Page 96 of The Love Dare
God, I’m so naked right now!
Please be a sheet. Please be a sheet.
Winnie drops her hand to her hip, praying for fabric. And there—yes! She grips the edge and pulls it up to her chin before rolling away from Tyler, absolutely mortified at being caught in such a compromising state for the whole world to see. In her panic, she pushes just a bit too hard and tumbles over the side of the bed.
“Fuck!”
It’s Ty.
Winnie scrambles to her feet, which is not an easy task while also desperately clinging to a king-sized sheet, and looks at him, wondering what happened. Her eyes go wide. He glowers at her from the center of the mattress, completely butt-ass naked, with his hands cupping his junk. But what the hell does he care? The man has more muscle than he knows what to do with, and every single one of his female fans will be thanking Winnie on hands and knees for delivering them this moment. Plus, he did a naked photo shoot his rookie season. She’s got two copies of the magazine stashed in her desk back home, under her art supplies where her mother would never dare look.
She doesn’t waste time apologizing.
Winnie throws herself into the bathroom and shuts the door.
“Relax!” Nina calls, unable to stop an amused snort. “I’m going to shoot the two of you later, once you’ve got clothes on. We’re a family network, remember? This is just some B-roll to set the mood.”
The racehorses thundering down her veins slow just a little, but Winnie still refuses to leave the bathroom until Nina physically passes her a set of clothes through a crack in thedoor. Once dressed, they film a few quick scenes on the bed and in the suite, sipping coffee against the backdrop of the sun rising brilliantly over the Pacific Ocean. And then it’s over, far too soon. Ten seconds after their goodbye kiss, they’re dragged to separate cars. Winnie strains for a peek of him through the tinted windows, but she can’t see anything.
Half an hour later, she’s deposited in the suite where the two other finalists are waiting. Victoria takes one look at her swollen lips and turns away with a scowl. Cynthia comes running over for all the details. She wants nothing more than to disappear in her room and squeal with her friend, but the producers won’t let them leave. So Winnie does her best to provide a whispered, abbreviated version, but there may still be alittlesquealing involved. She’s just too happy and it’s too contagious and try as she might, she can’t hide it.
Before long, Victoria gets pulled for her date. Winnie waits for the doubts to come creeping in. Her archnemesis is off in some irresistibly romantic setting with the love of her life—how could shenothave doubts? But Cynthia does a heroic job of distracting her. And truth be told, since last night, something inside of her just feels different. Yes, there’s nothing to do in this suite but talk and think and talk and think. It’s mind numbing. But she feels secure for maybe the first time in her life. It’s a pressure cooker situation absolutely designed to make her spiral, and yet, she doesn’t.
Because Winnie trusts Tyler.
She doesn’t trust Nina or Victoria or any of the other ruthless jerks working for this show. But she trusts Tyler implicitly, and she refuses to let these people or their machinations or even her own fears get in the way.
Victoria returns later that night, just as Winnie expected she would, absolutely certain Tyler would never invite anyone else to a dream suite. But the sight of the girl’s tearstained cheeksas she walks back through the door with no friends to comfort her doesn’t make Winnie feel triumphant, the way she maybe expected it would. It just makes her feel sad. She knows exactly what it’s like to feel rejected and dismissed and alone—and she wouldn’t wish it on anybody, not even Victoria.
So when Cynthia heads to her room with a breezygood night, Winnie does the last thing she ever expected she would. Instead of closing the final five feet to her bedroom door, she turns around and quietly approaches Victoria instead.
“Hey,” she murmurs. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” Victoria grunts, though the soft sniffles filling the ensuing silence say otherwise. She keeps her face pointedly angled toward the window, but Winnie catches a slight glisten in her reflection.
“If you need someone to talk to, I can be that person, just for tonight. I know we aren’t?—”
“Save it,” Victoria snaps, turning up to her suddenly, venom in her gaze. “I’m not interested in whatever this is. If you came over here to gloat, just do it and get it over with.”
“I didn’t,” Winnie says with surprise, not at the silly accusation, but at the genuine hurt in Victoria’s voice. This whole time, Winnie thought she was playing a weird twisted game, but right now, Victoria doesn’t look like some villain chasing clout and a bank account. She looks like something far more recognizable—a girl with a broken heart. “I just thought you could use a friend, that’s all.”
Victoria snorts and turns back to the window. Winnie takes it as her cue to leave.
I tried.
And really, that’s all she can do.
But before she gets three steps away, Victoria stops her. “I never even stood a chance, did I? It was you, right from the start.”
“I—” Winnie looks over her shoulder, stopping midsentence. The pain in Victoria’s eyes deserves to be answered with honesty, not some sugarcoated explanation to make her feel better. “Yeah,” she says. “It was.”
The words are true, and she won’t apologize for them, but she will apologize for her part in making Victoria feel the way she feels.
“I never wanted to hurt anyone,” Winnie says, trying to explain. “That’s not why I came here. I just— I love him. I’ve always loved him. And I had to make sure he understood that. Maybe we were being selfish, wrapped up in our own happiness, not thinking about how it would affect anyone else, I don’t know. But I do know I’m sorry if anything I did caused you pain. That was never my intention.”
Victoria stares at her through narrowed eyes. Winnie waits, wondering if there’s any chance an apology might be headed her way. The moment extends. Then Victoria blinks and returns her gaze to the window.
Winnie fights back a snort, because of course there’s no apology coming her way, for the rude comments and the hostile stares and the spilled drinks—not to mention all the other crap she can’t prove but highly suspects Victoria was involved in. She doesn’t need one anyway. That’s not why she said she was sorry.
