Private Scandals

because I’m terrified I wonder why I’ve waited so long. Maybe I’m wrong and you don’t want marriage anymore. If that’s the way you feel, I’ll wait.” She thought if he continued to stare at her with that mild curiosity, she’d scream. “Say something, damn it. Yes, no, go to hell. Something.”
    “Why? Why now, Deanna?”
    “Don’t make this an interview.”
    “Why?” he repeated. When he grabbed her arms she realized there was nothing mild about his mood.
    “Because everything’s so complicated now.” Her voice rose, trembled, broke. “Because life doesn’t fit into any of my neat scheduling plans, and I don’t want being married to you to be neat and orderly. Because with the November sweeps raging, and all this crazy publicity with Angela, and you going off to Haiti, it’s probably the worst possible time to think about getting married. So that makes it the best time.”
    Despite his tangled emotions, he laughed. “For once your logic totally eludes me.”
    “I don’t need life to be perfect, Finn. For once, I don’t need that. It just has to be right. And we’re so absolutely right.” She blinked back more tears, then gave up and let them fall. “Will you marry me?”
    He tipped her head back so that he could study her face. And he smiled, slowly, as all those tangled emotions smoothed out into one silky sheet. “Well, you know, Kansas, this is awfully sudden.”
     
    News of the engagement spread quickly. Within twenty-four hours of the official announcement, Deanna’s officewas deluged with calls. Requests for interviews, offers from designers, caterers, chefs, congratulatory calls from friends. Curiosity calls from other reporters.
    Cassie fielded them, batting the few back to Deanna that required the personal touch.
    Oddly there had been no calls, no notes, no contact at all from the one person who had been hounding her for years. No matter how often Deanna told herself she should be relieved at the respite, it frightened her more than seeing one of those neat, white envelopes on her desk or tucked under her door.
     
    But none came, because none were written. In the shadowy little room where pictures of Deanna beamed contentedly from walls and tabletops, there was little sound but weeping. Hot, bitter tears fell on the newspaper print that announced the engagement of two of television’s most popular stars.
    Alone, alone for so long. Waiting, waiting so patiently. So sure that Finn would never settle down. That Deanna could still be had. Now the hope that fueled patience was smashed, a delicate cup of fragile glass tossed aside and discovered to have been empty all along.
    There was no sweet wine of triumph to be shared. And no Deanna to fill those empty hours.
    But even as the tears dried, the planning began. She merely had to be shown—surely that was all—that no one could love her more completely. She needed to be shown, to be shocked into awareness. And, she needed to be punished. Just a little.
    There was a way to arrange it all.
     
    Deanna had voted for a small, simple wedding. A private ceremony, she told Finn as he’d finished up the last of his packing for Haiti. Just family and close friends.
    And it had been he who’d tossed her the curve.
    “Nope. We’re shooting the works on this one, Kansas.” He’d zipped up his garment bag and slung it over his shoulder. “A church wedding, organ music, acres of flowers andseveral weeping relatives neither one of us remembers. Followed by a reception of mammoth proportions where some of those same relatives will drink too much and embarrass their respective spouses.”
    She chased down the steps after him. “Do you know how long it would take to plan something like that?”
    “Yeah. You’ve got five months.” He dragged her close for a hard, deep kiss. “You’ve got an April deadline, Deanna. We’ll look over your list when I get back.”
    “But, Finn.” She was forced to scoot down and grab the dog by the collar before he joyfully rushed out of the door Finn opened.
    “This time I want it perfect. I’ll call as soon as I can.” He started down to where his driver waited, swinging around and walking backward with a grin teasing his dimples. “Stay tuned.”
    So she was now planning a full-scale wedding. Which, of course, prompted the topic idea of wedding preparations and related stress.
    “We could book couples who’d broken up because the fighting and spats during the wedding plans undermined