“What do you mean?”
“I told you how my parents and my grandma don’t want me to work. My momma wants me to come home, marry Sterling, and go volunteer at the Junior League with her. Sterling thinks it’s pointless for me to have a job since he can support us. But this is important to me. I want to work. I want to succeed on my own, on my own merits and talents, and not ride somebody else’s coattails or be somebody’s accessory.”
I was perilously close to crying again. I drew in a big breath and continued.
“This is important to me. I can’t mess it up. Does that make any sense?”
It was pathetic how desperately I wanted him to get it. Nobody else seemed to.
“It does,” he said, his arm tightening around me slightly.
Relief crashed into me, and I wanted to cry yet again. I blamed the lack of sleep.
“It’s a good thing these cookies come in these hundred-calorie packs, because now it’s easy to count the thousands of calories I just demolished.” I shook my head. “Such a mistake.”
“This is why you should spend more time with me. I don’t make mistakes.”
“Oh, really?”
“I thought I did once, but I was mistaken.”
It felt good to laugh.
Taylor wasn’t laughing, though, when she found us sitting on the floor. “Dante, we need you to get some rest before the group date later on today. They’ve set you up in the master suite. Lemon, I think you and I need to have a discussion.”
This time I let Dante help me to my feet, which turned out to be a mistake. Once I was upright, he tugged my hand and pulled me a little too close. “I’m glad we’re friends,” he said.
Friends. Yes. Friends. That was all we were, I told my prickly skin and racing heart.
I needed to remember that.
Despite being upset, Taylor was a woman with a pulse, and so she watched Dante until he left the room. “So you’re staying?”
“I’m staying.”
“I’m assuming you don’t have the right clothes.”
I ran my fingers through my short, blonde bob, certain I looked terrible. “Sure don’t.”
“Okay,” she said, taking out her phone and typing. “You’re going to need some dresses and shoes and accessories.”
“What about the stylist?” He had offered me dresses at the hotel.
“You only get him for the first Heart Celebration and the last one. Other than that you’re on your own.”
“For hair and makeup too?” I could do my own everyday makeup fine. My own evening makeup. Pageant makeup too. But I’d never done television makeup. I didn’t want to put on too much or too little.
She nodded.
“It’s fine. I’ll go out later and get some things.”
“You can’t. You can’t leave this house unless you’re on a date with Dante or we’re traveling to a different location. No shopping, no movies, no gyms, nothing. You have to stay here on the estate.”
“What?” I hadn’t realized that I’d basically be a prisoner. It was a gilded cage and all, but I wasn’t down for being locked up.
“Sorry. Look, I’ll go out and get your stuff today, okay?” Taylor and I were the same dress and shoe size and had often shared clothes in college.
Looked like I didn’t have much of a choice. “My things are back at the hotel. I’ll reimburse you when everything gets here.”
She nodded.
“And I have a condition.”
That made her look up. “What?”
“I am going to need access to my phone. I will need to call my fiancé and my family. I will also need to keep on top of Kat and Nico’s engagement press tour, so I can’t be completely cut off from civilization.” I could just imagine my poor little phone blowing up with incoming texts and e-mails. People were probably wondering why I’d fallen off the face of the earth.
“The problem is that this show relies on total lack of communication with the outside world. It changes things if the contestants know what’s happening when they’re not around.” She started chewing on one of her fingernails, a terrible habit she had when she was worried. An older sorority sister had once tried to cure her of it by adding cayenne pepper to her nail polish. It hadn’t worked.