A new dress in a thick garment bag labeled Mac Duggal was delivered to Arielle’s hotel room Friday night.
Arielle wore it on Saturday for the colossal golf convention in the Javits Center. The dress was white and flowing, of course. The vanilla confection was saved from being preciously prim by a high thigh slit.
But it was definitely a virgin suit for a marriage proposal.
Fine.
That morning, Arielle meditated and, when that didn’t calm her mind, played games on her phone. She cut the rope, matched the tiles, and caught five pikachus, and yet her mind roiled with the impending day.
It wasn’t a real proposal, she decided.
So it didn’t count.
Mitchell’s proposal would be just like she was acting in a play. The actress playing Christine Daae didn’t really get kidnapped by the Phantom at the Paris opera house. The singers playing Les Misérables didn’t really lose a revolution and meet Madam Guillotine.
Arielle wasn’t really being proposed to that afternoon. She was just acting a part in a play.
The whole stunt was nothing but a commercial for Match Play after all. It was just business.
So it didn’t count.
Arielle stayed in the opposite corner of the Match Play promo booth from Mitchell, doing her job to extol the various virtues of the app and help people sign up for memberships.
Several couples came into the booth and shyly told her they’d met on Match Play. Arielle fawned over them because they seemed happy, and who wouldn’t be happy that other people had found someone to love who loves them? Their happiness was good. It increased the amount of love in the world. That was good. She was genuinely happy for them.
But it hurt, too, that she hadn’t found anyone, but at least they had. Maybe their happiness meant there was hope for her someday.
Mitchell was fidgety, tapping his pockets, especially the one on the left side of his suit jacket that pulled the fabric of his coat, something heavy for its small size.
The day passed too fast.
Just after three o’clock, Mitchell motioned her over. “You’re going to be okay with this, right?”
“Yeah, sure,” Arielle said, waving her hand to pretend it didn’t matter one whit. “You’re right. It’s just an acting job. It’s just business.”
Mitchell was staring at her as if trying to analyze something, which was weird.
Arielle touched her face. “Is my lipstick smeared?”
“No, you’re perfect, and of course, you’re right. But—”
“But what?”
“Never mind.” A small piece of paper fluttered out of his suit jacket as he walked away.
“Hey, Mitchell!” She stooped and swiped the index card from the floor.
One side of the card had a few lines from the proposal essay she’d read the previous night—swiped right like a wicked banana slice. This wasn’t surprising because seventy-two percent of Match Play members—and the backside had facts and figures about the app, including that their dropout rate after six months was less than five percent and their month-over-month growth was over thirty percent.
The bottom of the card read, Now is a great time to join Match Play and meet your Match.
Of course, Mitchell Saltonstall wouldn’t leave anything about this marketing opportunity to chance. He’d been practicing because their proposal was an important promotion for Match Play.
So damn typical.
She held the card out to him.
Mitchell plucked the card from between her fingers. He removed additional cards from the inside pocket of his suit jacket and riffled them, inserting the fallen one in its exact place. “Thanks.”
He walked away, tapping the funny lump in his suit pocket again, and didn’t look back.
Yeah, Mitchell was probably looking forward to this sham proposal every bit as much as Arielle was. Misery loves company.
This was probably his first proposal, too.
Later in the afternoon, reporters began to fill the area roped off for the press conference.
A crowd gathered outside the ropes and eventually swelled to block several other aisles where other golf-related ventures had set up their promo booths.
The crowd began to look like a mob.
This particular weekend, Mitchell’s podium was placed in the far rear corner of the dais so the audience would have an unobstructed view of anything that might happen in the middle of the stage.
As usual, Mitchell began the press conference from the podium, clipping the wireless lavalier mic to his shirt placard and citing numbers and statistics that showed how effective Match Play was at finding dates for golfers.
The two reporters from the golf magazines were in the front row. They were already waving their hands, vying for Mitchell’s attention. The blonde wore her hair hanging loose over her shoulders, and the other reporter’s black pantsuit was cut sharp around her narrow shoulders.
Arielle stood a few steps away near the center of the stage, her hands folded in front of her, trying to look like she didn’t expect anything to happen but instead smiling at the reporters because that was her job.
Four guys standing over on the side of the stage caught her attention. They were all tall and preposterously good-looking, and she’d met three of them the week before at the Fall Formal over at the Newcastle Country Club.
Jericho Parr, who’d proposed to his girlfriend at the gathering, still looked smugly happy.
Morrissey Sand and Kingston Moore scowled.
The fourth guy seemed familiar. She’d noticed him in Newcastle at Jericho’s formal party for Pop Golf, but Mitchell hadn’t introduced her to him. Indeed, Mitchell had hurried Arielle past him without a backward glance.
He seemed solemn as he stood with Mitchell’s three friends, and he was watching Mitchell and her carefully.
When Mitchell finished his speech, he raised one finger, making it look as if he was going to select a question from the audience of reporters, but he seemed to think better of it and then patted the pockets of his suit jacket like he was looking for something, maybe his cell phone. Arielle glimpsed that he had palmed a small turquoise cube from his pocket, the lump Arielle had noticed all day long.
Dammit, he’d gone and gotten an engagement ring.
Well, probably. The tiny box was the right size, but most jewelry boxes Arielle had ever seen had been black velvet. A turquoise blue box was odd.
Mitchell walked a few steps toward the center of the stage, where he wouldn’t be blocked by the podium.
Arielle shuffled a few steps away as if she were making room for him. She was pretty proud of herself for the way she was handling this. Her core felt strong, like she would be able to make-believe just like an actress and perform the scene.
Mitchell lowered himself to one knee.
Arielle did the whole surprised thing with her face, eyebrows raised, eyes stretched open, trying to look like this was totally news to her.
Horror trickled into her chest at the thought that she was as bad an actress as a liar.
The reporter wearing the black suit sat down heavily and held her head in her hands.
Mitchell paused, frowning.
What the hell was that? Mitchell wasn’t supposed to pause. He had his proposal written out on note cards. Had he forgotten his lines? She was pretty sure the notecards were still in his jacket pocket. Maybe he should refer to them.
She tilted her head to the side and smiled brightly.
Mitchell looked down at the stage floor between them, still hesitating.
Well, dammit. Arielle couldn’t even get a fake proposal out of a guy. Yep, she was doomed to be alone her whole life. Her first guy cheated. The other guy backed out of even a fake proposal. She should apologize to her parents and make up because they were the only family she’d ever have, enmeshed or not.
Figures.
Her cheeks were beginning to cramp from the plastic grin she had wedged onto her face. “Mitchell?”
The crowd's murmuring died away, and silence spread through the convention center.
More people started walking toward them because train wrecks drew crowds.
Mitchell looked up at her, his green eyes gone glassy. “I was going to lie to you again.”
His voice echoed from the speakers around the stage in the quieting convention center.
Oh, this was bad. “Mitchell, your mic is still on. They can hear you.”
“Yeah, I know.” He stopped talking and stared at the box in his hand.
Arielle whispered, “Mitchell, honey, have you been drinking?”
He shook his head so fast that his chin vibrated. “No, I haven’t been drinking. Not at all. I’ve never been so clear in my life. But I was going to lie to you again.”
This had to stop now. Mitchell was going to ruin Match Play if he didn’t stop.
Arielle stepped forward and grabbed his elbow. “Why don’t you stand up, Mitchell?”
“No, that’s not what I mean. Here.” He remained down on one knee and guided her to stand in front of him, holding both her hands as he looked up at her, his eyes wide and vulnerable. “I don’t want to lie to you anymore. Hell, I don’t want to lie to them anymore.”
“Mitchell, this isn’t what you’re supposed to say,” she said, her voice low and urgent so his mic wouldn’t pick up her voice.
He turned his head and looked at the crowd. “The whole relationship between Arielle and me started as a publicity stunt. When Monica Matthews put me on the spot at the press conference in Phoenix, I panicked, and I grabbed Arielle out of the crowd and offered her ten thousand bucks to kiss me for the cameras. She negotiated me up to fifteen while standing there right in front of you. Damn, she’s good, right?”
Nervous laughter bubbled from the crowd. Arielle considered dragging Mitchell Saltonstall off the stage before he immolated Match Play and thus voided the contract for her parents’ retirement.
Mitchell flapped his hand toward Arielle’s knees and continued, “I didn’t even know who she was. And then she turned out to be Frank Carter’s daughter, the guy who originally owned Match Play and had run it into the ground. She was the worst possible person I could have picked. That’s crazy, right?”
Monica Matthews was back on her feet and holding her phone out to record, but she’d been sitting down when Mitchell had started talking. She whispered frantically to Elli Gelashvili beside her, who shrugged noncommittally.
Mitchell kept talking. “And ever since then, we’ve been acting for the cameras. We signed a contract to do it. I was going to fund her parents’ retirement because her father blew his savings on the previous incarnation of Match Play as a tee-times app when he refused to advertise it. But our relationship was all for the cameras. We even had scripts. It’s never been real.”
Arielle hunched and whispered, “Mitchell, dude, you’re blowing it.”
“I know,” he said, sounding like he had stunned himself as he looked up at her from where he kneeled. “I know I’m blowing it. I know I’m blowing it in the Javits Center in New York City in front of every major golf reporter in the country. Even the Golf Channel is over there with their news camera. I know I’m destroying Match Play. But I can’t think of any other way to show you that I don’t want to lie to you anymore about anything, ever again. That it’s not just business between us. That I’m telling you the truth.”
No, this had to stop. Mitchell was destroying Match Play, which meant he was killing her parents’ chance at a decent retirement.
Arielle grabbed his hands more tightly, trying to get his attention. “Mitchell, maybe you should go back to your note cards.”
“The note cards.” Mitchell released her hands and dug his index cards out of his jacket pocket, and he scattered them on the floor. “I had my proposal written on note cards so I could practice it, and it’s the most stupid proposal ever. It was nothing but a commercial for Match Play. But I’m done with that. I’m done with lying to them,” he looked back at Arielle, “ and to myself, and to you.”
Ah. He’d been lying to her about more than just Match Play.
And he needed to tell her the truth.
Ah, okay.
Arielle nodded. She’d always suspected there was someone else, a woman he was already with, someone he went back to during the week.
This whole experience with pretending to be in love with Arielle had taught Mitchell what love meant, and it didn’t mean Arielle.
The other woman, his real love, was probably right in the audience. That must have been where he’d been going off to earlier, to see her and reassure her that the proposal to Arielle meant nothing. He was probably going to drag the other woman up on stage and propose to her in an act of romantic insanity.
Arielle fully expected Mitchell to stand up and run to the other woman, the one he actually loved.
Pain shot through Arielle’s chest like her ribs were cracking around her heart, but she didn’t show it. Arielle was easy to lead on. A smarter person would have figured out that Mitchell was in love with someone else and that her ex, Nick, had been cheating. Arielle deserved this. Maybe it would teach her a damn lesson, and she’d get smarter.
And she would have to bear it, even though her heart was breaking.
It shouldn’t be breaking. She’d known Mitchell Saltonstall didn’t feel jack for her. He’d told her repeatedly that their relationship was just business.
But she was a sap, and now she would pay for it. “I understand, Mitchell. It’s okay.”
Mitchell grabbed both her hands and gasped like he’d surfaced after nearly drowning. “Arielle Grace Carter, from the moment we met, we've been lying to each other. And the biggest lie of all was when I told you that my feelings for you were just business.”
Arielle’s brain stopped whirling. “Wait. What?”
“From the first moment I saw you, I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I had my eye on you from the minute I walked into the office in Phoenix. I was going to ask you out after the presser anyway. And ever since that first day, you’ve been kind and gentle and absolutely honest about everything. You were kind to my sister, Emily, in a world that often isn’t. You made the world better for her. I cannot thank you enough for that. You’re amazing.”
The crowd had gone absolutely still, and Arielle’s brain filled up with fuzz.
“Ever since that photoshoot in California,” Mitchell continued, “I’ve known it was more than just business between us, but I didn’t know what I was feeling because I was lying to myself. I didn’t know how to say it, so I lied to you and everyone else about it. You helped me find the honesty between us. You taught me to understand the honesty of the love I feel for you, and I do.”
This was—this was not what she’d expected.
Mitchell kept talking. “This is a hundred percent the truth, Arielle. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I would give up everything for you, including Match Play and the bet, and I just did.” He shook his hand at the reporters and crowd again. “I just burned it all down. I knew what I was doing when I decided to say this because I love you.”
One news camera person was crouched below the edge of the stage, filming them. Two more pointed enormous cameras on tripods at them from the edges of the crowd.
Thousands of cell phone cameras and eyeballs were aimed at them.
Elli Gelashvili and Monica Matthews were both recording with one phone and thumb-swiping notes on another phone.
The enormity of what Mitchell Saltonstall was saying in the middle of a golf convention with cameras rolling staggered Arielle. If she were a betting woman, which she was not, she would’ve laid every cent she had to her name on a wager that Mitchell would have put business before any relationship or at least figured out a way to have both. “You don’t have to do this.”
Mitchell shook his head. “It’s too late. I’ve already done it, and it was the right thing to do because I want to be with you more than I want everything else.”
Arielle’s heart wanted to believe him so much, but she couldn’t trust it. Her heart was stupid and believed lies.
He said, “Honesty is more important to you than business, so honesty, it is. I’ll tear it all down for you. I’ll lose the damn bet for you. I’ll do anything so we can start again. I love you more than anything else in the world, and I want to be with you for the rest of my life. And if you’ll marry me, I promise that I’ll always tell you the truth, and I’ll never lie to you again about anything.”
Answering seemed impossible. She didn’t know what she was answering.
Mitchell said, “It’s okay to say no. It’s okay to tell me no if you’re not ready or if I’m not the one for you. I had to do this. I had to tell you the truth. I’ve already burned it all down. It doesn’t matter what you say, but I know you’ll answer honestly because that’s you.”
Arielle shook one of her hands loose from his and leaned forward. She covered the microphone attached to his shirt.
His heart was pounding in his chest under her fingers.
She whispered, “Am I supposed to believe you? Is this just to throw Monica Matthews off? Because you’re making me believe you. I’m okay with pretending if we both know we’re pretending. But if you make me believe you and it’s not true, I’m not going to be okay.”
Mitchell was looking straight into her eyes, and he pressed her hand over his thumping heart and whispered, “Believe me. I know I screwed up, but I mean every word I’m saying. I promise. I love you. I fell in love with you months ago and didn’t know how to say it. I mean every word of this, and I want to spend my life with you. I want us to be together forever.”
“You promise?” she asked as the convention center swam in her vision and a hot line trickled from the corner of her eye to her jaw. “I can’t handle it if it’s all for the reporters. If you’re lying to me for the publicity, I need to know.”
“It’s not a lie. I swear. I promise that I’m telling you the absolute truth about how I feel about you. I will give up everything to be with you. I love you, Arielle, and I want to marry you.”
Trembles ran through Arielle’s body and down her legs. If he was lying to her, if this was just business, the betrayal would hollow out her soul like a fire-blackened stump.
But Mitchell was staring up at her with earnestness in his clear green eyes, and his hand holding hers tightened around her fingers.
Maybe.
Maybe was worth the possibility of heartbreak.
Arielle straightened and took both his hands with hers. “Okay. Go on.”
He held out the blue box and pressed a tiny silver button on the front. The lid flipped open.
A chunky rock of a diamond ring inside glittered in the flashes from the cameras, throwing fireworks of sparkles around the promo tent.
Mitchell smiled up at her. “I love you, Arielle. Marry me, and we’ll rebuild it together, but honestly this time. This is the craziest thing I’ve ever done in my life, but it’s the most honest. From now on, nothing is for the cameras. Nothing is for the publicity. There’s only us.”
She held his hands and breathed.
Her chest didn’t hurt any more.
Mitchell said, “I love you. Marry me.”
There was only one answer in her heart. “Yes, Mitchell. I’ll marry you.”
The light that came into his eyes when she said yes was real.
He slid the ring on her finger, the weight heavy on her hand.
Cheering voices exploded around them.
Mitchell was on his feet and his arms surrounded her, and he kissed her. He kissed her like he meant it, his lips devouring hers as she kissed him back.
She hoped he meant it.
He broke off the kiss, and the room swam in Arielle’s eyes as she looked over the enormous crowd gathered around them that stretched halfway down the aisles.
Arielle slapped her hand over the microphone on his shirt again. “Did you mean it?”
“Absolutely. Every word.” Mitchell paused, concern creeping into his eyes. “Did you?”
Arielle nodded, and the truth poured out. “Yeah, I meant it. I’ve been in love with you for months, and that’s why it’s been so hard to pretend I wasn’t.”
Mitchell grabbed her, hugging her, and the speakers emitted the rustling of their clothes and a thumping heartbeat. He said, “I regret every single time I told you that it was just business, because it never was.”
Their two stalker reporters were practically crawling onto the edge of the stage, flapping their arms.
“Mr. Saltonstall!”
“When is the wedding?”
“Ms. Carter!”
“Are you engaged? Is that rock real?”
“Who’s going to be your maid of honor?”
“Mr. Saltonstall!”
“Who are you going to wear for your wedding dress?”
“Where is the wedding going to be held?”
“Is the ring from Tiffany and Company? The box looks like it’s Tiffany blue.”
“Ms. Carter, I need to ask you a question!”
“Ms. Carter,” the reporter on the right yelled. “Monica Matthews of Golfers Digest! Since Mr. Saltonstall admitted that your relationship is a fraud, is this proposal just an act, too? Why would you believe a man who has lied to you and to us all along?”
Arielle pulled away from Mitchell and stared at the reporter.
Matthews shrank back a little but still held her phone out, recording.
Arielle unclipped the microphone from Mitchell’s shirt and held it up to her mouth, pinching the tiny thing between her fingers. “Mitchell hasn’t lied to me at all. In the beginning, last May, he told me his side of the story and was absolutely upfront with what he wanted me to do. When we were traveling together, he was a perfect gentleman. He’s funny, and kind, and he’s shown me that he loves me these last few months. I’ve met his family and his friends. I’ve stayed in his house. He’s taken care of my family when they needed it. He showed me that he loves me in so many ways that are truer than words. He didn’t need to say it. I already knew. I just didn’t trust myself to believe it.”
Monica Matthews was lowering her phone, her eyes flaring, but she recovered and yelled back, “But it was all just a fraud in the beginning, right?”
Mitchell leaned over and said into the mic in Arielle’s fingers, “I liked Arielle the first minute I saw her. However, if you hadn’t asked the question about me being single and goaded me into dragging Arielle up on the stage and kissing her, Arielle probably would’ve told me to sod off due to my purchasing her father’s company. So really, Ms. Matthews, we have you to thank for bringing us together. You were our Match-maker.”
Monica Matthews glared at them and began writing on her phone.
Elli Gelashvili was leaning over the edge of the stage with her phone, her blond hair trailing on the black boards. “When are you getting married? Where are you going for your honeymoon? Oh my God this is so exciting!”
Monica Matthews looked up from her phone and called over Gelashvili, “So you two didn’t really meet on Match Play. Has any couple ever met on the app? Or is the whole app a fraud?”
Arielle gasped. Matthews could still ruin Match Play with an article like that.
Mitchell plucked the tiny mic from Arielle’s fingers. “We have excellent data supporting Match Play’s efficacy. Seventy-two percent of Match Play members are Matched with one or more partners and then meet up for at least one first-round date within eight days. Fifty percent of those first golf dates lead to a second date, either golf or otherwise. In addition, we know of—”
From the crowd, a man’s voice yelled, “We met on Match Play three months ago, and we’re together now! It’s not a fraud!”
The crowd turned. Mitchell’s arm tightened around Arielle.
A woman’s voice called out. “We’ve been dating for four months, and we met on Match Play!”
“Match Play introduced me to Kyla, and we’ve been happy ever since!” a woman yelled.
Another woman called out, “And I met Tom on Match Play! We’ve been dating for six weeks! How dare you call Match Play a fraud!”
A woman leaped onto the stage and landed on her feet like she’d been tossed, and a man clambered up after her. She yelled at the crowd, “Ben and I met on Match Play three months ago, and we’ve been dating ever since! And we have the records on Match Play to prove it!”
Ben grabbed her and bent her backward in a passionate kiss.
Another couple struggled over the edge, pushed by the crowd. The man yelled, “I’m Tyrell Jackson, and I met my Match on Match Play!” He grabbed the woman beside him and kissed her, and she grabbed his butt.
More couples swarmed over the edge of the stage, wild-eyed at their chance of being on camera on the Golf Channel.
Mitchell hugged Arielle against his side and leaned down to whisper in her ear, “That’s enough. Let’s get out of here.”
He tugged her toward the steps leading down the back of the stage.
Arielle dropped the mic.
When it landed, a thud echoed through the speakers. Feedback whined through the convention center, and the crowd winced and covered their ears.
The reporters went nuts, clawing at the high stage and trying to drag themselves up.
A scrape screeched through the speakers, and a woman’s voice boomed from them. “I’m Karen Quinones, and I met my Match on Match Play!”
“I’m Mo Farouq, and I met my Match on Match Play!”
Mitchell hurried her down the back steps of the stage, where Mitchell’s four buddies whom she’d noticed earlier surrounded her and Mitchell, forming a wedge to push through the crowd.
Behind them, voices echoed over the crowd, “I’m Li Shen, and I met my Match on Match Play!”
“I’m Jordan Miller, and I met my Match on Match Play!”
“I’m Maria Lopez, and I met my Match on Match Play!”
Beside Arielle, Jericho Parr muttered to Mitchell, “Damn, huh? Match, you are the most competitive bastard I’ve ever met. You just had to have more people watch your proposal than mine.”
Mitchell grinned at him. “And on live TV, too.”
Voices behind them called out. “I’m LaDonna Speer, and I met my Match on Match Play!”
“I’m Ruslan Ali, and I met my Match on Match Play!”
“My name is Meghan Jeong, and I met my Match on Match Play!”
Another guy elbowed Mitchell as they burrowed through the crowd. Arielle remembered meeting him the week before, too. Morissey Sand said, “Dammit, Match. I can’t believe you burned down your business. Match Play was the golden child. It was our best chance at winning the bet, damn you.”
The voices grew fainter as they moved away from the speakers. “I’m Quinn Patel, and I met my Match on Match Play!”
“I’m Troy Benedict, and I met my Match on Match Play!”
“My name is Mahihkan Kisecawchuck, and I met my Match on Match Play!”
“I’m LaShonda Washington, and I met my Match on Match Play!”
Within minutes, they shoved through the shouts and flailing hands grabbing at them to a corridor leading out of the conference center to a sidewalk.
Mitchell raised his hand at a passing cab that screeched to a stop, and they hustled inside.
Mitchell said, “The Plaza,” and the cab sped into traffic.
Arielle looked out the window behind them.
People were milling on the sidewalk where they’d emerged.
Mitchell ran one hand through his hair when Arielle turned around. “I can’t believe we got out of there. I thought the crowd was going to tear us apart!”
“Yeah,” Arielle said, and doubts began to creep in. “Look, Mitchell, I’m a big girl. If that was just for the cameras, you need to tell me.”
He laughed and wrapped his arms around her, snuggling her against his shoulder. “I love you, Arielle, and I’ll spend every day of the rest of our lives showing and telling you that I do.”
She relaxed against his side.
“I do have a little bad news, however.”
Arielle tensed. “Oh?”
“Emily wants to be both the flower girl and the maid of honor. We’ll have to figure out something for her.”
Arielle laughed. “We should call her and tell her.”
Mitchell kissed her forehead. “I love you. I really do. Em will be thrilled.”