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Unluckily, that leaves me sitting here alone, self-reflecting instead.
I shouldn’t be here, a little voice at the back of my head reminds me.
I really screwed this up.
I left Starlight Falls, looking for love. And now I’m back, disappointed and empty-handed, with nothing to show for my efforts. I feel like a failure.
I was so sure of myself when I ditched my small town life a few months ago to find my fairytale. But now, here I am, running back home with my tail tucked between my legs.
Inez Machado—runaway bride. That’s a title I could have lived without in this lifetime.
Maybe I should have just sucked up my trepidation and gone through with the wedding. I mean—maybe it wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world. But something about it felt so wrong.
From the beginning of taping, I tried to ignore my nagging intuition. But at the last minute, the warning sirens in my head were too loud to ignore. Vance Cavendish is not the man for me. No matter how badly I wanted him to be. And the more I tried to force it, the less I felt like my authentic self.
Still, I never wanted to hurt him and he doesn’t deserve the embarrassment coming his way when America learns—on live television—that I left him at the altar.
I feel so rotten over this.
With the glitz and glam of the reality show behind me, I have no idea what I’m going to do with my life.
Family.Career. Housing. I’ve got none of it in sight.Everything is a mess. One big mess.
The only thing I do have is a little cash in the bank. Not that much. These reality shows don’t actually pay as much as people would suspect. But I didn’t go on the show for money. I didn’t go for fame. I went for the one thing my heart has been craving since I was a little girl.
Love.
And I can’t put into words how much it hurts that I had to walk away without it.
The tired rumble of a piece of shit engine fills the night air. I glance up and instantly recognize the approaching pair of headlights. The beat-up old car that’s barely holding its shit together with duct tape swerves into the parking lot and pulls up at the curb not far from where I’m sitting.
And Nolan Brighton hops out from behind the wheel.
My heart rate quadruples at the sight of him. Because apparently, I forgot just how good-looking this man is. I guess it makes sense. I went from seeing him practically every single day for six years, to never seeing him at all. Now, my brain cells need a minute to adjust to all the yumminess.
Disheveled. Scruffy. Maybe a little tired-looking. But sheesh, so damn hot.
He’s totally not my type, though. He’s too damn cranky. Perpetually annoyed. The poster child for ‘tall, dark and emotionally unavailable’.
Nah. Totally not my type.
His dark blue eyes zero in on me across the distance and—surprise, surprise—an irritated crinkle forms between Mr. Grumpy’s thick eyebrows. His broad-shouldered, six-foot-three frame rounds the vehicle, urgency in his hurried strides.
The russet brown strands of his hair flop over his eyes, the harsh overhead fluorescent bulbs highlighting the golden streaks. He needs a haircut. Desperately. And a shave, too. But his scruffiness somehow just adds to the overall yum factor.
Feeling self-conscious under Nolan’s intense stare, I rake my fingers through my hair and they promptly get caught in the bird’s nest on my head. My hair is frozen stiff with styling product and I plucked out all the bobby pins on the train so I’m willing to bet that I look like a scarecrow come to life.
While my tummy is still doing flips, I bolt up from my bench. I hold my head high, ready to confidently stride toward the curb.
But I’ve somehow forgotten about the yards and yards of poofy fabric my legs are tangled up in.
And then Nolan goes and says my name in that deep, gruff tone of his—“Inez…”—and, whoa!
Suddenly, my knees give out beneath me. And I find myself in the middle of a not-so-elegant nosedive.
Nolan leaps across the remaining distance between us, his long arms outstretched. I land in his arms with the grace of a limp fish hitting the sidewalk.
The mild fragrance of his woodsy deodorant blends with his subtle laundry detergent, oozing from his plaid fleece. Combined with the warmth of his body heat and the strength of his grip on me, my brain can’t produce one coherent thought.
