by Emily Bishop
I slow to a stop and gaze up at him.
He’s looking back down at me.
“Yes,” I repeat gently. “Yes.”
He takes me in his arms again, and I still haven’t logically thought about that cameraman filming everything. Every little thing, from the marquee out in front of Fancy’s to the specials board with the name emblazoned on the front.
I love my new husband so much. Nothing could possibly stop me now.
The room around us breaks out into a light smattering of honestly half-hearted applause, but someone does offer up a “Woo, Sheila!”
“Mm. Who’s Sheila?” Blake wonders dreamily. I curl into him and inhale him, and my entire body calms, like I’m the baby now.
Chapter 15
Blake
It’s almost impossible for me to pry my lips away from the future Roxanne Berringer. Oh, god, even the name is a huge turn-on. My wife. The mother of my children. A fantasy reel of her in a 1950s housewife dress, then nothing but heels and an apron, lets me know that I can get as thick as a bratwurst for domesticity.
“You have to come home with me,” I murmur against Roxanne’s lips.
Most of the patrons have cleared out by now. It’s sometime near two in the morning, and they’re closing up. There has to be some bed we can tumble into, and I have the perfect idea.
We’ve been avoiding the ugly truth of the scene with the My Billionaire Bachelor crew, the way I bolted on the episode, but there’s nothing we can do about it. They can let her in, or I walk. She’s my bride-to-be. They should have known that something like this might happen when they wanted to sign me up.
“I can’t come back to the set with you,” Roxanne says.
“Then go to the chateau and wait for me. It’ll only be another week. We can even say fuck it and both go. Or France?” I raise my eyebrows at her hopefully. “What do you think?”
Roxanne furrows her brow and breaks eye contact with me. She doesn’t look back. “I can’t just hop on a jet like that,” she says.
“Why? Because of your commitment to The Cabbage Splat Dolls?” I demand.
“Hey,” Rudy reminds us gruffly from behind the bar. “The proposal thing was nice. But keep it down.”
I grumble in agreement and look back at Roxanne. I hadn’t noticed that I was raising my voice, but she’s been holed up in the middle of nowhere, wearing wigs, getting called Sheila. What is all this? To me, it looks scared and sad. To me, it looks like no way to live. “Where are you staying right now?”
Roxanne swallows and nods once, then flicks her eyes toward the back of the bar.
“Here?!” I ask.
“It’s not so bad,” she defends herself hotly. “I got away from the constant cameras, and I’ll go back to The Lofts when this all dies down.”
“Go back to The Lofts?” I echo incredulously. “What are you talking about? You just agreed to marry me.”
“But…” Roxanne takes a deep, shuddering breath, and her eyes cloud with sudden tears. Mine bulge in alarm. It is insane to think of the way exposure to Jared’s torture has changed her. She was so strong at the chateau. But when I first met her, and after we returned, she went back into her shell. A fragile, deeply cracked shell. “Come with me,” she whispers.
I follow Roxanne to her tiny bedroom, and she flicks on the lamp crowded up against her mattress. I shut the door and settle down onto her bed like a giant in a dollhouse. My legs can’t fully extend when I sit, but I do what I can with the space. This is fine. “What’s going on, Roxanne? I want you to be my wife. And you said yes. My home is that chateau.”
“I know. It’s just so sudden. You just ask, and I disappear onto a plane, never to be seen again? What about the engagement period?” she wonders hysterically.
I bristle, but then I breathe. I know she’s always quick to fold when something reminds her of her experience with Jared on the outside. I place my hand on her knee and squeeze. I can be patient.
“When Jared and I got married…I’m sorry.” She blinks at me and shakes her head lightly. Her hands cover her eyes. “I shouldn’t.”
“Please,” I say instead. I don’t want it to be like this between us. I want to know her fully, and for her to know me. “Talk to me.”
“Before Jared and I got married,” she begins again, taking her hand down, “he seemed so calm and collected. A lot like you do, Blake. That appealed to me. It was so strong. So stable. But the transition was swift.” She swallows and won’t look at me again. “He changed as soon as we moved in together, right after the wedding. Once I was within his four walls, I was his slave, and the object of this furious, irrational jealousy.” She presses her lips together. “I couldn’t leave the house. He controlled everything. And that was my problem. I couldn’t get back out once I was in.” She shakes her head. She still hasn’t looked back at me. “You wouldn’t understand unless you’d been there.”
“I believe you,” I assure her, rubbing up her thigh. “You don’t need to explain yourself to me.”
Her sad gray eyes return to me. “I could keep working for just a little while,” she suggests hopefully. “I just want to stay independent. I love to work.”
I see the key on the nightstand and grab it, extending it to her. “For now, just put this on,” I ask her, slowly lowering it into her cupped palm. “That is proof that I knew I was going to ask you to come live with me before we even knew each other’s names.”
***
They air the episode. I can’t believe it, but they air the eighth date episode, even though, in retrospect, it does make me look like a madman.
Hell, maybe I am.
I never fully shook one of the cameramen. He followed my entire jaunt. I hear that he actually passed out from exhaustion shortly after my proposal, but I was too focused on Roxanne to notice. The production crew masterfully edited around all that. They were only interested in the grand romantic gesture.
“I thought I was supposed to appear unattainable,” I remind Candace in her office later in the week.
“A filmed proposal?” Candace squawks. “We’d be fools to let it go. So we’ll go with it. Nothing gets ratings like a grand gesture.”
“If you were interested in that grand gesture, how about one more?”
“And what’s that?”
“Letting Roxanne stay here until our trip to Africa.”
“Oh, my god,” Candace laughs. “You will not give up.”
“The paparazzi have crowded her out of her own apartment! Now she’s stuck in the back room of a sketchy old bar outside of the city.”
Candace blinks slowly. “Rudolph is a good friend of mine,” she asserts, “and an upstanding citizen, so I won’t have his establishment disparaged, Blake.”
I spread my hands in the air. It doesn’t matter what she says. Roxanne could be staying at the Taj Mahal, and it wouldn’t be good enough. It wouldn’t be my bed. “I want her here. That’s it. That’s all.”
“Look, Blake, your stunt took the show in a fresh, truly emotional direction, and we gravitated toward that,” Candace explains with a sniff. “Let us leave the cameras on, and you’ve got a deal. Give us some interviews. Production has decided not to fight the storm any longer. If we just give in to it, we can stand to make a lot more money that way.”
“Right, you old witch.” I grin, unable to help myself. “You didn’t gravitate toward our fresh, truly emotional direction. You gravitated toward money.”
“The ratings were impressive,” Candace confesses smugly. “It’s probably going to ruin our finale viewership, though. Unless you want to give us something even juicier. Didn’t you say Africa?”
“I wanted to take her to see some of the orphanages I built in Zambia back in 2013.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Candace rolls her eyes. “That’s a bona fide boner killer.”
I really wanted to show her those orphanages, but we’ll have the rest of our lives together. I don’t want her living in the back room of a bar,
even if it is owned by Candace’s friend. That doesn’t mean anything.
But maybe I can get Candace to come to the table after all.
“What kind of place would you like us to go?” I ask her. The cameras will follow us there for the first two days, collect their footage, and leave us alone for the rest of our lives, presumably. The selection and the vacation footage comprise the final episode, and yes, these are always classic couple trips, to beaches and museums and fancy restaurants.
I wanted more. As usual.
“Hmm,” Candace says. “Paris.”
My mouth slants to the side. “You’re kidding, right? I could take a woman to Paris in my sleep. I hardly even consider it a vacation. It’s in my backyard.”
“And yet, in six seasons, no billionaire and his winner have gone there,” Candace purrs. “Make it a breathtaking romance for the viewers, and Roxanne can stay.”
Chapter 16
Roxanne
Even though my heart is going like a jackhammer, something else is happening inside me, like alchemy turning lead into gold. It’s not just fear in my system. It’s rage…
The sun is bright on my shoulders, and I still wear my sunglasses, even though it’s after six and Fancy’s will be opening soon. I need to grab my last check and say goodbye to Rudy before leaving for Paris…tomorrow! I come wiggling up the walk with a spring in my step, wearing a slinky black dress and heels. I feel gorgeous and unlimited. Anything can happen. Anything.
When I first began working on My Billionaire Bachelor, I thought it was nothing but a struggle toward making rent.
But it was the avenue to my future husband.
Anything can happen. All you have to do is keep trying.
The brass key stands out against my apricot skin, strung around my neck and winking in the sunlight as I approach Fancy’s.
I could shout the words right now. We’re leaving for Paris tomorrow!
And, with the exception of the fact that our every move is filmed, I really am going to slightly miss living in the McMansion after the season concludes. I don’t know why production buckled and let me stay in there, but I’ll take it. There’s no safer combination than being snuggled between Sir Blake Berringer, famed fighter, and about fifty cameras, all watched by the security team.
I know Blake wants to move back into the chateau and get married quickly, but I don’t. I do want to marry him, though. Like crazy, I do.
I’m aware that it sounds mad to be engaged to and impregnated by a billionaire but still wanting to work, still wanting your independence. I could be lazing around in that chateau right now, forcing Miles to mix me elaborate virgin daiquiris around the clock, but I just don’t know if I’m ready to give up my freedom. I worked so hard for it. It became my husband after I left Jared.
Blake and I haven’t talked about it, and I’m so happy with him, I don’t want to bring it up and sour the mood.
I’m starting to suspect that everything might actually be okay. But I’m holding on to my old life by one finger, afraid of letting go and putting my full weight on Blake.
Rudy waves to me through the dark glass of the bar, and I almost don’t see him. I push through glass double doors—the only doors of clear glass—and enter the air-conditioned bar through a narrow foyer.
“Hey, Rudy!” It’s refreshing to see Rudy ever since the eighth date episode of My Billionaire Bachelor aired. It flashed the name of the bar, and the traffic massively increased. I’m not singing here anymore, but I’m glad for him. That’s a huge advertisement. “How’s it been?”
“Better and better,” Rudy answered. “Thanks to you.”
“Oh, no way. Fancy’s is all you. Look at this place.” I gesture to all the relics strung overhead. It’s not easy to procure these things, and now that the episode gave him some press, movie buffs clamor to get in the door promptly at seven. “I always thought it was such a shame that you were definitely going to go out of business.”
Rudy guffaws and puts down his glass with a clink. “What are you talking about?”
“Didn’t you know? I mean, we only had like ten customers every night,” I remind him. “I don’t know how you afforded me.”
“Speaking of. Want your last check?”
“Yeah, whenever you get a second.”
Rudy nods, and I follow him out of the main bar area, down a narrow corridor which leads to two doors. One is the door to the office. The other is the door that Rudy demands always stay locked.
“I guess your business will do okay,” I murmur, partially to myself, as I examine the mysterious locked door.
“What are you looking at?” Rudy asks as he scratches out the numbers and his signature on the check.
I tear my eyes away quickly. I’m sure he doesn’t want people looking at his…arsenal? Porn dungeon? Drug den?
I cock a brow at him. “I thought we both knew that this bar wasn’t floating on its profits.”
He follows my gaze to the locked door alongside the office and tilts his head from side to side. “All right,” he confesses. “Fair enough. Come in here.” He motions me forward with his beefy hand, and I obey with a mild sense of trepidation.
“You think I am running contraband?” he wonders. Even stooped over his desk, writing this check, he looms over me. “Well, I am.” He tears the check from its book and draws himself up to his full height, extending the check for me.
“Guns?” I venture, reaching forward for the check.
“No, no!” Rudy bursts out laughing in my face. “Pieces of old sets and some leftover personal possessions of celebrities. I sell to collectors—and a lot of the stuff was never meant to leave the lot.” He clears his throat and adds, “I do have several guns, but nothing for sale.”
I scowl up at him. “You aren’t selling locks of my hair or something, are you? Is that why you didn’t take any rent from me?”
“No, no,” Rudy says. “I just didn’t want you to know because it’s only one degree above paparazzo, isn’t it? Scum like me are the whole reason you were here in the first place.”
“You’re not scum, Rudy,” I tell him. “Is that how you know Candace?”
“From being scum?” Rudy laughs, and I laugh with him. “Oh yeah. That’s the real reason I never charged you rent. I owe that woman big time. She gave me all the My Billionaire Bachelor stuff that I’ve got.”
I beam. “You want my guitar?” I wonder.
“She already gave me the dress you wore in—”
Inexplicably, I see a flat metallic circle at the tip of a rod rising into the air behind Rudy. It doesn’t make any sense, and I immediately open my mouth to issue a warning, but my body moves too slowly, like this is some terrible dream with the physics all wrong.
The hard, flat edge of a golf club comes down on the back of Rudy’s head, and his eyelids crush shut. He grumbles and crumbles onto me. Three hundred pounds of dead weight send us both against the desk.
As Rudy comes down over my body, pinning me for a moment, I see over his shoulder.
Jared...
He grips a bloodied golf club in his right hand. It’s the classic club Rudy kept mounted in the front—the one from 1967’s PGA tour.
My panicked eyes move over Jared, taking everything in. It feels like several seconds lapse, though I know this is happening instantly. Rudy is still on top of me, the desk still biting into my lower back.
In five years, my appearance has changed a lot, but his hasn’t changed at all. Jared hasn’t changed at all. He’s still the looming and muscled man I remember, not much smaller than Blake. He’s still the clean-cut, dark-haired sociopath in a nine-thousand-dollar suit.
Who tracks down his ex-wife and murders her while he’s wearing one of his olive-colored Neiman Marcus suits? Jared Epstein. He was always fearless, always invincible.
My entire body pounds like I’m on the battlefield, and I shove Rudy off of me without a twinge of remorse. If he was conscious, he’d understand.
Rudy crumbles
and folds onto the carpet.
There isn’t enough time to move. As soon as Rudy lands at my feet, Jared is already there. He throws the golf club down and snatches me up by the throat with his dominant hand. His favorite attacks are the ones that won’t leave a clear bruise. He has no idea how fucking predictable he is.
“Roxanne Epstein.” Jared relishes every syllable on his tongue. My feet straighten and flutter, involuntarily searching for solid ground that isn’t there. “I look at you, and I want to laugh, because you thought I was the crazy one. You thought I was wrong. But I knew that you were rotten on the inside.”
My vision darkens in the corners.
Blake… Blake…
Blake is supposed to meet me in front of Fancy’s at seven. It’s too much time. We’re all alone.
Just him and me, all over again.
I knew this day would come again. Deep down, I knew this day would come.
Even though my heart is going like a jackhammer, something else is happening inside me, like alchemy turning lead into gold. It’s not just fear in my system.
It’s rage.
“I wonder how many men have been inside you these five years.” Jared slowly lowers my feet back to the ground, because he doesn’t really want to kill me.
Not yet.
He wants to play first.
“I tried to tell you that you were an untrustworthy slut of a wife,” he growls, twisting and pitching me onto the carpet. The force sends me staggering and tumbling off my feet. His eyes spark with pleasure at the sight.
I fumble up onto my feet and bolt down the hallway, toward the main area. Everything swims around me, a sea of options. The bar on the left. The stage on the right. The exit. The exit. It’s too far. I know he’s coming. He’d be on top of me before the door could swing open to let me out. I hear his feet thundering down the corridor after me.
I duck against the left wall and hold my breath, listening to his heavy footfalls approach.
“That’s a good girl, Rox—”