Falling for Mister Wrong by Lizzie Shane Page B

eyes.
    The show had put each girl in a setting
designed to demonstrate her particular talents—the LPGA golfer
putting in a ball gown on the lawn, the bakery owner in the kitchen
icing cookies—so of course Caitlyn had been at a piano. Thank God
her fingers knew how to play through nerves. She’d dashed off a
quick Bach Prelude…and then she’d had to face him.
    She hadn’t jabbered incoherently, which was
good, since she hadn’t been able to remember a single word of what
she’d said. She didn’t really remember the first time she saw
him—just that she had been so nervous she’d been worried that her
shaking knees would be visible through the flowing skirt of her
gown. No grenades of true love exploding in her heart and reshaping
her world. No symphonies in the air. Just nerves.
    There was no evidence that the world stopped
for him either. If it was love at first sight as he had professed,
he was doing a good job of slow playing his hand as he told the
cameras that she looked like an angel—too pure and sweet to
touch.
    Elena however was very touchable.
    Caitlyn tried not to fixate on the way his
tongue had practically fallen out of his mouth when he’d walked
into the dance studio and seen the Latina beauty, or the guttural whoa that he’d practically groaned as she glided toward him
oozing sex. She’d pulled him into her arms to teach him a basic
tango step and the cameras had begun strategically filming from the
waist up— it’s a family show, folks.
    Apparently there were angels and then there
were sex goddesses. And Caitlyn fell squarely on the “cute” side of
the spectrum. Damn it.
    She watched the rest of the show, dreading
seeing her own face again, but she had stayed clear of most of the
first night drama, trying to fade into the background during the
infamous challenges, and so there wasn’t much footage of her. Other
than the Elimination Ceremony, where Daniel offered her the fourth
ring, she was invisible.
    Thank God.
    But even as she’d grown more and more
relieved by her lack of notoriety, something else began to bother
her. Tickling at the back of her mind, a little scratch of unease,
fueled by marshmallow flavored clarity.
    His smile.
    His familiar aw shucks farm boy
smile.
    She’d restarted the show, watching back
through it for the smile. And there it was. Beaming back at her.
All teeth and folksy charm and sparkling eyes.
    So why couldn’t she escape the thought that
it was a lie?
    Did it look too smug? Too self-important?
    The cell phone shrilled.
    Caitlyn jumped, sloshing the smooth, sweet
vodka of the heavens, and dove for the phone. “Daniel?”
    “No. Miranda. Sorry.”
    Caitlyn slumped against the kitchen counter,
miscalculated slightly and slid down the cabinets to plunk on the
floor. She may have had slightly more to drink than she thought.
“Miranda! Hey. Did Daniel’s smile always look like that or did you
edit it?”
    A low chuckle hummed against her ear where
she’d pressed the phone a little too tight. “I see you received the
vodka.”
    “I did! And thank you. It’s my favorite.”
    “I remember.”
    “Veil was a nice touch.” She set the vodka
against her leg, dipping a finger into it and lifting it to her
lips to lick off the drops of sugary goodness.
    “I’m glad you found it amusing. How are you
coping?”
    Caitlyn waved a hand in a so-so gesture, then
realized Miranda couldn’t see her. “He really likes Elena’s boobs,
doesn’t he?”
    She imagined she could hear Miranda’s
grimace. “We have him on camera saying flattering things about most
of you ladies, but we’re trying to create drama and Elena’s overt
sex appeal is going to be a major point of conflict for some of the
girls in future weeks so it got a lot of screen time.”
    “Yeah, no, I get it. They’re awesome boobs.”
She squinted back toward the television—the screen wasn’t large,
more a glorified computer monitor than the fifty inch mega-screen
most people seemed to have