Page 127 of Wild As Her

There’s a beat of silence. Wind tugging at her hair. Dust kicking up in the gravel.

I reach out and gently touch her waist, turning her toward me. She lets me. I look her straight in the eyes.

“You know it’s you, Wilder,” I say, voice low and certain. “Always been you. And always will be you. There will never be anyone else for me.”

Her eyes flash with something, hope, maybe. Uncertainty. And I hate that uncertainty is there. I want her to have hope and love. She deserves that.

“This is almost over,” I add. “We’re almost out of this mess. And then we can finally just be us. No cameras. No pretending. Just… you and me.”

She doesn’t answer right away. Just looks up at me with that guarded softness that always makes me want to pull her closer.

And then slowly, carefully, she nods. “I’m trying to believe it’s real,” she whispers. “That it’ll actually end. That we’ll get to be normal.”

I lean in and kiss her. Not hard. Not rushed. Just… honest and real.

Her hands slide up my chest and into my shirt like she’s grounding herself. Like I’m the only thing holding her to the earth right now.

When we break apart, I rest my forehead against hers. “I’ve got you. No matter how weird this gets. No matter what.”

She exhales. “We just need the finale to be over.”

“Then it’s done,” I repeat. “And I’m yours.”

She finally smiles, just a little. “You’ve always been mine, Jessop.”

I kiss her again because I can. Because we’re almost through the storm. And we’re still standing.

There’s hay scattered across the makeshift stage inside the barn, fairy lights strung across the rafters like they can distract from the disaster about to happen. Everything smells like sawdust and fake happiness. The camera crew is whispering in frantic tones off to the side, and Jenna’s pacing like she’s one unflattering angle away from a nervous breakdown.

I’m standing under a big-ass wooden arch someone zip-tied roses to, wearing a clean flannel I hate and holding a ring box that feels like it weighs a hundred pounds.

Elena stands a few feet away in a flowy dress and heels that are completely impractical for the barn floor. She’s smiling.

Because she knows. We both do. It’s all for show. But that doesn’t make it any easier.

I shift my weight and scan the crowd gathered in the barn: family, neighbors, tourists, and half the crew all pressed in on hay bales like it’s opening night at the county fair.

And that’s when I see her. Front row. Cami. She’s sitting between Ollie and Logan, of all people, and my chest goes tight at the sight of her.

She’s wearing a red dress. Not just red.Red. The kind of red that makes your brain short-circuit. Her long black hair is down, curled, wild in a way that makes me want to bury my hands in it and never let go. And that lipstick, God help me, is doing things to me that should be illegal on a family-friendly TV set.

She crosses her legs and smiles at something Ollie says, and it hits me like a punch to the ribs. I’m supposed to walk out there. Say Elena is my choice. Kiss her. Maybe even fake-propose. And the love of my life is sitting in the front row in a red dress, watching me do it.

My throat dries out. My heart’s pounding too fast. I take astep toward the center of the stage and almost stumble. Jenna appears beside me like a vision of stress and caffeine.

“Okay,” she hisses, fake-smiling at the cameras. “Remember the lines. Choose Elena. Say something swoony. Then we do the fake proposal. Big kiss. Crowd goes wild. We roll credits. You get your money, I get my finale, and no one dies.”

I nod numbly. “Right.” My hands are shaking. The box in my pocket feels like it’s burning a hole through my soul.

Elena walks up next to me, her smile soft. “You okay?”

I glance at her. “Not even a little.”

She squeezes my hand quickly, under the radar. “We can get through this. One more scene.”

I look back at Cami. She’s looking at me now. And she knows. I can see it in her face. In the way her smile slips just a little. In the way her fingers tighten around the armrest.

She knows I’m about to choose someone else. And she has no idea it’s all pretend. I take a step forward. The crowd quiets. The cameras zoom in. And I try to breathe. But I can’t.

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