Falling for Mister Wrong (12 page)

“I just don’t know if I want to move to
LA.”

“Hey, it’s okay. We have lots of time before
we start our new life together.”

“No, I meant…”
Ever
. But he was
talking again.

“Don’t worry, baby. I mean sweetheart. Sorry.
It’s going to work out. All you need is love, right?”

And what if I’m not sure I ever loved you
in the first place?
“Daniel…”

But he’d always seemed to have a sixth sense
whenever she was about to say something he wasn’t going to like.
Something she hadn’t really thought about until she saw that first
show and saw him dodge other girls and their drama. He spoke
quickly now, before he could hear her doubts—which would make them
real.

“I’ll let you get back to supervising your
workers. Gotta keep a close eye on ‘em. Make sure they do it right.
Love you. So much, ba—sweetheart.”

She couldn’t say it back. The words had never
rung with truth, but now they felt like an outright lie. She ought
to say something, but with Will and the guys in her apartment this
didn’t seem like the time to get into it with him. So she let him
evade.

“Goodbye, Daniel.”

#

Will knew the moment Caitlyn reentered the
apartment, and it had nothing to do with the soft click of the
newly hung door. The air seemed crisper, charged with a certain
kind of tension when she was in the room. Light brighter. Sounds
louder. All of it waking him up.

And earning more than a few speculative
glances from Dale—who would undoubtedly be reporting back to Julia,
who would spread the word to his entire family. But maybe that
wasn’t such a bad thing. They were hardly subtle when they decided
to match-make, but he wouldn’t mind being set up with Caitlyn. He
hadn’t been interested in a woman in a long time, hadn’t been
looking, but something about Caitlyn opened his eyes.

Though he kept getting mixed messages from
her on whether or not she returned his interest.

For the last two days it had been a constant
back and forth. He’d catch her watching him, undeniable heat in her
eyes, but then she’d blush and avoid his gaze. They’d be working
side by side, easy and comfortable, laughing and flirting—and then
she would seem to realize what she was doing all of a sudden and
she’d stammer awkwardly, retreating again.

Hot and cold. Playful deep blue eyes and
bashful rosy cheeks. Back and forth.

But maybe the mystery of her was why he
couldn’t seem to look away.

He looked away from his work as soon as the
task allowed, in time to see her tucking a cell phone into the
pocket of her jeans. She seemed different. Subdued.

“Everything okay?” he asked softly when she
was closer.

She nodded absently. Then she seemed to shake
herself. “Wow, you guys are making amazing progress.”

Dale looked up from his side of the drywall
patch they were hanging. “My guys are the best,” he bragged with a
grin. “We should be out of your hair by tomorrow afternoon at the
latest. Just finish work now.”

Dale led her away to talk about the final
details of the project and Will watched her go, feeling that tug of
awareness go with her.

“If you ram that hammer into your thumb, I’m
just going to laugh,” Ben, one of Dale’s regular guys, drawled
beside him. “No sympathy.”

“Shut up,” Will grumbled, turning back to the
job at hand. But he was grinning as he said it. Yeah, he was
smitten—but it was so nice to feel something
different
after
six months of anger, he couldn’t be embarrassed by it. What was the
harm in a little crush?

Chapter
Thirteen

The night skiing lights on the mountain were
flickering on in the twilight dimness as Caitlyn watched Will
slowly packing up his tools. Dale and Ben had already gathered up
their things and headed out for the night, slapping Will on the
back as they went and nodding with courteous
ma’am
s for her.
Will didn’t have any more stuff than the others, but he took his
time with each and every tool, lingering.

She didn’t mind. She’d love nothing more than
to find some excuse for him to stay.

She had a good idea what she would do when he
left. Her stupid guilt over the conversation with Daniel would
return and she’d call him back. If he took her call, in her current
mood, she’d probably end up agreeing to move to Los Angeles after
all—or breaking things off entirely.

Will would be the perfect distraction, but
he’d already helped her remove all the dust covers from the
furniture and she didn’t have any more tasks for him.

He probably had plans anyway. A girlfriend
waiting for him. A sexy dinner date waiting.

He stood finally, picking up his tool bag.
“Well, I guess I should—”

“Do you want some pizza?” she almost shouted,
then blushed at the volume. “It’s just, I have all that leftover
pizza from lunch and I certainly can’t eat all that by myself.” She
forced a laugh. “I should probably be supervised if I’m gonna use
the oven, too.”

He frowned. “You’ve gotta stop making cracks
like that. The fire wasn’t your fault.”

“No, I know. It was a joke. Ha.” Her face
flamed. She’d blushed more in the last three days than she had in
the entire eight weeks she’d been on
Marrying Mister
Perfect
. She wasn’t sure what that meant.

“Was it? You know what I think? I think you
want to be perfect all the time and you make jokes at your own
expense when you think you’ve messed up—which you
didn’t
—and
you would take on the guilt of the world if it let you, making
everything that happens in your life your fault, whether you have
any say over it or not. Am I wrong?”

Her jaw dropped. A smart-ass remark rose to
her tongue.
Who knew Sigmund Freud moonlighted as a ski
instructing fire fighter?
But she swallowed it. Because he
wasn’t wrong. And he’d somehow figured out in three days what
Daniel hadn’t been able to learn in two months. And as terrifying
as it was to be
known
like that… it was also unspeakably
hot.

“So… no pizza?”

He laughed. “I’d love some pizza. If you
still want me to stay.”

And never leave.
Caitlyn blinked,
startled by the clarity of that little voice in her head. She
squashed it. She was engaged. They were just friends sharing some
pizza after a hard day’s work. That was all this was. “I could use
the company.”

He grinned cockily. “I’ve been told I’m
excellent company.” He dropped his tools next to the door before
joining her in the kitchen. “Napkins?”

She pointed him to the right cabinet and
turned the dial to pre-heat the oven—and suddenly everything was
easy and natural. No stiff, formal manners needed. Not even plates.
Just laughing as they shifted the freshly reheated pizza from hand
to hand to keep from burning their fingers through the napkins.

Cold beer would have been perfect—especially
since Caitlyn had never had a beer in her life—but they made do
with the liter of flat soda left over from lunch. Turns out she
didn’t need alcohol to feel that giddy, fizzy feeling around
Will.

And then Will went looking for red pepper
flakes and found the vodka.

He held up the half-full bottle, eyebrows
arching. “Is this the infamous marshmallow vodka I keep hearing
about?”

“Hey, don’t knock it ‘til you try it.” She
sat at the café table, the nearly empty pizza box in front of her,
bonelessly relaxed.

He took off the cap, sniffing gingerly. “You
just drink it straight?”

“It’s good on the rocks, but you can mix it
with soda or cranberry juice too.”

He returned to his chair and splashed some
into his coke. “You only live once, right?” He sipped carefully and
pulled a face.

Caitlyn smothered a giggle.

“It’s like drinking sugar.”

“Pretty much.”

“I am far too manly to drink anything so
sugary.” He tipped the bottle, pouring another liberal draught into
his cup. Caitlyn’s giggle escaped. He tilted the bottle
questioningly over her cup.

“No, thank you. I’m still in recovery.”

He grinned, setting down the bottle in the
narrow space not taken by the pizza box. “Tuesday night was
something else.”

Not to mention the previous two months.

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him
about the free-flowing bar that was the
Marrying Mister
Perfect
experience. They wanted their Suitorettes loose and
entertaining—which meant alcohol was never hard to come by. Caitlyn
hadn’t been much of a drinker before she went on the show, but a
cocktail to take the edge off before filming had become part of her
daily ritual. And now it was a habit she wanted to get out of.

In a way, it was tempting to tell Will all
the things she wouldn’t normally admit about the show. She trusted
him—probably far more than she should—but she also loved that he
knew nothing about the show. He didn’t see a reality TV girl when
he looked at her. He just saw Caitlyn. It was unbelievably freeing
talking to someone who had no idea where she’d been for the last
two months. He was a different world. A little pocket of calm that
felt a thousand times more real that her recent reality.

What would he think of Daniel?

“Do you believe in love at first sight?”

She slapped a hand over her mouth. She
couldn’t believe she’d asked that. And she wasn’t even
drinking.

Will laughed, ignoring her shock, eyes
crinkling. “Absolutely. The first time I saw you, you were lying on
the floor in a puddle of tulle and marshmallow vodka. How could I
resist?”

Her face flamed. Why couldn’t she seem to
keep her verbal filters on when she talked to him? She was usually
so reserved. She didn’t over-share with strangers—but he didn’t
feel like a stranger. Maybe all the rules evaporated when someone
saved your life. “I didn’t mean
me
. I just meant in theory.
The idea. I mean obviously you and I didn’t…” Though her first
sight of him had definitely been memorable.
The dark god…
“We don’t… it’s not like—”

“Caitlyn,” he interrupted gently when she
would have babbled herself deeper into the hole she couldn’t seem
to stop digging. “I was teasing you.”

She wrinkled her nose, disgruntled. “How do
you even know what tulle is?”

He lifted his marshmallow vodka filled cup in
a mocking toast. “Three older sisters.”

“Oh wow. I can’t imagine that. I’m an only
child.”

“I can picture that. With envy.” He sipped
his drink. “So what about you? Do
you
believe in love at
first sight?”

“
No
.” She hadn’t thought about her
answer. It just jumped out her mouth, hard and firm. “We trick
ourselves into believing in this magical, mystical connection. Our
brains play these games, trying to mash what we want and what we
see together even if they don’t quite fit. You’ve got the square
peg and the round hole, but sometimes we want so badly for them to
fit that we don’t notice how wrong they are.”

“Let me guess. Bad break up? That was him on
the phone earlier, wasn’t it? Seemed great at first and then when
the shine wore off… I’ve been there.”

There was such understanding in his eyes,
which for once weren’t melty and soft, but brittle and defensive.
He did get it. It was like he understood her life better than she
did—until she was with him and it all came spilling out. But she
couldn’t tell him the truth. Not about Daniel and her doubts. Not
about the show.

God, he was too intuitive by half. She didn’t
know if it was growing up surrounded by girls or just something
about
him
, but he got her in a way that was scary. And
appealing.

Too appealing for a woman who was still
promised to someone else. Even if she was having doubts. She wasn’t
free yet.

“I should let you go.” But the whisper was
weak, her voice betraying her, the lilt of it begging him to
stay.

He nodded. And his gaze fell to her lips.

Chapter
Fourteen

Suddenly the hot and cold vibes he’d been
getting from her all week made sense. Bad break-up. He’d been
there. Hell, if he was honest with himself, he was still there. And
he’d had six months to get used to his new baggage. He had a
feeling Caitlyn’s relationship drama was much more recent.

He hadn’t noticed any men coming and going
from her apartment since he moved in, but she’d been gone for the
last two months. With the guy from the phone call? He recalled the
tightness on her face when she read the caller ID, her distraction
when she came back after talking to him. Whoever he was.

An old lover? Maybe one who was unavailable.
Had she discovered he was married? Maybe he’d run off with the maid
of honor.

Not that it mattered. His imagination could
take him on all the joyrides it wanted. It didn’t change the fact
that the woman in front of him was working her way through
heartache and didn’t need him complicating her life. No matter how
tempting her lips were.

He forced his gaze away from her mouth,
scrambling for a light, safe topic of conversation. He jerked his
chin toward the wall. “A few coats of paint and you won’t even know
anything happened.”

“I can’t believe how quickly you put
everything back to rights. I’ll never be able to repay you.”

“It was good timing. Dale was glad to have
the work—you’re helping him pay off his Santa Claus bills.”

“And I’m sure he’s undercharging me, but it’s
you I really owe. You have to let me buy you dinner.”

He arched a brow at the pizza that had been
lunch for the whole crew and dinner for the two of them.

“A real dinner,” she insisted.

“Caitlyn Gregg, are you asking me out on a
date?”