Page 9 of The Billionaire Love Match

FOUR

Because he had beenlooking so intently at Casey, he realized that she was fainting before she did. As she took a final step and started to go down, Colt jumped forward. The whole thing seemed to happen in slow motion to him as her legs buckled and her head lolled to one side, her short dress flying up as she fell. Colt slid onto his knees, arms out, and managed to catch her in his arms and break her fall.

Briefly her eyes flickered open and her lips curved up in a small smile. “I’m glad it’s you,” she whispered. Her eyes rolled back in her head.

Colt’s heart was racing, partly from the words she said, which echoed exactly what he had felt seeing her on the stage. Minus all the conflict he had about subjecting her to whatever his mother had planned for this show. But he also felt his pulse speed up wondering if anyone else heard what she said. For whatever reason—maybe to keep whatever happened between him and Casey from his mother—he didn’t want anyone to know the quick depth of their feelings. Maybe they would fizzle out and amount to nothing. It could have just been sheer physical chemistry. But Colt had never felt anything remotely like what he felt kissing Casey.

Even with the whites of her eyes showing and her whole body limp, she was still beautiful.

The audience gasped and someone screamed. Then a cheer broke out so loud it felt like the walls would come down. Cameras swarmed, trying to get the best angle, even as set crew and a producer ran over. They hadn’t brought a medic on set—who would have thought it necessary for this first night?—so someone said to call an ambulance.

And a fire truck, as one of the girls had dropped a candle, which ignited the tablecloth behind Colt. He could smell the smoke, but hadn’t really even noticed until he heard the whoosh of compressed air as someone used a fire extinguisher to douse the flames.

Colt pulled Casey closer in a more natural way to support her head and quickly smoothed the skirt of her dress down. It had flown up when she fell, revealing some kind of biker shorts or shapewear or something underneath. He cursed his mother in his head once more for this whole idea, knowing that tomorrow the video of this would be everywhere. All over the internet. At least she hadn’t worn something more revealing underneath. The thought of that made his throat go dry.

“Well, folks,” Chris Haversham’s voice came out over the chaos in the room. “We are trying to secure some medical personnel to check out—” He looked down quizzically at Colt.

“Casey,” Colt said. He liked the way the name sounded on his tongue. But he couldn’t get too used to saying it. Not for this, anyway. He needed to protect her from his mother and the craziness that was reality television.

“Casey,” Chris continued. “This is a very intense moment and I would ask that you would try to bring the noise level down as here we have the medical team in place.”

A crew of uniformed EMTs rushed up toward the stage. They had a stretcher, but couldn’t get it up the stairs, so left it in the front with the audience. They hopped up onto the stage and gestured to the crew to turn up the house lights. Colt felt more exposed when he could actually see the whole audience standing out there. They were mostly fillers or guests of the women up on the stage.

“Sir, if you’ll gently lay her head down, we’ll need to examine her. Okay?”

Colt nodded to the medic. With gentle care, lowered Casey to the floor of the stage, brushing her bangs out of her eyes. He had to fight an urge not to kiss her forehead. Hopefully no one else saw the moment of hesitation. Cameras were still going and he would bet anything that his mother was still broadcasting live. While he wished this disaster would be the end to this fiasco of a show, he knew audiences too well. It was probably going viral at this very moment, ensuring its success.

“Colton!”

He stood and saw his mother with a few producers, waving him over to the side of the stage. The cameras stayed with Casey as he crossed the stage toward his mother. Her look of delight made him feel sick. He glanced back at Casey, who was hidden behind the EMTs. More than ever he wanted to protect her from all of this. He wished he could pick her up and carry her off the stage and out of the theater.

His mother gave him a tight hug. “Colton, that was brilliant! The way you dived over to catch her! You would not believe the numbers we’re seeing right now.”

“I’ll bet,” he said, not trying to hide the bitterness from his voice.

She leaned closer and whispered in his ear. “It was going to be Lisa, but you’ve got to pick Casey now. This moment—this is everything. You can’t pay for this. It’s ratings gold.”

Colt jerked away from her. But he couldn’t say what he wanted to say because he didn’t want her to know—if she hadn’t realized already—that he had feelings for Casey. Things like that became tools that his mother used. More like weapons.

“No problem,” he said.

His jaw tightened and he nodded, though he had no intention of calling her name. He would not do it, no matter what it cost him. And if he knew his mother, it would cost him. Dearly.

Within a few minutes, Casey was back up and remarkably on her feet. Colt tried not to show too much interest, but watched with occasional sideways glances as he passed out waters to the women who already had candles. (His mother’s idea, of course.) Thankfully someone had the good sense to have all the candles blown out.

The other women who were already eliminated had been set free and only Lisa stood nervously waiting for Casey to get to her feet again to find out her fate. Colt spent a little extra time with her. If he was going to choose her over Casey, he had to make this look good.

“How you holding up?” he asked, handing her a cold water bottle.

She smiled back at him. Normally he would have found her attractive with her wavy dark hair and honey-colored eyes, but since kissing Casey, Colt felt like his emotions were totally sideways.

“I’d be better if I had a candle in my hand,” she said, looking up at him through dark eyelashes.

He glanced behind her and saw that his mother was busy talking with one of the set managers, so he winked. “Hopefully you’ll see soon enough,” he said quietly, leaning close. She giggled and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

From behind her, he could see women watching with narrowed eyes, whispering among themselves. This was going to be the longest six weeks of his life.

He smiled to the larger group and held up his own water bottle in a toast. “To the unexpected,” he said, grinning.

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