The Match (Wilde, #2)(93)

Jenn smiled now. There was still denial, but there was also something akin to relief. “I told him I didn’t believe him. I told him to get out.”

Wilde nodded.

“And you’re right for the most part,” Jenn continued. “Peter and I had become boring TV. I thought about just breaking up with him, but like you said, how would I come across? I thought about asking him to manufacture a way to have us split up, but I couldn’t think of a way, and Peter’s game was to play it straight.”

Big Bobbo said, “Babe?”

She sighed. “No, I didn’t tell you, Bob. I didn’t tell Marnie. Because neither of you are good enough actors to pull it off. This is a game, Wilde. Survivor, The Bachelor, Big Brother, Love Is a Battlefield—they are contests and entertainment. That’s all. I used to watch Survivor and some pathetic contestant would get tricked and voted off and he would be throwing a hissy fit about betrayal, but of course, that’s the whole game, isn’t it? Someone has to come out on top. Someone gets the fame and the riches. Our life—Peter’s, mine, heck Bob’s—it’s a game.”

She moved closer to Big Bobbo and put her hand in his. “I wanted Bob from Day One on that show. Do you know what the producers told me?” Big Bobbo puffed out his chest. “They told me to keep both of them for now, but in the end, I had to pick Peter.”

“So you never loved him? It was all a scam?”

“Not a scam,” she said. “Our whole life is playacting. It’s not a question of what’s real and what’s fake—there are no lines, no distinctions. Before I was on Battlefield, I was a filing secretary at a small law office. Do you know how boring that was? We all want to be famous. That’s everyone’s goal, if they’re honest. Even the most pissant social media account wants more likes and followers. Should I just let myself go back to that mundane life without a fight? No way. Survivor, Bachelor, Love Is a Battlefield. They’re contests with winners and losers. In this case, I won. Peter lost. That’s how it works. It was him or me, and guess what? It ended up being me. And what did I really do to him, huh? He wasn’t thrown in jail. He wasn’t being investigated or arrested. He just lost some fans—so what? He knew that the allegations against him weren’t true. Shouldn’t that have been enough? Anonymous losers online said mean things about him—big deal. Take yourself off social media if you can’t handle that. Meet another girl. Live a simpler life. Peter could have chosen that, right?”

Big Bobbo just stood there.

Wilde said, “That’s a hell of a rationalization.”

“It’s pure truth.”

“Peter’s sister thinks he committed suicide.”

“And if that’s true, that’s terrible. But you can’t blame me. Every week someone gets heartbroken on those shows. If one of them ends their life, is that another contestant’s fault? Look, I didn’t expect the hatred to get that out of control, but a healthy person doesn’t commit suicide over mean tweets.”

Wilde was awestruck by the passion in her self-justification. “In Peter’s case, it may have been more than mean tweets.”

“Like what?”

“Like maybe Peter was genuinely in love. Maybe the woman he loved wouldn’t believe him when he denied roofying her sister. Or maybe, a few months later, he realized the truth—that his beloved wife had set him up. Did you ever love him?”

“That’s beside the point,” she said. “When you watch two people fall in love during a movie, does it matter if they’re in love off-screen?”

“You weren’t in a movie.”

“Yeah, we are. Jenn Cassidy from Waynesville, Ohio, doesn’t live in Manhattan’s most expensive apartment building. She doesn’t get invited to the Met Gala or hobnob with the rich and famous or endorse luxury brands or dine at the trendiest restaurants. People don’t care where she’s seen or what she’s wearing. We in reality have chosen to make our life a movie. How do you not get that?”

Wilde was tired of listening to her. “Where is Peter?” he asked.

“I don’t have a clue.”





Chapter

Thirty-Nine



There was nothing more to learn from Jenn Cassidy, so Wilde left their room. He had paid a hefty price for a room of his own, so he figured that he might as well use it. He lay down on the hotel bed and stared at the ceiling. Shakespeare had written, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” It was a bit of a stretch, but perhaps Jenn had a point. Peter had signed up for this life. Fame is a drug. Celebrity is what everyone wants—power and riches and the good life. Jenn was losing that. So was Peter. So she cut him loose in a way that would save herself.

But that didn’t tell him where Peter Bennett was.

Wilde now knew that Peter hadn’t cheated on Jenn or roofied Marnie—but he’d known that before he confronted Jenn. The fact that she’d orchestrated the whole thing didn’t change the big picture much. It didn’t tell Wilde who killed Henry McAndrews and Katherine Frole and Martin Spirow. It didn’t tell Wilde who his mother was or why she’d ended up abandoning him in the woods.

In short, all he learned was that a reality star had lied. Hardly earth-shattering stuff.