“Me avoided you? Ha. You were too busy glorying in the limelight to stop and say anything to me.” The words came out bitter and angry. “I guess I don’t matter anymore, now that you got your vote.”
“What are you talking about?” Brodie looked genuinely confused. When I gestured at the door, indicating that he should leave, he shut it instead and leaned on the back of it. “I thought we were on the same page when you voted for me. That you understood why I did it.”
“Why you voted me out? Hell no, I don’t understand it.”
“Baby,” he said and reached out for me.
I slapped his hand away. “No ‘baby’ here. Don’t touch me.”
His face hardened and he leaned back against the door, subtly knocking the back of his head against the wood. “Kandis. Think for a minute. Really stop and think.”
“About what, Brodie? About you dicking me over?”
He shook his head and gave me a level-eyed stare. “You weren’t going to win. There was zero chance of it. Did you not see how bitter Marla was toward you?”
I laughed. “Marla was bitter because she knew I was moving ahead.”
He gazed at me for a long moment, his heart in his eyes. My own heart squeezed painfully in my chest. “You’re mad at me because you think I voted you out so I could win.”
“Isn’t that exactly what you did?”
He shook his head. “You’re blinded by anger. Stop and think for a moment.”
“About what?”
“Let’s count through the votes. If it was you and Jendan in the final, tell me who’d vote for you.”
“Sunnie—”
“Nope.” He raised a finger, counting. “You masterminded her partner out. She’d vote for Jendan.”
“Jayme and Fido—”
He raised two more fingers. “Fido voted for Jendan tonight. I doubt that would change. And since they were partners, if they didn’t vote together, Jayme would have voted for Jendan. She was mad at you for the same reasons Marla was.”
She was? I frowned. “Marla wouldn’t have voted for me.”
“Nope.” He wagged four fingers at me. “That leaves four votes for Jendan and one vote for you—my vote. You still would have lost. Now flip it. Let’s say I took you to the end with me. Sunnie would have voted for me. Jayme and Fido would have voted for me. Marla sure as shit wouldn’t have voted for you. That leaves you with one vote again—Jendan’s. And that’s only if he kept his word after you voted his ass out and lied to him.”
I stared at Brodie, shocked.
He was right.
There was no way I’d have won the game. I’d played hard, and at times I’d played ugly, and I hadn’t cared as long as it got me to the end. But I’d never stopped to consider what I’d do when I got to the end and everyone was mad at me. “Oh, shit.”
“That’s right, oh shit.” He looked a little relieved.
I scowled and smacked him on the arm. “You still didn’t have to vote me out, you son of a bitch!”
He grasped my wrist, capturing it and dragging me closer to him. “Didn’t I? If I knew you were going to lose, why would I send you up there for a bitter jury to eviscerate?”
“They weren’t all that bitter to you—”
“Because they liked me. And they liked Jendan. But because you played harder than both of us, they hated you.” He leaned in and nuzzled my cheek. “And the last thing I wanted to see was them attacking you on TV in front of everyone, with no one to defend you.”
“So you voted me out and made it look like brilliant gameplay for yourself, thus clinching your own win,” I said bitterly. “Should I clap now?”
“You can be mad at me if you want,” he said, still nuzzling my cheek. I felt his nose brush against my skin, and a shiver moved down my spine despite my anger. My damn body was reacting to him even though I was still furious. “But I wanted to protect you. No one hurts my baby with me around. And this way, I ensured I won the money for us. You said you trusted me, right?”
“I did trust you!” I’d sat in my chair and hoped and hoped for a sign, just one sign that he’d show me that it wasn’t all just a showmance for him. But he hadn’t given me one. “You ignored me at the finale.”
His tongue brushed along my jaw line, his voice growing husky. “That’s because I couldn’t get away from the cameras and Becky and all the stinking interviews. I’m blind from all the damn lights.”
I softened a little at that. I’d been blinded, too.
Brodie lightly bit my earlobe. “I missed you, Kandis.”
Was this more of Brodie laying it on thick? “It was only a day, Brodie.”
“Yeah, but it made me realize that bed wasn’t the same without you. You think it didn’t tear me up to vote you out, knowing how hurt you were going to be? I couldn’t sleep last night, imagining how you felt. I wanted to say something, but I just…couldn’t. I wasn’t sure until the last minute that I was going to do it, but it was the only way I could think to win and not have you come out of this trashed by everyone. You played hardcore the entire time, all strategy. I was hoping you’d realize that if I voted you out, I’d cinch this thing and win the money for me and you.”
“Pretty words,” I told him, leaning away and pulling out of his grasp. “But useless. Didn’t you read your contract? You can’t share your prize-winnings with anyone on the show even if you wanted to.”
“They can’t do anything about it if we’re married,” Brodie said, looking at me with sad, soulful eyes.
I stilled. Time stilled. “Married?”
My heart thudded loud in my ears as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small velvet box. He got down on one knee and looked up at me, heart in his eyes. “I made one of the assistants drive me around town after the interviews so I could go get this. It’s not great, but it’ll do until we can get you a real one. And the size is probably all wrong, but I wanted to do this right, and I wanted to do this tonight, before you had a chance to get away from me.”
He popped the lid of the box open and held it out to me. “Kandis Thornton, I know I can be a total a**hole at times, but I love you and I feel like we were born to be a team—in and out of the game. You’re the most beautiful, smart, intelligent, clever, and devious woman I’ve ever met. Plus, you have a killer ass. I love you, and I want you to marry me so I can share the million dollars we won together.”
A knot formed in my throat, and an ache burned in my heart. It was so incredibly sweet of him to offer. “You don’t have to marry me just because you feel obligated to share with me.”
He gave me an exasperated look and shook the ring at me, still remaining on bended knee. “I want to marry you because I love going to bed with you and waking up with you. I love scheming with you. I love sex with you. I love the way you twitch every time you get nervous. I love—”
“Okay, okay,” I said, putting my fingertips to his mouth to silence him. But I was smiling now. I looked at the ring in the box. It was a big, square-cut diamond surrounded by lots of smaller ones on a platinum band. I gasped at the size of it. “I thought you said this thing was a piece of crap.”
“Well, yeah. I don’t get my check until tomorrow morning.” He smiled sheepishly. “I’ll buy you a real one then, if you want. J-Lo big. So huge you knock people over with it.”
“I want this one,” I said softly, and I pulled it out of the box. Sure enough, it was too big, but I slipped it over my finger and didn’t care one bit.
“Is that a yes?”
I nodded, and when he grinned and got to his feet, he grabbed me by the h*ps and lifted me into the air, then he thumped both of us down onto the nearby bed. We fell together, tangled, and I laughed.
“Thank f**king god,” Brodie said. “I thought you were seriously, seriously pissed at me.”
“I was,” I said, and I grabbed him by the starchy collar of his dress shirt, pulling him closer for a kiss. “Why the hell didn’t you say something sooner?”
“I wanted to get the ring,” he told me between kisses. “And I wanted it to be real. I didn’t want to do it on TV because then it’d always seem like it was for the show. I wanted this to be just you and me.”
That was…the perfect thing to say. I gave him an intense kiss and rolled over until I was on top of him, straddling his hips. “You’re a devious man, Brodie Short.”
“It’s a good thing I found an even more devious woman to keep me in line.” He grinned up at me and raised his hips, pressing his arousal against me.
“Mmm, you make it sound like we’re the perfect team.”
His fingertips brushed over my cheek. “Are you kidding? I know we’re the perfect team.”
And that was why I was crazy about him. Sneaky, yet incredibly optimistic. “You know I love you, right?”
A huge grin covered his face. “Well, I’d assumed you did, but it’s nice to hear it out loud.”
“I wasn’t sure if you were telling me the truth when you told me you loved me,” I confessed. “I thought it might have been more manipulation to get me to vote for you.”
“Jesus, Kandis. How dirty of a player do you think I am?”
“You did screw over your own sister in the last game you played.”
He grinned. “Yeah, but Katy had gone on and on about how she didn’t want to play the game. I honestly thought she wouldn’t care. And it turned out perfect because she ended up with Liam. And the million dollars that should have been mine, except I screwed myself because my partner sucked.”
“So let me see, last game you hosed your sister and then yourself, and in this game you hosed me. Can’t imagine why I didn’t believe a declaration of love.”
“You’re right,” he said sarcastically, “I should have let you go to the end knowing that it wouldn’t make a difference and that the prize money would end up exactly the same, and let the jury tear you a new one on national TV. Gee, Kandis, that would have been so fun. I wish I had done it so I could see you cry, and then I could get all ragey and Hulk-Smash on everyone there. That would have gone over well.”
Darn it, I couldn’t stay mad at the guy. I wiggled on top of him, rolling my h*ps against his erection. “So you would have gotten mad if they’d torn into me?”
“I would have totally messed shit up. Throwing chairs, knocking out teeth, you name it.”
“That is so sexy.”
He wiggled his eyebrows at me. “Am I forgiven?”
“Not entirely.” I flashed the ring at him. “But this goes a long way.”
“I love you,” he said, utterly serious. “I really, really love you. And we’re going to use that money to help your mom. You know that, right?”
Tears pricked my eyes again. Man, I was just a crying idiot lately. “I love you too, you big schemer.”