Chapter 17
I don’t sleep. The rose ceremony ran late again, so they let us sleep in, but after a night of tossing and turning, I give up around sunrise and get out of bed. Willow is already awake and talks me into some yoga and meditation. It helps me settle my mind, and I’m not so agitated when Aaron shows up to tell us all what we’ll be doing today. We’re all gathered on the couches in the family room when he shows up with James and crew. He smiles his big, toothy smile and claps his hands together. “Good morning, ladies.”
The others give him enthusiastic greetings, excited to learn what we’ll be doing today. I gag at the way Bridget and Calista preen for him. Maybe he should have set his sights on them for his seasonal hookup.
“This week, there will be three dates,” he says. “One group date, one solo date, and one two-on-one date.”
The women murmur at this and cast each other questioning glances. The two-on-one date is new.
“There’s a catch to the two-on-one date,” Aaron says, regaining the ladies’ full attention. “Sebastian will spend the day with two of you, but at the end of the date he’ll send one of you directly home.”
More whispers and a few nervous glances sweep the room. Aaron holds his hands up, and they quiet down. “The good news is,” he says, then pauses for dramatic effect, “you’ll be leaving the mansion.”
This earns a round of cheers. Even I clap for that. This is an amazing place and all, but a change of scenery will be nice.
“Where are we going?” Laurel asks, and everyone eagerly waits for Aaron’s answer.
He flashes us a wide smile. “We’ll be heading to beautiful Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.”
We’re all shocked. Usually they stay at the mansion until the destination dates, and that’s when there are only five women left. That they’re sending us all to Mexico is a very pleasant surprise. Excited cheers go up in the room, and after Aaron is finished with his spiel, everyone hurries off to get packed.
We get a break from the cameras while we travel. I never thought I’d be so happy for the strict airport security. After a three-hour flight, we’re shuttled to a five-star resort and taken to the penthouse suite. It’s a three-bedroom apartment on the top floor of the hotel with a beautiful ocean view. It’s the fanciest place I’ve ever stayed, but with nine of us, it’s going to be cramped. We’ll be killing each other by the end of the week. I have no doubt that’s their intent.
They serve dinner to us in our room, and we’re not allowed to leave the suite until it’s time for our dates. I can’t believe I’m in Mexico, and I can’t even go explore. After dinner, we all settle in the living room. “What do you think we’re going to do on our dates?” Emma says. She’s got stars in her eyes. Like me, I think this is her first time leaving the country.
“Who knows?” Laurel says. “There’s so much to do here.”
“You’ve been?” Bridget asks. The envy in her voice makes the question sound snarky.
Laurel gives her a smug smile. “Several times. It’s a great place.”
“I took a cruise once that stopped here,” Calista says. “This place is so romantic. I’m sure whatever we do, Sebastian will finally start to fall for us.” She casts a glance around the room and smirks. “Well, some of us.” She and Bridget share a conspiratorial grin.
I almost snort.
There are a few beats of awkward silence, and then Selena voices the question we’re all wondering. “Who do you think’s going to get the solo date and the two-on-one?”
“Well, it won’t be Emma or Vivian,” Katie says. “Since they already got solo dates with Sebastian.”
“I think I’ll get the solo date,” Bridget says to no one’s surprise.
Jalisa elbows me. I don’t know if she says her next words to tease me or piss off Bridget. Probably both. “Unless he picks Vivian again. He did force her to stay last night. Obviously, he really likes her.”
Bridget and Calista both scoff.
Selena worries her lip in her teeth. “Can he do that? Pick the same woman more than once?”
“I doubt it,” I say quickly. It’s enough that Bridget and Calista are planning my demise. I don’t want the rest of the group turning on me. “I’ve never seen them do that in any of the seasons, and I’m sure the show wants the variety.”
And then it happens. The dreaded conversation I’ve been waiting for. Calista’s the one to bring it up, with a narrow-eyed sneer and a flip of her long, blonde hair. “What was up with that, anyway? What did Sebastian mean that you had to stay? It’s in our contracts that we can back out any time.”
“In your contracts,” I mutter.
“Why is yours different?” Jalisa asks.
I sigh. There’s no escaping this. “I’m not allowed to leave the show unless Sebastian lets me go.”
“But why?” Calista whines.
I glance at José. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to say this or not. He shrugs like he doesn’t know either. Then I decide screw it. If they didn’t want me to say anything, they shouldn’t have forced me to stay. “The show wasn’t going to let the twins out of their contract so that they could go be with their father. They’d made a stipulation in their contract that they had to stay up to the Meet the Family episode because they wanted to get Brian and Ella on the show.”
Emma gasps. “They were going to rig it?”
Willow pats Emma’s hand. “Honey, the whole thing is mostly rigged. The show manipulates everything to create the best drama.”
Poor Emma frowns. “But how is Sebastian supposed to find love if it’s all rigged? There have been plenty of bachelors who actually married the woman they picked. It can’t all be fake.”
I feel bad for disillusioning her. She’s one of the only ones here who I think genuinely came on the show to find love. “It’s not rigged completely,” I promise. “They let the bachelors pick the women they’re most interested in, especially later in the game. But they do arrange a few exceptions.”
“Like the season villain,” Jalisa says.
All eyes turn to Bridget. She huffs, pulls her shoulders back, and lifts her chin proudly.
Emma watches her, thinks about what we’re saying, and nods slowly. Her eyes find mine. “And they wanted the twins to stay because they’re famous.”
“Bingo,” I say with a sympathetic smile. “It’s good for ratings.”
“You’re not famous,” Calista snarks.
I shrug, letting her attitude roll right off me. “No. I just have famous friends. That’s why they made me trade places with the twins when they left. They were hoping I would still help them get a few celebrities on the show.”
Bridget scoffs. “They made you?”
I roll my eyes. “Fine. They didn’t make me. They just said if I didn’t do it, then they would sue the twins if they left. I agreed to stay so that Ana and Juliette could go home and be with their dying father during his surgery. But I made a deal with the producers that if I helped them get into the ball and got Brian and Ella on the show, then I could be done.”
Everyone processes that for a second, then several people look at me with skepticism. Jalisa is eyeing me more than anyone, but she’s not looking at me like she thinks I’m a liar. She looks like she’s put the pieces together. “But they said you could only go home if Sebastian releases you.”
I huff. “Trading me for the twins was his idea. I guess they took that as him being interested in me. But we argued, and I didn’t want to do it. Things may have gotten…heated between us.” I shoot a flat look at Calista and Bridget. “They’re hoping for an enemies-to-lovers romance.”
Both Emma and Katie sigh dreamily. “And he kept you,” Emma says. “That’s so romantic.”
“Yeah, forcing me to stay is so romantic,” I mutter.
Emma is not dissuaded. “He was desperate to keep you from leaving.”
“True…” Laurel says, nodding slowly.
Katie nods too. “He’s definitely smitten. Who knew Sebastian had feelings?”
“Oh yeah, he does.” Jalisa laughs and elbows me again. “He was pissed when you said no last night. He wants you bad.”
Bridget groans. “He’s not smitten. He was embarrassed that she rejected him in front of all of us.”
I start to argue, but quickly close my mouth. Could that be true? I don’t know why he picked me to begin with, but I did technically reject him in front of everyone. Could I have embarrassed him? Did my rejection hurt him?
I try to think back on our exact interactions last night, but I was so angry that I can’t rely on my memory. I’m too biased. Emma’s too much of a romantic to trust, so I look to Jalisa and Willow with a question in my eyes. Jalisa gives me a pointed nod. “The man likes you.”
Willow backs her up, giving me a sympathetic smile as she nods.
It doesn’t seem possible. All we do is fight. Or do I just not want to believe it? Either way, my face is flaming. “Well, he didn’t have to be such an asshole about it.”
Bridget scoffs. “You were a bitch to him first.”
My mouth falls open. I don’t think I’ve ever been accused of being a bitch before. I’ve been bullied most of my life. I always try to be kind to others. “I wasn’t being a bitch,” I say, though my stomach churns, indicating I might be wrong. “I was just surprised. He knew I didn’t want to stay. I tried to be polite about it.”
Bridget folds her arms and gives me a nasty look. “You were a bitch.”
Calista quickly agrees, but it’s Laurel’s and Selena’s nods that shock me. Even Katie grimaces and nods.
I swallow back bile. I don’t want to be that woman. The mean, callous one who doesn’t care about people’s feelings. I don’t want to be a Bridget. Not ever.
I must look as upset as I feel because Jalisa slides her arm over my shoulder and squeezes me in a hug. “You can apologize next time you see him. I’m sure he’ll say he’s sorry, too. He probably feels just as bad as you.”
“You don’t deserve him.” Bridget sneers. “And it doesn’t matter anyway, because when I get that solo date and finally get to spend some uninterrupted time with him, he’s going to forget all about you.”
With that last parting jab that doesn’t hurt me in the least, Bridget storms off to her room. Calista goes with her, no doubt to talk crap about me to each other. I feel sorry for Katie, who got stuck rooming with them. When they leave, it triggers the group into all deciding to head to bed for the night, but I’m too keyed up to sleep right now, even though I slept so horribly last night.
I step out onto the balcony to get some air. It’s hot and humid and too dark to see the ocean well, but the lights of the city are pretty to look at, and the alone time is precious. I take the moment to reevaluate all of my interactions with Sebastian. There are several that have me cringing. Like when I called him a dick to his face. I’d been angry, and it had been true, but it was still not nice of me. And it’s possible I’d judged him too harshly.
Not every moment between us has been a fight. I actually enjoyed having him at my side during the ball. For a while, things were easy between us, but had we ended things on a bad note? No. In fact, the whole night had gone well. He’d been surprisingly considerate and a gentleman. And though he’d stayed in the background, he’d still been attentive in a lot of little ways. He didn’t dance with me like he hated me. Quite the opposite, actually. He’d held me a little closer than most probably would. And at the end of the night, he’d called me beautiful. He’d been reluctant to leave. If the cameras hadn’t been there, things might have gone differently.
Does Sebastian like me? I don’t know. But maybe I can admit he’s intrigued. I don’t know how I feel about that. Something about him won’t let me write him off, but I’m not here to find love. The thought of being a wife any time soon sounds ridiculous. And terrifying. I’ve never been good at serious relationships. I’ve never managed to hold onto one for long. I’ve never managed to find a man worth keeping. My instincts when it comes to men are terrible.
The sound of the sliding glass door opening pulls me from my thoughts. I glance back to find Emma joining me with a wine bottle and two glasses. “Want some company?” she asks.
I really like Emma. She likes to help and take care of people. From the looks of it, that trait doesn’t just extend to her NICU babies and their worried parents. Trying my best to ignore the camera crew that follows her out onto the balcony with us, I welcome the company and give her a warm smile. We move to a couple of deck chairs. Emma pours us both a generous glass of wine and sets the bottle on the small table between us.
We take a few moments to enjoy the peace and quiet and sip our wine.
“Sorry about that in there,” Emma says. “It wasn’t nice for everyone to gang up on you like that.”
I wave off the apology. It wasn’t the ganging up that bothered me. It was the fact that they were right. “Nah,” I say. “It’s all good. I’m a dancer. I’ve been taking constructive criticism my entire life.”
Emma cuts me a sideways glance. “Calling you a bitch wasn’t constructive.”
Technically, no one had called me a bitch. They’d said I was being one. Whether they were too harsh or not, the message was received and even appreciated. I’ll be much more conscious of my actions from now on. I shrug. “I honestly don’t care about anything Bridget or Calista do or say. They’re just a couple of mean girls. I got enough practice with their type in high school. I’m a pro at ignoring them by now.”
Emma’s eyebrows shoot up over the rim of her wine glass. “You were picked on in high school?”
Her disbelief is flattering. A small laugh escapes me. “The poor girl with two dads was an easy target at a fancy, private prep school.”
Emma sighs. “Kids are cruel.”
“Sounds like you’re speaking from experience.”
She shakes her head. “It wasn’t like you see in the movies or anything, but I was too quiet. Too shy. I was more ignored than picked on. I had my best friend, but that was really it. Mostly, people teased me about having never been kissed. I thought I’d escaped that when I went to college, but now, with this show…” She smirks and shakes her head.
I crack a smile. She’s quiet and shy, but confident in a way. “So, how did you end up on this show? I’ve been trying to make sense of it since the first night.”
Emma groans and laughs a very self-deprecating laugh. “It was so ridiculous. It was my best friend’s bachelorette party. We all got so drunk. They were all teasing me about being next. I don’t even remember how the show came up, but the next thing I knew, the girls were filling out the application for me. I almost died of shock when I got accepted. I was going to back out, but my friends and family talked me into coming. I guess they figured if I was forced to date a man, it would be easier for me when I go home.”
I smile at her story. It sounds like something my girlfriends would do. Actually, it sounds like something Brian would do to our friend Scott. Scott’s wife left him over a year ago, shattering his heart so badly he’s refused to date since no matter how hard Brian tries to get him back in the saddle. Scott could use a sweet, loving woman like Emma. “You know? You’d be perfect for a friend of mine. If things don’t work out here, I could totally set you up.”
She laughs again and finishes off the last of her wine. “Now you sound like everyone else I know.”
“Just a thought.” I grin at her. “You won’t need me to, though. Out of all the women still here, my money’s on you.”
Emma barks out a surprised laugh. “Vivian, I don’t know that I’ve ever met someone more in denial than you.”
The accusation makes my stomach feel funny. I gulp down the rest of my wine, trying to ignore the rising feelings. The urge to deny it again wars with a tiny niggling of hope that comes out of nowhere and has no business being there. My denial wins out. “I’m sure you’re wrong. Sebastian and I would kill each other.”
Emma gives me a pointed look. “That’s why it will be you. Someone like Sebastian needs a woman who’s not intimidated by him. He terrifies me.”
“Neither Bridget nor Calista are intimidated by him.”
Emma snorts a very uncharacteristic snort. “Yeah, but he’s terrified of them.”
We look at each other and both burst into laughter so loud it probably wakes the other women. Once our giggles are calmed, Emma lifts a shoulder. “It’ll be you. You’re the only woman here whose motives he can be sure of.”
That gives me pause. There’s some truth to it. The only reason I’m here is because the twins needed me. And if Sebastian didn’t already know that, my botched rejection at the last rose ceremony would prove it. If I wanted his money, I would never have tried to leave.
“Why are you so against the idea?” Emma asks, eyeing me curiously. “He seems like a good man. Grumpy and a little closed off, but when we went on our date, he was kind to me. I think there’s more to him than he lets people see. And the tension between the two of you…” She fans herself.
I roll my eyes, but follow it with a sigh. “I’m sure there’s a good man under the grump,” I admit. “But I’m only twenty-three. I’ve never had a serious relationship. Not a healthy one, anyway. He’s looking for a wife. I can barely commit to what pair of shoes I want to wear every day.”
Emma laughs. “Well, you do have a lot of very cute shoes. I don’t know that I could limit myself to one pair a day, either.”
We giggle again, and then fall into a peaceful silence. The wine has taken the edge off nicely. I look up at the stars. The city lights make them hard to see, but not nearly as bad as Los Angeles.
Emma sighs again and moves to sit up. “We should probably head to bed. Tomorrow is bound to be an adventure.”
She’s right. We’ll both most likely be on tomorrow’s group date. And if we’re going to explore a new country, I don’t want to be exhausted for it. “You’re right.” I stand up and follow her inside. “I should be able to settle down now. Thanks for the talk. I needed it.”
She bumps my arm with her elbow. “Anytime.”