The Engagement Game

  The Engagement Game

  Talia Hunter

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  Thanks For Reading!

  1

  “What the hell?” The customer was red-faced, glaring up at Carin from his seat in the coffee shop. “I ordered the egg sandwich.” He lifted the top piece of bread and gestured at what was unmistakably a slice of chicken. “Does that look like egg to you?”

  “Sorry.” Carin picked up his plate. “But in my defense, every chicken was an egg once.”

  Instead of lightening up, the man looked even madder. An angry customer was the last thing she needed, and now her boss was looking their way. She swallowed the crack she’d been going to make about fowl play, and gave the man an apologetic smile. “I’ll take care of it right away.”

  As she carried his plate toward the coffee shop’s kitchen, her free hand strayed to her pocket to check her phone was still on. As though it might suddenly have died in the two minutes since the last time she’d checked.

  Ring, dammit. I really need some good news.

  “Carin!” A little girl’s voice came from the door.

  Her fake smile changing into a real one, Carin dumped the man’s unwanted plate on an empty table and turned. Her heart contracted when she saw the girl tugging her mother into the cafe. Jacquie was out of her hospital gown and wearing a pretty pink dress that made her look even thinner than usual. Her eyes were too big for her bony face, and the tiara she wore only accentuated her baldness.

  “Hey, sweetie. I’m coming up to the ward after my shift.” Carin knelt to give the girl a gentle hug and felt nothing but bones.

  “I know. But I thought of a new character for today’s story. And the doctor said I could come down and tell you, didn’t he, Mom?”

  Over her head, the girl’s mother wore the most heart-breaking smile Carin had ever seen. But the woman must have had plenty of practice in hiding her feelings, because when she spoke there wasn’t a trace of sadness in her voice. “The doctor knows how stubborn you are.”

  Carin straightened. “You thought of a new character? That kind of cleverness deserves an extra-special chocolate drink.” She crossed to the table closest to the counter and pulled out a chair. “Sit here so you can tell me about the character while I make it.”

  “Hey lady,” snarled the red-face man in a loud voice. “Where’s my sandwich?”

  “Be right there.” Carin glanced behind the counter to where her boss was watching with a frown. Oops. Turning back to Jacquie, she gave the girl a wink. “I’ll be back in a minute, sweetie, okay?”

  Carin grabbed an egg sandwich out of the cabinet, but the red-faced man didn’t look any happier once she’d put it in front of him. “Bring my bill too,” he said.

  “Right away. And I really am sorry.”

  His only response was a grunt, but that was okay. She’d gotten used to serving customers who were emotional. They often came in pale and upset, and sometimes crying. With the coffee shop on the bottom floor of the children’s hospital, its clients were either medical staff or the family of patients. This man might have a child in one of the upstairs wards.

  She left him to eat while she mixed up a chocolate drink for Jacquie with a scoop of ice cream and sprinkles. She’d checked with the doctors about what foods were safe to serve the children who were allowed to come down from the wards. The look on the kids’ faces when she put something special in front of them was almost as good as when she was dressed up and telling them stories.

  “Here you go.” She put her concoction in front of Jacquie. “But be careful,” she warned. “Eat too many rainbow sprinkles and you’ll get bright, multi-colored freckles.”

  The girl giggled. “Not really?”

  Carin tapped her nose. “I had too many chocolate ones,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper.

  When the little girl’s eyes went round, Carin turned away to hide her grin. It was Jake who always used to pretend Carin’s freckles were chocolate sprinkles. In fact, a lot of the stories she told the kids had their origins in the games she and Jake used to play when they were Jacquie’s age.

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket and Carin’s heart leapt. Finally. After three days of waiting, hoping, and praying, she was about to find out whether her dreams would come true.

  “Is it about the part on that TV show you were telling me about?” asked Jacquie through a mouthful of ice-cream and sprinkles.

  Carin nodded, her finger hovering over the Talk button. “It’s my agent.” Her stomach felt like a giant fist had reached in to squeeze it. “Here goes.” She punched the button. “Hi,” she said, her mouth dry. “Please tell me you’ve got good news.”

  When her agent’s raspy voice sounded down the line, the fist squeezed tighter. “I’m sorry, doll. They’re going with someone younger.”

  Carin closed her eyes. “Oh.” She let her breath leak out slowly. “Oh,” she said again, her voice sounding as small as if it came from a long distance away. “Well. Thank you for trying.”

  “Sorry, doll,” repeated her agent. “Wish there was something I could do about this business, you know? But that’s just the way it is. My male clients are getting cast for great roles at forty. Even fifty. But women? They want ‘em barely out of the womb. The girls who made the shortlist for this one are still wiping away bits of placenta.”

  So Carin hadn’t even made the shortlist?

  She swallowed a thick lump in her throat and tried to sound normal. “That’s okay. Next time.” When she hung up, she dropped her head and blinked hard at her shoes, fighting tears. Would there be a next time, or would she be waiting tables forever?

  “Are you okay?” asked Jacquie’s mom.

  “Sure. Fine.” She forced a smile. And really, when she looked at the lines of pain etched into the woman’s face, how could Carin feel bad about working in the coffee shop instead of scoring the part of the deliciously-evil villain in a new fantasy TV series? At least she got to go up to the ward after work to act out stories with the kids. What could be better than that?

  “Can I get you something?” Carin asked Jacquie’s mother. “Coffee and a slice of cake?”

  “Where’s my bill?” shouted the red-faced man. “Jeez, lady. Can’t you get anything right?”

  Crap, she’d forgotten it. “Excuse me a minute,” she said to Jacquie and her mom. Grabbing the man’s bill, she rushed it over to him. “I’m sor—”

  “Save your excuses.” He snatched it and counted out enough money to pay for his sandwich. Then he pulled out a pen and scribbled something onto the piece of paper. “Here’s your tip. Best one you’ll ever earn.” He pushed the note into her hand before stalking out.

  In a furious scrawl he’d written, Give up. You suck.

  Carin crumpled the note and stuck it in her pocket, but stayed where she was with her back to Jacquie and her mom. Her hand crept up to her chin, to feel the pockmarks in her skin as all the worst tho
ughts she had about herself came creeping out. Ugly. Freak. Worthless. He’d given her two more to add to the pack. Give up. You suck.

  Her stomach churned and she wanted to throw up. Tears filled her eyes. But if she cried, Jacquie and her mom would see. They had enough problems of their own to deal with.

  A small hand tugged her skirt. “Carin? What’s wrong?” asked Jacquie. She put her arms up for a hug. Carin crouched and all but fell into them, feeling the little girl squeeze her with what strength she had.

  “Nothing, sweetie.” Carin squeezed back as hard as she dared. “I’m not going to be in the TV show, that’s all. But a hug from you is better than being in a hundred shows.”

  Except even as she pressed a kiss onto the girl’s bald skull and forced herself to smile, she knew that wasn’t entirely true.

  As much as Carin loved all the kids in the hospital, she hated that awful voice in her head. “Ugly,” it said. “Crater-face Carin,” it said. And sometimes it asked, “What do you wash your face with, fried chicken?”

  Without doubt, the best time of Carin’s life had been when she was Jacquie’s age, playing a part in Home and Away, Australia’s longest-running soap. That magical time had felt like sunshine in a field of grey. She’d do anything to feel that good again. And if she could get there, if she could get another part like that, maybe that voice would finally go the hell away.

  2

  When Carin got home she was still wearing the sparkly fairy costume she’d worn in the children’s ward, complete with wings and a wand. Today she’d needed to get lost in her made-up story every bit as much as the kids had. When the ward had been hushed with dozens of rapt faces waiting for her signal to all blow away the evil goblins together, the knot in her gut had finally loosened.

  In her bedroom, she kicked off her sparkly fairy shoes and put her wand on the dresser. Then she unzipped her fairy dress and stepped out of it, careful not to bend the wings attached to the back.

  When she pulled her coffee shop uniform out of her bag to throw it in the wash, something rustled in the pocket. The red-faced man’s nasty note. Before she could move to throw it away, her phone rang. Dressed only in a slip, she snatched it up. Could it be her agent calling back to tell her she’d made a mistake and Carin had gotten the part?

  But, no. It was her sister, Rosa.

  Carin took a breath and put on a cheerful voice before she answered the call. “Hey, how’s things?” Rosa lived on a beautiful Fijian island, and when Carin pictured her sister there, a pang of jealousy threatened. But Rosa deserved every second of her happiness, especially after everything she’d been through. Carin couldn’t be jealous of her sister.

  “Actually, things are crazy,” said Rosa. “I told you about that reality TV show they’re filming here, right?”

  “The one for engaged couples?”

  When Rosa had mentioned the show, Carin’s first question had been to find out if there was a part for her. Unfortunately, she didn’t fit the criteria, though she’d been tempted to find someone to get engaged to and try out for it anyway.

  “If we knew how demanding the crew were going to be, we might not have agreed to be part of the show,” said Rosa. “You should see how much food they go through.”

  Carin sighed, thinking about her two years as a young actress. She sank onto her bed and leaned back on the pillows, dropping the nasty man’s screwed-up note onto the covers next to her. The crew had been large on Home and Away, and they’d all been nice to her. They’d felt like a second family.

  “Who’s directing the show?” she asked.

  “A guy named Bozier. He’s so pretentious, he’s got one name, like Madonna or Sting. Dalton can’t stand him because he—”

  “Bozier?” Carin interrupted, sitting up. Her heart was suddenly thumping. “He’s there?”

  “Well, he’s not here right now; he’s in Sydney. But he’s flying back tomorrow. You know him?”

  “He’s huge. He does all the biggest shows on Australian TV. And he directed me when I was on Home and Away.”

  “He’s the one who had you killed in a car crash?” It had been fifteen years since then, but Rosa’s voice still rose in outrage.

  Carin realized she was rubbing the scars on her chin and dropped her hand. She didn’t blame Bozier for having her written out of the show. When she’d joined, she’d been a cute twelve-year-old with chocolate freckles. But her body had betrayed her. Somehow she’d turned into an ugly fourteen-year-old with terrible acne. No amount of medication, cleansing, or home remedies had helped, and even the best make-up artists couldn’t hide the erupting, pus-filled lumps that had covered her chin and cheeks.

  “He’s directing the new fantasy TV series I auditioned for.” Possibilities were rushing through Carin’s mind so fast, she felt a little giddy. “Why is he in Sydney?” she asked, keeping her tone casual.

  Surely Bozier would remember her? He hadn’t actually been at her audition and his casting director was the one who’d ruled her out for the part. But Bozier would have the final say. Perhaps there was still a chance to convince him she was the right person for the role.

  “Looking for more poor suckers to torture for their reality show.”

  “What?”

  “They eliminate one couple off the show each week, but last week, two couples decided they’d had enough and dropped out. Even if they skip an elimination, they’ve still got fewer contestants than they were counting on. They’ve decided to bring on a new couple to shake things up.”

  “A new couple,” repeated Carin slowly. Could the universe be extending a hand of opportunity? Perhaps all she needed was the courage to take hold of it.

  Rosa lowered her voice, as though sharing juicy gossip. “Can you imagine how the existing contestants are going to react? They’ve been here for weeks already, sleeping rough on the beach and eating whatever they can forage. And when a fresh-faced couple stroll up for the last three weeks of filming?” She snickered. “Think of the drama. The new couple will be instant villains. Have to say, I don’t envy them.”

  Carin drew in her breath. This couldn’t be more perfect. The part she wanted to play in Bozier’s new fantasy series was a hilariously bitchy fallen angel who had all the best lines. A villain with style. If she could show Bozier how great she’d be, maybe she could still earn a spot on the shortlist for the role.

  “Did Bozier find a couple to do it already?” she asked.

  “I guess he must have. They probably chose another couple from the original applications they had.”

  Carin looked at the screwed-up piece of paper the man in the coffee shop had given her. She smoothed it out and glared at what he’d written. Give up. You suck. Now her shock had worn off, the note just made her mad. The man was wrong. She’d prove it.

  “Those original couples won’t be expecting to be called on at such short notice,” she said. “So maybe being in the right place at the right time will mean I’m in with a chance.” She ripped the man’s note in half. She’d put it in Clooney’s litter tray for her cat to poop on.

  “What are you talking about?” her sister asked. “You’re not getting any crazy ideas, are you? They won’t let you on the show.”

  “No harm in trying. Emma Stone got her big break on a reality TV show. Why not me?”

  “Because you’re not engaged.”

  “I’m an actress. Pretending to be something I’m not is my job.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll talk to you later, okay? I need to call my agent.” She hung up, cutting her sister off. Rosa’s dreams had already come true, so how could she understand how badly Carin needed a break? Nobody was going to hand success to Carin on a plate. If she wanted it, she needed to make it happen.

  But when she called her agent to pass on what Rosa had told her, her agent snorted. “You’re too late for that show, doll. The auditions were held months ago.”

  “Would you make a call for me anyway? Tell the casting director I can drop everything
and go. Today, if necessary. I could jump straight on a plane.”

  “That’s not going to work.”

  “Please?”

  Her agent sighed. “Listen, sweetheart. Contestants on those shows go through a screening process, and that’s been done already. You think they’ll let you skip over all that stuff and waltz onto the show?”

  “They might if they’re desperate.”

  “There’ll be more shows I can put you forward for. Don’t give up. There’s still hope.”

  Carin sucked in her breath. Of course there was hope. Wasn’t there? But the fact her agent had felt the need to say it in that gentle tone was a terrible sign. Did her agent think she was a lost cause? Was it her scars? Did they make her too ugly for television?

  “Okay.” She had to fight to keep the despair out of her voice. “Thanks anyway.”

  Hanging up, she pushed a hand through her hair. She could still smell the scents of the coffee shop on her skin. The smell consisted of coffee, a hint of the toast she’d managed to burn while grilling a customer’s sandwich, and the astringent tang of the hand soap she used a million times a day.

  She’d probably smell of that hand soap forever, seeing as she’d be working at the coffee shop for the rest of her life.

  No. Scratch that thought. She wouldn’t let that happen. There had to be something she could do.

  Clooney had spotted her sitting on the bed and was moving in for a cuddle. She scratched behind his ears while she considered her options. Bozier hadn’t seen her since writing her out of Home and Away when she was fourteen. He probably didn’t remember who she was.