Gamble on Engagement (13 page)

Leo had walked far ahead, finally turning to
make sure I was following, which I was, but I’d lagged a fair bit
behind.

“Come on,” he yelled, holding his hand out
to me.

I tried to hurry, but the uneven ground was
wreaking havoc on my feet. I could only hope I wasn’t too drunk to
feel if I was really injuring myself on the rocky ground.

When I got to Leo, he took my hand to help
me the final few steps. “I just remembered I used to come out here
when I was a kid… well, a teenager, anyway.”

“Oh, is that why you decided to buy the
castle out here?” I asked. “It is really pretty.”

He shrugged. “Maybe subconsciously or
something.” He took a few more steps, kind of dragging me along.
“Just a little further…”

And then we crested the hill.

And what I saw, there were no words for. The
hill looked out over a field of wildflowers. But it wasn’t just the
field of flowers that took my breath away, it was the full moon
gleaming down on that field. The way it shone, the colors so
bright, almost as if they were glowing from within, out of the
moonlight. The green of the leaves and stems was like the backdrop
on an artist’s canvas, the reds, yellows, and pinks contrasting so
vividly, even though the nighttime made it seem like the whole
world had an overlay of blue film. It was hard to believe this was
the real world, and not some Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole we’d
fallen into.

“Whoa…” was all I could say.

“I know. I’m sorry for stopping. I just had
to see it. There’s only a certain kind of night when it looks like
this. The moon has to be right. They don’t come along very
often.”

“No, it’s okay. Thank you for showing me,” I
said, unable to unglue my gaze from the scene in front of me.

Eventually, I closed my mouth and sat down.
Leo sat next to me. Even Reginald was lurking not too far away, no
doubt wanting to enjoy the landscape just as much as us.

I suddenly wished I hadn’t been so tipsy,
and hoped that my foggy head wasn’t clouding my vision of this
miracle. Although, maybe it was actually helping it along.

I lost track of how long we were sitting
there, I was just mesmerized with the whole thing and wishing Jake
was there to share it with me. How on Earth did I have one of the
most famous men in the world as a boyfriend and I was sitting here
with some other guy. I mean, Leo was no slouch or anything, but it
just wasn’t the same.

Suddenly, I felt something. Something very,
very confusing.

Leo’s hand.

Close to mine.

Like really close to mine. In fact, he was
very distinctly touching me. And it really didn’t seem like it was
by accident.

And I had no idea what the hell to do. I had
a boyfriend, which was definitely
not
new information to
Leo. But then again, I was writing his book. I couldn’t just piss
him off by freaking out about it. And really, it’s not like there
was even anything to freak out about. He
could
have been
touching me accidentally, it’s just that, if I were touching
someone accidentally, I would probably move my hand away after I
noticed.

But he didn’t.

After that I really didn’t know how long we
sat there. I’d been caught so off guard that I was pretty much too
panicked to even breathe, let alone move. I wanted to inch my hand
away or something, but then I was worried that he might notice and
think I was being silly or something, and the last thing I wanted
was for Leo to be uncomfortable. I did still need to get close to
him. Though given the situation at that moment, I supposed I just
needed to
stay
close to him.

He already obviously thought we were pretty
close.

I, on the other hand, had shoulders that had
seemingly turned to stone since Leo’s little hand touching
incident.

Finally, mercifully, Leo slowly started to
get up to leave. It felt like we’d been sitting like that for a
year.

Not much was said the rest of the way home,
though my thoughts were swirling way faster than I could catch
them.

~ 11 ~

I woke up still feeling a little out of
sorts. I suppose I could have blamed it on the mini-hangover I had
going on, but I honestly couldn’t get that hand touching thing out
of my head. I definitely wasn’t sure if I was ready to face Leo
yet.

I decided to take the bike out for another
ride in the country, this time all the way into town.

I hadn’t actually seen this supposed town
yet, but some of the workers assured me there was one just a couple
miles down the road. They had no reason to steer me wrong, so off
Baby Blue (yes, I know, my bike naming skills could use some work)
and I went down the lane. Okay, I know it was just a road, but it
just seemed so quaint to think of it as a lane instead.

I was a little shocked at how quickly I made
it into town, although it did seem to be slightly downhill most of
the way and I had a sinking feeling that the ride home might not be
quite as pleasant.

I found a fabulously chic little bookstore
that also had a sidewalk café attached. I could not think of a more
perfect thing to do than sit down at one of the cute little tables
covered in red and white checkerboard cloth and settle in with a
good book and maybe a cappuccino sprinkled with cinnamon.

The moment I walked in, I was completely
charmed, starting with the dingle of the little bells at the top of
the door, signaling my arrival. The girl behind the counter gave me
maybe the most genuine smile I’d seen since arriving in England.
Not that the people weren’t pleasant or anything, it was just that
now, being in a small town, the folks were even friendlier than in
the city. Or maybe it was just because I’d walked past Miranda on
my way out this morning and she’d had such a scowl for me that any
kindness at that moment could have made my heart flutter. But even
better than the twinkly sounding bells and the friendly smile, was
the oven-fresh bakery scent that wafted through the store. It was
so invading that I couldn’t stop myself from closing my eyes and
breathing right down to the bottom of my lungs.

When I opened my eyes, the girl was still
looking at me, and thankfully, still smiling.

“Oh sorry, it just smells so good in here,”
I said, trying not to turn red.

“Don’t worry, we get that a lot.”

I relaxed immediately. There was just
something about this place. Even though I had definitely never been
there before, something about it just felt comfortable. Like a home
away from home.

I could see myself spending a lot of time at
the quaint little store, now that I’d found it.

“What can we do for you today?” The girl
asked.

But then her smile faltered, just a little,
as if she’d been trained to never let it fall, but something had
shocked her so much, that she couldn’t stop the momentary reaction.
Her smile came back in megawatt style, but confusion still held in
her eyes. “You look… so familiar,” she finally said.

Crap. Here we go again.

“Oh,” I tried to smile as graciously as
possible, all the while chanting,
please don’t recognize me,
please don’t recognize me
in my head. “I get that a lot.”

“You’re American?”

I nodded, turning my attention to the bakery
counter, hoping to distract her away from my face. “What would you
recommend?”

“Uh… the Cinnamon Twists are our specialty,”
the girl said.

I could still feel her eyes practically
boring a hole through me.

“Great,” I said, bending way down to get a
good look at the Twists. The girl was not wrong, they did look
decadently delicious. “I’ll take one with the cream cheese icing
drizzle. And a cappuccino, please.”

I tried to avoid eye contact, but it was
impossible as radiantly smiling as she was.

She turned to make the coffee. When she
finished and turned back around, she suddenly gasped and nearly
dropped my coffee. “It’s you!” she said, pointing to the magazine
stand.

Double crap.

I really, really did not want to turn around
to look at what she was pointing to. All I’d wanted was a nice
break from all the drama for a while, but the Universe apparently
had other plans.

I took a deep breath and slowly turned,
internally cringing, preparing for anything.

BRIDESMAID SHUNNED? JAKE HALL SPOTTED ON
RARE DAY OFF WITHOUT CURRENT SQUEEZE.

I was looking particularly stunned in the
photo. It had been taken on the day of Emma Van Horn’s wedding, and
it looked like someone had just jumped out from behind one of the
church columns and yelled boo! That, of course, had not actually
happened, and I will never know what the heck had startled me so
badly, but it sure was nice how the tabloids seemed to always have
one of those ‘caught off guard’ photos in their arsenal.

I breathed a sigh of relief. I mean, I
wasn’t too happy about the press running around telling the world
lies about Jake and I breaking up or whatever, but with the way
things had been going lately, a little article like that was almost
a joke.

I actually let out a ridiculous giggle, like
all the nerves I’d built up before were all escaping in one big
whoosh of silliness.

“I am so sorry. I shouldn’t have pointed it
out,” the girl said. “It must be really hard, being in the
spotlight like that. Is there anything else I can do for you?” the
girl asked. “You must be one of those people who laugh when they
want to cry. I am so, so sorry for your loss.”

Now it was my turn to be confused. “My
loss?”

“Oh, yeah,” she said, grabbing my Cinnamon
Twist out from the display. “It must be hard to be dating a movie
star and then it being over so soon.”

“Oh,” I said, laughing a little.

I knew I shouldn’t say anything, I should
just pretend that I wasn’t even the Bridesmaid in question, but it
just kind of irked me the way she assumed the story had to be true.
I mean, it was in a rag mag for Pete’s sake. Did people actually
believe that stuff?

“Actually, Jake and I are fine. I’m just
over here on a work assignment.”

“Oh,” she said. “Of course.” Her smile
returned.

I was waiting for her to start asking all
the usual questions: What was it like to date a movie star? How
humiliating was it really, to have all your most embarrassing
moments splashed all over the papers? Were the other Bridesmaids
total bitches?

But nothing. She asked absolutely nothing.
Just kind of looked at me with a hint of pity, like she was
humoring me or something.

Oh my God, she didn’t believe me. She had
the Bridesmaid who was dating Jake Hall—McMaster the Disaster
herself—sitting right there in front of her and she would rather
believe what the flippin’ tabloid said.

Unbelievable.

Although, I supposed that before I was
actually
in
the tabloids, I did read and dissect the exact
stories I now knew to be total garbage for an amount of time I was
certainly not proud of.

I took my coffee and Cinnamon Twist, and,
you know, just so the girl could see I was taking it all in stride,
I bought a copy of all five tabloids the store carried. I went back
outside to the sidewalk tables to relax.

Unfortunately, things got a little… less
relaxing once I’d spread the magazines out over the table. I was
actually staring up at myself from not one, but two of the
magazines. Good Lord, I was the cover girl on forty percent of the
tabloids that the entire store carried! I closed my eyes and shook
my head, clearing it of that disturbing thought.

Thank goodness the girl in the store hadn’t noticed
this one was me. It was kind of odd that she hadn’t really, except
for the fact that I was wearing the disguise. A wavy dark haired,
Eva Mendes-esque kind of disguise. How did they even print the
paper this fast? Leo and I couldn’t have even made it back to the
castle in time for the ink to be dry on the thing, and here I was,
splashed all over the front cover.

Shit! Shit, shit , shit! I wasn’t supposed
to get photographed with the Prince. It was in my contract for
bloody sake. What the hell was I thinking going out in public with
him? I mean, I’d take the precaution of the disguise and
everything, but after all I’d been through, how could I have not
thought about the paparazzi? Granted, I hadn’t seen a single
photographer all night, and might have gotten a little sloppy with
my reconnaissance, not to mention the liquor, but I seriously did
not think I would be photographed.

If Miranda saw this I’d be out for sure. I’d
signed a contract for God’s sake. But… would she recognize me? I
mean, I really didn’t look like myself.

I squinted and looked closer.

“Another one of his chippies,” the girl from
inside of the shop said, sneaking up behind me and reading over my
shoulder.

I looked her straight in the face. Could she
not see the resemblance here? I mean, I know I looked way
different, but she was standing there staring right at me, and
staring right at the magazine.

I nonchalantly held the magazine up, right
below my chin. “You don’t recognize her? I heard the Prince lived
around here somewhere?”

“Oh yeah, he does,” she said, all excited.
“Just up the road a mile or two. It’s so exciting,” she said,
hitting my arm playfully with the towel she was holding. “Every
once in a while, he comes in here for some baking or whatever… you
can always tell when he’s got a new girl to show off for. My friend
Mary who does some temp cleaning over there at the castle
sometimes… she gets to talking to the staff… well she says on the
days when he gets in here really early and buys up half the bakery,
it’s always to impress a girl. In fact,” she leaned down close to
me, “he came in just this morning. I’d bet my life that he’s got
that girl holed up in that great big castle of his right now.” She
leaned back, pleased that she could provide a little local color
for the out of towner. “So, can I get you anything else?” she
asked, changing the subject so quickly, I’d barely had time to
process.