Page 46 of Now That It’s You (The Can’t Have Hearts Club #5)

“ W e’re back in the kitchen with Meg Delaney, author of the international bestseller, The Food You Love: An Aphrodisiac Cookbook . If you’re just now joining us, Meg’s been showing us how to make a chocolate soufflé that’s guaranteed to make your toes curl in more ways than one.”

Meg forced her exhausted jaw muscles into a shape she hoped resembled a smile.

It was getting tough to tell. They’d been at this for hours now, though it felt like days.

The producer kept trying different strategies, interacting with Meg like a talk-show host or cueing her like an offstage announcer the way she was doing now. None of it seemed to work.

Meg had never wanted anything as badly as she wanted this TV show, but she had a feeling she was blowing it.

The thought of wanting something—or maybe it was the notion of blowing something?—conjured up images of Kyle, which left her feeling like someone kept kicking her gut with a steel-toed boot. Her smile felt forced and stiff, so she ordered herself to do something useful.

“That’s right, Kate,” Meg tried to chirp, though it was probably more of a croak. “I can guarantee this soufflé is going to have you licking your lips—or maybe someone else’s.” She gave a practiced wink at the camera—something the producers had suggested she try.

But she could tell from Kate Geary’s face it probably looked more like she had a facial tic.

“Cut.” The assistant producer—a kind little blonde named Amy—gave Meg an encouraging, albeit exhausted smile. “I don’t think the wink is working out.”

“You mean I look like a rapist?”

Kate grimaced. “More like an escaped mental patient.”

“Sorry.” Meg blew a curl out of her eye and tried to look upbeat, but she knew she probably just looked defeated.

“It’s okay,” Amy said. “How about we focus on some of the aphrodisiac stuff?”

“I can do that,” Meg said, wishing for a tactful way to wipe her brow. Smearing sweat all over her arm probably wasn’t the best way to demonstrate her poise and camera presence as a professional TV chef. Then again, neither was sweating like a porn star.

“Ready?” Kate asked.

Meg nodded and took a deep breath.

“Aaaaand— action !”

Meg cleared her throat and pushed her cheeks into a smile again.

“As I was saying, chocolate is a great source of serotonin. That’s a monoamine neurotransmitter that’s biochemically derived from tryptophan and—Good Lord, shoot me now.

” Meg gripped her head in her hands and closed her eyes, conceding defeat.

“Seriously, shoot me right now, right between the eyes with a marshmallow gun. I think I just put myself to sleep with that.”

She opened her eyes again to see Kate giving her a weak smile. The producer adjusted her headset and patted Meg on the shoulder. “It’s okay. Part of this screen test is about figuring out what works and what doesn’t.”

“Kinda like love,” Meg muttered. “You’ve got to screw it up a whole bunch of times to get it right.”

Kate brightened a bit at that as a makeup artist came out and began to powder Meg’s face with something that smelled like burned vanilla.

“That’s good! We need more of that! Inject a little more personality, a little more of your personal experiences into this, and I think we’ll be on the right track. ”

Meg tried to grin back with equal enthusiasm, but she wasn’t feeling it. She wasn’t feeling much of anything these days, except for longing. And regret. And?—

“And, action!”

Kate gave Meg an encouraging smile, and Meg forced the corners of her mouth to head north again.

“So the secret to a perfect soufflé is to use eggs that aren’t too fresh,” Meg announced, not ready to give up quite yet.

“I know that sounds counterintuitive, but egg whites thin as they age, which makes them easier to whip. All you ladies out there feeling concerned about your eggs aging if you’re alone and in your thirties without a relationship in sight, you might want to take heart! ”

Meg looked at Kate. Kate looked pained. She pulled off her headset and slid it around her neck. “How about we take a break for about fifteen minutes?”

Meg nodded, her cheeks hot and sweaty. God, she was ruining this. Her one chance at having her own cooking show, and she was totally, completely bombing.

“Sounds good,” Meg said. “I just need a few minutes to regroup.”

Kate glanced at Amy, probably thinking Meg needed a helluva lot more than a few minutes to salvage this lame attempt at television stardom. “Try taking a few long breaths,” Kate suggested as she turned back to Meg.

“Or a shot of vodka,” Amy said helpfully.

Kate tipped her head toward the studio cabinets. “There’s a bottle right above the sink. You didn’t hear that from me.”

“Thanks.” Meg watched them walk off the stage. Releasing a breath, she wiped her sweaty palms down the front of her apron.

The makeup artists and light crew all dispersed in opposite directions, probably to snicker about her behind her back.

Even the cameraman vanished, leaving his equipment set up near the front of the stage.

Meg couldn’t blame them. If she didn’t feel like crying, she’d probably laugh at herself, too.

A commotion near the door of the empty auditorium caught Meg’s attention, and she squinted against the bright lights of the studio.

“I just need to talk to her,” someone was saying. “It will only take a few minutes.”

Kyle?

“Sir, you can’t go in there. Sir! They’re in the middle of taping.”

Meg turned to see him rushing toward the stage. His hair was disheveled and his green plaid shirt looked like he’d used it to dust the dashboard of his truck. His eyes were wild and his jaw was unshaven and he was the best damn thing she’d ever seen in her life.

“Meg,” he said, and she clutched the edge of the faux granite counter to keep from doing something dumb like reaching for him.

“Kyle.”

Good. She’d gotten that syllable out. Now what?

Kyle ran his hands through his hair as he looked around. “The attendant out front said you were on a break. You’ve been avoiding my calls all week, and obviously I haven’t been able to catch you at home.”

“I’ve been staying with my mom.” And she’d blocked his number on her phone, though it didn’t feel right to say that out loud.

She’d needed some space. Some time to sort through her thoughts. But seeing him now felt like cool water washing through her core.

“She needed company,” Meg said. “My mom, I mean. My dad’s been moving all his stuff out, so she needed moral support. I took Floyd to their place to keep Mom company.”

“That’s kind of you.” Kyle raked a hand through his hair. “Please, can I just have five minutes?”

Meg glanced around, waiting for someone to argue, but everyone had vanished. Even the security crew that had given him chase at first. It was just the two of them, for the first time since that night in her living room.

Meg swallowed, remembering his words in her ears. I never stopped loving you, Meg.

Even now?

“I just got off the phone with my mom,” he said. “She said she got the first check from the publisher and she told me the amount. I can’t even—” he raked his hands through his hair. “Did you have any idea how much money you’d agreed to give up?”

She nodded and gripped the edge of the soufflé bowl with both hands. “It was never about the money, Kyle.”

“I know that. It was about respecting your career and you as an artist.”

She nodded, taken aback by how quickly he understood. “That’s right.”

“But for me, it was about loyalty to family. To the brother I stabbed in the back. I know the split with Matt hurt you, too, but it was different for him.”

“Your mother told me,” Meg said softly. “About what Matt went through after the breakup. I landed on my feet, and Matt didn’t.”

His eyes went wide for an instant, and he didn’t say anything. He nodded once, his face still frozen in a look of shock and dismay.

“It’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to tell me about it. I understand, though. About your loyalty to Matt. About why you felt like you owed it to him to have his back.”

He gave another tight nod. “It was my fault.”

Meg ran her finger around the edge of the bowl and shook her head. “Matt made his own choices, Kyle. You didn’t force him to cheat. You weren’t some great puppet master dictating his every move.”

“I know that.” He cleared his throat. “But I suppose I should tell you I might have pulled a few strings to get you this audition. While we’re talking about manipulating people and situations and—well, I thought you should know that.”

“I already did.”

He blinked. “You knew?”

“Yes.” God, the look on his face. Meg wasn’t sure what to make of it. “The producer let it slip this morning when we were getting ready to start taping.”

“And you’re not mad?”

“Mad? Why would I be mad? You tried to make my dream come true.”

“But I did it behind your back.”

“Yes, but you did it with the best intentions.”

Something that looked like relief passed over his face. He nodded and reached for her hands. “Even when I made the wrong choices, I always had the best intentions.”

“I know.” Meg bit her lip and glanced toward the edge of the stage. No one had reappeared, so either they were giving her some space, or they really were done with her.

“Look, Meg—I love you,” he said. “I’ve always loved you. Even when it was the dumbest thing in the world for me to do. Even when I had no hope of having you love me back.”

Meg felt tears pooling in her eyes, and she wondered how pissed the makeup crew would be if she melted off all their perfectly good cosmetics. “I love you, too,” she murmured.

It was the first time she’d spoken the words aloud to him, and it seemed to take them both by surprise.

She swallowed, seizing the chance to say what she needed to say while he was still too dumbstruck to interrupt. “I don’t have this long, drawn out story about a lifetime of loving you in secret. This is all new to me. Loving you, forgiving Matt, forgiving myself—I’m figuring it out as I go along.”

Relief filled his eyes. “I like your story just the way it is. Knowing you loved Matt—that’s how it should be. I’d feel awful if I thought you hadn’t.”

She swallowed hard, determined to force the words out before tears clogged her throat completely. “And maybe that’s part of what gives me the capacity to love you now. To love you better than I could have if I’d fallen for you years ago.”

Kyle smiled. “So where to we go from here?”

“Forward,” she said. “Lugging all our baggage and our skeletons and all the things that make it possible for us to love each other better than we could have before.”

“I like that plan,” he said, reaching out to take her hands. “I promise to make you happy, Meg. Or at least to spend every damn day trying my best to do it.”

“Okay,” she breathed, conscious of the flutter just beneath her breastbone. “So here’s to learning from past mistakes.”

“And future mistakes.”

“And mistakes we haven’t even considered making yet.”

He grinned. “I love you, Meg.”

“I love you, too.”

He kissed her then, softly at first, then with an urgency that left her swaying a little on her feet.

He held her upright, steadying her, supporting her, kissing her silly.

It seemed to go on for years maybe, for more than a decade.

Maybe that’s the way it had always been, even when she hadn’t known it.

The sound of applause broke through her consciousness, and Meg turned to see the production crew standing in front of the stage, their headphones looped around their necks and goofy grins on their faces.

“That’s perfect,” Kate said. “A little more passion like that and you’ll have this baby nailed.”

Meg laughed and pressed her hands to her face, trying to cool the flames. “How much of that did you hear?”

“You’re still miked, honey,” Kate said. “We heard every word. We even got the heavy breathing.”

“That might come in handy sometime,” the sound man called, grinning at Meg from the edge of the stage.

She grimaced and turned back to Kyle, who squeezed her hands in response. “I’m okay with broadcasting it to the world,” he said. “I love you with all my heart, Meg. Here’s to fresh starts and second chances.”

“Cheers to that,” Kate said, grinning from the side. “Go for it, Meg. We’ll start the audition over if you like. Just show us more of that passion.”

“Okay,” Meg breathed, but she wasn’t looking at the producer. She was looking at Kyle, whose gray-green eyes held a question she didn’t need him to ask.

Or maybe she did.

“What do you say, Meg?” he asked. “Can you see yourself giving us a shot? Taking a stab at a real relationship?”

Meg nodded and looped her arms around his neck. “I can.”