose and told me so. I don’t know what good it did them to make Serena so unhappy. But for some reason, they wanted her gone. They did this. They’re master manipulators.”
No one believed her, she could tell. It did sound ridiculous. And no one was willing to help her. Ford looked at her as if he pitied her.
“Lisa,” she said. “Toni. I don’t want the gown enough to do this. I really don’t. And now I don’t want it at all. Someone must have overheard Wesley today at the hoedown. Maybe one of the hired dancers. We were standing right next to a pair of them.”
But neither Lisa nor Toni said a word. Lisa’s father looked at her disapprovingly, and so did Toni’s boyfriend. The camera people silently packed up, stealing occasional glances at the drama. The anchor people and the TV station manager had moved to the kitchen.
Greer had to find Kiki. She stormed into the kitchen, gripping her phone tightly. “Where are you, Kiki? You’ve set me up, and you know it!”
But no one was there. She came back out to the living room, her legs and arms shaking, her breathing shallow.
Ford held his arm out. “Come on,” he said, his voice soothing and warm. “Let’s go to the room and pack up.”
She stared at him. She wasn’t a baby. She didn’t need to be led to her room like a naughty child only to leave in disgrace a few minutes later. She ignored him and walked past him, past all of them, up the stairs to the suite she’d shared with him so happily on the second floor, and started packing.
The portrait stood on its easel. She refused to look at it. How she ever could have thought Ford was seeing her, the real Greer, the one who wanted to be vulnerable and yet not be afraid? She didn’t think it was possible until she met him. And now, she realized it wasn’t. She’d put herself out there and been hurt, and she was afraid. What else could go wrong?
A lot!
Love didn’t change anything, after all, contrary to what Macy had told her.
She’d take a cab home. But she wanted to be gone quickly, before Ford came up and started treating her as if she were a rabidly ambitious contestant with no integrity.
She got out her phone, so repugnant to her now—someone had gotten into her account and had done something absolutely awful with it!—and made the call. There. In five minutes, the cab would be waiting outside. She could pack in five minutes.
Then she saw another text, this time from Pierre: Congratulations, Miss Jones. You won the La Di Da Bridal contest. Dr. McClellan has officially forfeited the contest. Royal Bliss is yours.
She jabbed at her phone’s keypad, adrenaline coursing through her, making spelling mistakes right and left so egregious that autocorrect couldn’t correct them properly. But her message was readable: Why did you do this? You wantd me to lose! Why did you chinge your mine? I don want Royal Bliss anymore. Give it to somone else!
But she never got an answer.