Bachelor Games (Tropical Temptation)

by Daire St. Denis

  There were nods and shouts from the panel of women.

  “Mr. Price?”

  “I’m ready, Kevyn.” Cal tried to keep the sarcasm out of his voice, but based on Kevyn’s subtle response—flared nostrils—he may not have been successful.

  “Then, let’s begin. First question is…” Kevyn held out a coconut shell with slips of paper inside.

  Cal withdrew a slip of paper. “I’m at the grocery store buying food to make a romantic dinner. I text: At the store. What do you want me to pick up?”

  “You’ve got two minutes to respond, ladies. Go.”

  Cal watched the faces of the women closely. Most thought for only a second before focusing on the tablet in front of them, tapping away at the keys. Grace was the only one still sitting, peering off into the distance. Her lips moved—was that a family trait?—until finally she focused on the tablet and began to write.

  When time was up, Kevyn called for all the ladies to hit send if they hadn’t already. He took great pleasure in reading out the responses. But while the responses were read—all basically the same sexual connotations about food: Chocolate sauce, whipped cream and cherries. I’ll be your dessert, and you can be mine, as well as Rope and coconut oil. You can tie me down and eat me —Calum watched the contestants, because it was their expressions that gave them away when their sext had been read. And Cal knew exactly who had sent which text. What surprised him the most was that Grace cringed when her text was read. Doesn’t matter what you pick up because the real cooking is going to happen later…between the sheets.

  Interesting.

  …

  Sitting up in the room, drinking a Banana Mama she’d ordered from room service—a yummy, chocolatey banana drink she’d fallen in love with—Becca had her operations station in full swing: laptop open, the sexting competition streaming while she gave Grace instructions for the latest sext. Becca now had even more reason for wanting Grace to win. She hadn’t been joking yesterday. The thought of Calum going anywhere with any one of those other women gave her acid indigestion.

  She stared at the Banana Mama in her hand. Could be the crème de cacao…

  Cal had already identified the sexts from two of the women, knocking them out of the contest, so Grace was one of the four left.

  With straw in mouth, Becca watched as Calum drew another slip of paper from a bowl. “I send you a picture of me straddling my Harley with the text: I’ve shown you mine, now you show me yours.”

  Show me yours? Immediately an image of a cat appeared in Becca’s mind—a pussy cat—is that what everyone else would be thinking, too? She discarded the image, wanting something a little less crass. Hmm…Harleys rumbled. Vibrated. A vibrator… Her mind searched for something clever yet sexy.

  “Da dum, da dum…” Grace hummed the theme song to Jeopardy, alerting Becca to the fact that time was ticking.

  “Not helping,” Becca muttered as she Googled household items that vibrate. An image of a washing machine came up.

  “Okay,” she said into the phone. “Write: Me wearing short shorts, cowboy boots, and a cowboy hat in hand, riding the washing machine like it’s an angry bull. The caption: Good, good, good…good vibrations.”

  “Seriously?” Grace whispered. “I would never say or do…”

  “Grace! The whole point of this is to write things that Calum won’t think you’d write. It’s like sexy Balderdash.”

  “I don’t know what that is.”

  Becca slapped her forehead. “No more talking!” How she and Grace’s little system hadn’t been discovered was a mystery to Becca. Her sister just could not keep her mouth closed. “Just write it.”

  Becca leaned toward the screen, slurping the last of her drink as Kevyn—the asshole—Khan read out the replies. There was a certain amount of satisfaction to be had by watching Cal’s expression of amusement when Grace’s text was read.

  He correctly identified another two of the women, leaving Grace and Cindy as the only contestants left in the Sext Me if you Can contest.

  “Final question,” Kevyn announced. “And ladies, whoever wins, you get to have dinner—exclusively—with the man of the hour.”

  Cal’s head whipped toward Kevyn. The angle of the camera kept his features hidden, but Becca could guess.

  He’d had no idea.

  This pleased her, even though the idea of Cal spending a romantic evening with the brunette beauty, Cindy, curdled the Banana Mama in the pit of her stomach.

  “That’s right, ladies. So, make this good, because our viewers are going to get to pick the winning sext.” Kevyn sent an apologetic grin Cal’s way. “I’m sure you’re okay with that, aren’t you, Cal? Look at these women.” He swept a hand in Grace and Cindy’s direction. “Both are gorgeous, smart, and based on their sexting ability, will make great conversationalists at dinner.”

  “Wonderful.” Cal smiled, but Becca knew the difference between a genuine smile and a fake one. This one was definitely fake, which gave her some semblance of relief. However, watching Cal on a date with Cindy was not going to happen, and she rubbed her hands together in preparation for the last sext.

  He drew a slip from the bowl, read it—his lips moved, and Becca’s heart melted—and then he read it aloud. “It’s midday, and I text: I’m taking the afternoon off. What do you want to do?’ To which you reply?”

  Becca gnawed on her lip. This was no longer about making it sound like it was not coming from Grace. It was about making it as sexy as possible so that the viewers would choose it. But how?

  Grace cleared her throat. Loudly.

  “I know, I know. Give me a second.”

  Grace coughed.

  Becca’s mind went blank. There was too much at stake. “Grace, just write something. Write what you’d normally say so that you have something. In the meantime, I’ll try to come up with something, too.”

  But instead of racking her brain for ideas, Becca watched the feed and was relieved to see Grace bending over her tablet, using one manicured finger to type out a message.

  “Time’s up,” Kevyn shouted with a wave of his arms.

  “I’m sorry, Grace,” Becca whispered. “I let you down. I just couldn’t come up with anything.”

  “Okay, ladies, let’s see what you wrote. And we’ll let our viewers decide who wins.

  Calum reread the situation on the slip of paper and the sexts came up on the jumbotron.

  “You bring the banana, I’ll bring the cream, and we’ll whip up a little afternoon delight.”

  Oh God. So cheesy. Was that Grace’s? Becca couldn’t tell.

  “And the second one…”

  “I’ve mowed the lawn, trimmed the hedges, and am laying out a blanket in the back. All you have to do is come.”

  The crowd roared its approval.

  Grace beamed, which gave the text away as hers.

  Becca gaped. She rubbed her temples. Grace’s text was brilliant because of the sexual subtext—mowing the lawn (grooming her girlie parts), laying out a blanket in the back (suggesting sex, possibly even anal sex)—but Becca knew beyond a doubt that Grace had not intended her text to be a double entendre. She’d meant it literally, hoping that a man would find it sexy that she wanted to do his chores and take care of him.

  “And the winner of the contest is…Grace Evans. You are invited on a romantic dinner on the beach tonight with Calum Price. Congratulations.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Cal was pissed. The contract had stated that he would not be required to go on individual dates. After the competition, he’d stormed into the event tent, demanding to see Eddie.

  “You’re in breach, and I’m of a mind to pull the plug,” Cal stated.

  His hands up in appeasement, Eddie said, “I know. I’m sorry we didn’t have a chance to warn you, but it’s our biggest criticism so far. Viewers want to see you getting to know the ladies in a more…personal manner.” He gestured to a large computer screen where a chart displaying viewer satisfaction and commen
ts showed that 83 percent wanted more physical interaction.

  “I don’t care what viewers want,” Cal said. “I would never have agreed to this if it had been a part of the original contract.”

  Eddie nodded slowly, but there was a glint in his eye that told Cal he wasn’t backing down. Raising his voice, Eddie called, “Everyone out.”

  The people who had been milling around after the afternoon’s shoot filed out the main door.

  “What?” Calum asked.

  “I want to show you something.” Eddie indicated the chair in front of a laptop sitting in the corner of the room. “Sit down.”

  Calum sat, his anger brewing. He was losing focus. This week was supposed to be about securing shares and the vote in two days, not getting caught up in this media circus.

  And how do your evening exploits with Ms. Becca Evans factor into this?

  Cal shut his eyes, thinking about the other night, about how sexy Becca looked in her teeny, tiny panties, spread-eagled against the French doors of his villa.

  Leaning over Cal’s shoulder, Eddie opened a folder that was password protected. Inside were images: some blurry, some dark, but they were all of the same couple.

  Calum and Becca.

  He grabbed the mouse from Eddie’s fingertips and scrolled through. The first few were of them wet and lying in the surf. The second group showed them kissing under a palapa, there was another of them just talking, but the way Becca was smiling and his hand rested lightly on her hip, it was obvious there was something going on. There was a photo of them kissing outside his villa, though that one was so blurry, it was hard to recognize them. Following that was a whole series of photos. Unfortunately, these ones were crystal clear: images of a mostly naked woman pressed against a glass door with him standing behind her, the desire clear in his facial expression.

  “You’ve been spying on me.” Cal’s hands shook with anger as he closed the folder and dragged the entire thing to the trash, emptying it right in front of Eddie. “And now they’re gone.”

  He rose, his hands curling into fists. The urge to plow both fists into Eddie’s face was overpowering. “No one blackmails me. Ever,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “No? Well, there’s always a first.” Eddie tapped his finger against the now-empty screen. “Do you really think I’m stupid enough to have no backup?”

  “Delete them. Now.”

  “Not until you agree to the new terms of the contract.”

  Cal laughed without humor. “What you don’t seem to realize is that I really don’t care about this stupid contest. I don’t care about Men’s Magazine, and I certainly do not care about being named the Most Eligible Bachelor.”

  “Actually, I do understand that. You’re a man of means. This sort of exposure won’t hurt you. In fact, it’ll probably help you.” Eddie pulled out his cell phone and tapped away before turning the screen to Cal, a picture of a smiling Becca, taken during the selfie challenge, greeted him. “But what about her? How would this exposure affect her, I wonder?”

  He heard Becca’s voice in his head—thick with emotion—as she told the story of Grace being exploited and exposed in high school. This would be a million times worse. She might even lose her position at Cornell University if she was involved with this sort of scandal. There was no way he was going to allow any of that to happen to her. “You wouldn’t.”

  “Oh, I would. Scandal makes for great ratings, as I’m sure you know.” Eddie patted Cal’s shoulder. “Just play along, Mr. Price, and everything will be fine.”

  “What about Becca?”

  Eddie crossed his arms over his chest. “End things. And whatever you do, do not tell her about the pictures.”

  Calum was about to protest when Eddie held up his hand to silence him. “If I find out she knows, I will leak them.”

  …

  Becca tried to watch the date between her sister and Cal, who was her…what?

  Her boyfriend?

  Her fling?

  Her lover?

  Ugh.

  Whatever he was to her, she couldn’t watch the date. Couldn’t help her sister sweet talk the man she was sleeping with. It was all too…weird and icky and upsetting.

  So, she created feedback by turning up the volume on her laptop and then whispered to Grace that she was on her own. Yes, she was abandoning her sister in her biggest moment, when it was just her and Calum and—oh—five million live viewers, but even she had limits.

  Instead, Becca stuffed her book in her bag and headed to the lobby bar for a glass of wine. Maybe she’d be able to distract herself from what was happening.

  The only problem was, when she arrived, the bar was full of former contestants, all watching the date go down on big screens that had been set up around the room.

  Fuck.

  To add insult to injury, Kevyn—Wasinski—Khan was in the thick of things, working the room, chatting up the women like he was the most eligible bachelor, not Calum. While every ounce of common sense told Becca to get the hell out of there, she couldn’t make herself leave. It was like watching a train wreck. She was compelled by the forces of morbidity to stay. So, after ordering a glass of wine at the bar, she skirted the room until she found a quiet table in the corner where she could watch unobserved.

  “She’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, is she?” Becca overheard one woman saying to another after Grace had told Cal a little bit about herself and the fact that she was working on getting her esthetician certificate.

  “I don’t know. Everything she’s done in the challenges has been pretty clever.”

  “Maybe she’s nervous, one-on-one. She keeps playing with her ear.”

  Oh, shit.

  “I think it’s all an act. Playing coy and sweet. It’s pathetic.”

  Becca craned her head, hoping to get a glimpse of the woman who’d dared to insult her sister.

  “Excuse me?”

  Oh God. That voice.

  Slowly, Becca turned her head to where Kevyn was standing in front of her, his cheesy smile filling his repugnant face.

  “Yes?”

  He indicated the empty chair beside her. “Is this seat taken?”

  “No. Go ahead.” She indicated with a dismissive wave that he could drag the chair wherever he wanted—she assumed it was a couple tables down where five women were already sitting. Then she turned her head away, just on the off chance that Kevyn might recognize her.

  “You’re Grace Evans’s sister, right?”

  Becca’s neck popped because she’d turned too fast.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Grace.” He indicated the big screen where there was a close-up of her sister eating—healthily. “You’re her sister, I understand.”

  “Yes.” Becca blinked. Had he also put together the fact that they’d gone to the same high school? “Surprising, I know.”

  “That must be hard,” he said, his face taking on a serious expression.

  “I’m sorry?” Becca’s voice rose.

  “You know. Having such a beautiful sister who’s become the trending sweetheart, and here you are.” He indicated the table. “Sitting alone.”

  Becca gazed into Kevyn’s face. For all the boyish charm he exuded, his eyes were hard and calculating. Serpent eyes.

  In those snakelike eyes, Becca saw that he recognized her. The question was, what message was he trying to communicate by being a dick to her now?

  She wasn’t about to sit around and find out. “To be honest, I’m quite happy to be sitting here on my own. You know why? I enjoy my own company and prefer it to that of many others. Like yours, for example.” She stood. “Be careful, Kevyn. Get too close to me, and you might get that nasty infection all over again.”

  While her back was straight when she strode out of the bar, her legs nearly gave out once outside. Becca leaned against the stucco wall of the hotel, taking deep breaths.

  …

  Cal downed two extra-strength Tylenol and chased them with a glass o
f Scotch. Dinner on the beach with Grace, while being surrounded by a film crew, was not his idea of a good time. Neither was having his balls in a vise by a fucking director of a magazine-sponsored beauty pageant.

  His phone rang.

  “You lied.”

  “Mom?”

  “It’s kind of like Bachelor in Paradise meets Survivor. It’s so good, Calum. Why didn’t you tell me you were going to be doing this show?”

  “You watched?”

  “Of course. It’s trending, and I just followed a link on Facebook.”

  His mother was on Facebook? She knew the word “trending”? What?

  “Listen, I know you’re busy with all this. But, it says it ends the day before Dad’s retirement. If there is any way you can come, I know your father would be thrilled…”

  There was a soft rap on his French doors.

  Shit.

  “Look, Mom. I’ll see what I can do, okay? I’ll call you later.”

  He ended the call and then went to the doors and slid them open to find Becca. Her lips were stained red and looked so fucking kissable, it was like a jab to the solar plexus. It didn’t help that she wore a loose T-shirt exposing one tasty, sun-kissed shoulder. The skirt she had on was shorter than anything he’d ever seen her in and showed off the beginnings of a tan on her slender legs. Even though the wind was warm, Calum felt as if a bucket of ice water had been dumped on his head.

  “Hi,” she said softly. “Can I come in?”

  He opened the door and then closed it behind her, pulling the curtains closed in case someone was watching.

  She stopped just inside. “Well, that was super weird tonight, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  Jesus. How he wanted to tell her everything, about being blackmailed into a date, about the producers threatening to expose Becca if he told her the truth, about the fact there was probably some asshole hidden in the trees just waiting to take more pictures.

  But he couldn’t say any of that. No, there was only one thing to do, one thing to say that would convince Becca to leave him.

  Though doing it would tear him apart…

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, resting her fingertips lightly on his shoulder. “You seem tense.”