Page 59 of D’Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding

Giggling, Tanisha shook her head. “I already told you. A little birdie told me that you would be here trying on gowns today, and I wanted to come see you, so here I am.”

A little birdie? I hope she wasn’t implying that one of the producers had something to do with this. I had no idea who she’d been working with, but I couldn’t see Kevin orchestrating something questionable like this. I waved away her excuse, not wanting to dig into her declaration that she wanted to see me.

“Okay, but what happened between you and Margo? It’s only been a couple of weeks.”

Tanisha shrugged. “I already told you that too. We weren’t compatible. There was no way to convince our families that we were going to be together. Hell, it was hard enough trying to convince one another. We couldn’t sell it, and nobody believed us, and so we were knocked out last week.”

My mouth fell open. “You were knocked out in the second week? Dang!”

Tanisha shrugged again and looked off to the side, but I saw the way her lips tightened into a flat line. She couldn’t feign complete nonchalance.

“Well, Margo found it to be a difficult task pretending to be in love with me, or even attracted to me. So, shortly after introducing her to my family, they took me aside and told me that there was no way in hell they would let me marry her. At the end of the night, instead of having me record a Jitter Cam, Rebecca called it a wrap.”

I gasped, bringing my hands to my mouth. That was an awful way to have the rug pulled from under you. It’s one thing for people to not believe that you would even get married—it’s another for your supposed fiancée to not even be able to pretend that they wanted to be with you. And no matter how nonplussed Tanisha seemed to be, there was no way she wouldn’t feel the sting of that. Stepping forward, I grabbed her hand in mine and squeezed.

“I’m so sorry.”

She shook her head, as if ridding herself of the momentary emotions brought on by reminiscing, and gave me a sexy leer. Flipping our hands, she threaded her fingers through mine and rubbed her thumb across my wrist.

“Like I said, it is what it is. More importantly, now that it’s over with her, I can come to you and let you know that not only am I still very interested in you, but I would love to pursue something with you.”

That uncomfortable feeling came back with a vengeance, settling into my gut heavy enough to make me a little nauseous. I might’ve been overly flattered by her attention and bold words at the party, but right now, hearing them made me sick. Slowly, I slipped my hand from her grasp and backed up a couple of steps.

“I still have a fiancée, you know.”

Quirking an eyebrow, Tanisha gave me an uncaring look as she swept her hand in an arc. “I know. Obviously. But when that’s over in however many weeks, I was thinking that you and I could maybe go out somewhere.” She grinned, and it was a wicked, suggestive thing that under different circumstances might’ve had me penciling her into my schedule expeditiously. “Or stay in. Maybe pretend to watch Netflix while we do the opposite of chill. Something like that. I would really, really like to get to know you better.”

“Um...” I tried to think of something to say that would throw her off of this trail she was on, something that would let her know that I was no longer interested, but my words failed me. Flicking my eyes over her shoulder, I wondered if anyone would come in and save me. Where was my family?

“Oh my God!” groaned Tanisha. “I don’t believe it.”

My eyes widened as my gaze snapped back to her. Her face was twisted into disbelief with an inexplicable dose of sadness.

“What?” I asked frantically. “What is it?”

She chuckled dryly as she shook her head. “It’s barely been three weeks and you’re already falling for the tattooed butch, aren’t you?”

My face heated. How had she clocked that so quickly? “Her name is Kris,” I offered lamely, conveniently ignoring the question.

Tanisha rolled her eyes and slapped her hands onto her hips. “Of fucking course,” she mumbled. “You know what? I’m not even mad.”

“Hmm?” I wasn’t even sure what exactly she was talking about, and I was too embarrassed to say the words outright.

“You already know how I feel about you,” Tanisha said pushing a handful of her twists over her shoulder. “If I only had six weeks with you, I would spend the time trying to make you fall in love with me too.”

Blinking rapidly, I shook my head a little and took a couple of steps back. “That’s... What? I don’t think that’s what’s happening here.” Technically. Right? I mean, Kris wasn’t trying to get me to fall in love with her. She just wanted me not to interfere while she allowed herself to fall. So she said.

Tanisha stared at me in silence, the contemplative look in her eyes making my palms sweat a little bit. After a minute, a slow smile came across her face.

“Oh, this is going to be amazing TV.”

At that, I frowned. “Tanisha, you lost me here.”

She shook her head. “Don’t worry about it, babe. I’ll get out of your hair now. I’m sure your mother and sister are standing outside of the curtain, waiting on me to leave.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, Mama and Niesha reentered the room with Dory in tow. Tanisha turned to me with a wink.

“Told ya.” She turned around to face my family. “It was really lovely to meet you both. Hopefully this won’t be the last time.”