by Emily Bishop
Blake reaches out and lightly takes both my arms. “I saw you after you left him, Roxanne. You were terrified.”
I wrench my arms from him and take two steps back, holding his eyes as if commanding him to stay. “No,” I tell him firmly, just like that. As if Jared never happened. I never let myself think about it. Therefore, it didn’t happen.
If I catch myself thinking about it, I throw that thought away like it’s a scrap of ruined paper. Get a fresh sheet. Start again. Don’t look back.
“It was just a few years ago!” Blake yells, frustrated as he watches my body language close him out. “People get PTSD from stuff like this! And then…” He steps forward, crossing the space between us in one stride. He gestures toward me but doesn’t touch my skin. “I know you must have seen those pictures. You must know that I did damage a member of the paparazzi. Desmond Delago.”
“I did hear about that,” I allow, realizing he’s going to dig in and have this conversation whether I want to or not. I feel sick to my stomach. I look at the water curtain. I want to jump through it and swim for shore. “He was nineteen, wasn’t he?”
“I didn’t know how old he was, Roxanne, but that’s no excuse. I hardly even looked at him when I attacked. I was barely myself.”
My eyes turn back to him shrewdly. “That’s not an excuse, either.”
“I know.” His hand covers mine completely, and I step back again, but he doesn’t let go. “He just…took me by surprise. No one was supposed to be there.” He hesitates and confesses, “I didn’t want anyone to see me like that, and there he was, taking pictures.”
I swallow the tightness in my throat, but I can’t swallow the pounding of my heart. “See you like what, Blake? Cracked out?”
His eyes become gentle with sorrow. “No.”
I clench my jaw and pull my hand out of his. I can’t stand to hear a liar lie. “If you weren’t there for rehab,” I snarl, “then why have you been silent about that day for months?”
Now it’s Blake’s turn to sigh.
He doesn’t try to take my hand again. He just stands there, gazing down at me with those eyes, framed by the roaring water curtain.
“Because it’s no one’s business,” he answers softly.
“What about me, then?” I ask, lifting my chin. “Am I no one?”
Several seconds lapse.
“It started out as a volunteer thing,” he goes on, and I have to struggle to hear him now. “I was part of a program called The Eleventh Hour, which places people at the bedsides of those who are dying and have no one with them.”
My heart is still pounding hard, and a part of me—the survival instinct that saved me from Jared and hates to hear that name—warns me that he’s not telling the truth. No man ever is.
“It can be pretty…intense,” Blake goes on. “You become familiar with all the people in hospice when you participate in that program, and I became close with a patient named Arthur. Really close.” His eyes go unfocused, and he swallows thickly. “He had leukemia. He was…um…six. He was an orphan.”
I don’t say anything, and I don’t need to. I know what happens next. It’s scrawled across my face. I slowly crack and begin to let his words seep in, begin to really hear him. I want to believe him.
“I was with Arthur when he died. It wasn’t the first death I’d ever seen, but it was the death of a child. He was hemorrhaging and full of painkillers, but he—he said—” Blake’s eyes crust with tears, and he presses his knuckle to his lower lip for a brief moment, taking a deep breath through his nose and closing his eyes. The last of my disbelief falls away. He continues in an uneven voice, “He begged me to help him escape the hospital. He wanted to go to the carnival. He said he could see it in the distance. All the lights were coming closer. He said he wanted to ride the rollercoaster. And then…”
I watch helplessly as Blake closes his eyes again and takes another deep breath. I see the stress flow from his body as he does.
He opens his eyes again and looks at me. Back here, his eyes seem dark and shiny at the same time. They’ve aged. I forget that the camera crew even exists.
“I came stumbling out of that hospital, just feeling drenched, you know,” Blake goes on. “So heavy. So lost. I don’t even remember anything after the heart monitor stopped until this punk,” Blake’s voice fluctuates, like he’s either going to laugh or cry, “sends a flashbulb off in my fucking face. And I just… snapped.” He shakes his head with heartbroken blue eyes. “One time,” he says again. “For a few seconds, I snapped. And I’m sorry.”
Blake leans in and reminds me in a whisper, and I hear him in spite of the roar of the water. “I would never hurt you,” he promises.
My eyelashes kiss closed, and I exhale, but my chin tilts down, not up.
He’s asking so much of me.
I want to melt into him, but I can’t. I won’t. Invoking Jared reminds me of the cruelty in this world, and I’m scared. I lean away from him with remorse already kindled in my eyes. Didn’t he know this would happen? Haven’t I been dodging him at every turn?
“Blake, I—”
“Cut!” Candace yells, startling me.
Blake’s head whips to shoot icy blue daggers in the direction of the two cameramen literally up to their waists in water, holding handheld cameras just to get this shot. Candace is with them, barefoot and balancing on one of the rocks which juts through the surface of the water.
A muscle in Blake’s jaw ticks, and he strides from the water curtain without saying anything more. He doesn’t even look at me. He takes a graceful leap onto a rock and disappears onto the other side of the curtain.
“Blake,” I call after him, knowing he doesn’t understand, desperate to explain. I half-cross the rock shelf, but Candace skips onto it and intercepts me.
“Take a walk with me, Roxy,” she commands, scooping an arm around my shoulders. “Follow Blake,” she barks at the cameramen.
We stroll across the rock shelf now toward the other side of the water curtain. The downpour isn’t as harsh on this side, and we can see the beach from here. All the vans idle, waiting for us. The stagehands deconstruct the yurt. The cameramen trail Blake, who looks miserable. “You did the right thing,” Candace tells me.
“Which thing?”
“Not kissing the billionaire, of course. We would never have used the footage anyway. I wish we didn’t have to use you in the episode at all, but that wasn’t what Sir Berringer wanted, was it?” The cameras are all packed up. Stagehands trundle back and forth across the beach with pillows and wicker horns and candles. “Never let the bachelor kiss you,” Candace reminds. “Do you know why I say that?”
“You don’t say that,” I remind her. “This is the first season that has ever been a rule.”
“Oh, sweet Roxanne.” Candace squeezes my shoulder tightly and gives it a little jiggle, like we’re comrades. “Every season, I have to remind some staffer repeatedly to not climb into the billionaire’s bed. This is just the first season I’ve ever had to warn you!”
“So?” I ask, my tone tight and rigid. “Why don’t you just let people do what they want to do?”
“Because, Roxanne,” she snaps, “it’s going to ruin the integrity of the show when you show up pregnant in the tabloids, isn’t it? And anyway, I can’t have my best makeup artist going on crying jags while she paints up a date for her ex-boyfriend.”
“Dramatic,” I lightly critique her.
“Dramatic? Look at him, Roxy, and you tell me which is more dramatic, this advice or those cheekbones. You blind? Women crawl on that dick all day long. He can have anyone he wants. They’ll do anything. And you’re just the makeup artist on his reality television show.”
“No, I’m not,” I inform her staunchly, twisting from beneath her arm to glare squarely at her. “We met at a Second Chances Christmas party. Five years ago. We were the same back then.”
Candace mock-gasps. “You mean, he wanted to sleep with you back then, too? When you were
all of twenty-five? I’m shocked!”
“Don’t,” I tell her. My fingers go to the necklace. “It wasn’t like that. We had a moment.”
Candace cocks her chin to one side. She scrutinizes my hand. “Why do you do that?” she wonders. “Why do you hold onto that necklace every time you have to defend yourself?”
My fingers unfold from the necklace, and my shoulders square. I exhale steadily. “I don’t.”
“Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“What Jenny told me about that necklace. Is it one of the Berringer estate keys?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Blake give it to you?”
I don’t answer, and she simmers.
“I could fire you,” Candace reminds me, voice taut. “You know that, right?”
“I’ve had this necklace as long as you’ve known me, Candace,” I snap at her, calling her Candace aloud for only the second time ever. There was something about her which always felt motherly to me, but she is losing it now. Now she seems all too human. “I met Blake when I very first left Jared. That was the year of the Second Chances Christmas party.”
“So? You met after Jared and he just gave you a key to his house?”
“We didn’t just meet. I was about to kill myself. And he stopped me.” I normally wouldn’t let that just spill out, but I’m so hot to defend our background and our chemistry, the words are out there before I can stop.
“What?”
“I was hanging off the side of the ship, about to jump,” I confess, “and he stopped me. He talked to me. He helped me back over the railing and gave me this key.” My eyes lock onto Candace’s. “It means a lot to me. It’s not a sexual thing or a romantic thing. It’s a personal thing. So there.”
Still, Candace glowers. “All right,” she allows. “I guess that’s fine. But you know this guy is dangerous, right? You saw the pictures, didn’t you?”
“Of course I did.”
“Stay away from him,” Candace assures me. “He’s Bachelor #6, Roxy. That’s all. Another billionaire. Don’t fall for it.”
***
On the jet flight back to England, I catch myself staring at the back of Blake’s head until Candace nods off. Yes, she went through the entire Greece date without quitting until late into the night, after all the work was done, while juggling full-blown salmonella. She did it, just like she said she would.
I stare at her as she sleeps and try to figure out my feelings about her lately. She’s changed. I see her as mortal now, the way a teenager sees their mother as compared to the way a child would.
I creep up to Blake’s seat and feel a twinge as my eyes sweep his face.
He reclines slightly, his head leaned back against the cushion, his eyelashes forming tired crescents on his cheeks. How precious. He’s utterly still and the perfection of his beauty strikes me. Every inch of him is sculpted, from the Viking cheekbones to that barrel of a chest to his…statuesque member. Everything. Sculpted.
But now, as he slumbers in his chair, he seems soft. Cherubic.
The corner of his lip quirks, and I almost giggle. He goes from cherub to imp just like that.
We’re back at the chateau in two hours’ time, and everyone migrates to their bunks for bed, sapped from a day of filming and travel.
I stare longingly after Blake’s back as he advances off the walk and up his staircase. We haven’t spoken since I rejected his kiss. All I have seen for hours is his retreating back.
We leave for America in the morning. Tonight is our last chance to be together.
But I don’t know if I can trust him.
Chapter 7
Blake
This is all I want in the whole world. Take my billions, but leave me this pussy…
Miles is still upstairs when I shove into the master bedroom, flicking open my cufflinks as I go. I feel like I can see sputtering electricity in the peripheral of my vision, I’m so faded from that trip. Physically and emotionally. It’s already past two in the morning.
I loosen my shoulders and unbutton my shirt, glowering at the empty bed sprawled before me.
I told her everything. Roxanne is the only one, other than Miles, who knows the story now. But when I leaned in, she leaned away. It didn’t matter. Even Arthur’s death didn’t justify my beating of Desmond Delago.
I know I’m not going to sleep a fucking wink tonight. I know it.
I close my eyes, clench my jaw, and my shoulders slump.
This is our last night at the chateau. I can’t just let her slip between my fingers. I can’t let Candace’s “Cut!” be the last word between us.
“Would you do one more thing for me on your way out?” I call to Miles, glancing over my shoulder.
Miles rolls his eyes slightly, and I smile. Maybe he thinks I didn’t see it, or maybe it’s been so many years he knows that it doesn’t matter if I do. “Of course, Blake,” Miles says. “What is it?”
“Would you deliver a message to the dark-haired girl? The staffer?”
“Um,” Miles says.
“Her name is Roxanne. You’ve seen her. You can’t miss her. She’s living in the smaller trailer down in the camp.”
“Yes. Yes, of course. What’s the message?”
“Tell her I want her to bring me that key around her neck.”
Miles gives me a tired look, but he doesn’t protest.
“Yes, sir,” he agrees, a strange clip in his voice. He doesn’t ask. “I will do that.”
“Thank you.” I shirk the shirt and try to relax.
It’s the perfect plan. If Candace finds out, she’ll allow Roxanne to come because she doesn’t want her to have anything that might have belonged to the bachelor. It sounds as if I’m mad, though I’m not. It sounds as if I’m mad so no one will be suspicious.
I’m not mad. I’m just not finished with that conversation Candace interrupted.
Roxanne will come. It’s after two, but we all just returned. They’re all still up. She’ll come. And when she comes…
I try to think about the mature, emotionally intimate conversation we’ll have, something that goes all night and leaves us completely in love in the morning, full of trust and commitment and stuff. We’ll talk about our parents, and our first loves and what schools we went to, our dreams when we were little, our fears for the future.
I try really hard to picture that talk.
***
It’s after four in the morning when I bitterly douse the lights and climb into bed. The floor is cold and quiet throughout the house. I wonder what happened with Miles’ message. Where did I go wrong?
Maybe she was asleep. Maybe she thought I was mad and she didn’t want to come. Maybe Candace was suspicious.
Maybe Roxanne scoffed in his face and told him I’m a complete psychopath, the beast who snapped once. The man who can’t make a single excuse about his behavior. The one she looks at and only sees the fists. The one she looks at, and only sees her piece-of-shit ex.
I’m doing meditations and breathing exercises to unwind from the stress of being stood up when I hear hinges turn.
I prop myself up on my elbow, scanning the shadows. “Miles?”
A disembodied giggle bubbles across the darkness.
“Roxanne?”
“Blake?” comes whispering back, like a reverse echo.
Roxanne inches forward in the darkness. All I can see is wild hair and a curvaceous silhouette. I can’t tell what she’s wearing and imagine running my hands over warm, bare skin.
“I’m here. In bed.” My prick is already filling with blood, even though we’re supposed to be having that mature conversation. We’re alone at last, in a bedroom at four o’clock in the morning, both wide awake, one of us already completely nude. Hell, we leave for America in the morning. And I’m about to waste all that time convincing her to trust me. Oh well. “What took you so long?”
“Um. What?” Roxanne wonders.
“What took you so long to co
me?” I reiterate. “I sent a message two hours ago.”
“What, like a text?”
That would have been simpler. I should have her phone number.
“Through my man,” I say. “Miles didn’t come to your trailer and tell you to come over?”
“No. No one came. Actually, the door was locked when I tried to come.”
I grin. “You knew the key went to the lock on the front door.”
“I thought it was worth a try.”
I smile until my cheeks pinch. “That works on so many levels,” I tell her.
“I wanted to see you,” she finishes in that husky, honeyed voice, and I forget all about Miles and the failed mission. Miles could be on Uranus now. Fuck Miles.
The bed sinks as Roxanne crawls aboard, and my heart starts going like a jackhammer. My prick pounds out a slower, steadier rhythm. I could almost swear my dick is getting the majority of the blood, though. I tell myself she’s just here to talk. She’s just here to talk.
“Before we go back to LA,” she continues, almost within kissing range now. Christ, I can smell her. She’s already wet, I know it. She already smells lightly of sex, like she’s an animal sweating out pheromones. “Blake… I want you to know that I do care.”
This erection is too strong, and she’s moving too slowly. I can barely hear her voice over the throbbing. She’s so close.
“I want to be a real friend to you,” she promises me. Her silhouette is on hands and knees right in front of me.
I pop up and bind my arms around her, twisting her and whipping her down flat on the mattress. She gasps at how quickly it all happens, but it’s still not fast enough.
“If you just want to be a friend to me,” I say, voice thick, “you need to get out of this bed right now.”
She wears a very loose and flimsy tank top romper.My gazess and
The moonlight through the window washes her skin out, and it contrasts highly with her dark hair and eyes. Her lips look dark, too. She’s monochromatic, like a memory in a dream. I think I’m falling in fucking love with her.