by Emily Bishop
“I like her,” I add lightly. “She treats me like a regular person.”
“Well,” Miles says, beat. I wash my face and rake fingers through my hair, examining myself in the mirror. The fresh shave leaves me looking predatory and angular, like a big jungle cat. My lip quirks. I like it. Roxanne better look out. “Just be careful of her. You know women.”
“Not all of them,” I remind him with a wink, turning from the sink and striding out of the bathroom and into the master bedroom. “We’re filming in France tomorrow. I’m going to see a play with some school teacher, and we get to meet the cast of the show afterward, so. That will be…nice.” I sigh, and my shoulders sag slightly as I really think about the next day.
What have I gotten myself into?
A split-second decision to sign away two months of my life for this insipid reality television show, all because I thought I recognized a staffer.
Who, it turns out, has no desire to know me. She said it herself. I’m Bachelor #6. I’m Sir Berringer. Not Blake.
I glance at the double glass doors leading out onto my balcony, and wonder if I can see her trailer from here.
“Blake…” Miles says behind my back.
I clear my throat, remembering his presence. I don’t know why I thought he left… “Yes?”
“Why are you doing this? You hate this sort of thing.” I stride to the glass doors and push them open, letting the dark night come seeping in. The chirp of crickets serenades from the shadows below. “The Blake I know would have seen Madden escorted through those gates as soon as he spotted the vans.”
I stroll out onto my balcony and survey my kingdom as Miles speaks–the hedge maze to the south, the wide, open lawn to the north. Past the hedge maze are the lake, the butterfly pavilion, and the bird sanctuary, which my mother insisted upon. Fountains. Rock gardens. It goes on and on until I can’t see it anymore. There’s a golf course somewhere out there. Stables. Everything.
But my eye gravitates instead toward the little huddle of trailers in the distance.
Roxanne’s is the size of a pebble, a small light propped on a fold-out table in front of it.
I see her, hunched, blurred by shadow, sitting alone.
“The girl,” I answer him, spreading my hands on the rough stone balcony railing. I wonder what she’s doing right now. Writing a letter home? To a boyfriend?
Miles leans beside me on the railing and shakes his head. “May I have permission to speak freely, sir?”
“Always, Miles. What are you thinking?”
“She’s just a girl.” Miles shrugs and leans back off the railing. “There are a million of them.”
“This one is different,” I assure him. “She hates me.”
Then I hear it in the wind, so soft and small: guitar strings. Then, even more faintly: a husky, sultry song.
Amazingly, my dick stirs, and I bid Miles goodnight so I can watch her unknowingly serenade me in peace.
I eventually go in, frustrated with staring at this girl in the distance, struggling to hear her song.
I’m going to have her. She just doesn’t know it yet.
***
In the morning, there’s a flurry of activity, and we’re rolling before lunch. The girl who comes to do my makeup isn’t Roxanne and a funny clutch grips my heart for a second. “Excuse me,” I ask the other girl. Her eyes bulge up at me like she thinks I’m going to hurt her, and I grimace. I wish people could see me as a regular human being, not a sexy knight or an unhinged aristocrat. Just Blake. “Where’s the other girl? Who did my makeup yesterday?”
“She’s working on Brooke,” the girl answers, hurrying back to work on my face. I accept this begrudgingly.
Candace introduces me to Brooke, the English teacher from Wisconsin, and she talks to me about her job and her family and how excited she is. We—the show and I—dress her in a gorgeous gown, and we ride the private jet into Paris together, the show staff condensed to a skeleton crew.
Still, cameras hover over us everywhere. Brooke is giddy to even be here. The chef comes out to talk to us, explaining how each of our meals is unique. We have a great time. She tells me about the kids she teaches. I ask her what vacation she would like to take, if she wins the show. “Belize,” she answers without hesitation. “And, if I’m not mistaken it, it’s a ticket for two.”
She rakes me with her eyes, and I laugh. “Brooke,” I admonish her jokingly, “you don’t even know me!”
“Everyone knows you,” Brooke corrects me, “especially after—” She blanches and falls silent at the expression on my face. The director calls for a cut, and I hear Candace’s voice ring out in the restaurant. “Who died? Come on, people! Keep it fun and romantic!”
Roxanne hurries forward to refresh Brooke’s hair, then comes to touch mine. I jerk away, and my eyes gleam at her. I’ve been waiting all day for this. “Here’s my girl.”
“Stop,” she grumbles, furrowing her brow at me. “Let me do my job.”
“On a scale of one to ten,” I whisper, “how taken are you?”
“One million.” She brushes something over my cheekbones, then dusts some darker powder along the hollow of my cheeks.
I watch her watching me, and as her gaze ticks over my face, tagging every feature, a few seconds go by. Her eyes slow down. I feel something shift inside me. I see it happen to her, too. Something in her face changes.
She’s not just examining my features anymore. She’s seeing me.
Two fingers from one hand lift and skate along my cheek. There’s no brush. There’s no pad. It’s just a touch between two people, as if none of this is here anymore.
“You shaved,” she says as her fingers trail.
“Ready when you are,” someone yells in front of us.
Roxanne’s fingertips disappear. She falls away from me.
“Wait,” I call to her.
But she’s already melted into the attentive crowd of crew members, gone.
I search the hedge of bodies for hers for a second, but there’s too many lights in my face, and someone is saying “Action!” and then Candace comes storming onto the scene, loudly reminding us of the famed play we’re about to see. I couldn’t care less about any of this—that fleeting moment with Roxanne is the only thing in my mind now—but I’m trapped attending a French play with an English teacher for the rest of the night.
Chapter 4
Roxanne
My lips fall apart, and he’s in my mouth instantly, taking full advantage…
“I saw a slideshow article about Billionaire Bachelor #6 this morning,” petite, green-haired, freckled Iggy pipes from my computer screen, although she’s technically piping from Los Angeles, California. We’re in a Skype video chat right now. She’s my roommate and the drummer in our band, The Cabbage Splat Dolls. “He’s a little violent, isn’t he?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I say, even though everyone has seen the terrifying pictures of him assaulting that photographer. His eyes are wild with rage, fresh blood tracking down his nose and from his mouth. Because of the perspective of the camera, it seems as if he’s attacking you right through the picture. He was known for his philanthropy before all that happened, but now it’s no wonder that his image needs a makeover. “He seems all right, actually.”
“Yeah,” Iggy laughs, “for a silver-spoon hugging, Queen Elizabeth lovin—”
Someone leans over me and claps my laptop shut. I roll onto my side and gape at the offense. It’s Jenny, Ms. Madden’s new assistant—a skinny, sunburnt blonde girl with beady, pale blue eyes.
“What the hell is your problem?” I demand from her. “I was on a call.”
“Let me see that necklace you’re always wearing,” Jenny commands.
I glare at her and prop myself up. My fingers fold defensively around the brass trinket. “No,” I answer easily. Ever since Jared, “no” has become the easiest word I’ve ever said. I try to say it all day, every day. “No way. What the hell is your problem?”
&
nbsp; “You took that key from someone on the Berringer staff,” Jenny asserts. “It’s identical to the gate key. I recognize it. You took it, and I’m going to tell Ms. Madden!”
“I didn’t—”
“Then prove it!” Jenny snatches at my necklace, and I shove her away, taking a vindictive pleasure in the way she collapses onto the next set of bunks in the trailer.
“That’s what you get,” I tell her. “Touch me again and see what happens.”
After seven years being trapped in the home of an abusive husband, I made sure to log hours and hours learning jiu-jitsu.
But I’m still shaking when I shove through the trailer door and spill out onto Blake’s front yard.
I can’t stand being grabbed. I can’t stand being yelled at. I just can’t take it. Not after Jared.
I can’t stop walking, fists swinging at my side. I never break into a run, even though this part of me—the scared girl I used to be, when I first left Jared—she wants to. She wants to run as hard as she can, until her heart is pounding out of her chest and her feet ache and she can’t breathe, but I don’t. I’m not scared. No one can push me around anymore. No one can tell me what to do. I’m in control of my own body. My own decisions.
But I never slow my pace, either.
I don’t think about the rule I’m currently breaking. I just walk and fume.
I walk hard, letting my feet slam to the ground, each impact diminishing my indignant rage piece by tiny piece. My heart hammers and my hands are in fists as I march from the trailers in the front yard to the gardens in the backyard of the Berringer estate, if you can even call this a “yard.” It seems more like a well-maintained wilderness. I can’t even really tell where it ends. I could get lost and die out here. I could starve to death in his backyard…
Over the tops of two orange trees loaded with heavy fruit, I see a bloom of moonlit water spewing up into the sky.
A fountain.
I glance over my shoulder at the trailers—nothing but specks now, and the tightness in my chest begins to loosen. I’m far away from Jenny now, and my fingers automatically wrap around the key necklace, not even thinking.
In some way, I’m probably more protective of this necklace than any other possession I have—because this is a symbol for me. I twist it between my fingers as I advance on the cool fountain, its light mist showering down in front of me. I settle on its white marble ledge and peer at my own reflection in the dark water, remembering that night. The night I decided to live again. To fight. To move on from the wreckage of my past self.
Jenny can never have this. Neither can Ms. Madden. I don’t think I’d even give it back to Blake himself.
“I thought that was you down here,” a familiar British baritone calls from behind me, and my heart gives this heady little squeeze of anticipation. I don’t look over my shoulder, even though I can feel him closing the space between us. “I didn’t get to see you in Paris.”
I can smell him just behind me, this exhilarating fusion of mint and citrus, and I know he must have just gotten out of the shower. Or do billionaires just use the spa whenever they want to clean up?
“You saw me,” I tell him. There were several fleeting glances in Paris. I remember.
“Not really.”
“Well, it was not really my date with you.”
“It was not really anyone’s date with me. I mean, come on. This is just another American circus.”
My brow furrows. How many American circuses has he been in? “Is America famed for its circuses?” I wonder. “Is that how the English see us? A country of carnies?”
His grin splits open in a laugh, and he settles beside me, which is kind of alarming. I bristle and force myself to look at him. It’s like staring into the sun. His hair is loose and without product. He’s in tartan pajama bottoms and a white t-shirt—almost approachable, which makes his beauty even more unbearable. Look at those arms, I think as he settles a palm against the rim of the fountain and his bicep pops even more. His perfection is surreal. I could never imagine arms like that holding me…although they already have.
When he was lifting me over the railing at the Second Chances Christmas party.
As his gaze meets mine, his eyes are bright and his dimples deepen, but I can’t let myself believe that he might want me, that I might really be able to have him.
He’s one of the bachelors, my inner-self riots. How could I ever think otherwise?
“It’s from an old Latin saying about the fall of Rome: bread and circuses. The people were distracted by entertainment.”
“Kind of a grim sentiment,” I tell him, “but I get it.” Who knew the golden boy could get so dark? “Are you saying America is the next Rome?”
“Oh, we’re all Rome,” he says, eyes meeting mine. Even the tinkle of the fountain and the chirp of the crickets fades away. “None of this is real.” His eyes leave me and pan around the moonlit wonderland. “Knights and queens and presidents. Billionaires and the people living and dying on the street.” His eyes return to me. “The reality is, I’m just like you, Roxanne,” he tells me, his eyes soulful, as if I deeply need to be told. And maybe I do. I always thought of myself as a woke individual, but maybe even I have fallen into the trap of labeling.
I look at him, tracing his body with my eyes, trying to see him only as a person now. Without the suit and the tie and that merciless, prickly attitude he carries throughout daylight hours, he does look very different.
He almost looks like a regular man right now.
Beautiful and massive, but…human.
It’s nice. Like having a friend. “It is a lovely place to keep. You have to give it that.”
“You don’t hate it?” Blake genuinely wonders, and I shake my head, laughing with a touch of surprise.
“Love/hate,” I confess. “It’s hard to really enjoy the terrain. For one, I’m sure there are towers and waterfalls and theme parks here that I haven’t even seen. And for another, this is where I work. I’ll never see it the way you do.” As a home.
In spite of my determination to have my own house, it’s still an unrealized dream. For the past four years, I’ve been a renter, mostly of shitty apartments where having a key doesn’t necessarily mean you’re keeping anyone out.
One day, though.
“I wish I could show you,” Blake says. “Do you want to come?”
God, I need to get this little smile off my face. No wonder he feels like something is happening between us. I’m accidentally sending all these signals. “Better not,” I say, not looking at him. I focus on the fountain. “I’m already breaking two rules.”
Blake beams. “Property-after-dark and flirting?” he guesses hopefully.
I roll my eyes and grin away from him. “No,” I say. “Property-after-dark and Ms. Madden’s assistant recognized my necklace as your key.”
“You’re not going to get rid of it, are you?” he wonders, as if worried.
“They can fire me,” I scoff, my fingers looping around the key again. “I’m not giving them this necklace.” I look at him and he looks at me, and we freeze, hanging in each other’s eyes for a second. “Shit,” I breathe. “Now you know.”
A soft, real smile moves over Blake’s lips. “That conversation meant a lot to you,” he deduces.
“You have no idea,” I gush, finally able to say it aloud now that he knows. “It changed the way I saw the world. I wasn’t lost. I was free. There’s a big difference.” My eyes flash to him, and I elaborate, “I had escaped from my husband just a few weeks before we met, and…it was hard at first.” My eyes flash back to the fountain. I never talk about Jared. “Anyway.”
“You’ve come a long way,” Blake assures me. I close my eyes and let his voice wrap around me, but I don’t acknowledge it to myself. If I admit the way his mere voice is affecting me, then I admit a lot of things. “Are you with anyone right now?” I don’t answer him, and my eyes stay shut. “For real?” he adds.
I exhale and my sh
oulders round. “No.” I open my eyes and look at him for the first time in a while, because I can’t bear to look at him.
His oceanic blue eyes go to me, too, and I bristle against the magnetic pulse that travels through my body. I can’t go to him. “It’s obvious that you’ve got some kind of neglected fetish about girls like me,” I tell him, busily wrapping my arms around myself and drawing my knees up to my chest on the fountain’s edge. I twist a little and turn completely from him so he can’t even look at my face anymore. “Maybe you want to satisfy your curiosity. But that’s not my cat to kill.”
Blake offers a wounded laugh. “I wasn’t even thinking about it,” he assures me smoothly, and my heart chills. I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head a little bit, scolding myself for thinking that one of these bachelors wanted me. The whole axis of this show is the unattainability of the men, jackass. Duh.
“So, are we friends, then?” I wonder.
There’s a beat of silence, and Blake says, “Yes. We are friends.”
A sad, warm fire kindles in my heart. Friends. That’s not too bad. “I haven’t had a guy friend in a long time,” I say, glancing over my shoulder at him. Even though my back is turned, he’s already looking at me with intensity, and I offer a meek smile. “My ex-husband wouldn’t allow it, and when I finally did get free, I ended up… befriending a lot of creeps. Eventually, I just gave up on it altogether.”
I hear him slide closer, the rustle of cloth against stone, and then feel the warmth of his palm between my shoulder blades. As on the yacht those years ago, tingles spread across my back and even reach down between my legs.
“You don’t have to worry about me,” Blake swears. “I only date women who can potentially bore me to literal death. I’ve always been a bit of a thrill seeker that way.”
An unexpected laugh pops out of my mouth, and I glare over at him. Blake slings an arm around my shoulders, and I don’t even bristle. I melt against his chest and revel in the solidity of his arm draped across my chest, hugging my back against his side.
