"Nancy?"
"Yes, dear?"
"Are you sure Hunter will like this dress?"
Nancy's laugh palpably warmed the room. "Darling, I'll be surprised if he doesn't ask you to wear it for the rest of your life!" She leaned forward and planted a kiss on her cheek, careful not to smudge her lipstick onto Bethany's immaculate skin.
A knock resounded on the door, and Nancy went over to answer it. Bethany stood from her seat at the vanity table, wobbling on her heels. Hunter looked amazing. A grey suit, classy black shoes, every hair in place: Bethany was sure no one had ever looked so appealing. His mouth moved as he spoke to Nancy, and she watched the graceful patterns they made in slow motion.
Forever, it seemed, they talked. When finally Nancy's voice drifted into goodbye and Hunter took the last few steps into the room, he closed the door without so much as a glance in Bethany's direction.
Heart pounding, Bethany smoothed her dress. Hunter turned slowly, and the storm in his eyes seemed impossibly beautiful. His mouth formed a little 'o', and he leaned against the door, one hand on his chest.
"Could you just?" His lips puckered, and he shook his head, pulling away from the door and coming closer. "Do something for me, Beth."
Oh, the sweet sound of his voice, untarnished by distance. It seemed a lifetime since they had seen each other that morning.
"What?" The word was a breath, her nervousness freezing her thoughts.
"Turn around." His assertiveness caught her by surprise, and she blushed, doing as he asked.
She felt a cold piece of metal land between her breasts, and Hunter's hands on the back of her neck, working to clasp it in place. Bethany gazed at the tiny teardrop diamond. In awe, she lifted her fingers to take it into her palm.
She never wanted to look away from the delicate jewel. She fought the urge even to blink, afraid it would vanish if she removed her gaze for just a moment. Her resistance could not last forever, and her eyes closed for a split second. In that time, the clear teardrop transformed, and nestled in her palm was her engagement ring.
Bethany smiled, knowing what the ring meant. She turned to kiss the man behind her, the man she loved.
Hunter was no longer there. A large man stood in his place, a cigar on his lips and the smell of peanuts on his breath. His gut jutted out and his thick glasses were tinted gold. She blinked again, this time in horror.
The man changed again...
And he was more beautiful than Hunter.
Bethany's toes uncurled slowly. Her breathing resumed its normal pattern reluctantly. Her fingers loosened their grip on the sheets and she looked around her empty hotel room warily.
She looked down at herself. Her body was covered in an old bra and a pair of panties, and she heard her stomach rumble, reminding her that she had dove into bed without dinner again. Groaning, she lifted herself into sitting position, and glanced at her reflection in the mirror. Yesterday's makeup was smudged on her skin, the ponytail she had styled to perfection the morning before now frizzy, loose strands surrounding her face.
She caught the glint of something in the mirror, just as she felt the hefty swing of the bauble between her breasts. She picked it up, slid it on, loving the weight of the beautiful ring. Had she put it there? She could not recall, but it did not rightly matter.
God, I miss Hunter.
She knew why she had the dream. Soon, and far too soon for her sanity of mind, Hunter would be in New York. He only had a few weeks left on his tour, and one of those would be spent in New York. How she was to endure an entire week in the same city as Hunter Hayes when she was not able to visit him, she did not know. Jeremy Willakers must never have been separated from his wife, or he would know how heart-breaking it was to handle.
Bethany needed to see him. She needed to have him hold her, to remind her that she loved him. Bethany loved Hunter Hayes. Not Trenton McDermott. Why was that so hard to convince herself of? She had never looked at Trenton the way she looked at Hunter, even now that she was beginning to have feelings towards the man she knew now.
Truth be known, she was still extremely confused. After Trent had revealed his disguise to her, she had taken a few days away from him to come to a conclusion, but had yet to be successful.
She did not trust the reason Trenton had given her. The story he had told her that had supposedly led to the necessity of his disguise just did not add up with anything he had told her or anything that she had known about him, past or present. He was obviously deceiving her in that, but her newfound affection for him was trying to excuse his deception with tale after imagined tale of wrongdoing toward Trent, not by him.
Jeremy Willakers had been annoyed with her at their last meeting. He was definitely getting frustrated with her lack of progress in revealing Trenton.
She climbed out of bed and into the shower. Her disgruntlement with her situation stuck to her through her shower, then hid itself in the skirt and blouse she chose to wear. A knock interrupted her inner monologue just before she could turn the hairdryer on, so she groaned and padded to the door.
"Oh, hey, Trent," she said, rubbing a bit of sleep from her eyes. "What are you doing here?"
"I think you need to see this," he answered. His gruffness had returned, and he shoved a magazine into her hands like a drug dealer in a back alley.
"What is it?" she asked, but looked at the front page and gasped. Not this again.
She did not bother to read what the headline said; it was nothing to do with her. The part that worried her was the blurb she had earned in a bubble on the lower left hand corner.
"How did they get this picture?" She looked up at Trenton blankly, her body too full of emotions to choose just one for her face.
"They must have been following me."
Or me.
"What is the article about?"
Trenton shrugged. "It's about you, mostly. Speculation over what you've been doing since you and that Hunter guy broke up." He scoffed, and Bethany raised a brow at him. That 'Hunter guy' happens to be my fiancé, numbskull.
"So, it's an article about me?"
Trenton nodded. "They don't even know who I am."
Bethany rolled her eyes. "Of course they don't, Trent. I don't know what you're freaking out about. This was when you took off your disguise. Nobody will know you from Adam."
She threw the magazine on her bed and bent to grab a pair of shoes from under it.
Trenton grabbed her arm, his face a mere inch from hers as his voice became urgent.
"You don't understand. I can't have this kind of exposure. There are people watching me, Bethany! This could blow my cover!"
Bethany sobered. She had to play along. Right? Ugh, I don't want to play along! I want to point my finger at him and scream that he's evil! But I don't know if he is or not yet, do I?
"Then why did you show me, Trenton?"
He shook his head in amazement. "You are the silliest woman I've ever met, Bethany."
He released her and ran a hand through his hair.
"I showed you because I want to be with you. I want to be with you! No more of this "taking it slow" or any of this secrecy that stands between us. I want you to be mine, Bethany James."
He sighed heavily, looked over her stunned face as if she was missing something totally obviously.
"I love you!" he fairly shouted.
Bethany gaped. This was not the declaration she had desired. How was she to react?
Before she had the chance, Trenton's phone rang, and he groaned. Rubbing his eyes underneath his phony gold glasses, he answered with a curt greeting.
"All right, fine. We'll be there in five." He snapped his phone off and gestured to Beth.
"They need us at work. We'll talk about this later," he promised, planting a kiss on her cheek as he handed her the shoes she had dropped and grabbing her purse off the chair by her bed.
The rest of the day was a daze, and all Bethany could remember from that morning was those three words. I love you! I love you! I love you!
Nothing made sense anymore, and she was ready to tear her hair out! Only one person could help her to make sense of all this.
She needed to see Hunter.