Runaway Groom (I Do, I Don't 2)

Gage reaches out a hand to steady me, big and warm on my waist. For a second I think he’s lingering, but then I realize his fingers are simply testing the fabric of my T-shirt.

“So, this is the business,” he murmurs. “Looks like a men’s undershirt to me.”

I bat his hand away. “The cut of a man’s undershirt doesn’t adequately account for a woman’s—” I break off.

He lifts his eyebrows. “Yes?”

“Never mind,” I mutter, not about to say the word breasts or boobs when I’m in very close proximity to a man who’s making me too aware of my boobs.

He drags his eyes from my shirt up to my face. “The person you were talking to. Was this the same friend that made you come here?”

My eyes narrow. “Why are you saying it like that? Like you don’t believe me.”

“You just don’t seem like the type of woman who can be made to do anything.”

“True. I’m the sort of woman who will do what it takes to make her business a success,” I say, trying to move around him. “I just…went too far with this one.”

He puts up an arm, blocks my way. “Hot and hollow, huh?”

His eyes are oddly intense, as though my answer somehow matters, and I wince, hating that he heard my careless assessment of him.

Still, I’m not out to make this guy like me, and I sort of meant it. Any guy who thinks he’s going to find his true love on TV in the span of a month? Hollow.

Or at least really dim.

I study him. “I know why I’m in this closet. Why are you?”

“Cleaning fetish,” he deadpans. “Brooms and buckets really do it for me.”

I narrow my eyes and ignore the sarcasm. “You were hiding.”

His expression flickers, and I know I’m right. The man practically lives on camera, and yet he sought out a cleaning closet for a moment of solitude that I’d disturbed with my thoughtless trash talk.

I feel a little stab of regret—not because I was wrong about him, but because I wish he hadn’t heard it.

Still, maybe I can use my faux pas to my advantage, getting me out of here before I can cause any more trouble for myself.

I step back and look at him steadily. “Look. We both know that I never should have made it to this round. No doubt you were hoping that people would vote me home, but…”

I spread my arms to the sides, intending it to be a self-deprecating gesture to put him at ease. Instead, he rakes his gaze over me and the mood in the tiny closet is anything but easy.

“Interesting,” he says finally, breaking the silence.

“What is?” I look longingly toward the door. Toward escape.

“That you label me hollow, and yet you’re the one openly admitting to using the show—to using me—to sell T-shirts.”

“Oh, come on. Surely, you’re not so naive that you don’t know what this show is—what we’re all doing here. The goal is ratings, not happily ever after.”

“That’s the network’s goal. Not mine.”

“Right. You’re here for…what was it again? To find your one true love?” I don’t bother to keep the skepticism out of my voice.

He surprises me by grinning. “Why do you think I’m here?”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” I say, waving my hand breezily as I again attempt to ease by him.

He reaches out to stop me, his fingers resting lightly against my stomach, his fingers seeming to burn through the thin fabric of my shirt, and I’m embarrassed at the way my breath hitches.