Page 114 of The Love Lie
“You know, I think I actually feel a little bad for those guys. The poor bastards have no idea what’s coming.”
Sam stands and brushes the lint off her dress. “Nina?”
“Yeah?”
“Fuck off.”
The producer laughs and holds out her arm. “Come with me.”
Walking out onto the stage is surprisingly easy. Waving to the adoring audience. Sitting beneath the blinding spotlights. Talking to Keith about the season. Telling off the jerks. Giving all the sweet guys their due. She takes it all in stride. The first two-thirds of the show pass in a blink. It’s not until her conversation with the runner-up starts to wind down that Sam’s palms grow sweaty. Doubts tunnel like worms beneath her skin, wiggling and writhing, carving closer and closer to her heart.
What if this doesn’t work?
What if the audience turns on me?
What if he says no?
There are a million ways this could go wrong. But there’s one possibility she cups between her palms like a wounded bird waiting to take flight.
What if it all goes right?
Keith Holson looks at the audience as the runner-up walks off. Sam’s ears ring so loudly she doesn’t hear a word he says, but deep down she knows what’s coming. The cameras shift at the same instant, all pointed somewhere offstage. Her gaze follows instinctively.
And there he is.
Cooper stands in the shadows, just outside the spotlight, his hat riding low over his brow, those red curls sneaking out behind his ears. His green eyes smolder in the darkness, bright as fire on a starless night. The sight of him in a suit hits her even harder than it did that day on the beach now that she knows the man beneath the body. A cowboy with an artist’s soul. A son wholoved his mother more than anything in the world. A restless spirit who said in her he finally found a home.
Love slams into her like a tidal wave, stirring up every fear, every doubt, every memory of everything that ever came before him. She thinks of what he said back in the dressing room.I need her like I need air. I’m drowning without her.The words hang there while she flips in the current, spinning, churning, lost in the rush. Her chest burns.
And then he’s there.
He sits next to her and takes her hand. Just like that, she’s saved. The second his fingers wrap around hers, warm and solid and sturdy, she draws in that first fresh breath of air since she stepped out of his car and the slate wipes clean. Nothing matters, nothing except the here and now.
“So, Emily and Cooper,” Keith says in that warm yet hollow hosting voice. “Where do things stand since we last left you with that beautiful proposal in the Maldives? Still happily engaged?”
Cooper keeps his eyes glued to her, dissecting every curve of her face, every iridescent shimmer of her eyes in the spotlights, searching for the right answer. But it’s not his answer to give.
Sam turns to Keith. “Actually, Keith, before we get to that, there’s something I need to confess.”
The hand threaded through hers tightens. Despite the murmur of the studio audience, it’s the soft hiss of Cooper’s sharp inhale that grabs her full attention, the sound balanced on the edge of hope and hurt, two sides of the same blade.
“Confess?” Keith asks with a put-on laugh. He turns to the audience with a wide grin, but it pulls at the corners. She’s going off-script and he has no idea what to expect, which is good. Nina said it would play better if he was just as confused as the audience. “What do you think? Should we hear what she has to say?”
“Yes! Yes!” come the shouts.
“Well, Emily. Take it away.”
“That’s just the thing.” Sam swallows. She turns to Cooper, lifts his hand to her lips, and presses a soft kiss against his fingers. His gaze darts rapidly back and forth from one of her pupils to the other, as if he’s unsure he can trust the message he’s reading there. But he can. This is real. This is happening. “I’m not Emily.”
The gears in the backs of Cooper’s eyes shudder to a stop. Sam tightens her fingers reassuringly and turns back to Keith, who is watching her with an unsure expression.
“Don’t tell me,” he suddenly blurts with a nervous laugh as he glances quickly off camera. “You’re Mrs. Kelley already?”
“Nope,” Sam answers, letting thepreally pop off her tongue. Then she grins. “I’m Sam. Well, Samantha Rose Peters if you want to be exact. But everyone calls me Sam.”
The audience gasps.
“Sam?” Keith says slowly, the panic rising in his eyes.
