Free Romancing Miss Right by Lizzie Shane Page A

absolutely
blank. The thought of marrying Craig was too foreign to be
considered and her brain shut down in protest. “We have fun
together, but I guess I’m not sure I really know him?”
    “So tonight, Craig needs to prove…”
    “Right, yeah. Sorry.” Marcy cleared her
throat and put on her Concerned Miss Right face. “I really enjoy
the time I spend with Craig, but I feel like right now our
relationship is all about fun and thrills and if we are going to
have a future together I really need to get to know him on a deeper
level. Tonight, if he wants to earn my favor, he’s going to have to
prove that he can really be vulnerable and show me who he really
is.” She twisted her hands together where the camera couldn’t see
them. “How was that?”
    #
    Craig shoved his hands into his pockets,
rocking on his heels as he waited for Marcy. So much fucking
waiting. Sometimes it felt like there was nothing but waiting.
Waiting for his dates, waiting for her on their dates while they
were separated to tell the cameras how they felt about everything . He’d been asked to talk about his emotions more
in the last week than he had the rest of his life combined.
    He’d bullshitted his way through so far, but
tonight he felt… something. Off balance. Edgy.
    Jumping off that bridge today had scared the
ever-loving shit out of him, but Marcy had gotten him through it,
grounded him when he would have panicked—all without seeming to
realize what she was doing.
    It was ridiculous to think the show’s
heavy-handed emotional manipulation tactics were working, but the
truth of it was he liked her. He hadn’t been supposed to like her.
That wasn’t supposed to even enter into the equation. He wasn’t
supposed to feel anything. That wasn’t why he was here.
    A PA hovered nearby, listening intently to
the buzz of conversation in his earpiece. Craig jerked his chin to
get the kid’s attention.
    “What’s the deal with tonight?” he asked.
“What do I need to do to score the favor?”
    “Be vulnerable,” the PA said instantly.
“Private dates are all about intimacy and honesty. You really need
to reveal your inner soul tonight.”
    Craig snorted. “I don’t have an inner soul.
What you see is what you get.”
    The PA blinked, visibly unsure what to make
of that. “You could always just kiss her, I guess. That usually
works too.”
    The camera crews suddenly surged into action,
one taking aim at an archway at the opposite end of the garden
while another swiveled around to get Craig’s reaction shot as Miss
Right herself stepped into view. She looked like a Grecian goddess,
all flowing fabric and graceful curves—and the moonlight loved
her.
    Craig ate her up with his eyes. “That I can
do.”
    Seducing her wouldn’t be a problem, but
emotional intimacy? That wasn’t happening. Craig didn’t do
vulnerable.
    #
    “So Craig, tell me more about yourself.
What’s your family like?”
    He took a long swallow of wine—even though he
was more of a beer guy—to buy himself time. He’d been dodging the
intimacy crap all through dinner, but now they’d fed one another
the last few bites of chocolate cheesecake and their plates had
been cleared away and he was running out of excuses.
    He had to give her something. Best to keep it
brief. “It’s just me and my mom. She’s an incredible lady.”
    “And your dad…?”
    “Was never in the picture.” The muscles
across his shoulders tensed as he braced himself for the usual
Psych 101 abandonment issues crap, but Marcy surprised him.
    “Your mom—so she’s the one who wished Miss
Right would be someone else?”
    He grinned in spite of himself. “That’s her,
yeah.”
    “Was it a sort of no woman is good enough for
my baby thing or was it me specifically? Is this something I should
be worried about if things progress and I meet her?”
    “I don’t think she’d be rude to you.”
    “But it was me specifically?” She cocked her
head to the side, her loose brown