Gamble on Engagement (20 page)

I shook my head, then realized Mattie
wouldn’t exactly be able to see it over the phone. “No. God,
Mattie, what have I done? I had the greatest boyfriend in the world
and I may have ruined the whole thing just by wanting to finish
this stupid book.”

There was silence on the other end, which
was really, really uncharacteristic of Mattie.

“Mattie? Are you still there?”

“Yeah gorgeous, I’m still here,” he said,
but he didn’t have the usual flair in his voice.

“Mattie…” I said, starting to get scared.
“What is it? What do you know?”

More silence.

“Mattie!”

My heart was starting to race and horrible
thoughts of all possible worst case scenarios started scrolling
through my head.

“Sorry,” he said, as if being jolted out of
a daze. “I just… I promised I wouldn’t say anything, but I suppose
at this point, it doesn’t really matter anymore…”

“Mattie! Spit it out!”

“Okay, okay. Don’t get so testy. It’s just
that…”

Another long pause.

“Mattie…” I growled.

“Well, you know how all the papers have had
that silly little wager going about you and Jake getting engaged or
whatever…”

“Yeah…” I said, totally not following where
he was going with all of this.

“…it’s just that… well, it might not have
been that silly after all.”

My heart sped up even faster, but now my
mind was completely blank. All I could think of was Jake and how
much I knew now that I loved him. I mean, I’d been totally gaga
over him the whole time, of course, but I never really let myself
think about whether or not he was ‘the one.’ I mean, how ridiculous
would it have been for me, a total nobody, to actually let myself
think something with a movie star could actually last. If I were
honest, I knew I couldn’t let myself even consider such things. It
would just break my heart even worse in the end, so I’d told myself
I was just having fun. No big commitment, no giant hope that
anything would really ever come of it.

Jake was a millionaire movie star. I was a
dorky klutz who had a knack for embarrassing herself in public. I
could never let myself hope… except…

“God, Jake would kill me if he knew I was
telling you this.”

“Mattie, there probably won’t even be a Jake
around anymore, I think it’s safe to tell me.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Just tell me.”

He huffed. “Fine.” And that’s when his words
started to speed up. Like to lightning speed. “Jake called like, a
week ago and asked if I could help him out with something and he
took me to Harry Winston where you can probably guess what he
needed my help with because I’m the one who knows you better than
anyone else and I would probably know what kind of ring you would
like.”

My mouth dropped open. And then I closed it
so I could say something, but then it dropped open again. Words
flew through my head but I’m sure I was looking more like a fish
blindly searching for food than and human trying to speak.

“Josie? Josie? Are you still there?”

I nodded.

“Josie?”

Oh right, he still couldn’t see me. “Um,
yeah, I’m here. Did… did you just say Jake bought me a ring?”

“Uh huh.”

“And this was a week ago, before all the
papers came out?”

“Yep.”

“Oh my God. Oh my God.”

And I had totally screwed the whole thing
up.

Again.

God, what the hell was wrong with me? I
should have been writing a manual on how to throw away all the good
things in your life. Now Jake had to be thinking I was into Leo or
something. I mean, he told me he didn’t like me hanging out with
him so much, and then I went and paraded around all over the
country with him. And I knew there would be photographers—how could
there not be?

Then again, I’d committed to the book. I
wanted to finally prove that I could do something well. Make
something of myself. Pick up the pieces of my crumbled life.

And look how that turned out.

I’d not only sucked at writing memoirs, but
I was apparently the suckiest girlfriend to ever have lived.

I’d put everything on hold for a contest,
risked—and lost—everything and while I did come out with someone to
love, a very, very special someone, I’d promised myself I wouldn’t
make any more stupid choices.

And the second I got a chance to run away,
doing something I was totally unqualified for, no less, I did it
without even thinking it through.

And I lost the one good thing I had
left.

I mean sure, I still had Mattie, and I was
so grateful to have Jennifer now, but that was seriously it. There
was no way they were going to pay me for a book that I didn’t even
finish, so I had exactly zero there, I’d ruined everything with
Jake. Even the dream that I wouldn’t let myself have, the one that
I had been so ridiculously close to and not even known it, and
didn’t even realize I wanted, except that now I knew I did, so
badly. I would give anything to be with Jake—to be committed to
Jake forever

To be his wife.

God, I didn’t even know I wanted to be a
wife at all.

Until the moment I knew it was all gone.

Mattie let me cry as long as I wanted. The
call was probably costing us both a fortune, but it didn’t matter.
None of it mattered anymore.

Eventually I got myself together and somehow
Mattie knew the exact right thing to say.

There were no, “Are you okays,” or “it’ll be
alrights.”

He just simply said, “I love you Josie.
You’ll figure this out. You always do.”

I smiled. He really was the best friend
ever.

“I love you too,” I said. “I’ll talk to you
soon.”

I hoped he was smiling on his end too when
he said, “bye.”

I hung up and made my way back on to the
road and drove the last few miles to Gatesbury.

Somehow, on this fittingly gloomy day, the
castle just didn’t look as grand. It was still big, sure, huge
really, but there was also something a little sad about it. A home
this big with only one permanent resident. Sure, there were staff
that stayed over, but they all had their own houses, their real
homes.

Except for Leo.

And suddenly I realized what made him tick.
What made him who he was.

The way he was when his mother visited,
distant, like she was more like an aunt than a mother. And no
father to be close to, he’d always been away—had more important
things to do—and never really taken the time to know Leo.

I drove up the driveway and parked the car,
seeing no one.

I snuck back into the castle as quietly as
possible, took off my shoes, and crept to Melania’s old room.

Being there only enhanced the melancholy I
was feeling.

Even in a relationship, Leo had a room on
complete other side of the building.

And maybe worst of all, Leo didn’t have
anyone like Mattie, or Jennifer to lean on when the ground was
crumbling away under his feet.

He had a wall around him and had absolutely
no clue how to let another soul into his life, to really let them
in.

He simply didn’t know how.

I thought of him as a boy, of how lonely he
must have always been.

And I thought about all the things that I
had lost, but at least I’d had, if only for a little while.

And I sat down and wrote.

~ 18 ~

“What are you doing here?”

I spun around out of the fridge, my heart
jumping into my throat. “Oh, Miranda. Sorry, I didn’t know anyone
was here.”

I’d sat in Melania’s old room, typing, for
who knows how long. I remembered getting up to turn on the light
when it got dark, but no matter how late it got, I just kept
writing, forgetting to eat, forgetting to drink anything. I only
stopped to go to the bathroom once.

And I’d come a long way.

But it was clearer than ever I wasn’t going
to finish the book.

Truly, I may have gained some insight into
Leo these last few weeks, the way he was so determined not to let
any of the adventures get the best of him, the way he always had
that air of loneliness around him, the way he always tried just a
little bit too hard.

But still… I didn’t know him. Not
really.

I hardly knew anything about his history,
his childhood, his college years. None of it.

I had written about everything from the
moment I met him, but it was nowhere near enough.

And I had to come clean.

I closed the fridge and sat down on a stool
at the kitchen island, and took a deep breath, looking her in the
eye.

But it was strange. She looked… different
somehow. Less severe.

Her hair hadn’t been straightened into
submission and actually flowed in long waves, and I’d never seen
her in casual clothes before. Always a suit. But now, she looked…
cute. Really cute, actually. But more than anything, it was the
expression she wore, like she was just tired. Defeated.

Ready to give up.

Like she didn’t really even care
anymore.

Well, except to question my presence at
Gatesbury, but then again, old habits are hard to break.

She sat down across from me. Well, flopped
down really. All her fussy energy completely drained out of
her.

“Are you okay?” I couldn’t help but ask.

She just shrugged.

“No really, what’s going on?” I was actually
really starting to worry a bit. Something had to be really wrong
for a person like Miranda to completely give up.

She looked at me, sizing me up, I guess to
see if I was just trying to be nice, or if I actually cared.

I surprised myself by realizing that I
actually did care what was going on with her. She may have been the
thorn in my side all these weeks, her robot self always lurking
around every corner, making sure nothing was ever out of order. But
now she actually seemed like a real, human person. A person I
wanted to understand.

We looked at each other like that for a long
time until finally she spoke.

“It’s over.” She shrugged again. “It’s just
all… over.” She let out a long breath like she was trying to
deflate herself.

“Do you mean the book?” I asked, knowing she
was right about that.

“The book, this life, everything.”

I cocked my head to the side, totally not
getting what she was saying. “Were you fired or something?” Maybe
that’s what the new, casual look was all about.

She shook her head. “No. But I just can’t do
this anymore.” She stood up, pacing. “I can’t keep spending every
day of my life living for someone else. Living with nothing but
hope for a future that I know will never come.”

Okay, now I was really confused. “What
future?”

She turned to look at me. “Are you fucking
stupid?” she yelled.

I was actually taken aback, like literally,
I physically reeled backwards. Well, as much as I could while still
sitting on a bar stool, that is.

She sat back down, burying her head in her
hands, then peeked up at me, still feeling me out. I had no
friggin’ clue what to say.

Eventually, she took a deep breath. “When I
first took this job, it was for the challenge of it. Leo was
notorious for going through assistants like he was changing his
socks, and I wanted to prove that I was better than all the
rest.”

“Sure,” I said. “And you’ve obviously done
that.”

She raised her eyebrows in half-hearted
agreement. “But then it became something else. It wasn’t about all
that anymore. It was about….” She trailed off and my mind started
putting together what she was trying to say.

But she couldn’t, she just looked out the
window like she was broken hearted. But why? What had broken her
heart?

“Oh my God!” I yelled, my mouth dropping
open. I wanted to yell into my brain, how did you not get there
faster? How stupid could I be? “You’re in love with Leo.”

She looked up. “Say it a little louder why
don’t you? I think some of the employees in the garden may not have
heard you.”

“Holy shit,” was all I could say.

“It’s funny,” she said, getting a faraway
look in her eye. “At first, I didn’t even like him. I thought he
was just spoiled and arrogant. But then…”

“He kind of gets to you,” I finished.

“Yeah,” she said, smiling, just a little.
“But, I just can’t be here with him anymore, knowing that it’s
never going to happen. At this point we’ve gotten into way too much
of a routine, our relationship is never going to change. And the
way he is around you, I…” she trailed off. “It’s just never going
to happen.”

“You don’t know that,” I said, suddenly
finding myself rooting for her. “If you just told him…”

She chuckled humorlessly. “You think I’ve
been pining after him for this long and haven’t tried talking to
him? Getting through to him? It’s just that… I can’t. Believe me,
I’ve tried a million times. Gone over it in my head so many times
it almost seems real. Dreamed about it even.”

I nodded.

“But I just… can’t.” Her sadness increased
visibly. “But,” she said, perking up slightly. “I think at least I
may have a solution to our immediate problem and then we can both
just get on with our lives.”

I crinkled my brow. “Our immediate
problem?”

“The book.”

“Oh, right.”

“So, how much do you have done?”

I chewed my lip. “Like, maybe a hundred
pages.”

“And it’s all recent stuff?”

I nodded sheepishly, knowing she’d known all
along that I didn’t get the research done that I needed to.

“Okay. Because I have about a hundred and
fifty that I’ve been putting together over the past five years.
I’ve been to visit his schools, his old house, his grandparents…”
She pulled a thick pile of manuscript pages out of her bag and
slammed it down on the table.