Page 56 of Fan Favorite

T he wedding, of course, was televised.

“I always knew this day would come,” Jessa pronounced, handing Edie a beautiful bouquet of cascading orchids.

“But, oh my god, if you guys didn’t try to kill me along the way.

Look up.” Jessa inspected Edie’s makeup, licked the tip of her pinky, and rubbed away a fleck of mascara.

“I named my first gray hair Edie Pepper. Right before I plucked that bitch out. You’re welcome. ”

Edie laughed. “Pretty sure you loved the ratings. Remind me, did we break all the Tuesday night records? Or just most of them?”

“You think you’re cute, but eight million people are watching.” Jessa pointed at a monitor with a live feed. Social media was already on fire. “Are you ready?”

Was she ready? Every single day since Switzerland, Edie had thought about arriving right here, right now. She smiled her biggest smile ever. “Ready. Definitely.”

And then the double doors were swinging open, and Edie Pepper was walking down the aisle while a string quartet played a dramatic cover of Taylor Swift’s “Wildest Dreams.” An artful display of driftwood and candles separated Edie from the two hundred guests watching with breathless anticipation.

For a moment, it seemed absolutely insane that tweeting at Jessa six months ago had somehow turned into all of this.

She’d gone from an anonymous, semitragic Midwestern singleton to an instant fan favorite internet sensation, so used to cameras and exposure that now the cameraman trotting backward down the aisle and blocking her view of the altar didn’t even seem strange.

She just smiled into the lens like a professional.

The cameraman broke left, revealing a handsome groom waiting for his beautiful bride.

They locked eyes, and a sweet rush of love filled Edie’s heart.

“Congrats, Charlie,” she whispered. He smiled with that one crooked tooth and, honestly, he looked happier than she could ever remember seeing him.

When Edie met Charlie in that kindergarten cafeteria, she could never have imagined all the ways their lives would diverge or the people they’d become.

But somehow, at thirty-five years old, Edie felt like they’d really seen each other again, with all their old and new imperfections, and that they hadn’t looked away. They were family.

Edie took her place next to Max in the row of bridesmaids.

“Adam Fox has been messing with the crotch of his pants for like ten minutes,” Max whispered while looking absolutely gorgeous in her matching strapless, frosé-pink gown. “Like, I’m starting to get concerned about what he’s got in there. Check it out.”

Edie looked to the altar, where Adam Fox held a padfolio with the ceremony script in one hand and pulled at the crotch of his tux with the other. He rose to his tiptoes and did a little hop. Good lord, Edie could not worry about Adam Fox’s junk right now, all she wanted to know was—

“Have you seen Peter?” she asked, searching the crowd.

“Not yet,” Max said with a smile.

As soon as Edie and Peter had walked back into the Alpina Gstaad in Switzerland, their plans for a romantic trip to Paris were derailed.

They were immediately summoned back to New York and shuttled straight into Carole Steele’s conference room in Midtown to begin negotiations.

Edie had never seen anything like it, and honestly, it scared the shit out of her.

Lawsuits, contracts, NDAs, hundreds of millions of dollars on the line—what the hell did Edie Pepper know about any of that?

But Peter—Peter Kennedy was all over it.

Hour after hour that day, Peter and Carole went head-to-head, breaking only for calls with their respective lawyers, Peter’s agent, and the production and public relations teams as they hammered out not only a mutually acceptable plan for the final Key edit, but also for Edie and Peter’s future.

“We’re gonna have to make some concessions,” Peter told Edie in the hall later. She couldn’t help noticing that the cuffed sleeves of his button-down and single-minded businessman vibe was giving Don Draper, and it was seriously hot.

“Like what?” she asked, feeling Paris slipping further from her fingers just as she wanted more than anything to be— ooh la la —slipping into bed with Peter.

“It’s manageable. We’ll agree to a narrative for the season and then support that narrative when we’re asked to.

So, if they need you to do reshoots to build the story or do press down the line to reinforce the narrative—stuff like that.

Once the season’s over the finish line, I’ll leave the show and forfeit my bonus and any back-end incentives.

They’ll agree to no future litigation, and we’ll all agree to a clause that precludes the network from talking about us and us talking about the network.

The cast, the production team, everyone will be reminded of their NDAs.

And”—he ran a hand through his hair and looked away before meeting her eyes again—“we’ll agree not to be seen in public together, or have any sort of public relationship, for an agreed-upon period of time. ”

Edie’s eyes went wide. “How long?”

“You know,” Peter hedged. “Not that long. A couple of months, maybe.”

“How long, Peter,” she demanded.

He sighed. “Until Bennett and Bailey get married. Or one year from today. Whichever comes first.”

Edie’s jaw dropped. “What do Bennett and Bailey have to do with this? Are they even engaged?”

“They are, in fact, engaged. And by all accounts, deliriously happy.” Peter stepped closer to her, took her hands in his.

“The thing is, the network thinks when it comes out that we’re together, it will ruin the show for good.

The fairy tale’s already tenuous enough, and a producer falling in love with a contestant—it exposes how unreal this reality is.

But they think if Bennett and Bailey get married, everyone will be so focused on that that when we say we got together months after filming ended, no one will care.

They think because of our ages, it will sort of… make sense.”

“Wait, what does that mean? Because of our ages?”

Peter searched for the right words. “You know, just because we’re older than most of the cast, it could make sense that we might gravitate toward one another—”

“They’re age-shaming me? I’m thirty-fucking-five!” Exhausted and running on little sleep and food, Edie was getting heated now, waving her finger around. “And even if I was ninety-eight, if I wanted to get married, I wouldn’t let some fucking TV network tell me—”

Peter took her by the shoulders. “Edie! Come on, this isn’t even the important part!”

“What’s the important part?” she asked slowly.

Peter smiled. “For one, I love you. For two, I have a plan. A live TV wedding. A total ratings bonanza. Right after the finale airs—the wedding.”

“Peter, the finale doesn’t air for three more months!”

“Three months…” Peter started nodding like it was perfect.

“I can get them to agree to three months. We’ll hide out.

We’ll get Brad Pitt’s security team on it if we have to.

” He looked at her, pleading with those intense green eyes.

“It’s three months in exchange for the rest of our lives. Trust me. It will work.”

Now the three months were finally up. The Beach Club’s double doors swung open again and a radiant Bailey started down the aisle.

Edie’s heart soared—with love for Charlie and Bailey and their happy ending, of course.

But also, because over the past ninety days, Peter had proven to Edie, in a myriad of ways, that he meant every single thing he’d said on that mountaintop.

She searched for him in the crowd until finally he appeared in the doorway, incredibly handsome in a tailored black tuxedo.

Jessa, in a simple black gown and production headset, was whispering to him.

He had his head inclined to listen, but his eyes? His eyes were on Edie.

Instantly, her body was on fire. They hadn’t been in the same room together since three weeks ago in Connecticut, surviving only on texts, phone calls, and the occasional email Peter would send in the middle of the night containing some of the sexiest content Edie had ever read in her life.

Her heart started beating fast, and it took everything she had to stay rooted to her spot.

Edie forced herself to focus on the ceremony, on Charlie’s eyes filling with tears as he recited his vows, until, finally, it was time to kiss the bride, and the crowd was cheering, and Bennett and Bailey were laughing and smiling and heading back down the aisle.

Peter, per usual, was nowhere to be seen—he’d gone back to work .

But this time Edie knew he’d be back.