FINDING THE RIGHT PRINCE

-1-

THE ESCAPE

The morning passed with a blur. Taylor had woken up early and had her hair and makeup done before she left for the church. God (or other divine force, or not, or something else… holy crap… oh no… unholy crap… oh no… just crap… uggh, what the hell was wrong with her?), what the hell was she doing in a church? It wasn't like she was religious… in fact she was still agnostic despite how pathetic it was.

"What faith do you belong to?"

"None… I'm agnostic."

"Oh."

Yeah, that was always an interesting conversation… especially when you were talking to the priest who would be marrying you to your fiancé. Who the hell lived life being agnostic about everything, anyways? Oh yeah… she did.

Up until a few of years ago, despite being agnostic about most things in life, she believed in true love. However, today she was even agnostic about the entire concept of true love.

Did she love Bradley Carleton? Was she in love with him? Was she prepared to be the mother of his children and spend the rest of her life with him? Was the prospect of growing old and grey with him appealing? Did she want to end up divorced yet again? Sure, when she married Henri Michel she had been drunk and naïve, but now… what was her excuse now? She'd been with Brad for two years, longer than she had ever been with anyone else… she knew him, she cared about him, but did she love him? Was this really what she wanted?

Her mother had been the one to make the decisions regarding almost everything. She was the one who picked out the flowers, told her which dress looked best (made her look slimmer than she really was), picked out the jewelry and the shoes, decided on the venue for the reception, chose the cake (some non fat dairy free concoction that she was sure would taste like cardboard), and even had a say in who her made of honor was. Taylor had wanted to ask Summer Roberts because she was the only real friend she ever had but her mother had shot down the suggestion for two reasons. Firstly she shouldn't have a maid of honor that looked so much better than her and would out do her without any effort on her wedding day. Secondly, she didn't want to run the risk of "the vile felon she had a romp with" being at the wedding and creating a scene. Her reaction to her mother's arguments had been the same as they had been with everything else… she bit her tongue and blindly accepted. It was nice having her mother pay attention to her even if it was just to make sure that she married Brad in the best wedding in the history of the Californian elite. She tried to tell herself that her overall lack of excitement about the whole thing had nothing to do with the fact that she didn't really want this.

Taylor looked into the mirror as her maid of honor (her mousey secretary whom she barely knew) helped her with her veil. Her hair had been done in loose tendrils and put up into a loose bun with her bangs and a few loose tendrils hanging out here and there. She looked alright, she knew, but for some reason she felt like smashing the mirror into little pieces. This wasn't her. She didn't wear huge, flashy diamond necklaces and earnings. The engagement ring on her finger was a monstrosity and she felt like it kept her from doing the simplest tasks with her hand. It was all so overwhelming. This wasn't her. The top half of her wedding dress fit well, hugging and accentuating her body in all the right places despite the heavy embroidery and embellishment, while the bottom half of her dress was the opposite. The bottom half of her dress was huge, puffy, satiny, and it had such a long train. It covered her feet and she wondered why the hell she was wearing Jimmy Choo's if no one was going to see them anyways. Oh God! This wasn't her.

"Wow! You look so beautiful!" she heard Carol (her maid of honor) exclaim once the veil was on. "Are you okay?" she heard her ask after a few moments.

"What?"

"Are you okay? You're breathing kind of weirdly"

Taylor stopped thinking and paid attention to her breathing. She was breathing erratically. Focusing on her erratic breathing made her breathe more erratically. She needed to stop. Focus on something else. Focus on anything else. Talk. Just talk.

"Oh, I'm fine" Taylor laughed. "Just peachy. I love peaches you know. One of my ex-husbands used to call me peaches. He said that my breasts were like ripe peaches. He even wrote this erotic novel about me called 'A Season for Peaches.' It's more fiction than anything else, just so you know… incase you've ever read it or are planning to now that I've mentioned it. I know how to make peach torte. For a while it was the only thing I could make but then I learned how to make other stuff… like coq au vin. Vin means wine in French. Mmmm… got to love wine. I hope there's wine at the reception. Champagne is good but it kind of tickles my upper palate and creates this tingly sensation in my nose that makes me giggle" Taylor giggled at the thought of the feeling. "Like that" she laughed some more while Carol looked at her weirdly. "I am weird and if you're going to stick around for more than a month you better get used to it" she said, reading her secretary's mind.

"Taylor, everything is set. In a couple of minutes the procession will start and you walk down the aisle" her mother said as she barged into the room and looked her over. "That will do. It isn't the best but at least you don't look like a cow" she said before turning around and leaving the room. Taylor saw her secretary look at her mother in shock and she smiled at her reassuringly trying to say 'if I can deal with her my whole life you can do it for just a day'.

Taylor had to walk down the aisle alone since her father still refused to acknowledge her existence (big surprise!). Her veil was set so that it was already pulled back. Carol handed her the bouquet and Taylor began to inhale and exhale deeply in order to make herself calm down. She needed to think zen. Yes, zen. She needed to find that calm inner space within her that would guide her through this. She followed the procession and waited behind the doors.

She was marrying Bradley Carleton. She was going to be Mrs. Bradley Carleton. Taylor Carleton. Taylor Townsend de Momourant Devereaux Carleton. What if this wasn't it? What if they ended up getting divorced and then she met some other guy and another name was added to the list? And what if that man wasn't the right one either and she ended up divorcing him and then meeting another man? What if she spent her entire life searching for the one and marrying all the wrong men and by the time she died she had like fifty last names but had never found the one?

She shook her head, trying to shake the thought. She wasn't repeating her past mistakes because she wasn't drunk this time, and she had known this guy for much longer than a matter of days. Then again, maybe it would be better if she was drunk, at least that way she wouldn't be conscious enough to process the thoughts reeling through her mind.

Sometimes people just don't find the one. She thought she had… but she'd been young, naïve, and just oh so wrong. She knew she shouldn't be thinking of him, but she couldn't help it.

He broke her heart and she had spent the first of three years of college (she fast tracked) in France having casual flings and sex with random guys in order to numb the pain and just forget. She knew she wasn't as big a slut as Summer's old roommate at Brown, but she knew she was still a slut. She chose not to discuss her sexual exploits with her best friend when they talked because a) Summer never had enough time to talk about them with her because she was on the road constantly and Taylor felt that she should spend whatever little time they had to talk to each other discussing more meaningful things, b) she didn't want her best friend to know about what a slut she had become, and c) she didn't want him to find out (after she let it slip to her boyfriend and he blabbed to his foster brother) that she hadn't been able to cope with the breakup and think she was pathetic.

Her second and third years were spent studying, working for a translating company, and latching on to Jacques Deveraux after he saved her from walking into the path of a speeding car while she was busy multitasking (reading, talking on the phone, and walking) on the busy streets of Paris. After approximately five dinner dates and a bottle of Bordeaux, he told her that it was true love and asked her to marry him, which of course she did because she was drunk and needy.

It turned out that the man was one of Henri Michel's weirdo fans and wanted to get a piece of the real Peaches. She had thought it was suspicious that some of the things he did to her had been like reenactments of things she had read in the book and her suspicions were confirmed when she found Henri in their bedroom, prepared for a threesome that was never going to happen. She, having learned the ins and outs of French marital law, created a scene that caused neighbors to come out from their homes and hear her rant on and on about how she was tired of her husband's homosexual tendencies. The fact that Jacques and Henri Michel were standing by the front door in their robes hadn't really shed a positive light on them. Some nosy neighbors were more than happy to attest to Jacques affair with Henri and just cause for divorce.

She had called her only friend to wish her a Merry Christmas and she asked how she was planning on spending the holidays. Summer fumed when she said she planned to celebrate like never before and let the news of the whirlwind marriage and freshly finalized divorce slip in overjoyed relief but couldn't help but laugh hysterically when she found out how she got out of it this time, given that he wasn't there to rescue her. According to her, the asshats deserved it and she needed to make sure she didn't celebrate too hard and end up in the same situation a third time.

The whole thing was actually an entertaining distraction and the fact that she was able to get out of the mess by herself (although a small thanks had to go to Henri) made her feel independent and free – especially of him. She hated herself for not being able to get him out of her mind and she currently kicked herself for thinking about him and her tumultuous past today… especially at this very moment. It wasn't that she still held feelings for him – no, she'd drowned all of those out over two years ago when she finally realized that she didn't need him and was no longer sure if it was really love that she felt for him anyways… or if it was just hopes, dreams, and the overwhelming want to be loved. It was the fact that she let him impact her life in such a monumental way that bothered her. She had been with him for less than a year, but he affected her for nearly four years. By the time she graduated, she loathed who she had become and wanted to start over. That's why when she applied, was accepted, and offered a scholarship, she decided to pursue her masters in linguistics at NYU.

Taylor allowed her heart to swell with the memory of how it all started. She literally ran into Brad on her way into the co-ed mature student dormitory in the beginning of the fall semester, spilling Starbucks coffee on his shirt and apologizing profusely. She remembered the way he took hold of her nervous hands and stopped them from patting down his shirt with napkins, causing her to look up into his amused blue eyes. She remembered the wide smile that spread across her lips when he told her that it was okay, and that she could make it up to him by letting him buy her a new cup. It was such a chick flick moment, but she remembered nodding dumbly, entranced by his shaggy blond hair, blue eyes, strong jaw line, and rugged good looks. He asked her to wait for him while he went up and changed his shirt and she told him that she'd meet him back there in five minutes because she wanted to drop her books off. She remembered the way she made sure she had mace (just in case) in her purse when she made her way to her room and ran into the washroom excitedly, making sure that her hair, makeup, and clothes looked okay. When she made her way back downstairs, she felt butterflies in her stomach at the sight of him waiting for her. For the first time in four years he was the last and most non-existent thing on her mind. They talked as they walked to the nearest Starbucks and she was pleased when she found out something they had in common. They were both native Californians who turned into Starbucks addicts after coming to NYU. He was a graduate student as well, working on his masters in business administration.

Their relationship progressed slowly and steadily... starting out with coffee dates, and moving on to lunch and dinner dates. It took two weeks before he finally kissed her and it was great. She had forgotten how to take things slowly and just enjoy the ride. She had told him this, all about her past – the countless flings, two whirlwind marriages, and the erotic novel that was mostly fiction –, and she told him that she was telling him because she saw potential between them and didn't want whatever was going on between them to be meaningless because she actually liked him, inside and out (which caused him to smirk), and was tired of meaninglessness. He told her that he had been though enough randoms and meaningless flings, that it didn't matter if she got drunk and married a French man twice, and with a quirked eyebrow and a sly grin he told her that he could see how she could inspire a man to write an erotic novel about her but that he didn't plan on reading it because it was in her past and he wanted to figure it all out for himself one day – not now since they were going to take this slow. She blushed, smacked him playfully on the arm, and kissed him. He hadn't been in a serious relationship in a while too but felt something when he was with her and didn't want to mess it up by rushing into anything either. They walked around the city, took in all the tourist attractions, went to Broadway performances and movies, danced the night away as they explored the club scene, and sometimes just stayed in the dorms and watched a movie or talked. Two months into their relationship she finally let him spend the night in her room.

She remembered the snowy New Year's Eve they spent together in New York, watching the ball drop, kissing each other tenderly at the stroke of midnight, him telling her he loved her, her telling him she loved him, and relishing in the feel of his arms around her and lips pressed against her own yet again. Summer had called her the next day to wish her a Happy New Year and tell her that she saw her on television. Apparently it was nice seeing her friend happy and all lovey dovey at the stroke of midnight despite the fact that she had no idea she was in any kind of a relationship or would be in the country. Taylor blushed through the phone at the combination of what her friend had just said and the fact that Brad had just brushed her hair off her shoulder and began to trail kisses to her neck. She wanted to know everything and Taylor told her she'd tell her, but not at that moment because she was busy. Her friend wanted to know what she could possibly be busy with at 2pm on New Year's Day and she remained silent. A loud "ewww" could be heard on the phone followed by a quick goodbye. She turned her cellphone off after that and the two of them continued to spend the rest of the day in bed, with the exception of when they needed food to refuel the energy it required to stay in bed. According to Brad he was letting her know all of the ways in which he loved her. Taylor had giggled at the lameness of the line but didn't complain about it.

Apparently a lot of people watched the ball drop that year, or maybe it just seemed that way since one of the most important moments in her and Brad's relationship was broadcasted on national television. Most of his family had seen it and wanted to know who the "beautiful girl who won his heart and kept him away from them during the holidays" was. Until this point she had never heard much about Brad's family. He had shown her some pictures of them that were lying around his room but he didn't really talk about them.

Taylor had been avoiding her mother's phone calls for two weeks after the broadcast, not wanting to hear her rant about how she'd embarrassed her with her shenanigans. She found out about the fact that Veronica had been bragging around Newport about her having bagged the governor of California's son from Summer when she finally called her back for the long overdue explanation. Her friend was shocked when she found out that she had already graduated and thought she was stupid for keeping it from her because she thought she would think she was a freak. According to Summer, one of the many reasons why she loved her was because she was a freak. Her best friend was more shocked to find out that she was at NYU working on her masters in linguistics and even more shocked when Taylor revealed that she had fallen in love with a guy she didn't know was the son of the governor of California. Apparently Taylor had gained an almost celebrity status in California as their golden boy's girl. Needless to say, she was shocked, somewhat horrified, and wondered how the hell she had no clue about who the guy she'd been dating for the past four months was. Summer thought it probably had something to do with the fact that she hadn't stepped foot in California in over three years and that he didn't like that the media had portrayed him as a womanizer. Taylor questioned him about the whole thing after her conversation with Summer and found out that her friend had been right. She understood and could relate. After all, he had mentioned the randoms and causal flings when she had told him about her own past.

They brushed everything aside and allowed their relationship to flourish throughout the winter semester. She continued to ignore her mother while his family continued to ask about her and request to meet her. He told her that he planned on surprising them after they finished their masters by just bringing her to dinner one night. She was excited about the prospect because she loved surprises. When they finished their degrees he got job offers left and right and she got a few too. The one area in which they both had job offers was San Francisco.

They sat on the options for days before they laid everything out on the table, both of them becoming annoyed with the uneasy tension. He said he loved her. She said she loved him. He said he wanted to be with her. She said she wanted the same. His eyes lit up and he knelt on one knee before pulling out a black velvet box, opening it to reveal a gorgeous diamond ring, and asking her to marry him. "San Francisco it is!" she exclaimed with tears in her eyes and a bright smile across her face as she held out her hand for him to put the ring on. She loved the ring at the time. It was beautiful. It was a white gold ring with a large diamond in the center, offset by smaller ones. The main reason she loved it though, was because it symbolized her future with him.

Taylor began to subconsciously rub the ring with her thumb. She wondered when she stopped seeing the ring as something beautiful and began to look at it as a monstrosity.

Brad's family liked her. She knew they would, it wasn't even a question – if she tried hard enough she could hit it off with anyone. His parents – Jeff and Barbra – thought she was beautiful. His sisters loved talking to her about fashion and gossip. One of his brothers happened to like anime and they could go on for hours talking about it. The other brother was into politics like his father. It was when her family came up that things started to take a turn for the worst. Veronica had shown up for dinner one night and acted like they had been on speaking terms forever and that she had always been a part of her life. Her mother told her that she had done well for herself for the first time in her entire life and she couldn't fathom how she managed to bag Bradley. She should have been happy about it, but the way Veronica began to show up for dinners with the family more frequently and the way she and Barbra had so much in common ate away at her.

Taylor was upset when news of the engagement was fed to the media. Upset wasn't the right word. She had been fuming. She knew it was her mother, gloating and trying to gain attention as well as praise from her "friends". Where was her mother when she was younger and she actually needed her? She had grown accustomed to her mother's negligence due to her selfishness but the fact that she was paying attention to her and using her title as her mother for her own selfish endeavors was something new and it infuriated her. San Francisco wasn't that bad to walk around in – but when she went to Newport she had to wear sunglasses and even then, people would stare at her, point fingers, and whisper. Some woman even had the audacity to ask her how her fiancé was in the sack.

Over the years Taylor had grown accustomed to a simpler life. She had supported herself through college because she didn't want her mother to have anything to hold over her head. She knew how to get by on the bare essentials – along with her trust fund and the hefty settlement from her second divorce. She and Brad had gotten an apartment together in San Francisco and when they were alone they were happy. They didn't see each other as much as they would have liked because they were both busy with work, and soon meetings with the "family" for wedding preparations began to take up time as well. Brad didn't say much at any of these meetings, despite Taylor's urgings and every time she spoke up, Veronica shot her down. She wanted something simple but classy while Veronica and Barbra had their sights set on something large and extravagant. Brad was Barbra's baby boy and Veronica loved attention.

Taylor glanced into the room at all the flowers. She looked at her dress. She studied her ring and oversized bouquet of flowers. She became vaguely aware of the heavy diamond necklace around her neck. Maybe it was the necklace that was making it hard for her to breathe. It was a possibility. Maybe it was the matching heavy diamond earrings that were making her think nonstop and get a headache. She looked into the room again and saw all the people. There had to be at least five hundred people at the ceremony and she only knew a handful that included her boss, a few coworkers, Carol, and Veronica. Her best friend, the one constant in her life over the last five years wasn't even here. They hadn't talked in a few months. Summer had called, but she hadn't been able to return the calls because she was busy and avoiding them because she felt guilty for not asking her to be her maid of honor. This wasn't what she wanted. This wasn't her.

She loved Brad. She knew she did. She couldn't hide it if she wanted to. A part of her would always love Brad, the same way (even though she tried her hardest to deny it) a part of her still loved him. She couldn't just stop loving someone who had been an important part of her life. But at the same time, she hated the life they had made with each other.

She wasn't a celebrity. She never wanted to be one and she had never done anything to be worthy of it. She saw the way women looked at Brad and although she knew he only saw her it still wore her thin.

Why her? Why her when there were drop dead gorgeous women who he could be with? There were gorgeous women who hadn't been married twice, didn't ramble, didn't over-think everything, didn't have an erotic novel written about them, hadn't been sluts, didn't mind having the attention of tons of people on them, and didn't have the entire slew of other issues that she had. Why not one of them? Why her?

She watched as her soon to be niece and nephew walked down the aisle. The adorable little girl sprinkled flower petals along the way. She wondered if she would ever have a daughter or a son. What kind of a mother would she be? She hoped she wouldn't be like her own – a woman who wavered from neglecting to living vicariously through her child and shoveled her own insecurities upon them.

Taylor felt her heart rate speed up as she watched Carol begin to walk down the aisle with Brad's best friend. Once again she was reminded of Summer Roberts… of the fact that it should have been the dark haired girl she was watching walk down the aisle before her, stopping by her side, watching her walk down the aisle, providing her support with a reassuring smile and her dark brown gaze, and taking her bouquet before she turned to…

The thought was shoved out of her head as she heard the bridal march begin. Her stomach churned and she felt sick. She quickly glanced behind her to the main doors of the Church and saw another one of Brad's nephew's holding on to the train of her dress and couldn't help but think about children again. They had never talked about children. They were getting married and they had never talked about kids. What if she wanted them and he didn't? What if he wanted them and she didn't? The little boy was staring at her and she stared back at him.

"You're supposed to start walking now" he whispered to her.

She couldn't even remember his name, or those of the little boy and girl who had already walked down the aisle. She was going to be such an awful aunt.

"Go!" he whispered again.

She turned her head and tried to focus on the front of the church where Brad stood, watching her. She could see the worry on his face and felt bad. She took a step forward, causing him to smile at her brightly. She smiled back, continuing to focus on him as she made her way down the aisle slowly.

All she saw was him and nothing else existed. Different things began to flash through her head – coffee stain, Starbucks, their lips pressed together, Statue of Liberty, beer, the crunching of leaves under their feet, a steady beat and his hands on her hips, their bare bodies tangled in each other and sheets, Wicked, a mixture of snow and confetti falling from the sky, "I love you", a black box, a ring – and before she knew it she was standing at the alter with Brad.

She stared into his eyes and could feel her hands in his. She looked down at her left one and saw the ring – the huge diamond ring that symbolized her future with him. She looked up and suddenly the room came into focus – the ghastly overabundance of flowers, the hundreds of people she didn't know, the presence of a woman she barely knew standing next to her on what was one of the most important days of her life, and her smug looking mother and soon to be mother in law seated next to each other in the front pew.

"Do you, Bradley, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?" Taylor's mind whirled as she looked at the priest and then focused on Brad… only it wasn't Brad… it was Henri Michel. "To have…" She stared at Henri with wide eyes before closing her eyes and opening them to find some dark haired, green eyed Parisian guy she slept with once. "And to hold?" She blinked again and found herself looking into the lustful deep brown eyes of another man she'd been with but didn't know the name of. "From this day forward?" She blinked again and found herself looking at Sung Ho – she hadn't thought about him in years. What the hell was happening to her? "For better?" She blinked to find herself staring at Jack Hess. Oh my God! "For worse?" She blinked again, only to open her eyes to another random guy. Her stomach churned and her heart sank. "For richer?" She blinked and saw Jacques, the weirdo, Devereaux in front of her. "For poorer?" She quickly blinked and saw another random guy in front of her. "In sickness?" She shut her eyes… "And health?"… and opened them to finally find Brad staring at her. "Until death do you part?" She didn't feel better. She wasn't relieved and happy like she thought she would be.

"I do" she heard him say and felt him squeeze her hands slightly. She stared into his pale blue eyes as her stomach continued to churn, her head ached and spun at the same time, and her heart sank even deeper. She felt the sting of salty tears welling in her eyes.

"Do you, Taylor, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband – to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and health, until death do you part?" the priest asked her. She tore her eyes away from Brad and began to stare at the balding man with salt and pepper hair and wrinkles around his grey eyes, searching for some kind of support or reassurance but not finding anything but his willingness to accept her decision. It was as if he was telling her to look within herself for whatever it was that she needed. She'd already done this twice without even thinking about it. She loved Brad… in New York. New York was temporary – like Paris. Her life was in California and ever since she and Brad came here, their relationship had gone downhill. She understood that this was who he was, but couldn't he see that this wasn't who she was?

"Taylor?" she heard Brad whisper, but in the silence of the church he was deafeningly loud. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, trying to pinpoint exactly what she felt at the moment and not being able to do so. "Honey?" he whispered as he squeezed her hands. She turned to him and opened her eyes, seeing the worry and dread flickering across his face and welling tears stung her eyes once again. She kissed his lips briefly before pulling her hands away from his, quickly bending down to hike up the skirt of her dress to lessen the likelihood of tripping, and didn't look back or bother listening to the shocked whispers, gasps, and cries of protest from her mother as she descended from the alter, and ran down the aisle and out the church doors.

She relished the feel of the fresh air hitting her face. She didn't stop to think, but just kept running. It felt so good to run and be able to leave all of that behind. The air was a bit cool for Californian standards and she vaguely acknowledged that it was still morning. She had no idea what time it actually was and didn't care. All she cared about was running and getting away. She had to get off the main roads so that less people would see her and people from the procession would have a harder time following her if they were. God, she hoped they weren't. She just couldn't do it. She wanted to be free of her mother, from the eye of the public, from a dead relationship – she wanted to be free from everything.

She kept running, with no real destination in mind, just the vague notion that she needed to avoid people and traffic. She cursed her mother and her Jimmy Choo's, blaming them for her sore feet, but continued to run as fast as she could. She had no idea how long she had been running but she soon recognized the familiar sound of heels clicking on wood and realized that she was at the pier. She continued to pass blurred faces but took the opportunity to enjoy the salty smell of the air, the breeze hitting her face, and the endless view of blue water while she continued to keep her fast pace. She had become so entranced with the sight of the sun reflecting off the ocean water that she stopped paying attention to the people around her, expecting them to see a crazy woman in a wedding dress on a rampage and just move out of her way. Taylor was caught off guard when she crashed into someone and held onto them for dear life in order to keep from toppling over.

"I am so sorry" she breathed once she felt like she had her bearings straight. "I should have looked where I was going but I'm in a rush and the ocean just looked so beautiful" she rambled breathlessly. "Again… so sorry" she said as she backed away from the man without looking up at him. "Thanks for letting me hold on to you so that I didn't fall" she said as she began to hike up the skirt of her dress again. "I don't know how I would have managed to pull myself back up in this stupid thing if I had fallen" she said with frustration echoing her voice as she tried to fist the fabric in just the right way so that she could continue on her marathon run.

"Taylor?" she heard a familiar voice question. She hadn't heard that voice in years but recognized it immediately. She froze in her struggle with the white fabric, snapped her head up, and found herself looking into his deep blue eyes.

Holy crap! Holy crap! Holy crap! Holy crap! Holy crap!

This wasn't happening. This was just like that weird thing that happened in the church. She let go of the fabric and took a step back without blinking. Taylor let out a small squeal as she felt herself toppling backwards as one of her heels got caught in the train of her dress. She felt his strong hands grip her bare arms securely and pull her back upright before she landed on the ground. She stared at him before shutting her eyes tightly. When she opened them he was still there. She blinked several more times and was shocked when he didn't disappear or change into someone else.

"Ryan?" she questioned, wanting to make sure she wasn't going crazy and seeing things. She ignored the look of slight disappointment that spread across his face as he nodded. "Oh my gosh! Ryan!" she exclaimed as she wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed him. She was so thankful that she wasn't going crazy that she barely acknowledged the fact that he was placing his arms around her. What she did take the time to notice, however, was the fact that people were staring at them. She pulled away from him but realized that the train of her dress was still trapped under her heel and that if she didn't straighten it out, she could fall. She took hold of his right hand using her left one for support as she reached down and straightened it all out.

Once Taylor finally felt she could stand on her own and walk or run without falling flat on her face or butt, she let go of his hand and looked up to see him staring at her. Another quick glance around showed that others were staring too. She hated this place and wanted out… fast… faster than the speed her sore little feet in Jimmy Choo's could go.