The time had come to get dressed for the rose ceremony and she’d felt a keen sense of anticipation at seeing Banjo again, knowing they were going to start something that could be real. Her insides still tingled with electricity and she counted down the weeks until they were free of the fake smiles and cameras watching their every move. She’d take some of her vacation time and spend it with Banjo in complete privacy. She smiled to herself as she stood in line with the other girls and Amanda counted down to set lights, roll camera, action.
They were once again live to the nation and then aired to the US mere hours later. Daniel, their presenter, went over his usual routine about how many roses there were on the plate and good luck to everyone. Banjo was pale and he rocked on his heels a little as a hush descended and Daniel stepped away.
There was a shuffle and murmur as Banjo stayed quiet for too long but then he picked up a rose and eyed the ladies one by one until his gaze came to Eliza.
‘Eliza, would you come down here please?’
At first the sound of her name rumbling from his lips made her smile, but then the unfamiliar words made her pause. He was supposed to say, Eliza, would you accept this rose. She’d kiss his cheek even though she’d rather kiss his mouth and say yes then get back in line.
Her high heels shattered the silence as the women parted and she made her way down the three stairs to the sunken, polished floor where Banjo broke hearts and popped bubbles.
What are you doing? She mouthed once she stood in front of him, her back to the closest cameras.
‘I’m so sorry, ladies, I just need a quick word with Eliza.’
When he tried to pull on her hand, her stomach sank and she pulled back. ‘Haha, no he doesn’t.’ She leaned in close and hissed, ‘Just give me the rose, we can talk later.’
Eliza knew real terror when he shook his head, his gaze going over her shoulder before coming back to her eyes. He smiled a little. ‘We have to talk. Now.’
Having no other choice, Eliza followed Banjo out to the terrace where fairy lights winked and flying ants buzzed in the humid night air. ‘What the hell?’ she said once they were face to face.
Banjo didn’t speak, he put his palms to her cheeks and kissed her like he’d never get the chance to kiss her again. Alarm bells clanged inside her head. ‘What’s going on, Banjo?’
He drew a deep breath. ‘Do you trust me, Eliza?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘In principle or completely?’
‘If you’re thinking about pulling the plug, you can’t, not tonight. You promised to play it out to the end. You gave me your word.’
‘I did but that was before Malcolm paid me a visit and told me to pick someone else, to break your heart on national TV.’
She shook her head. What? ‘He wouldn’t do that to me. I told him we were all solid, it would all work out. He doesn’t need to change the ending.’
Banjo wanted to shake her. ‘You said yourself that he would throw you to the wolves for great ratings. Open your eyes, Eliza. You need to see that he doesn’t have your best interests at heart at all.’
‘But you do? If you do this, I’m sunk. The documentary, my career, my dad … All of it will be at an end.’
‘Or it might be the beginning of something real for once in both of our lives. I know you’ve thought about it.’
Eliza needed space to breath. She stepped from the circle of Banjo’s embrace, suddenly so unsure of everything and everyone. She needed just one person to tell her the truth and put her needs and wants first. Just one. ‘Malcolm told me about your chance to ski the championships in a few weeks. How far would you go to get out of taping the rest of the show and get back to your old life?’
Banjo didn’t let up, he came at her again. ‘I wanted to put an end to the farce two nights ago and you talked me down but now everything really has changed. Malcolm is going to sacrifice you for the ratings and then be the shoulder to cry on when it all turns to shit. I don’t want to choose Sofia. I don’t want to spend any more days putting on a show. I want to spend my nights with you, my mornings, and my every spare minute.’
She finally met his gaze but her thoughts were too all over the place. Had her own father really thrown her happiness away like that? Without even talking to her about it first? Without asking her how she felt about Banjo? All of his hinting the other night said he knew they’d slept together so why had her father done it? Did ratings really mean that much to him?
‘God, it’s all too messy,’ she breathed, placing a hand against her stomach when she couldn’t seem to draw that all-too-important breath back in. Spots swam in front of her eyes.
‘It doesn’t have to be messy at all,’ Banjo said behind her. He reached for her hand and turned her so they were face to face again, so close, yet still so far away.
When he dropped to one knee, Eliza finally took in that breath but it didn’t stay in her lungs long. ‘Banjo, don’t do this. Not here. Not now.’
He shook his head and her world teetered. ‘I’m sick of people asking me to wait. My uncle asked me to wait before I took the business, waited until it was too late. I kept holding onto my dreams of competing and that next gold, that next medal, until it consumed me and I missed out on the other parts of life. This part of life, where you meet someone who makes you rethink everything a guy thought made him happy, this is where I’m at right now. I think I love you, Eliza. I want you to marry me. Spend your days and nights with me.’
Moisture burned her eyelids and the lump forming in Eliza’s throat was suffocating but she couldn’t even move. Banjo was pouring his heart out and all she could think of were the excuses holding her back these last weeks. Her job, her career, her documentary, her father.
Just thinking about Malcolm conjured the beast. He flew through the doors down the terrace a way and gave the scene before him a dark look. ‘You two had better get back in there right now and make pretty for the cameras or you’re both toast. This isn’t the time or the place.’
Eliza switched her gaze from her dad back to the man before her on his knees, baring his soul. ‘He’s right, this isn’t the place.’ It nearly broke her heart to see Banjo’s eyes fall closed and his head to lower. ‘But it is the time.’
Whirling around to face her father, she spoke directly, honestly. ‘Did you ask him to choose someone else?’
Malcolm’s gaze flitted from her to Banjo for a split second and then back to her. ‘You’re way too good for him, Eliza. I only had your best interests at heart.’
‘Why do my interests suddenly mean anything to you? Did you think about my interests when you made me come on the show? Did you think about my interests when you said no to air my feature time and again? Why the sudden concern, Dad?’
‘You’re my daughter. I want you to have the best, to be the best.’
She nodded, her mind catching up with everything she had refused to see for the last year or so. He’d bought her a brand new car. Rented her an apartment in the city in a great building, sent her on shopping sprees before big events to buy the best dresses. ‘You want all of these things, I’m sure. But they’re not for me. They’re for you. If I look bad, then so do you. Did they tell you I spent the night with Banjo?’ By then, she pointed to Amanda who’d appeared at her father’s back.
Malcolm looked like he might deflect so she asked again. ‘Did you know that I had taken an interest in your bachelor? That I might have been falling for Banjo for real? Would you have cared at all?’
‘You can’t possibly fall in love with him after only a few weeks. No one could.’
Eliza turned back to Banjo, still on his knee, watching the exchange, listening to all that was said, his expression caught between hope and hopelessness. She went to him, dropped to her knees as well so she could talk to him and only him. ‘You once said I wouldn’t know what lonely felt like but I do. I think my mother always looked at me and saw my father. She never got over his rejection of her and her unborn child and I wonder if
a part of her was always waiting for me to leave too. I’ve never known true family or even true love so I might have it all backwards and inside out. I do know what I feel for you is more than like, it’s more than lust. I think I love you too.’
He hesitated. Eliza gulped. He took her hand and threaded his fingers through hers. ‘So you’ll marry me?’
‘Yes,’ she said, inhaling a shaky breath and holding it tight in her lungs until they burned. ‘Reckon we can make it work?’
Banjo wrapped his arms around her then he lifted her off her feet and swung her around in a circle with a laugh. When he stopped spinning he looked into her eyes and whispered, ‘How could it not?’
Despite mutterings from Malcolm and swear words from Amanda, Banjo kissed her softly, then hungrily, then greedily. He didn’t care what anyone of them thought, he never really had.
Malcolm hissed, ‘Cut to a commercial, now damn it.’
When the red lights stopped blinking on top of the cameras, he strode in and roared, ‘Please tell me no one was filming that?’
Fletcher poked his head out of the French doors leading from the rose ceremony room, confused women at his back, ‘Cameras never stopped rolling, boss.’
Eliza giggled. Malcolm looked like he was going to have kittens. He pinned her with a glare and yelled. ‘What the hell was that? Have you both gone mad?’
Eliza went to break free of Banjo’s hold but he didn’t want to let her go. She glared back and said, ‘You told me the station was in trouble. You guilt tripped me into doing the show in the first place and now that I’m happy, you’re not? You got your show, now you have a few weeks to fill some other way, big deal.’
Banjo wanted to clap.
‘This isn’t how it was meant to end,’ Malcolm pointed out, his face even redder now. ‘We had a bargain, we three, and you two just blew it big time.’
‘No one needs to know how it was going to end. It’s reality TV for a reason,’ Eliza returned. ‘Why isn’t it enough that Banjo and I have fallen in love?’
‘Love?’ Malcolm scoffed and threw a thumb in Banjo’s direction. ‘He won’t stay with you for long. He just wanted to get out of taping to chase more gold and more women.’
She’d felt that way about Banjo once too. As Eliza stared her father down, she saw through the shine and knew for sure that she didn’t need him nearly as much as he needed her. His fame in the public eye had been non-existent before she’d stepped into his life out of nowhere. Ever since, they’d attended events together and done interviews and photo shoots. He’d even plumped the ratings for She’s The One just by throwing her on the show. Talk about the network boss’s daughter getting a starring role would have been front and centre. She’d always longed to be needed and wanted but they had different ideas about the details and she was over it, finally seeing it all clearly for the first time in a long time.
When she’d gone to look for her father, she’d been getting over the loss of her mother and being left all alone in the world. She’d needed a human connection. She’d latched onto a project to keep her busy with the lost kids of Sydney and she’d latched onto her father as her only blood left in the world. The former was a worthy cause, the latter shook before her looking like he was ready to kill. Only one of was worthy of her time and attention.
‘Banjo has shown me already what he’s worth and I’d trust him with everything I have any day of the week.’
‘You’d pick him over your job? Over me?’
She met Banjo’s intense blue gaze again, took in his smile and his stance, leaning toward her, his hand held out for her, to hold her up and take her away from it all. Closing her fingers around his, she didn’t even look back at her father, at the crew or the women who weren’t ever going to find love on this set, and said, ‘Definitely.’
Epilogue
Six months later
‘Do you know what today is?’ Eliza said towards the bedroom ceiling with a yawn and a stretch.
‘Tuesday?’ Banjo replied, one arm snaking over her waist, his fingers inching higher and higher the more he woke.
‘Yes, but it’s a little more significant than that.’
His next reply was unintelligible as he crept over and nuzzled her neck, his morning whisker scratch creating an erotic pull from deep down as he closed a warm hand over one breast.
‘Today is … mmm.’ Where was she? Oh yeah. ‘Today was supposed to be the end of our six months together.’
Banjo stopped what he was doing and lifted up on one elbow. ‘Are you trying to tell me you’re done? Contract’s over?’ He dropped his hand to run it over her stomach again and continued to nuzzle her neck, moving lower and lower, the bed sheets with him. ‘Because I think that ship sailed already.’
They’d found out pretty quickly that the pill wasn’t good enough protection against pregnancy. Not that either of them cared all that much when the two blue lines appeared on the white pee stick. Eliza had been terrified and didn’t know how she was going to break the news to Banjo but like every other obstacle they’d faced since he’d dropped to his knees in front of the nation, he’d smiled and kissed her and told her they’d work it all out together.
They hadn’t told anyone the news yet. They had investors lining up to help out with a new skate park and youth centre for Sydney’s rougher parts and while Banjo hadn’t taken full ownership of his father’s stores, he was working in one and getting to know the business from the ground up.
Eliza’s documentary had been aired by the ABC nationwide and she was even nominated for an award for her insight and efforts. Not that she needed any of that now. Where once she’d craved acknowledgement and a pat on the back from her dad, now she only needed Banjo at her side. Just knowing he stood for everything she did made her smile. They did disagree on a few things occasionally but she liked the making up part of an argument with Banjo.
‘I don’t know how I got so lucky,’ she told him.
Banjo rose up over her, still nuzzling, more intent now, his blue eyes shining with a mix of need and mischief. He settled between her legs, entering her in one swift movement of pure pleasure that took her breath away. ‘It’s a gift I have,’ he answered with a grin.
Eliza wanted to chuckle, to swat him and tell him how big his ego was but he was right. She tilted her hips to meet his thrust, tipping her head back so he could nip the one place he knew was guaranteed to drive her wild.
He was a gift. And he was all hers.
Thanks for reading She’s The One. I hope you enjoyed it.
If you’d like to know more about me, my books, or to connect with me online, you can visit my webpage www.bronwynstuart.com, follow me on twitter @bronwynstuart, or like my Facebook page www.facebook.com/Bronwyn-Stuart-Romance-Author.
You can also follow me through my publisher’s page here www.escapepublishing.com.au
Reviews can help readers find books, and I am grateful for all honest reviews. Thank you for taking the time to let others know what you’ve read, and what you thought.
If you liked this book, here is my other book: Mixing Business with Pleasure.
This book was published by Escape Publishing. If you’d like to sample some more great books from my fellow Escape Artists, please turn the page.
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