Waking Up to You Overexposed - By Leslie Kelly Page 0,63
if you’re going to really go through with it and marry Tommy, maybe you should just let him go.”
“No!” The very idea was abhorrent. Yes, she’d intended to leave, to remind him of their agreement, fly back to Los Angeles and move on with her life. But at no time had she envisioned him being so publicly slapped in the face with the decisions she’d made before she’d ever met him.
He deserved an apology, and as much of an explanation as she could give him. He also deserved the right to tell her off, even if she had kept the truth from him out of loyalty to her oldest friend.
She understood now, though, that her loyalties were more torn than ever. She loved Oliver. If she were free, she would want to make a life with him. She wouldn’t choose marriage to a movie star, with all the money, fame and glamour it included, over Oliver. Not a chance.
But Tommy? Her lifelong friend? The one to whom she’d given her word?
“Oh, God, Mad, what am I going to do?”
Her sister scrunched her brow, then nodded. “Take off your dress.”
Her jaw unhinged. “What?”
“Come on, hurry up. Somebody might come in.” She pushed Candace toward the stalls, shoving her inside one. “Get out of it. We’ll switch clothes. I’ll go back and play adoring fiancée while you get out of here and find Oliver.”
“Are you serious?”
“Of course I’m serious. Hell, it’ll be an adventure. I can’t stand reporters—it’ll be fun putting one over on them.”
Candace simply stared.
“I know, I know,” her sister said, waving an airy hand. “I’m a reporter. That doesn’t mean I necessarily like myself. I think I chose the wrong field.”
“Nice time to decide that, Ms. Columbia Master’s Degree.”
“You want me to change my mind?”
“Oh, hell, no!”
Thankful there was a way out of this, at least for right now, she immediately leaped on her sister’s offer. It wasn’t, after all, the first time the two of them had traded places.
“Thank you so much,” she said, yanking down her zipper and flinging the dress over the wall of the stall.
Madison, who’d shoved off her jeans and shirt, took the dress, doing a double take. “Whoa, Candy, that’s some serious underwear you’ve got on there.”
She looked down, seeing the incredibly sexy set of lingerie she’d bought especially to wear under tonight’s dress. A red bra with cutouts over her nipples, and a skimpy thong. She’d envisioned Oliver being the only one seeing her in them for the few minutes it would take to rip them off. Right now, though, she was too anxious to be embarrassed.
“Where do you think he went?” Madison asked as she yanked the dress on over her head and struggled to smooth it over her slightly larger butt.
“The keys to the rental car are in my purse,” she said, buttoning the jeans. “So he either got a cab or walked.”
“Walked, I’ll bet. Men like to go walk out their frustration over this kind of stuff. It seems like the guy thing to do.”
She had no idea whether that was true or not, but was ready to take any help she could get. She’d try walking, and was very glad she had her sister’s flat shoes in which to do it.
Yanking her hair into a ponytail and wetting a paper towel to wipe away some of the heavy makeup from her face, she shoved her purse toward Madison. “Lipstick. Eye shadow. Now.”
Her sister went to work, applying cosmetics with a heavy hand, a look that was most unusual for her. Candace took the pins she’d pulled from her own hair and used them to twist her sister’s into a quick updo, hoping nobody would notice it was a lot less intricate than Candace’s had been.
When they were finished, they stood side by side and looked in the mirror. Madison looked so close to the way Candace had earlier tonight—she had no doubt most people would be fooled.
Her sister took her hand and squeezed.
“It’ll be okay.”
“How?” she whispered, not seeing a happy ending here. Maybe she could find Oliver. Maybe he’d stand still and listen to her enough so she could apologize. Maybe he’d even forgive her.
But that didn’t change the fact that they couldn’t be together.
12
AS OLIVER STALKED out of the hotel, needing to get away and deal with the truth, he vacillated between anger and devastation. His emotions churned one way, then the next. One minute he wanted to punch something, the next, he was tempted to