Outback Hearts (Beyond Reality Book 1) (17 page)

Finally, Robert came onto the set and began to talk to Alex. He asked Alex if he’d made his decision.

Al responded, “Yes, Robert, I believe I have, I think I knew what my decision was from the first week.”

Sam thought that was really odd, and a huge blow to her ego. If he knew he wanted either Amy or Kathi from the first week what was he doing with her? Was what he’d told her that last day they were together a lie? She tuned back into the show.

“It was a tough decision, all the women were wonderful and I feel lucky that I’ve been able to get to know them throughout the past weeks. Tonight I’ll make the only decision I can. I was once told I had to trust in my decision, and so tonight I will.”

Sam wrinkled her brow…did that mean that he was going to trust
her
? She’d told him to trust her that last day. She was so confused. He had to pick Amy, he just
had
to.

Kathi and Amy were brought out to where Robert and Al stood. They both were beautiful. They had their hair done in dramatic upsweeps and their dresses were worthy of any runway in Hollywood. They were very striking standing next to each other. They were both tall and very slender. Finally, Alex made his speech.

He talked about how this was the hardest decision he ever had to make. Sam laughed, all contestants on reality shows said that in situations like this. Alex continued to talk about how he thought he’d made the best decision he could. He looked at the women.

“Please know that whichever one of you I don’t choose, it wasn’t because you aren’t a good person. You’re both beautiful and I know you’ll have no problem finding someone back home. The woman I choose is…” he paused dramatically, “Kathi.”

Sam nearly choked on the soda she was drinking.

“No way!” Beth exclaimed, “Why did he pick that bitch!?!?”

It was a great ending to the show, Sam had to admit, even though she was crushed. Kathi rushed forward and grabbed Alex around the neck. She squealed with delight. She had tears coming down her face, but Sam noticed that somehow she managed to still look beautiful. The camera panned back to Amy, she looked forlorn standing by herself. As part of the show, Alex walked her to the car.

The cameras showed Amy looking up at Alex and asking, “Why?” as if her world had ended. Alex gave Amy a big hug. It looked like he was whispering in her ear, but the microphones couldn’t pick up his words since they were too low. Sam couldn’t help but remember the way he’d done that to her too and how his mouth felt on her ear that day on their picnic. Her stomach lurched a bit.

Finally, he let Amy go, kissed her on the cheek and helped her into the car. It looked like he took a big breath and made his way back to Kathi and Robert. Kathi rushed into his arms again, while Robert made a speech about true love and how Alex had made his choice. As the picture faded out, Alex and Kathi were dancing to a romantic ballad. Kathi was looking up into Alex’s face and running her hand through the hair at the back of his neck.

“Ugh,” Christina grunted, “that was disgusting. Why did he pick
her
? She wasn’t nearly as nice as Amy was. What a disappointment. I thought your Alex had better taste,” she finished.

“First of all,” Sam started, “he isn’t
my
Alex. Secondly, he didn’t see all the footage that we did here at home. He had no idea what she was really like, she was completely different around him. And I guess he’s just the kind of man who doesn’t like a strong independent woman. He’d rather have someone to take care of,” she finished glumly. That was what was really bothering her. She simply couldn’t believe Al would rather have someone like Kathi, than Amy. She’d tried to tell him, maybe he thought she was jealous or something. She should have told him about Kathi’s fake accident when she was there. If Sam couldn’t have him, she didn’t want Kathi to manipulate him and make him miserable either.

Beth shrugged. “No matter what the reason, it’ll be a great interview on the morning news show in the morning. Now that he’s seen the show and the footage about her, I wonder if that will change anything.”

“Probably not,” Christina said. “He seems like a forgiving kind of guy. I bet it won’t matter to him. I always wonder if they’ve had any contact since the filming ended. I mean, isn’t it in the contract that you can’t have contact with the winner in case it leaks out, Sam?” she asked.

Sam nodded. “Yup, I had to sign a contract specifically saying that if I was the last woman I wouldn’t contact him by phone, letter or in person until the final show aired.” Secretly, she wondered if the feelings on any reality show winner’s part could stand nine months apart or if they snuck around and talked anyway. She thought she’d heard about other couples from other reality shows that had met in secret before the show finished airing.

The next morning, Sam was running late. She’d forgotten to turn on her alarm the night before because she’d cried herself to sleep. She wasn’t able to get the picture of Kathi and Alex dancing cheek to cheek out of her head. Besides that, Beth and Christina hadn’t left until late and she’d already been exhausted, physically and emotionally. So she was late getting up and had to take the quickest shower of her life in order to have time to feed and walk her dogs before she had to leave for work. Because she had no time, she wasn’t able to watch the morning news channel that was going to have Alex and Kathi on.

Sam rushed into work only a few minutes late. Because she didn’t want to irritate her boss she went right to work rather than talking to her co-workers first. As she was in the middle of answering an email to a client, she received a notification on her computer that she’d just received an email. She opened it up and didn’t recognize the address it came from. The email said only:

Did you enjoy the gifts?

Sam looked around quickly…could it really be from the person who’d been sending her all the gifts? She was a bit leery, but responded immediately.

Who are you?
She typed, not answering the original question and hit send.

You really don’t know?
Came the response.

Sam looked closely at the email address…[email protected]…it could be anyone.

I wouldn’t have asked if I knew.
Sam quickly typed and hit send again. It was actually sort of fun to have an anonymous pen-pal…fun as long as it wasn’t a stalker.

You didn’t answer my question, did you enjoy the gifts?
The sender asked again.

Of course I did, who wouldn’t?
Sam typed back, not sure what else to say to this stranger.

The next email popped up immediately.
Did you watch the news this morning?

What a strange thing to ask.
Sam thought.
Nope, didn’t have time, I was running late, what did I miss?
Sam asked, wondering for a moment if there’d been some terrorist attack she’d missed or something else just as big.

It took a while for a response to come back, but when it did Sam read, “
Watch the news, then we’ll talk.
”

“What the hell?” Sam said a little too loud. How could she watch the news when she didn’t record it on her DVR? Sam figured
[email protected]
was male, but she supposed it could be anyone. She decided maybe she’d go to a National News web site and see if anything struck her as odd. She was about to type it in when her phone rang.
Oh well, maybe later.
Sam thought as she got back to work.

It turned out there was a crisis at work that day. Sam didn’t get to leave her desk to talk with her coworkers at all. Her boss asked her to take care of a nasty situation with a client and Sam spent her entire day talking to HR, the client and then to her boss as well. They had to come to some sort of compromise so the attorneys wouldn’t get involved. As she was leaving work, her cell phone rang. It was Beth.

“Where are you?” Beth said as soon as Sam answered.

“I’m leaving work, where are you?” Sam asked.

“I’m at your place, hurry up and get here…did you see the news this morning?” Beth asked.

“Why is everyone asking me that today?” Sam responded grumpily. “No, I was running late. Why? What was on it?”

“I taped it for Christina because she called this morning and said she couldn’t watch it. She’s coming over to meet us at your house. Hurry up and get here, I think your neighbors are getting ready to call the cops on me!” Beth told her.

Sam laughed. She did have some pretty nosy neighbors. “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” she told Beth, starting her engine. She and Christina had constantly made fun of Beth because she still used her
very
old VCR to tape shows instead of using the DVR that most cable companies had now.

When Sam got home Christina had already arrived and both she and Beth were impatiently waiting.

“I heard all about it at work,” Christina said, “I can’t wait to see it for myself.”

Sam was now really curious. First the email, now her best friends.

“What the hell is the big deal?” Sam asked as they entered the house.

“I can’t believe you have no idea!” Christina told her. “It’s the interview with Alex and Kathi! I heard it was great!”

Now Sam was confused. Was that what the email sender was talking about?

“What else was on the news this morning?” Sam asked, thinking that maybe there was something else going on in the Nation that she should know about and that pertained to the morning’s emails.

“Who cares!” Beth practically shouted. “You
have
to see this!”

After letting the dogs outside, Sam sat down on the couch while Beth fiddled with the tape, shoving it into Sam’s ancient VCR. Finally, she got it going. The three friends sat back to watch. The news anchors, David and Jenny, were doing their bit about the upcoming segment. They discussed Alex and Kathi and how they would be coming right up.

When Beth taped the show, she obviously edited out the commercials, because the next scene was Alex walking onto the set with Kathi. She was grinning from ear to ear. She still looked beautiful. She had on a short black dress and her hair was down around her shoulders. She was hanging onto Alex’s arm like she’d fall over if she didn’t have him to hold her upright. Sam thought she was even skinnier than when she was on the show. And Alex, holy crap, he looked great. He wasn’t wearing jeans like he did for the show. He was wearing a business suit. It looked different, but still wonderful.

The couple walked in and sat down on the couch in front of the news anchorwoman, Jenny.

“Welcome, Alex and Kathi,” she said enthusiastically. “It’s great to see you. How are you both doing? Is it true that you haven’t seen each other since the show ended?”

Kathi immediately answered, “It’s true. But it’s as if no time has gone by for us.” She looked up at Alex and continued. “I’m just so thrilled to be able to be with him in public now.” She gushed.

“Jenny,” Alex interrupted Kathi, “I agreed to come here today because my contract says that I had to.” With that, gasps were heard from the studio audience, even Jenny, a seasoned reporter looked like she didn’t know what to say. Alex’s tone of voice left no doubt he wasn’t a happy man. When Kathi was about to interrupt, Alex continued.

“I’ve watched the show along with the rest of America and have seen things I didn’t know were going on while the show was being taped. Because I feel as if I was deceived, I don’t think like I need to continue on with this farce of a relationship. I could never be with someone who wasn’t honest with me. I hope that everyone can understand and hopefully they support me in my decision. I’m sure that Kathi…” and with that he turned to look at the woman sitting next to him, who was staring at him in shock, “will find a man out there who’ll be perfect for her in every way. I honestly don’t believe I’m that man.”

Jenny asked him quickly, sensing he was about to stand up and leave, “Is there someone else?”

Alex looked at her, then looked at the camera. “I hope so, if she’ll have me.”

With that Alex stood up, kissed Jenny on the cheek, and walked off the set. Jenny then, apparently still in shock, wrapped up the segment without giving Kathi a chance to defend herself or protest and the program cut to a commercial.

“Holy Cow!” Christina said. “That was better than a soap opera! I’m so glad he left her skanky butt! But I’m sure the network executives are having a cow!”

“I don’t know,” Beth responded slowly. “This is great publicity. They probably didn’t expect that their final woman and Alex would stay together anyway, and they’ll get more leverage out of this than if they’d stayed together.”

Sam couldn’t say anything, she was in shock. Alex had sounded so calm and confident in his little speech. He didn’t sound heartbroken at all. She couldn’t understand it. Wasn’t he embarrassed? He chose Kathi over Amy, wasn’t he upset about it at all? She thought about it for a bit while Beth and Christina continued to speculate about Alex and Kathi. Suddenly, a small smile came over her face.

“What?” Beth demanded. “You have the weirdest look on your face.”

“He played them,” Sam said, “Just as they played him. It was brilliant. No wonder he owns his own company!”

The three women just laughed. Finally, Beth and Christina left. Sam asked Beth if she could keep the tape. She watched it three more times. The look on Kathi’s face was priceless. Alex didn’t look brokenhearted, he looked triumphant. Sam was a bit crestfallen about the fact that he already had another girlfriend, but at least he didn’t end up with Kathi. She didn’t think she’d be able to stomach that. The last thing Sam thought before she went to sleep was if she’d hear from her mysterious email pen-pal the next day. Was the interview what she was supposed to watch?