by Emily Bishop
“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—”
As soon as his body crosses through the frame of the door, I spin once for momentum and launch my leg high into the air, collecting all that force behind the hard bone of my shin. The kick plants precisely beneath Jared’s nose.
It’s called a backspin kick, and paired with the forward momentum of a raging stride, it sends Jared’s feet straight into the air. The floorboards tremble as his body slams down.
I come forward and linger, admiring my handiwork. I can’t help it. I have to see. And a little part of me wants him to see, too.
Jared rolls onto his side and moans, then rolls back, still cupping his bloodied nose. His fevered eyes lock to mine.
Good.
“Maybe you weren’t the only one waiting for this moment,” I pant down to him, slowly stepping backward into the sweeping dining area of the bar. I didn’t know it at the time, but I know it now.
Through one of the many deep cracks Jared left in my heart, I feel a tiny glowing flower of victory unfurl.
I wrap my fingers around the brass key resting over my heart and delicately tug it over my head.
I whip the large key at the end of the chain in a tight, fast circle, like it’s a mace. Like I can’t wait to do this shit. The chain wraps hard around my knuckles, and I clench my hand into a fist.
Jared shambles to his feet, moving his hands away from his bloody face. His eyes glue to mine.
“That spoiled psychopath taught you a thing or two,” Jared deduces.
I offer up a breathy, sarcastic chuckle. “Give yourself some credit,” I say. “You’re the psychopath that gave me everything I’ve got.”
“Not everything,” he spits, his eyes ticking down to my stomach.
Until this moment, I actually forgot that I’m almost ready to go into my second trimester. I actually forgot that I’m almost three months pregnant, and everyone in the free world knows about it. Including Jared.
He lunges for me, but it’s sloppy. It’s too emotional, and my brain mapped out his offensive patterns long ago.
His shoulder ticks and flares, telegraphing a punch angled at my midsection. My baby.
He grips toward my shoulder to pull me deeper into the oncoming gut shot, but I step to the side and knock both his arms in opposing directions with flat, tight palms. The gripping hand goes up. The punching arm goes down.
For one glorious second, Jared’s entire front is wide open, face fully exposed.
My fist, wrapped in the brass chain and key, flashes out with a right cross against his face.
“I’m the wildcard here,” I sneer as he staggers backward, temporarily blinded. “Not you.”
Jared recovers the distance between us in a blind, bloody charge. It’s even sloppier than his previous attack. He didn’t know that I had formal training during our time apart, and he wasn’t ready for this.
He thought that I would lay down and cry li
ke I used to.
I sweep down onto one foot and send out the other in a stiff, low kick. Jared stumbles wildly and crashes against the bar.
He stays down, keeled over on the luminous counter.
Time to finish him.
I reach behind me and grab one of the wooden chairs in the dining area, all neatly stacked upside-down on tables right now.
I advance without a battle cry, prepared to splinter this chair over his head and completely take him out of commission, but I see my own reflection in the mirror behind the bar too late.
Jared knows I’m coming, and at the last second, he grips a glass ashtray off the counter and whips it at me.
The world explodes in pain, and I vividly remember what this is like. I can’t tell the difference between my nose and my chin and my mouth. It’s all pain. It’s all hot and wet and numbed with agony.
I flounder back and lose my feet. The floor catches me. The ceiling swings into view. Dark waters rise and tide me away.
Chapter 17
Blake
He’s going to have to kill me if he wants Roxanne…
The sun slides lower against the horizon as I leisurely approach Fancy’s with an amused smile. Just last week, I was bolting here, half-crazed with love, trailed by a tenacious cameraman. It looks different in the light of day. It looks different when you’re not in the middle of an epiphany about your life.
Now there’s a peacefulness to the flat, wide building, plated in tinted glass.
I take in a deep, appreciative breath for how lucky we both are. I know not every love story ends this way. A plastic bag from Baby Steps swings around my forearm as I stroll.