“Thanks, Tom. Former MMA champion, Declan Gallagher, caused quite the stir last night on the red carpet when he was photographed kissing a mystery girl, get this, right in front of his ex, supermodel Giselle and his rival, Dominic “The Spider” St Pierre. Who is this mystery girl? What does Giselle have to say about her? And, most importantly, ladies, just how was that steamy, passionate, seductive kiss? All those answers coming up!”

  Chills snaked down my spine as I stared numbly at the television. I never wanted this much attention. What had I gotten myself into?

  A knock at the door startled me from my panicked trance.

  Seamus hurried over to the door to let in a server, who pushed a cart laden with silver trays into the room and silently disappeared. Clanking loudly, Seamus pulled the covers off platters of eggs, bacon, ham, pancakes, and French toast. There were chocolate croissants, fruits, yogurts, and jams, anything and everything you could want for breakfast.

  Normally, the sight would have brought an excited rumble to my stomach. I only felt sick.

  I exhaled in relief when Declan grabbed the remote and clicked off the television. “Are you okay?” he asked softly, resting a gentle hand on my forearm.

  “I—”

  “Okay? Okay?!” Seamus wagged a finger over at me as he poured coffee into three cups. “She’s goddamn brilliant is what she is. Fucking brilliant.”

  He handed each of us a cup of coffee; I took mine with shaking fingers and struggled to keep the steaming dark liquid from sloshing over the edges.

  “Defending Declan on the red carpet, stepping between him and Giselle and Dominic in that tense moment, holding his face like that…that kiss,” Seamus winked at me. “Brilliant. Just brilliant. The media is eating it up. They love you two.”

  I frowned. “But I didn’t do any of that for the med—”

  “There’s already polls about who Declan should be with: the poor, wild American hippie or the famous, rich model ex.” Seamus was scrolling through his phone. “The drama is delicious. And we need to capitalize on it.”

  Declan groaned next to me. “Jesus Christ, Seamus.”

  I shook my head, trying to keep up as I placed my overflowing coffee cup on the nightstand. “No, no, Seamus, I think there’s been some sort of misunderstanding,” I said. “It wasn’t my idea to pretend to be Declan’s girlfriend.”

  “Eh, eh, don’t be so modest.” Seamus laughed as he dropped a massive plate of breakfast in my lap.

  I stared at the fluffy golden pancakes with no desire at all to cut into them. I was afraid not even a river of maple syrup could change my appetite.

  “So listen,” Seamus continued, “I’ve got Oisin dropping by after breakfast to get you dressed, River. I’m thinking we need to pick something sexier than that crazy dress of yours. Maybe something with some cleavage, something that creates juicy competition between you and Giselle.”

  I frowned. “Dressed? Dressed for what?”

  Next to my side of the bed, Seamus picked up a curl before I swatted his hand away from my head. “Can we do something about this hair, though?”

  “Hey!” I shouted indignantly.

  “I’ll check with Oisin before.”

  “Before what?!”

  Seamus was back on his phone, clicking away. “They want to see a kiss,” he said to us. “Think you can do one like last night for the camera?”

  My confusion was only growing. “Camera?” I asked.

  “Yes, yes, yes.” Seamus waved an irritated hand at me. “Keep up, River. There will obviously be cameras at an interview. Do you need more coffee? I can get you more coffee if that will help. We need you on your A game.”

  I could barely hear him as blood rushed against my ears. “Interview?” I managed to croak.

  Just the thought of those bright, glaring, harsh lights made me sweat. Imagining the questions made my throat tighten. I couldn’t even fathom how many people would see it, and maybe that was a good thing because if I knew the number, I probably would have thrown up.

  As my palms grew clammy and my heart rate jumped, out of the corner of my wide, panicked eyes I noticed Declan studying me.

  “Seamus, I think you need to leave,” I heard Declan say as if through a long, long tunnel.

  “We have a lot of prep to do,” Seamus countered. “We need to go over the story of how you two met so that you each have it straight, maybe beef it up with some juicy details.”

  “Seamus,” Declan warned in a low voice.

  I couldn’t turn to see what his face looked like in that moment. I was frozen with fear, stuck staring at my reflection in the black television screen.

  “We need to practice how you two sit together and touch each other,” Seamus continued nonetheless. “I’m thinking flirty and seductive. Anything to increase the buzz.”

  “Seamus, get out.” Anger rang in Declan’s voice.

  “River, we’ll go over some of the personal questions they’ll ask you so—”

  “Get the fuck out, Seamus!” Declan moved off the bed and forced Seamus out the door despite his protests. The floor practically shook when Declan slammed the door. Then he was back at my side, sitting on the edge of the bed and pulling my hands into his. “Hey, hey,” he whispered. “Look at me.”

  I dragged my eyes to him.

  He smiled sweetly. “Hey.”

  “Hi,” I said softly, shakily.

  “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” he said. “Seamus is a fucking idiot.”

  I found myself comforted by the gentle tone of his voice and the steady hold of his eyes.

  “I’ll tell Seamus you’re not coming, alright?” Declan moved to push himself off the bed.

  I squeezed his hands to keep him where he was. “What about you?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “It’s promotion for my comeback fight. I have to go.”

  I saw the bright, glaring, harsh lights again. I saw the camera. I heard the questions. I felt the stares. But now it wasn’t me in that unforgiving spotlight. It was Declan.

  And he was alone.

  “Do you want me to come with you?” I whispered.

  “River, Seamus just gets these big ideas in his head and—”

  “Do you want me to come with you?”

  Declan hesitated, his eyes searching mine. We were silent together on the bed in the hotel room.

  Declan waited and waited and—

  “Yes,” he said in barely a whisper.

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “I want you to come with me.” He shifted a little on the bed and fidgeted slightly with my fingers, but he looked me firmly in the eyes and repeated himself, “I want you to come with me.”

  I nodded. “Then I’ll go.”

  River

  “Right, so take Elizabeth Taylor-level of eyeshadow…” I said over the phone.

  “Emhmm,” Miley replied.

  “Add Kim Kardashian-level bronzer.”

  “Yikes.”

  “Then imagine Dolly Parton’s boobs.”

  “Okay…”

  “And that’s how plump my lips are.”

  Miley paused on the other end of the phone as I stared at myself in the illuminated mirror, alone in the makeup room at the news station.

  “Hello?” I pulled my phone away from my ear, grimacing at the thick orange makeup that came off on the screen before checking to make sure I hadn’t lost the connection. “Cyrus, you there?”

  It was then that I heard a stifled snort. I rolled my eyes as Miley’s laughter grew more and more impossible to contain. Soon she was giggling uncontrollably into the phone.

  “Miley, this is serious!” I shouted into the phone.

  “This is hilarious is what this is!” Miley laughed. “I remember when I tried to put makeup on you and you were twitching so much, I stabbed you in the eye with the mascara wand.”

  I groaned as I sagged into makeup chair with my hand flopped over my eyes. “You flirted with that doctor in the ER while I suffered in agony. Pure agony.”

  Miley giggled. “Fun night.”

  I threw my hands up into the air in frustration. “Not for me!” I bellowed. “Oh, shit…”

  “What?” Miley’s voice was heavy with concern. “What happened? Is everything alright?”

  “No, yeah,” I responded as I shifted closer to the mirror. “I think one of my eyelashes is wonky.” I blinked uncomfortably as I prodded at a long row of fake lashes still sticky with glue that had come loose from my lash line. I supposed it was a no-no to rub your eyes…I hadn’t known. I was entirely new to all of this fuss.

  In all fairness, I had told the makeup artist—a petite, curvy girl whose heavy, layered foundation gave a bad name to the word “caked”—that I didn’t want the false lashes. She had paused, the black row of spider legs suspended next to my face by a pair of tweezers she had held between long, manicured nails.

  “You need them.”

  That’s how the whole morning in the small, dark dressing room had gone.

  “Oh, I’m alright without that shimmery stuff,” I’d said.

  “You’re not.”

  I’d be sneezing unicorn dust for a month.

  “Um, hey, listen, you really don’t have to put on that lipstick.”

  “Yeah...I really do.”

  At least that tacky, sticky stuff in a tube tasted like blueberries—plastic blueberries I’ll admit, but blueberries nonetheless. This lady just kept telling me to stop licking my lips.

  “I think it’s best without more eyeshadow.”

  “I think you’re wrong.”

  “I like it better without the eyeliner.”

  “We’re keeping the eyeliner.”

  “Can we lay off the bronzer?”

  “Can we lay off the chatter?”

  So I sat in silence as I was transformed into a sad circus clown stuffed into a tight, cleavage-baring pale nude dress. I frowned into the mirror, trying to avoid looking at my contoured cheeks, darkened brows and overlined lips, as I tried to squish the fallen false lashes back into place.

  “It won’t stick,” I whined to Miley.

  My efforts only succeeded in smearing my eyeshadow and eyeliner all over my cheeks.

  “You need glue,” Miley instructed.

  “Glue, glue, glue...” I mumbled as I searched the makeup table, blinded in one eye.

  “It usually comes in a tube.”

  I snatched up the first tube I found. “Now what?”

  “Put it along your lashes, silly.”

  I frowned as I applied the glue. “Is it supposed to be bright blue?”

  A laugh erupted on the phone.

  I blinked and blue got all over the top and bottom of my eye. “It’s just getting worse, Miley,” I moaned. “I look like I just woke up in a stranger’s bed on a Saturday morning and I’m about to do my walk of shame past families in the park swinging and shit.” I tried to rub at the blue that I was beginning to suspect wasn’t lash glue after all.

  “Why are you doing this anyway?” Miley asked. “You hate attention. You stabbed me with your fork when I got the staff to sing happy birthday to you at that little Mexican restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen.”

  I leaned back to assess the damage I’d caused in the mirror. Fuck. “I wouldn’t say ‘stab’,” I said, licking my finger.

  I practically heard Miley placing her hands on her hips. “What would you call it then?”

  I grinned at the memory of that night. “I don’t know.” I laughed. “A little poke.”

  Miley sighed dramatically. “Tell that to my scars.”

  I laughed, knowing she was full of shit. “Good times.” I grimaced as I again rubbed at my eye.

  “You know you still haven’t told me why you’re doing this,” Miley said.

  “Oh…” I tried to sound as casual as possible. “It’s my job.”

  “It’s your job to get all dressed up and pretend to be his girlfriend on TV?” she asked.

  I immediately caught the scepticism in my best friend’s voice. “It’s going to help him get sponsors,” I tried to defend myself. “Marketing and PR is part of my job as his assistant.”

  “Bullshit.”

  I stopped trying to fix my face and spun around in my chair. “It’s not bullshit,” I lied.

  “You’re doing it because you care about him,” Miley said. “Just admit it.”

  “No.”

  Miley laughed. “Why won’t you admit you like this guy?”

  I threw my hands up. “Because I don’t.”

  “Right.”

  “I don’t,” I protested.

  “Then why are you doing this, River?”

  I sighed in frustration. “Miley, for the last time,” I said, “I absolutely, positively, do not—”

  The man in question stood in the doorway in dark grey pants and a black V-neck cashmere sweater.

  “I gotta go,” I said quickly to Miley.

  I heard her making juvenile smooching sounds before I managed to hang up.

  “Do not what?” Declan asked with a wry smile as he closed the door behind him.

  “Um…um…um…” My mind scrambled for an answer. “…do not know how to fix this.” I pointed lamely to my eye.

  Declan grabbed a chair and pulled it close to me, examining me with a confused look. “It looks like you went a round or two in the cage,” he said with a frown.

  “It’s supposed to look like this.” I turned my face for him to see the other side.

  Declan nodded slowly before catching my gaze. “Is it?” he asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Is it?” he repeated. “Is that what it’s supposed to look like?”

  I glanced at the mirror, frowning in confusion. “Yeah, I mean, I didn’t touch that one after the makeup artist finished so that’s what it’s supposed to look like.”

  “Hmm,” Declan studied me. “Maybe I can help.”

  This surprised me greatly because as far as I was aware, Declan Gallagher was more likely to know how to bite off a nose than contour it, more likely be able to fish hook a lip than smother it with plumping lip gloss. And far more likely to be an expert in eye gouging rather than be an eyeshadow “lewk.” How exactly, I thought, was he, an MMA fighter and a dude, going to help with fixing my makeup?

  Curious, I studied him with a raised eyebrow as he surveyed the available options of blush brushes, sparkly eyeshadow palettes, application sponges, mascara tubes, and compacts of highlighter and bronzer galore. His fingers drummed the edge of the makeup counter before he clicked his tongue and snapped. “Here we are,” he announced. “Close your eyes.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him in suspicion.

  “Trust me.” He smiled as his fingers brushed against my knee. “Close your eyes.”

  After another moment of hesitation, I allowed my eyelids to flutter closed. My body tensed as I heard him grab something off the counter. I could sense his hand moving toward my face and I imagined another trip to the emergency room with a mascara wand lodged in my eye socket. I wondered for a moment if my contract with Seamus included workman’s comp. After a brief flinch at Declan’s first touch, I quickly relaxed and a small smile tugged at the corner of my lips because it wasn’t an eyeshadow brush or mascara wand or eyeliner pen that was going to fix me, but a makeup remover cloth.

  I peeked open the eye opposite to the one that Declan gently, carefully, delicately wiped clean. His blue eyes were soft as they focused on his task.

  “What are you doing?” I whispered.

  “You’re moving,” he said with the tiniest of grins. “You’re going to mess up my work.”

  This caused me to smile even more, the laugh lines around my eyes crinkling in delight.

  “Stop it,” Declan playfully chastised. “Perfection is hard work.”

  I laughed. “But you’re taking all the makeup off.”

  Declan’s eyes found mine. “Exactly.” He pulled his hand away from my face and folded the makeup remover cloth over to a clean side before offering it to me.

  I stared down at the mix of colours and streaks of black across the damp cloth. I raised my eyes to Declan. “You said you were going to fix it,” I said.

  Declan smiled. “I did.” He nudged the cloth toward me.

  I eyed it warily. “Everyone is going to expect this girl to be next to you,” I said, pointing to my eye still laden with what felt like ten pounds of makeup.

  Declan reached over and brushed his thumb along the cheekbone beneath my makeup-free eye. “Of course they’re going to expect that girl,” he said, his voice low. “They have no idea that this girl can possibly exist.”

  I wanted to shake my head. I wanted to tell him that I wasn’t anything special. I wanted to stop him from saying anything else. But for some reason I couldn’t find the will to open my mouth.

  “They have no idea that someone so special, so unique, so colourful and full of life and joy and hope could ever exist today,” he said with a passion I’d only ever heard in his voice when he was discussing the cage. “So of course they’re not going to expect you.” He smiled as his fingers brushed against mine, his touch electric. “Show them who you are, River.”

  He placed the cloth in my palm and gently folded my fingers over it. His skin was warm against mine as he cocooned my hand with both of his. “They’re going to love you,” Declan said. “They’re going to love you just like—” He suddenly cleared his throat and dropped my hand, averting his gaze from mine. His cheeks reddened as he pushed his chair back from mine and stood, scratching at the back of his neck.

  Just then, the door to the makeup room opened and the studio assistant poked her head in. “You ready?”

  I quickly rubbed my other eye with the makeup remover cloth and was about to say I was ready when I looked down at the skin-tight dress I was stuffed into.

  Declan noticed, too. “She just has to get dressed,” he told the assistant.

  The assistant looked with confusion at my dress. “That’s what she’s supposed to wear.”

  Declan winked at me as he corralled the assistant out of the dressing room. I heard him out in the hallway say, “Change of plans.”

  You don’t fucking say, I thought as I wiggled out of my dress.

  The plan was to move away from NYC for a fresh start.

 

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