I snorted at that. Him not like me? Please. I knew everything that floated that man's boat. As for trying to get his attention, that was the last thing I wanted. I looked back up at the front of the room, where Heathcliff stood watching us, a blank expression on his face. As haughtily as I could, I stuffed my boob back into my dress and looked back at the other women. "Please," I drawled. "It's not like he hasn't seen my breasts before."
That brought a heated murmur of whispers, and I straightened my dress and looked over at Heathcliff. He had an eyebrow quirked at me, but he was smiling.
Take that, I thought.
A waiter brought a tray of bright pink hibiscus flowers out and set it down on a table near Heathcliff at the front of the room. Those had to be the claiming flowers. As we watched, Heathcliff stepped forward and picked up a flower. He twirled it between his fingers and looked out at us, his expression roguish.
"You're here tonight," he said in that low, sultry voice that I remembered well - and hated. "Because I've asked the producers to help me find the woman of my dreams. They've scoured the United States looking for just the right women, and they've brought you here so I can make a decision." He twirled the flower again and then gave us an icy gray stare. "Half of you will be going home tonight. That's thirteen women. Twelve will be staying on for the next round. If you go, I wish you the best of luck." His smile turned devastatingly sexy. "If you stay, though, I look forward to seeing you tomorrow."
Could he lay it on any thicker? I wanted to cross my arms again, but because my boob had gone wandering once already, I settled for clenching my fists in my dress. Repeatedly.
"I've gotten a chance to talk to each and every one of you tonight," Heathcliff continued. "You're all quite wonderful women, but not everyone can stay. It's been a difficult task for me to narrow this down, but ultimately I've decided to go with the women I felt I had a connection with."
Uh huh. Connection, my ass. I gave him a smug look as he continued to study the flower. When he looked up, he announced a name.
"Kimberly."
We clapped. The canary viper gave a happy squeal and bounced forward, her magnificent tits moving at a different velocity than the rest of her. I admit, I was entranced. Then I scowled. For some reason, I'd thought he was going to pick me. Show everyone that we had a connection in the past. But that was ridiculous, of course. It was coincidence that I was here, since we'd met each other blind. Even if he was nice to me in the private room, it didn't mean either of us had forgotten our messy breakup.
So there was no reason for me to be super irritated that Kimberly bounded up to him and gave him a kiss on the cheek, then jiggled in place as he tucked the flower behind her ear. No reason at all.
Heathcliff picked up another flower off the tray, gave it a thoughtful look, and then scanned the faces of the women waiting. I could have sworn his gaze lingered on me, so I frowned at him to let him know I did not want to be picked. My scowl just dared him to try and give me a flower. Just freaking try it.
"Leona," he called out.
My friend gave a happy little bounce and jumped forward while the others clapped politely. I clapped, too, but I was less enthused. I'd wanted Leona to get picked, so why wasn't I excited?
"Jenni F," he called next.
On and on it went. Heathcliff chose woman after woman until there was only one flower remaining. He picked it up and studied it thoughtfully, as if considering very, very hard. I rolled my eyes at that. Please. I knew he was dragging this out because he was twisting the knife. We both knew he wasn't going to pick me, so why the charade? It was nothing short of ridiculous. It was--
"Juno." He looked directly at me, gray gaze intense.
And for once, my internal monologue was speechless. I blinked and put a hand to my (covered) breast to make sure that yes, he was referring to me.
He nodded.
Slowly, I walked up to where he stood and held still as he tucked the flower behind my ear. "Congratulations," he murmured. His voice was so low and husky, so intimate, I felt for a moment like we were in the room alone.
Confused, I said nothing as I walked over to where the other flower-wearing women stood.
Why on earth had he picked me? He was the one that dumped me so long ago, not the other way around. It didn't make sense.
None of this did.
6
Chapter Four
"I'll wear her defenses down. Give me some time and I'll make her see that we're still good together. That we never stopped being good together." -- Heathcliff Forester, the Billionaire Bachelor, Episode 2 Interview
"Wake up," Leona said, bouncing on one corner of my bed. "You're going to be late for breakfast, and it's a breakfast with Heathcliff!"
I groaned and rolled over, doing my best not to murder my friend. My head throbbed with a hangover. "Go away."
"It's breakfast with the billionaire!" Leona said excitedly, punctuating each word with a little bounce on the bed that made my stomach roil. "This is your chance to get to know him better!"
"I know him well enough," I told her, and pulled the covers higher. "Tell him I said hello and fuck off."
"Oh come on. He wants to see more of you, I bet. Or less, actually. You did have your boob hanging out for half of the Decision Ceremony."
I clobbered her with my pillow. "I hate you. We're no longer friends."
"Yes, we are," she said cheerfully. "So give me deets. Tell me about you and Heathcliff. When did you meet him, and where?"
"I need aspirin first."
"Are you going to fess up?"
I sighed and sat up in bed, feeling like death warmed over. "I will, I promise."
She patted my leg. "Then I'll get you aspirin." She bustled to the bathroom, and I noticed she'd already dressed and put on her makeup. She was wearing shorts and a t-shirt, and her hair was braided into an ornate fishbone braid entwined with pale peach ribbons. Leona had such gorgeous thick blonde hair that the braid hung to her waist. "Your hair looks nice," I told her.
"Thanks," she called as she went into the bathroom. She emerged a moment later with a bottle of aspirin and a bottle of Sprite. My hero. I took them and swallowed the pills as she continued speaking. "The instructions for breakfast said we need to go to wardrobe and makeup beforehand, so I'm guessing they're going to be filming again. I figured I'd save them the trouble and do my own hair."
I rubbed my aching head. "Can you do mine, too? I'm afraid of what they'll come up with."
"I can," she said cheerily. "Sit and you can tell me all about you and Heathcliff and what happened."
I sat on the floor as she got a comb and some bobby pins, and then she sat on the edge of the bed and began to comb my hair, dividing it into sections. "Want it all up or down?"
"Up, I guess."
She fiddled with my hair, then brushed out my long fringe of bangs. "What if we do a loose sort of coronet with just a few wisps escaping? It'll look natural and fresh and if it falls apart a little throughout the day, it'll just look even better."
"You're the expert," I told her. "I bow to your superior knowledge." Me, I knew about glass and silicates and what temperature to fire them at. I knew how to delicately warp molten glass into tiny animals. I didn't know a thing about hair.
"Great. Now, tell me all about Heathcliff."
I sighed, staring at the wall as she began to tug at sections of my hair. "We met in college. I feel like that's the start of every bad cliché in the world, but there it is. We had a history class together. Ended up going to the same study groups, and we hit it off."
"I can see why," Leona said, her fingers moving over my hair. "He's pretty dreamy. I imagine those gorgeous pale eyes made your panties practically fly off."
She wasn't entirely wrong. I smiled wryly at the memory. Back then, I had been crazy over Heathcliff. It was like being knocked over every time I saw him. He was so gorgeous that he literally stopped me in my paces. His voice? Like honey. His smile? Like sunshine on a rainy day. Which was p
oetic and silly but it was the truth. I'd been madly, crazily in love with him, and for a while there, I'd thought he'd felt the same way about me. From the moment we'd met each other, we'd clicked. I was the dreamy, artistic introvert and he was the outgoing, friendly jock. We should have never worked out, but for some reason, we just meshed. Within a week of hot, torrid dating, he'd asked me to move in with him. And because I was a dreamy college kid, of course I said yes. From that point on, we pretty much never left the other's side for six months straight. "Yeah, I really liked him back then," I told her softly.
"So what happened?"
I sighed and fussed with a stray piece of hair that had escaped her braiding fingers. "Reality, I suppose. I got offered an internship with an internationally famous glassblower located out of California. Seville Cumberland. It would have meant dropping school, but my degree was in liberal arts anyhow, so it wasn't like I was going to do anything crazy with it."
"And he didn't like that?"
"I don't know if he did or not," I admitted. "Because his father died the day after I heard about it." I mentally cringed, remembering those horrible days of stress and misery.
"Uh oh," Leona said, her hands stilling. "What happened?"
"He had to leave school to secure his father's estate and take over the business, which was located in upstate New York. He wanted me to come with him. And I felt...well, there was no right answer. If I went with him, I was giving up my own dreams. I'd never have a chance to intern with Seville again. He made that clear." I pictured my old mentor with a faint smile. "Seville always was a bit of an eccentric. He only believed in approaching something once. If it didn't happen, it wasn't meant to be, period. There were no such things as second chances for him."
"I see." Leona's tone was careful, her fingers moving again. "So you tried to have a logical conversation with Heathcliff and he lost his shit?"
"Actually..." I sighed, remembering. "I thought at the time it would be easiest if I snuck out."
"Oh no, Juno, you didn't."
"I might have?" I winced. "I fully admit I was a jerk, but I just wanted this so freaking bad and I didn't know how to bring it up to Heathcliff, because it'd seem selfish. At any rate, it didn't matter, because he caught me packing, and we sort of blew up at each other."
It wasn't my finest moment.
I still felt sick with unhappy misery thinking about it. That horrible, skin-crawling moment when he'd come in, catching me packing a bag of clothing, his brilliant silver eyes red from grief. He hadn't understood my actions. He didn't mind that I wanted to be an artist, or that I wanted to work with something as unwieldy and particular as glass. He'd support me in whatever I wanted in the future...just not at that moment. Not when he needed me to be at his side. Couldn't I take six months off and be at his side?
But I'd known that if I went with Heathcliff, there'd be no going back. I'd met his sisters and his mother once. None of them worked. They seemed to think their job was to sit around and look pretty and work on making the best house for their spouse that they could. None of them had a smidgen of ambition other than to be a trophy wife. And I knew that if I went with Heathcliff and let us get ensconced in the business, I'd stop being me. I'd end up a smiling Stepford wife who talked about nothing but what kind of dish she should bring to the country club charity bake sale. Someone that lunched with ladies and let the man handle the finances. When I mentioned this, Heathcliff got defensive. What was wrong with his mother and his sisters? So what if they wanted nothing more than to be a wife? At least they wanted to be a partner. He'd lashed out at me, saying it was clear I was selfish and thinking only of myself.
Maybe I was. I'd wanted that internship so, so badly. Seville was internationally known as a genius with glass. His sculptures went beyond vases and housewares, and he'd even had exhibits in art galleries. His pieces went for tens of thousands of dollars and were highly sought after by collectors. He had the career I wanted and he was willing to show me how to do it.
So yeah, I didn't back down.
That was when things got ugly between Heathcliff and me. We screamed at each other. He accused me of sleeping with Seville. I accused him of wanting a Barbie instead of a real woman with thoughts in her head. He said I wasn't supportive. I said he wasn't listening to what I wanted. And a short time later, he tossed my suitcase out on the lawn, panties flying everywhere.
"So, yeah," I said lamely. "Things got ugly and we left on a really bad note."
"And you went and had your career," she agreed, "And he ended up a billionaire. Sounds kind of like you both landed on your feet."
"I guess we both got what we wanted," I said, though it didn't feel that way. We both had jobs, right? I was a glassblower, but broke. Seville's fame was a thing unique to him, and, I found out, a particular patron in Italy who paid him for a rather shocking relationship on the side. Since I wasn't interested in the same sort of relationship, my 'potential' had waned and I'd taken up the reins at a local renfaire. Glassblowing at the faire was fun, and it paid the bills - well, mostly - but I still dreamed of creating enormous glass sculptures glittering with color and on display in the grandest galleries.
I just...wasn't there yet. Maybe I'd never be. But at least I wasn't a soccer mom.
My ovaries twinged just then, telling me that they wouldn't have minded being a soccer mom. I told them to hush.
"Okay, so the fairy tale had a bit of a yucky ending, but that doesn't mean you can't try again, right?" Leona tugged on a hank of my hair. "I mean, he gave you a flower last night, so he must be interested in seeing more of you." She hesitated. "Not that plenty of you wasn't on display last night."
"Ha ha. How did I know you'd make a boob joke?"
"Because it was impossible not to?" She patted my shoulder. "Your hair's done, by the way."
* * *
As we went down to wardrobe and makeup, my thoughts were still gloomy. Remembering that time in my life wasn't exactly a pick-me up and the fact that Heathcliff was here again was bringing back all those awful memories. It wasn't anyone's fault, really, I told myself for what felt like the millionth time. We'd just wanted different things at a critical junction in our lives. Part of me wondered what would have happened if he'd gone to California with me and walked away from his responsibilities. Would we be living in my shoddy pop up RV together, working two crap jobs and fighting over bills?
He wouldn’t have been the Heathcliff I loved if he had, but I still wondered about it from time to time.
And who would I be if I'd gone with him? Would I have found another outlet for my art, or would I have channeled it into something more mundane...like scrapbooking? I shuddered at the thought. Scrapbooker, I was not. But like my mentor, Seville, I didn't believe in second chances, either. Heathcliff and I had a moment in time where we were partners and lovers, we'd imploded, and we'd moved on.
Which was why it was such a mistake for him to give me a flower last night. Had I been more sober, maybe I'd have refused it.
But I kept coming back to the money. Couldn't I fake a modicum of interest in an ex for a few days? He'd see I was interested again, we'd reconnect at a shallow level, and then he'd realize I wasn't the woman he wanted anymore. Problem solved.
I just needed to keep my temper in check.
It was a mercenary plan, of course, but I had no illusions that these other women were after anything other than Heathcliff's money. I didn't want his money, after all. I wanted the fifty grand the network promised me, and then I wanted to go on my merry way. They could keep him.
With that cheery thought in mind, I headed to wardrobe. I didn't even complain when they dressed me in a breezy white sleeveless sundress with a flippy skirt and matching white sandals. Leona was wearing a similar dress, but decked out in peach. As the wardrobe assistant attached my name badge, Leona called out, "You might want to make sure that's completely secured today."
I shot my buddy the bird and she grinned.
Today's makeup was less clow
n and more subtle, I guess because it was early. At any rate, I didn't feel the urge to scrub my face clean when I looked in the mirror. It was itchy, sure, but not as bad as it could be. And when Leona and I were dolled up, we followed a production assistant to the breakfast room.
The breakfast room itself consisted of a long, ornate wooden table - like the kind you see in historical movies, with high backed chairs around it. The room itself was nothing but windows, looking out onto the waves of the ocean and the island beach. As we walked into the room, I could see a few women already seated, oddly spaced apart. The production assistant led us to the end of the table. "Assigned seating," he told us. "Please don't change from your designated spot."
We sat down, and I noticed my plate was white and Leona's was peach. Down the table, I could see the plates of the other women that had been chosen. Canary yellow viper Kimberly was at the far end on the other side of the table. I was at the very end of this side, and I looked curiously at the seats. Between each designated contestant spot, there was an empty chair, along with an empty chair at the very end of the table on both sides.
"What are all the empty chairs for?" I asked, picking up my napkin and putting it in my lap.
"It's so our bachelor can decide who he wants to sit next to," the assistant called out. He pointed at a tiny bell next to our plates. "If you need something, ring that. Don't leave the table unless directed by production."
Jeez. This sounded less like breakfast and more like prison.
A waiter came around. "Coffee, orange juice or mimosas?"
Prison just got a lot better. "Mimosas, please."
Leona reached over and thwapped the back of my hand with her spoon. "Should you be drinking this early? Especially after last night's titty fiasco?"
"You're right," I told her, and looked up at the waiter. "I'm going to need two mimosas so I can get good and plastered before the billionaire bachelor gets here."
"Juno!" Leona gave me an exasperated look. "We'll have two coffees."
PleasureGames: A Games Novella Page 4