Make Me Over_ Getting Real - Leslie Kelly [67]
She’d listened to what he’d said today, looked at her future from every angle and decided which one she wanted. Fear, uncertainty and lack of confidence had convinced her to go back home to Tennessee. To go back to the life she’d never thought she’d leave. This was how she’d chosen to do it.
He’d never taken her for a coward, so the disappointment flooding his body landed as hard as a punch in his gut. A pounding began in his head, the pulse throbbing in his temple. His jaw clenching, he met her stare over the crowd, not even trying to hide his anger and disappointment.
She didn’t so much as flinch. She met that stare evenly, telling him without words that her decision was made.
Well, so be it. If she’d chosen to step back, to run away, he wasn’t going to stand in her way. Which was why, at the end of the evening, he voted along with all the other instructors on who would leave. Ginny, of course.
And Tori Lyons.
11
T HROUGHOUT THE EVENING , while Tori had done everything she could to deliberately destroy her chances to proceed to the final round of Hey, Make Me Over by being as obnoxious, uncouth and unladylike as possible, she’d kept her mind on Drew. On her feelings for him, and his for her. And their future. Because if she’d thought about tonight, she might have just sat down in the middle of the floor and cried. The anger in him…the disappointment in his eyes…well, the weight of them had nearly crushed her, nearly made her give in. But she didn’t.
He’ll understand tomorrow, she kept telling herself.
He’d understand, and maybe even find it in himself to forgive her for not being honest with him from the beginning. That was her hope, anyway, the one hope she’d held on to while she’d belched and spilled and slurped her way through the party.
Sukie had cried. Robin had been shocked. The only one who’d looked like she understood was Jacey. The camerawoman had stared at her good and hard, then, never saying a word, had given her one slow nod of encouragement.
That nod had been like a life ring thrown to a drowning person, and Tori had held on to it for as long as she could, using it to remind herself she was doing the right thing.
Nobody else on the crew seemed to think so. Mr. Monahan had looked like he wanted to strangle her for ruining things for him…which, she had to concede, she had. Viewers wouldn’t be happy if there wasn’t some romantic happily-ever-after. But she didn’t care. The only way she was going to get her real happily-ever-after was by destroying her TV one.
But it sure didn’t feel like any happily-ever-afters were coming her way as she and Ginny shared the lonely limo ride from the mansion down to a local hotel where they’d be staying for the night. Thank God the snow had stopped this afternoon and the roads had been plowed for traffic. Because if she’d had to stay in that house, if she’d had to face him, she wasn’t sure she could have survived it without completely breaking down.
“You okay?” Ginny asked softly, patting Tori’s hand in the darkness of the back seat.
Tori nodded, sniffing and blinking her eyes to stop the tears that had been threatening to fall since the minute the car door had shut in her face.
“You did it on purpose, huh?”
“How’d you guess?” Tori asked, her question sarcastic.
Ginny obviously didn’t quite get sarcasm. “Well, you didn’t much act tonight like you did all last week. At first I thought you had stage fright, like some actress or something. Then I saw Sukie and Robin crying, and I figured it out. You fell in love with the professor for real, and you know he’s going to be pretty upset about this game, huh?”
“That’s it,” Tori admitted, not really wanting to talk about it, but unable to get away.
Ginny sighed deeply. “I’ve seen it in movies and read about it in books, but I never in my wildest dreams would have believed somebody would walk away from a million bucks for a man.”
Tori stared straight ahead into the darkness of the glass separating them from the driver. Speaking almost as much to herself as to the other woman,