Bad Duke

by Emily Bishop

  But my shoulders look capable. My mouth, serious. It’s a good change. I’m a man now, just as able to incapacitate an intruder as I am to dance a mean tango.

  No one will be able to tell that I was just draping a warm towel over my face, enjoying some light exfoliation.

  I smooth my hands down the front of my navy suit and adjust the black tie. There’s an understated luster, and that’s always been my way. Cosmo calls my appeal “steel wrapped in velvet.” I never demanded a retraction.

  I stride through the master bedroom and push onto a broad balcony, watching as a fucking film crew slogs across my property.

  I know they won’t be able to hear my shouted “What the fuck?” from this distance, so I march through the massive house and blow through the entry doors just as Candace Madden & co. are creeping up the long marble stairway.

  “What the bloody hell is all this?” I demand, gesturing to the cameras, the gaffers, the boom mics. They’re all wearing matching black t-shirts which read ‘My Billionaire Bachelor.’

  Oh, bollocks.

  “It’s Ms. Madden, Blake,” Candace calls to me, struggling forward in spiked heels and a formal dress. I recognize her. She hosted a travel show about fifteen years ago, and we were in Canada at the same time once. She started a charity for battered women, too, and I gave generously to that. I was right. She’s an old acquaintance from various fundraisers—I last saw her at a yacht party, maybe three or four years ago—and she’s someone I hold in esteem. But not enough esteem for all this. Not at 7 in the morning. Not six weeks into a media tailspin. “I know you’re a little camera-shy right now,” she allows, throwing out her hands in surrender.

  “A little camera-shy right now?” I scoff. “You’re going to have to get out of here. I didn’t agree to all this.”

  “This is part of it!” Candace cries, finally reaching me at the top of the stairs. Her short blonde hair is spiky with an overuse of product, and her makeup cakes under natural lighting. “We have to film everything from beginning to end, Sir Berringer.”

  My lip quirks. I was knighted by Queen Elizabeth after returning from humanitarian efforts in Africa in 2013. Referencing it is an easy way to access my good side. Damn her.

  My eyes settle on hers, and I consider. Do I want to let an entire film crew into my home just for this interview? This interview I don’t exactly remember scheduling?

  “Hm. No,” I answer easily.

  “We came all the way from Los Angeles!”

  “You did come a long way to ambush me in my front yard,” I sympathize. “Maybe you can use your establishing shots for next season. It’s not a total waste. The property is beautiful.”

  I turn, but Candace tracks after me. “You could really use the publicity right now,” she huffs. “The entire world thinks you’re unhinged, Blake.”

  “Why do you think I care?” I demand, muscles tightening beneath my suit, belying how stressful the past few weeks have been. “I don’t need the world or anyone in it.” I turn and say this to her face, even though several cameras blare their little red ‘ON’ lights at us. This footage alone will be priceless for her, but I can’t help that. I need to live my life. I need to say my peace. “If I wanted to, I could be down at those gates right now, begging for everyone to still love me. It would be easy… and pointless.” I turn away from her again, murmuring to Miles that security can escort them from the premises for their own safety.

  “What if there was a point to it all?” Candace shrills behind my back. “What if TMZ could call you Lionheart again?”

  “I don’t give a fuck about TMZ, Candace.” But my hand still rests on the knob, not turning.

  “This could make millions for any of our charities! Or yours!”

  I grimace and shake my head. She just doesn’t know me. She doesn’t know how much I hate the cameras and the makeup artists and the cue cards and everything else associated with her line of “work.” Sometimes I wish I was adopted, instead of being the heir to seventeen billion pounds of blood money. Then I would just be another British idiot, instead of the prince of them all.

  “Will the show be filmed in America?” I wonder. I do love America. No one knows my face there, and I haven’t been for… how many years? “I don’t think I’ve been to America since your fundraiser. Another Chance?”

  “Second Chances,” Candace answers, and I glance back at her. A slow grin spreads on her face. She thinks she’s got me sprawled across that dotted line. “Right. Your contribution rescued hundreds of women in bad situations, Blake.” She speaks slowly to let the weight of her words sink in. “I know that you’re a good guy.”

  I take a deep breath and don’t let her words get me. She’s trying to work me right now. “I asked will it be filmed in America?” I reiterate.

  “Parts of it.” She tilts her head toward me. “You could get away from all this. Reset. Come enjoy American culture. Meet beautiful American women. Take them on fun dates. There’s no obligation. Six weeks of your time. You tell America which date was your favorite, and she goes on a vacation. Woo. We muse on the difference between upper and middle class. We put money in a charity. Boom. Done.”

  “I thought this was an interview, Candace, not a pitch,” I admonish her, eyes turning over the dozen cameras pointed in my face right now. “You’ve got two vans and twenty people here. It is an ambush. You know that, right?”

  “I couldn’t believe that you agreed to it, either,” she confesses slyly. “We always film the request, and I must say, Blake, we’ve already got some amazing footage of you. You were made for TV. Hell, you were made for magazines and bedroom posters and canvases, boy.” Her eyes shimmer as they wander over me. I wonder if she just sees a giant stack of cash instead of a man. “We got you saying that you don’t care, storming off, looking so gorgeous, and then, the dramatic turn, the ‘I could beg them’—oh, god, Blake. It. Is. Gold. You’ve got to say yes.”

  I scrutinize her, teetering in her heels, so determined. “No,” I answer simply. “Sorry. Was close. But no.”

  Candace’s face falls. I turn from her and direct more guidance to Miles. I want the footage and cameras to be confiscated. I have not yet signed anything which would condone their use on my property. Meanwhile, behind me, Candace yells for a touch-up from the makeup artist.

  She must think this battle isn’t over, but it is.

  “I don’t need to run away to America,” I explain to her, twisting on my heel. I press one finger into my palm to illustrate each point I’m going to make, and there are four, but then I freeze. And everything freezes. I forget all my points.

  A young woman crosses the porch in slow motion. In fact, she seems to hang, suspended in the exact second that my eyes first spark on her.

  I know her.

  How do I know her?

  Her hair is loose, wild, and kinky on her shoulders, black tipped with gold. Her skin is radiant and young, but her dark eyes are wizened, dusky, and mysterious, like some Egyptian princess. I normally do not care much for makeup, but on this girl, it’s flawless. She’s wearing a little too much, though. I wish I could peel it back and see more of her eyes, her lips.

  I wet mine as her hips swing back and forth in an excruciating rhythm.

  How is she crossing the porch so slowly? How big is this porch?

  “We donated over one million dollars to cancer research last season,” Candace boasts, turning toward the makeup artist and eclipsing her from my view. “Think about that, Blake. What could Our Billionaire Bachelor do for you?”

  “Isn’t the show My Billionaire Bachelor?”

  “Not yet!” Candace laughs. “But I’m pleased that you’ve heard of us.”

  As she speaks, I catch flashes of the raven-haired girl from over her shoulder, touching a flesh-colored pad beneath Candace’s eyes, alleviating the bagginess and shadow there.

  I watch her move and let a breath escape my chest. I didn’t realize I’d been holding it.

  Maybe I don’t know he
r.

  She just looks an awful lot like the girl I met at that yacht party.

  But it’s not her.

  Her cheekbones are a shade too high and round, reminding me of a cat. She holds herself much differently, too. That girl was wound up tightly in her own shell, terrified of the whole world, but this one holds her head like a queen as she works. Maybe she’s an aristocrat, too. Her eyes focus with pinpoint accuracy on Candace’s eyebrows as she brushes them with some tinted gel. Her lips pout while she’s focusing. I wonder what she looks like without lipstick. I wonder what her lips feel like.

  They look plush, yet resistant. Like ripe fruit.

  “I’m sure you know that the bachelors we’ve featured in our short, yet insanely popular previous seasons have all become fixtures, really, in pop culture. We take men such as yourself and turn them into household names. Last year, our billionaire bachelor was Jeffrey Sterling, the tech magnate. Only a certain demographic could identify him by name. But now, he’s getting a movie made about his life.”

  I glower at the thought of a movie being made about my life. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea. Anyway, why am I still on this stoop? Why is Candace still talking, instead of being led back into that milieu of bottom-feeding harpies where she belongs? Forget the girl. She’s inconsequential. I don’t know her.

  She just looks like someone I met once.

  “Look, Candace, I’m sorry, but I don’t need any—”

  Candace turns to listen to me fully, and her arm bumps the girl’s palette, spinning it. It drops between our feet and the makeup artist hurries over, shuffling between Candace and myself. “Shit, sorry.” Her voice is husky.

  I recoil in surprise as she drops at the waist to scoop up her fallen tools. My mouth involuntarily fills with saliva. It’s only a split second of a glimpse up-skirt, but I have to swallow, and my peripheral pulses red. I weaken. The curve of that ass. The tantalizing strip of her panties.

  I definitely don’t know this girl.

  And I would remember thighs like these…

  Succulent, tapering from the frayed hem of her denim mini-skirt. But all I get is a glimpse.

  The girl pulls herself erect again and glances at me from over her shoulder through a tumble of black curls. “Sorry,” she breathes again. Our eyes connect for the first time, and my heart squeezes. They’re not just dark eyes. They’re a haunting slate gray. Storm clouds.

  I do know her.

  I remember those eyes.

  And then she’s gone. Back into the crowd. Her path is only cut for a second, and then cameras cluster into the space and close her off from me.

  I stare after her in complete shock.

  What is she doing here?

  “Blake? You were saying?” Candace prods me. “You don’t need any…?”

  “Thing,” I fill in for her. I meet her gaze, and the next words to spill from my lips are: “Just a six-week commitment, right?”

  Candace’s face lights up again. “Six to eight weeks,” she answers cheerfully. “Twelve max with an option to extend. Eight episodes.”

  “You got me,” I acquiesce, heart thundering with renewed vigor. I’m a hunter on the scent. “Let’s sign.”

  Chapter 2

  Roxanne

  “Just break one rule…”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if you have to hold this one down,” Ms. Madden informs me sharply as we traipse over the expansive Berringer grounds. “He hates the cameras. He doesn’t want to be here.”

  I remember. “Sometimes I need to escape from everything, too,” he told me once.

  Not that he remembers. Not that it matters. He’s one of the billionaire bachelors. He’s one of the richest hunks in the world. So he gave me a key once. He was probably drunk; it was five years ago on a boat filled with hundreds of people, and there are thirty people here now, all wearing matching shirts. I certainly blend in with the rest of them. He’ll never realize we met once.

  All around me, people churn, murmuring, yelling, exchanging money and cameras and headpieces and boxes and forms. This isn’t the first day of shooting, but it feels like it. Everything is still clogged up and hectic.

  “I have no idea why he said yes,” Ms. Madden goes on, “but he did, and he’s trending on Twitter, so we have to take him. Even if he is…” Ms. Madden glowers in the direction of our new star, sprawled in my makeup chair, white linen shirt fully unbuttoned in the bright midday sun. Is he tanning? Right now? “Weird,” she finishes. “Can you go give him abs?”

  “Go give him abs?” I hiss. She can’t be serious. His torso already looks like the sculpture of David.

  “Just contour and highlight,” she suggests. “You can never have too much of a good thing. We’re going to roll soon, so don’t let him wander. Thank you, Roxy!”

  Ms. Madden marches off, embroiled in a constant state of light PMS.

  I trudge across the green so meticulously fertilized that it’s almost some neon emerald shade, and slow to a stop at my makeup chair. I settle back on my hip and take stock of this year’s billionaire bachelor. Heir to a banking fortune. The man who inspired me to beg Candace Madden for real work and a sizable loan. The man who met me at rock bottom.

  Blake Berringer. Oh, excuse me, Sir Blake Berringer. So suave and cultured. Oh, I see someone with a camera. I’m going to go put them in the hospital.

  He doesn’t notice me yet, so I let my eyes take the scenic route to his face, trailing from his long, powerful legs, draped in sheer white linen pants, to the beautifully etched torso and broad chest. How is it possible that he actually got bigger since the last time I saw him?

  My eyes tip over his chin and fall along his plush lips, the bump in his nose that he never got fixed, those regal cheekbones, the hair he let get thick and loose…

  “If you’re just going to stand there and do nothing, I think you should clock out,” Blake suddenly advises me, and I jump, my eyes flicking to his.

  His are still closed. “I wasn’t doing nothing,” I lie.

  “I can hear you, clear as day, doing nothing. At least grab me a drink.”

  I bristle and square my shoulders, taking a deep, seething breath. I have to take control of this conversation. He’s not going to talk to me like I’m one of his servants. I didn’t claw my way out of a goddamn homeless shelter so this privileged Adonis could tell me to get him a drink. I don’t care how many third world hospitals he’s financed. I’m not some lackey. I’m a passionate, driven cosmetologist slash rock star.

  “I’m Roxanne,” I introduce myself firmly. “I’m the cosmetologist. I’ve been sent to give you abs.”

  Now his eyes crack open and squint up at me. “Excuse me?” he demands.

  “Abs,” I repeat, extracting my palette and preparing to make the magic happen. “I guess she wants to get a shot of your chest. Serves you right, sunbathing on the set.”

  “Meditating,” Blake corrects me. He sits up straighter and watches me too closely. “I was meditating.”

  I gesture at the Hollywood-born bedlam around us, uncomfortable with being his focal point. “Here?”

  “Can you think of anywhere better?” He extends his hand to me and I glance down at it. His fingers are long and graceful. I remember them. I remember how warmth seemed to spread from my old bruises. “Blake, by the way.”

  I shake my head with a little grin and take his hand, giving it a quick shake, praying that it doesn’t get all warm and tingly again. I pull it back before anything crazy happens. “I know who you are,” I remind him, turning to prep my palette.

  “I assure you, you don’t,” Blake promises me. I look at him more closely, and he cocks his head with a grin. “Now, how about that drink?”

  “No, no, no,” Ms. Madden chides, swooping in from out of nowhere like the Wicked Witch of the West. “You know the golden rules of My Billionaire Bachelor, sweetheart,” she chirps in a sing-song tone to Blake. Then she swivels and jabs a manicured fingernail into my chest like it’s a dagger. “Th
e rules, Roxy,” she commands me. “What are they?”

  “Um…” I rack my brain for the stupid show rules. I’ve worked for her for three straight seasons now, and it’s hard to keep all her random demands straight. I spent a year as her maid before she financed my cosmetology certification: never open this door, always let the machine answer this phone, stack the plates like this, not that. We spent last season in Maui: don’t go down to the beach after sunset, and no one is allowed to get food from local venders. The first season, no one was allowed to wear green. It was never explained, though I think it had something to do with special effects. We were also in Ireland, but that’s probably a coincidence.

  “Okay, we’re not allowed to drink,” I begin, stalling. Just as I say the words, one of the gophers ducks around me and passes a shot glass of clear liquor to Blake, one inch crusted with salt and a wedge of lime on its rim. Ms. Madden opens her mouth, but before she can get a word out, Blake nods at the gopher and the shot is enthusiastically chugged.

  Blake winces and beams up at her, victorious.

  Ms. Madden shakes her head at him, then swivels back to me, counting the rules on her prematurely wrinkled fingers. “No wandering the grounds after dark. Don’t take any souvenirs from the property. I don’t even want to find a dead flower in anyone’s suitcase. No drinking on the job or the property, please. We have enough idiocy without alcohol. And don’t flirt with this one.” She claps a hand on my shoulder and pats it twice, then gives me an unnecessarily brutal squeeze. “Jenny!” she calls out randomly, taking off as quickly as she swooped in.

  A girl scampers from the crew to join with her as she walks, scribbling in a small notepad. Jenny must be her new assistant. Ms. Madden tears through assistants like toilet paper.

  “Does she always say ‘no flirting’?” Blake wonders.

  “Roxy! Abs! We’re rolling at three!” Ms. Madden’s voice splits the crowd.