by Ashton Johns
We left the basketball court and cut through the mansion, and before I knew it, we were standing on a terrace overlooking an enormous swimming pool, surrounded by loungers and day beds. “I imagine most of your guests will spend a lot of time here. There’s a Jacuzzi, too, and an outdoor grill kitchen just behind that wall.”
It wasn’t the ridiculous swimming pool that had my attention, though. It was the view. It rolled on for miles and miles. There was a lake and a track running through what looked like a vineyard. I seriously hoped there was somewhere out there I could escape to, just for a little slice of heaven and calm when the madness all got too much.
“All of this is yours, too. There’s a garage full of mountain bikes, quads and dirt bikes should you feel so inclined. The lake is manmade and has a couple of those silly English rowing boats, too. I believe there is also a maze on the other side of the vineyard.”
“Jesus.”
It was the only word I could get out. There was no way I could form enough words to describe where I’d ended up.
“I know. My advice is stay on your toes. It’s all just bricks and mortar, my friend. Don’t let it change who you are deep inside.”
I leaned forward and looked out over the vista; it was all so unbelievable.
If I closed my eyes and just stopped for a moment, I could believe I was the ruler of some kingdom, but that thought was interrupted by some Spanish screeching. I looked down to see what the commotion was as Brody appeared, lurching out onto the poolside with a joint of meat in his jaws, followed by some funny looking little woman in a maid’s outfit. Clint was struggling to hold back his laughter, as was I, but it was all in vain as the dumb dog took a leap and plunged into the pool, never once dropping the meat, but drenching the maid in water.
Twenty
Kade Sutton
My bedroom was as nonsensical as the rest of the estate. The bed was hand carved out of some poor tree, and because more is always more with rich people, it was a four-poster. It was so big that Brody was able to stretch out along the bottom and we never disturbed one another as we slept. The sheets were so luxurious and thick that, whatever happened, I was stealing as many as I could before I was kicked out. I was so impressed with them that I was considering having a toga party with the camera crew, just to see who had a sense of humor and who didn’t.
Clint’s words were wise, and the key to my survival would be figuring out who I could trust and who was here purely to manipulate me for Meredith’s entertainment.
After the longest shower I’d ever had in my life, I dressed in casual swim shorts and a polo shirt, thinking I’d take a dip in the pool after breakfast. It took me some time to backtrack my way through the maze of hallways before I finally landed in the kitchen.
“Morning,” I said, smiling as I walked into the middle of some serious looking catering activity.
The whole place stopped dead. Someone amongst the ten or fifteen staff working in there dropped something that broke the silence.
“Mr. Kade, you should be in the breakfast room,” an officious looking butler said, heading towards me.
“Why?”
“Because that’s where you eat breakfast.”
His attention was drawn to Brody, who was sitting waiting patiently by my feet. The sneer on the guy’s face was very telling, and I got the impression that my boy was lucky it was the little Spanish firecracker who had chased him and not this jail guard.
“And you are?”
“Mellings, Sir.”
“Well, Mellings, me and Brody will take our breakfast in here if you don’t mind.”
I didn’t wait for him to mind. This was my kitchen after all, and I was quite happy to sit here and make friends with the staff. In any case, the sooner Brody learned to trust them and stop stealing shit from the kitchen, the better off we’d all be.
A couple of younger girls fed me some scrambled eggs and toast, and after thanking them and putting my own dirty plates in the sink, which again shocked them, I wandered to the pool.
Twenty minutes after I sat down on a sun lounger, a chunky set guy in jeans and a bad taste Hawaiian shirt approached us and sat down next to me.
“I’m Carson. How are you settling in?”
“I’m Kade,” I said and leaned across to offer my hand, figuring that was the quickest way to get an idea about his personality.
The guy didn’t hesitate, which was a good sign. “The girls will be arriving at four. They’ll be given two hours to select a bedroom and settle in. At around six-thirty, we’ll be introducing you to them.”
“Okay, thanks for the heads-up.”
“The real heads-up is that my crew start filming you in less than an hour. We just need you to wander round and do stuff. We’ll be using that as filler for the first show, so if you could look excited about having a harem of women delivered for your selection, that would be great.”
And with that comment, he effectively wiped out the good vibes he’d given me with the handshake.
After my nod of acknowledgement, he got up to walk away. “I’d also suggest letting the house staff wait on you. Millionaires don’t tend to deal with their own dirty plates.”
Finally, he turned and walked off. My mind was made up more than ever to find at least one member of the camera crew who would be a good link to the outside world.
I’d segregated myself away in my room with Brody. There was a big ass TV on the wall, so I decided to sit and pass the hours until it was time to go and meet them all.
All I could think about was the fact that Daisy would be here soon. I desperately hoped she wasn’t too nervous and if she was, I hoped even more that seeing me would help her feel better.
I took my second shower of the day and got ready for the big reveal, dressing in a simple white linen shirt and some cream-colored cargo pants. My plan was to portray a guy who had just stepped out of the Caribbean sunshine and putting on a pair of Havaianas almost had me believing the script to be true.
The phone by my bed rang and I reached for it, noticing that my hands were shaking slightly. “Yeah?”
“Sir, your dinner guests are all waiting in the formal dining room for you,” Mellings told me, and I could hear the disdain in his voice. Why he chose a career in service, especially for the rich and famous, was just stupid when he didn’t appear to enjoy it.
“On my way.” Placing the receiver down, I looked at my best boy. “Time to get this show on the road.”
As soon as I opened my bedroom door, I was blinded by a camera light. There was one guy holding the camera, another holding a stupidly big microphone, and Carson rolling his hands indicating I needed to ignore them and roll with it. All of them had headphones on and carefully stepped to the side to let me pass. I quashed my irritation quickly, Carson could have given me the heads up, but seemed to prefer an ambush technique, something I’d make a note to remember.
Fuck. This was how it was going to be from now, the minute I stepped out of my bedroom, they’d be there.
Trying to hide some of the awkwardness I felt, I started to chatter and bend down to pet Brody. He was the key to helping me relax into this.
“Let’s go meet our new friends. We have lots of new people for you to play with.”
Brody barked and was on the verge of tripping me up in his excitement at my suggestion. The closer we got, the more he could smell those new people. Shit, even I could smell them. The combination of overpowering perfumes was like a lingering fog.
“Go on, find them, boy,” I urged all of sudden and pointed down the hallway.
This would be an icebreaker. As I reached the hallway to the formal dining room, I could hear chatter and squeals from the girls, although at this point, I couldn’t tell whether they were squeals of fear or happiness because Brody was hunting them down.
When I finally walked into the dining room, I was presented with a lot of faces and more camera crew.
“Good evening, ladies. I see you all made it. I hope you had
a great journey. I’m Kade Sutton and I’m pleased to meet all-” I counted them “-nine of you. Are we one missing?”
Nerves shot through my body as I took in the faceless bimbos in front of me one at a time. Pretending to joke and count at the same time, I scoured them to recheck my math and search for the one face I was desperate to lock eyes on.
“Ten of us, I’m here,” said the giggly voice I recognized, and as she placed a palm on the tabletop and tried to get up, I shot round quickly like a gentleman to help her.
“What’s going on here?” I asked, but I already knew before I got there and had no idea how to cover it up.
“Your dog seems to like my perfume.” She laughed, embarrassed, and when I finally laid my eyes on her, she was being smothered by Brody, but she looked different.
Daisy was wearing clothes similar to the other girls in the room, she had painted nails and I could see her legs, but the thing that struck me the most was that I could see all her freckles as she had no glasses on to hide them.
“Brody please leave the young lady alone. Let me apologize,” I said, offering her my hand. “My dog has this good people radar. I guess you passed his first test.” I winked.
And then my acting had to kick in for real, because as soon as she placed her hand in mine, this zap of electricity charged up my arm and shot through my chest.
What was worse was that I knew she felt it, too.
Twenty-One
Daisy Ingles
Meredith had arranged for all the girls to be taken by two limos from the TV station to the mansion, and all of them, bar none, were high on excitement. We were told which cars to get in, and I had a feeling Meredith had already decided who the front-runners were.
I figured this because, in the first limousine, which I should point out I wasn’t in, all the girls were absolutely beautiful—varying shades of blonde and most definitely surgically enhanced in the boobs department. In my car, while the other girls were still very pretty, they were exactly that—pretty, not beautiful. They all had long, silky tresses, like the first lot of girls, but in this car, there were brunettes, red heads and one dirty blonde. I looked at the girl with the dirty blonde hair, whose name I thought was Mindy, and wondered why she wasn’t with the other blondes, and then noticed that she was pretty flat chested, so there was my answer.
The noise in the limo was awful. It was like an aviary of birds on high alert. I hated being around large groups, especially of women, and I felt sick to my stomach. I had to think calming thoughts of sandy beaches and beautiful sunsets until my anxiety finally passed.
The other girls seemingly had no such worries. They all twittered at different pitches and varying speeds, their hands flapping around like wings. I simply sat and watched; my hands pressed between my knees when I wasn’t tugging down the skirt of the dress I was wearing. It was the pretty pink one I’d chosen, with the flirty skirt, and while I loved it, it really was much shorter than I was used to. I’d teamed it up with my wedge heels, but as soon as Meredith and Lydia saw me, they both reamed me out and insisted I change them. Meredith practically ripped Lydia’s bronze sandals off her feet and threw them at me. Thankfully, they fit, though I was sure Lydia wished we weren’t the same size as she was now walking around in my flea market bargain.
Once we arrived at the mansion, the noise level increased with the girls hanging out of the car windows once the huge wooden gates were closed. Our driver pulled up behind the first limo and then one by one, we were instructed to get out, walk towards the house, stop, look over our right shoulder and smile. Apparently, the individual monologues about ourselves that we’d all done to camera earlier in the day would be cut in with the footage of us arriving. Meredith had told me to keep it simple and stick to the facts about my life, except for the fact that I worked for the station, obviously. Seemed I was some sort of aspiring romance author—go figure.
When we were shepherded into the dining room, it was evident that there were already divisions being formed. The blondes all sat together down one side of the huge table, while the non-blondes sat on the other. Little old me was left with the end seat, the one furthest away from the door that Kade would appear through.
We all waited in anticipation of his arrival, and I could feel my heart jumping around in my chest. I hadn’t seen Kade for a couple of days, and I was excited to be back in his company, and to see how he was looking in his new wardrobe. Mostly, though, I was anxious to see that he was okay, and not too stressed out by everything.
The inane chatter soon turned to squeals and Kade was here. I caught a brief glimpse of him before Brody came running around the table and launched himself at me. His paws landed on my chest, and his long tongue came out, licking and slobbering all over my face.
“Good evening, ladies. I see you all made it. I hope you had a great journey. I’m Kade Sutton and I’m pleased to meet all…” I heard Kade say as I wrestled with Brody.
“Get down, boy,” I whispered, remembering not to say Brody’s name. “Please, go. Go back to… your master.”
“Nine of you. Are we one missing?” Kade asked, a slight edge to his voice.
Brody finally jumped down and started to lick my feet, leaving slobber on Lydia’s sandals.
“Ten of us, I’m here.” I giggled, slamming my hands onto the table to push myself up and away from Brody, but he was on his hind legs again, sniffing me.
Kade came around to my side of the table and moved towards me. He asked what was happening, and I gave some stupid answer about my perfume. It was all I could think of to explain Brody greeting me in such a way. Kade commanded Brody to leave me alone and made a comment about him having good people radar, echoing my words from the shelter and making me smile.
He immediately settled my nerves, and the dread I felt at being here abated.
Thankful that we appeared to have gotten over our first little hiccup, I relaxed but then Kade held out his hand to me by way of apology. The thrill that shot through my body was instant the moment we had skin on skin contact, I felt my heart thump out of rhythm and prayed I wasn’t going to pass out. That feeling settled but I was left with goosebumps all over my body, my knees wobbled, and I felt want zing all the way through my core.
“Hey,” I breathed, my boobs straining against the pink silk bra I was wearing. “I’m Daisy.”
Nine other heads shot around to look at us, and there were lip curls and furrowed brows all round.
“Pleased to meet you, Daisy,” Kade said, smiling widely, his eyes bright. “I hope Brody didn’t hurt you.”
“N-no,” I stuttered. “I love dogs.”
Kade swallowed hard as his hand lingered in mine before giving it a squeeze and taking a deep breath.
“Okay, ladies,” he said, letting go of me.
I didn’t want him to let go, not just because of his soft hand but because his touch had jump started my heart and I hated that feeling of loss. When our hands broke apart, I immediately missed the connection with him.
“Let me welcome you all to my home,” he said, turning to the other girls. “Well, mine and Brody’s home.”
As he walked away from me, I let out a breath, and watched him go around the table, greeting each girl individually. I could see that they were all in awe of him as they took in his long, lean frame, startling eyes set in a smooth tanned complexion, and that now gorgeous hair, framing his sharp facial features, looking clean and cool. Each girl flirted and fussed over him, but I could see in his eyes that he was feeling a little uncomfortable as they all crowded around him.
He wasn’t used to so many people in such an enclosed space, and he certainly wasn’t used to all the attention. As one hand fisted at his side and the fingers of the other rubbed hard at his temple, I knew that Kade’s anxiety was getting worse. I had to do something before he got too upset, but I had no idea what. Looking around, I spotted Carson standing next to the cameraman, whispering in his ear and telling him what to film. Maybe I could catch his attention,
get him to wrap things up for a while and then take Kade away for a break.
I edged myself around the back of the table, moving slowly towards Carson. At just a couple of feet away, I cleared my throat loudly, but with the noise the girls were making, I couldn’t be heard. I coughed again, louder, and then banged one of the chairs against the table. Carson’s head shot around to me and he gave me a narrow-eyed stare.
I pointed at Kade with my hand close to my body, and then mouthed, ‘he’s getting stressed.’ Carson shrugged his shoulders, and it took another couple of attempts until he realized what I was saying.
“Okay, ladies,” he called. “Let’s leave it at that, shall we? We need to film you all choosing your rooms now, so, Kade, if you’d like to step over here.”
Kade moved over to Carson and heaved what I knew was a huge sigh of relief. He rubbed the back of his neck and let his hand drop, feeling for Brody. As soon as the soft ears of his hound were beneath his fingertips, he visibly relaxed.
“Now, girls,” Carson shouted above their noise. “On the count of three, I want you to go find yourself a room.”
As the girls all gave squeals of excitement, I saw Kade shrink back, and knew then that I’d been right in getting Carson to stop filming him.
I moved towards the back of the shrieking, excitable crowd as Carson counted down, then with a fleeting smile at Kade, I slowly followed after them, knowing that I’d be getting the leftovers once again.
Twenty-Two
Kade Sutton
“You okay?” the guy called Carson asked, his eyes on all the girls.
