Page 42 of Miss Christmas

She nodded.

“I’m sorry. I apologize for any embarrassment it’ll cause. I wanted to let you know I’m withdrawing from the pageant.”

“But why?” Margo looked truly distressed.

“I should be disqualified. To save the family and the store from embarrassment and possible scandal. Everyone will assume I’m sleeping with Will to win and that’s the last thing I wanted to do.”

Margo shook her head and patted her arm. “I know that wasn’t your intention. I picked you as a finalist before Will ever met you. In any case, neither I nor Will are choosing the winner and we have no influence over the judges. I’ve already made that clear to the first person in the press who asked.”

“Oh God. They’re already asking? They’ll make the assumption no matter what you say.”

“I know,” Margo said. “But what my dear husband pointed out is that we’ll be getting publicity from it and there’s no harm been done, really. No one’s broken any laws.”

“You’re not upset about the bad publicity?”

“This isn’t bad. We had something truly bad happen last year. This year we made sure we vetted the finalists thoroughly so we’d have no surprises,” Margo said.

“You did?”

“Yes. Didn’t Will tell you? We had our store investigator look into everyone’s background to make sure you were all upstanding young women. And you are. This,” Margo waved her hand, “affair is no surprise at all. In fact, I’d have been surprised if it didn’t happen. Though maybe not in such a spectacularly public display.”

Scarlet said nothing as she processed the idea that she’d been investigated. And that Will hadn’t mentioned it. The only reason he wouldn’t say anything to her was if he’d been concerned he’d find something bad. Her gut roiled with protest.

“The investigation?” she murmured, not sure what she was asking.

“It was in the paperwork you signed,” Margo added helpfully.

The paperwork she hadn’t read through that day she and Will played hooky together. That day of bliss, cut out of time and reality. That day never to be repeated and this was why. Because it meant she’d allowed herself to be investigated by the man she trusted her body and soul with that day.

But not her heart. She’d insisted he could not have her heart. But her heart hadn’t been listening to her head, as usual. The heart had its own agenda, its own wants and needs. And her heart wanted Will Regal.

Damn. Tears sprung to her eyes. Margo looked surprised, then chagrined, and reached out to console her.

Scarlet backed up. Margo was on Will’s side in this battle for survival—that’s what it felt like now. She needed to fight for her independence, fight for her dreams to come true, and she could have no one on her side whom she couldn’t trust. Or who didn’t trust her.

“Please accept my withdrawal from the pageant,” she said. “I have to go now.”

She slipped from the ladies’ room, unnoticed this time, and texted Dee to meet her outside. She needed to get away and think, process the war between her head and her heart without the derailing influence of Will. Whenever she was in his orbit she went crazy, felt things and believed things. Hell, she was a mess.

She rushed to the private elevator down the hall and took it to the ground floor to the employee entrance where the contestants had been coming and going these past two and a half weeks. She stood outside in the cold waiting for Dee to bring her coat so they could go home to their tiny apartment. Tonight was her night to sleep in the bed.

But all she could think was that she wished she’d be sleeping in Will’s bed tonight and wondered why it was so hard to let herself have a relationship with him when it could have been so beautiful.

Chapter 11

After Will confessed the men’s room debacle to Margo, he was spared the wrath of her tears and high-hormone-level disappointment because George stepped in with on-the-spot intervention and an unerring positive outlook. It was agreed by everyone that Will needed to address the media. Turned out they wanted to speak to him too. Will and George had their war and strategy discussion as they sat at the table with a number of Regal executives and family members. Conspicuous security types stood nearby and Margo’s PR assistant was busy holding the press at bay. Margo had gone to the ladies’ room. Again.

“I owe you, George.”

“I know. You handle the media and I’ll handle Margo.”

“What about Scarlet?”

“Maybe she ought to leave early,” George suggested.

Will had been watching Scarlet all evening and saw that she’d left her table, though her friend Dee was still about. He figured Scarlet was in the ladies’ room with Margo. Will nodded and knew Margo would take care of sending her home. If it were up to him, they’d likely end up in the men’s room all over again. His damn pecker twitched as he thought about the possibility and rose from the table. He marched to the small group of men and women standing near the main entrance, corralled by the PR assistant whose name he perpetually forgot.

Eying the fashion editor, who stood among the media and who had been in the hallway outside the men’s room, suspicion bit him. This wasn’t her usual beat and she’d been far afield waiting at the men’s room door earlier, seeing that she was a lady.