Even with her mother in a coma, Grady filtered through Aja’s mind constantly, especially because she knew he’d been trying to reach her. She planned to call him back, but she was waiting to get her legs underneath her again—didn’t want to say anything that might cause more instability. Her parents’ accident had leveled her. She was still trying to come to terms with it, was waiting to see how things would go so she could decide what she should do in her personal life.
It was almost noon when Darius insisted she go home, shower and get some rest. He said he’d sit with their mother and call her if anything changed, and only her trust in those assurances had released her from the responsibility she felt to stay at the hospital. She was exhausted, mentally and physically, and needed to do exactly as he said—take a long, hot shower and fall into the comfort of her own bed for a couple of hours. Then she’d go visit her father and update him on Esther, if there was an update, before relieving Darius, so he could get home in time for his next filming segment with Barbie for Tying the Knot.
While she was in an Uber to her condo, she called Winnie to let her know what’d happened. Darius had been planning to break the news of their parents’ accident once he had more of an idea of how it would impact his schedule in the coming weeks, but she’d asked him to let her handle it.
Fortunately, Winnie picked up immediately. “Winnie, it’s Aja...from the show,” she said as soon as she heard the other woman say hello.
The subsequent pause gave Aja the impression Winnie was surprised to hear from her, and that sort of made sense since they’d been communicating through Grady since the wedding. “What can I do for you?” she asked. “Were you and Grady able to get some footage for me yesterday? Because I haven’t received anything yet.”
“After what happened last night, Grady probably forgot to send it. I’ll remind him.”
“What happened last night?” she asked.
“I’m afraid my folks were in a car accident and are both in the hospital. Although my father will be okay, the situation is less certain with my mother. I had to fly home at a moment’s notice, so I’m back in LA.”
“That’s terrible!” she said. “I’m so sorry. But... Grady didn’t come with you?”
“No. Considering the circumstances—the fact that my parents don’t even know I’m married—I thought it would be better to take care of this on my own.”
“I see.”
Surprisingly, Winnie didn’t sound too disappointed.
“I apologize for having to change everything once again, because this will definitely impact our ability to do what we said we’d do when we left, but—”
“That’s not a problem,” she interrupted. “You just take care of what you need to. Your parents’ well-being comes first, of course.”
Grateful that the producer was being so accommodating and understanding, Aja felt some of the tension leave her body. “Thank you. I was worried that this might trigger the penalty and—”
Winnie cut in again. “No, of course not. Don’t even think about that.”
“But...what will happen with the show? How will you get by without us?”
“We’ll use the footage we’ve already taken to maximum advantage. And we’ll fill in with the couples from previous shows who are still together.” Her tone suddenly changed. “Unless... I mean... Is your brother quitting the show, too?”
The idea of that definitely alarmed her. Aja could hear it in her voice. “No. I talked to him only an hour or so ago and told him I’d stand in for Mom and Dad as much as possible so that he and Barbie can continue filming.”
“That’s a relief. We can adjust their schedule here and there, if necessary.”
“Great. I’ll let him know. He’s at the hospital right now, but he’ll be able to film this evening.”
“Great. So...you don’t think Grady will join you even on weekends?”
Aja hadn’t let herself consider that option, or any options. She’d just felt she needed to be free to focus and do what she needed to do. But now that such an easy solution had been suggested, she knew it would sound odd that she couldn’t make something like that work. “He could, I guess. We’ll probably try to arrange that at some point. And if he does come, maybe we could get some more filming done.”
“No, that’ll make things too difficult. You’re going through enough. Don’t worry about it. There will be no penalties if you’d rather just focus on your family.”
She sounded so sincere, and that came as a relief. “I appreciate it, Winnie.”
“No problem. Be sure to check in now and then to let me know how your folks are doing. Darius can keep me in the loop, too, of course, since I’ll be seeing more of him. And if you decide you’d like to be on the show again in the future, we’d love to have you back. We’ve never had a contestant return for another try. And you’re such a great catch. Any guy should be excited to have you as a partner, and I know the audience would love to see the return of a former contestant.”
She’d said that as if she expected Aja to be single. But in Aja’s mind, that had yet to be decided. She was just taking a break to find herself again...and figure out how to navigate the next few days and weeks. “I haven’t given up on the marriage,” she clarified. “We’re still...going to try.”
“Oh! I didn’t realize that. I assumed if things were going well he’d be staying at your place or something, trying to support you through this.”
“I had to drop everything and catch a plane, and...” Her words fell off. She supposed he could join her, and her parents wouldn’t have to know about it, at least not until they were well again. But having him around while she was at the hospital all the time and couldn’t be forthcoming with her parents would be so difficult—make her feel torn in two.
“And deal with a tragic event,” Winnie said, finishing for her. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me. I’ll make do with the material we’ve got already, okay? You don’t have to bring Grady out here.”
Aja almost said “okay” and hung up. But she couldn’t figure out why Winnie didn’t care more about whether they stayed together. When they were starting out, she’d seemed so invested in the success of each couple.
Maybe it was just that she’d already given up on her and Grady since they left LA and started to dictate the parameters of their own participation.
Still, Aja had one more question for Winnie, who was saying she had to run.
“I hate to keep you,” she began. “But before you go, can you tell me why I was paired with Grady? What was it the show’s professionals saw in us that suggested we might be well-suited for each other? I mean... I can’t help but wonder. We don’t even live in the same area.”
There was such a long silence that Aja thought Winnie had hung up.
“Winnie?”
The producer cleared her throat. “Yes, I’m right here.”
“I was wondering if the psychologists indicated why they thought Grady and I would be good for each other,” she reiterated in case Winnie had missed her question the first time.
“I’m afraid they didn’t leave any notes, Aja.”
“So...how does it work? They just match brides with grooms and don’t give you any supporting documentation?”
Aja heard Winnie sigh, then the other woman said, “If you’re beating yourself up because you think you should be able to make this marriage work, and yet you can’t, you should stop that right away. Because the psychologists didn’t pair you with Grady, I did.”
Aja gripped her phone that much tighter. “What do you mean? We took those personality tests for a reason, right?”
“Yes, but you weren’t even interested in coming on the show. You did it for Darius. So I didn’t think you really cared who I paired you with.”
“But you offered the psych evals as reassurance, never told me—”
“The psych evals are just so we don’t let anyone dangerous on the show. We have to do our homework. The personality tests are used for pairing. But check your contract. It’s all perfectly legal. The psychologists merely make suggestions based on the personality tests. As the producer, I have the ultimate say.”
“So you ignored their advice and overrode their opinion, sabotaged my chances of success on the show? Why? Why would you ever do that?”
“I wasn’t sabotaging your chances on the show. The way everything played out, I just...didn’t have a better option. But I wanted to tell you now so that you didn’t continue to try to make something work that—that isn’t, especially while you’re dealing with your parents’ car crash. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have mentioned it.”
“You would’ve continued to keep that secret to yourself, in other words.”
“It wasn’t a secret. It was just...one of the decisions I had to make for the good of the show.”
“And Darius? Did you do the same with him and Barbie?”
“No, I went with everyone’s recommendation there.”
“And the other couples?”
“I used their recommendations for the other couples, too.”
“So it was just Grady and me.”
The Uber driver had come to a stop in front of Aja’s condominium complex. “Hello? Can you hear me?” he said. “We’ve arrived.”
If he’d said it before, she’d missed it. She’d been too focused on her conversation to even realize where she was.
Numbly, she forced herself to get out of his car. But then she stood on the street looking up at the place she called home until another vehicle came and honked for her to get out of the way.
“Aja? Are you still there? What’s going on?” Winnie asked, and Aja finally tuned in to the conversation again.
“Nothing, but I won’t be doing anything more for the show,” she said and disconnected. She felt duped, betrayed, and she had no doubt Grady would feel the same. Maybe this would make him decide to give up on their marriage, but she felt it was only fair that he know the truth, too.
After dragging her luggage into the elevator and up to her second-story condo, she turned on the air-conditioning as soon as she walked through the door to help dispel the summer heat and rid the place of the musty odor that often came with living so close to the beach.
But she didn’t get in the shower and then drop into bed as she’d planned. Although her eyes felt like sandpaper, she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep.
Grady’s morning had been a busy one, and when his newest tech ruined an expensive paint job, it grew frustrating, as well. But the moment he saw Aja’s call come in, he told Dylan, who was working the front counter, to put out the bell and take over for him in back. Still, by the time he’d stepped outside he’d missed her call, so he called right back.
“Hello?”
Grateful to finally have the opportunity to talk to her, he breathed a sigh of relief when she answered. “Hey. How are you?”
“Not so good,” she replied.
“What’s going on? Don’t tell me your mother is even worse than we thought.”
“I don’t know about that yet. The doctors won’t say much. They managed to stop the bleeding and the swelling of her brain, but...there could be some long-term damage. We just have to wait and see.”
“I’m sorry this happened, Aja. What about your father?”
“He’s banged up, but it’s nothing that won’t heal.”
“That’s good, at least. Have you had anything to eat today? Been able to get any rest?”
“I’ve had a little food, no rest. But I saw your missed calls and wanted to get back to you. And I have something to tell you that’s probably going to upset you.”
Afraid of what she was about to say, he lifted his ball cap, then put it on again. Was this where she asked for an annulment? Told him it was over between them?
Because that wasn’t what he wanted at all. The more he thought about her and the past week—their wedding, their honeymoon at the beach, talking for hours in the car on the drive to Whiskey Creek, dinner with his father, making love in his bed—the more he was coming to believe that, against all odds, she might actually be the perfect woman for him. And even if she wasn’t “perfect” for him, he wanted to be with her, overcome whatever problems came up. “What is it?”
“We weren’t paired together by psychologists, Grady. That was all bullshit.”
He’d never heard her swear before, which showed him how upset she was. “What do you mean?”
“Winnie paired us together. That’s why we have nothing in common and don’t even live in the same part of the state.”
His heart began to pound. “Who told you that?”
“She did. Can you believe it? And it’s right there in the contract we signed—that she has ultimate say. We just never paid attention to it because we didn’t see any reason for her not follow the psychologists’ advice—not after giving us all those tests—and we didn’t truly believe we’d meet someone we’d want to spend the rest of our lives with.”
Grady felt sick. “How’d that even come up?”
“I called to tell her about my parents. I wanted to make sure she wasn’t going to charge the penalty—especially for you—when we have no control over the fact that we can’t finish what we agreed to do for the show.”
“What’d she say?” he asked, scrambling to come up to speed with what was going on.
“She said we don’t need to worry, that she won’t charge us. But then I asked her why the psychologists paired us together even though we didn’t seem to have anything in common, and she said they didn’t pair us, that she did.”
Shit. He squeezed his forehead. “Why would she tell you that?” he asked, but he was talking to himself more than her.
“She said she didn’t want me to feel I’m failing at something I believe I should be able to succeed at while I’m going through this with my parents.”
“So she was looking out for you?” he said dryly. “She wanted to let you know that our marriage didn’t have much of a chance to begin with so you wouldn’t worry about sticking with it?”
“Something like that, I guess.” She sounded slightly confused, and he couldn’t blame her. “But she could’ve told us from the start that she’d decided to override the psychologists’ advice. Instead, she led us to believe we had that going for us.”
He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t react with outrage, couldn’t pretend he didn’t know. That would be a lie. And he cared too much about Aja to destroy her trust in him.
But this was such a terrible time to have to confront this issue. He’d hoped they’d be able to get further into their relationship before he had to address the truth of how they’d come to be together.
Unfortunately, Winnie had forced his hand. She hadn’t told Aja the full story, but she’d told her enough to put him in a terrible position. And he knew why she’d done it. She didn’t want their marriage to last. He could tell how much it was bothering her during their last phone conversation. Having him unavailable and no longer interested made her want him that much more. Or she’d really believed his marriage wouldn’t be successful, that it was just a matter of time before he’d be able to date her and was willing to wait...until she realized it might not go the way she’d expected.
Bottom line, she wanted to see their marriage fail.
“Grady? Don’t you have anything to say about that?” Aja prompted when he didn’t respond.
He rubbed his forehead for a second, bemoaning the fact that he seemed to have only one choice. Then he drew a deep breath and said, “I feel terrible because this is hitting at the worst possible moment, but there’s more to it than you know.”
Her voice went deadly serious. “What are you talking about?”
“I promise I was going to tell you at some point. But thanks to Winnie, I guess that moment is now.”