17. Scarlet Phoenix
Scarlet Phoenix
HAYES
T he Spanish night air cools us as I lead Brielle to the show’s SUV to take us back to the villa.
It’s well past midnight, the other contestants and crew presumably asleep, giving us this rare moment of privacy.
Pamplona sleeps around us, the narrow streets and ancient buildings bathed in the gentle glow of streetlamps.
No cameras here. No production assistants with clipboards and earpieces.
No competition or contractual obligations.
Just Brielle and me, and the lingering fear I’ve been trying to swallow since I watched her accident.
Her hand feels small and warm in mine, a silent reminder of how close I came to losing her today. The image of her falling before those charging bulls still flashes behind my eyes every time I blink, a nightmare on repeat that makes my grip on her fingers tighten involuntarily.
“You okay?” she whispers, glancing over her shoulder. The bandage on her arm glows faintly in the moonlight, a white flag of vulnerability that makes my chest ache.
“I should be asking you that.” I carefully guide her around a stone planter. “Doctor said you should be resting.”
“I’ve been resting all day.” She smiles, the dim light catching the curve of her lips. “Besides, walking wasn’t on the doctor’s list of prohibited activities.”
“True. He specifically banned getting her stitches wet and not lifting anything heavy. Said nothing about illicit midnight strolls.”
Her laugh is soft, barely disturbing the night air. We slip through a wrought-iron gate that opens onto a small public park, as the SUV is on the other side.
“You still haven’t answered my question,” she says as we follow a winding path deeper into the park. “Are you okay?”
I consider deflecting again, but something about the darkness, the privacy, the warmth of her hand in mine, pulls honesty from me.
“No,” I admit. “I can’t stop seeing it. You on those cobblestones, the bulls coming, that split second when I thought—” My voice catches, throat closing around the words.
Brielle stops walking, turning to face me. Her dark eyes reflect pinpricks of distant light, searching my face with an intensity that makes me want to look away and never stop looking at the same time.
“But you got to me,” she says softly. “You jumped off a balcony like a Marvel hero and pulled me out of the way.”
“I could have been too late.”
“But you weren’t.”
“But I could have been.” The words come out sharper than intended, roughened by fear and something deeper than I’m not ready to name. “I’ve been too late before.”
The admission hangs between us, unexpected and raw.
Brielle’s eyes widen, but she doesn’t push, doesn’t pry.
Instead, she simply twines her fingers more securely with mine and tugs me gently back into motion.
We walk in silence for a while, following the path as it curves around a small fountain where water trickles musically over stone.
“This place is beautiful,” she finally says, giving me the space to collect myself. “It’s like a secret garden in the middle of the city.”
I’m grateful for the shift, the chance to steady my breathing and loosen the knot in my chest. “The pamphlet in my room said it’s one of the oldest parks in Pamplona. These statues are from the 18th century.”
We approach a small clearing where stone figures emerge from the shadows like sentinels frozen in time.
A woman with flowing robes gazes serenely into the distance.
A soldier stands at attention, face worn smooth by centuries of rain and wind.
A child reaches eternally for something just beyond its grasp.
Brielle moves toward them, trailing her uninjured hand over the cool stone of the nearest figure.
The moonlight paints her in silver and shadow, her black hair falling in loose waves down her back, released from the practical ponytail she wore during the day.
She’s wearing a T-shirt and jeans, but it’s the way she moves that catches my eye.
Curious, thoughtful, reaching out to connect with these stone strangers.
She’s beautiful. Not in the manufactured way, but in the quiet, unexpected moments like this—absorbed in discovery, unaware of being watched.
I raise my hand instinctively, muscle memory from years behind a camera, wanting to capture this moment.
But my camera is gone, abandoned on that balcony when nothing mattered except reaching her in time.
“What were you like as a child?” The question escapes me before I can consider it, prompted by the stone child statue and my sudden, intense desire to know everything about her that exists beyond the confines of this show.
She looks back at me, surprise flickering across her features before a small smile takes its place. “Constantly in motion.” She returns to my side. “Literally. We moved nine times before I graduated high school.”
“Nine?” I try to imagine it—packing and unpacking a life over and over, always the new kid, always starting fresh. “Military family?”
“No.” She guides us to a stone bench beneath a sprawling oak tree, its leaves rustling gently overhead.
“My mom was a single parent. My dad left when I was two, so it was just her, my sister, and me against the world. Mom kept searching for better jobs, better opportunities, and cheaper rent. We’d stay somewhere for six months, maybe a year, then pack everything into our beat-up Corolla and start fresh somewhere new. ”
I sit beside her, close enough that our shoulders touch. “That sounds tough.”
“It was.” She looks up at the stars visible through the oak’s branches.
“Always being the outsider, never having roots. But in some ways, it was good preparation for screenwriting. I learned to observe, to pick up on social dynamics quickly, to imagine different lives and possibilities.” A smile touches her lips unexpectedly.
“But there was this one library in North Carolina—we lived there for almost a year when I was twelve. It became my sanctuary.” Her eyes light up with the memory. “That’s where I found it.”
“Found what?”
“The book that changed everything. The Scarlet Phoenix . It was this old fantasy novel tucked away on a bottom shelf, probably published in the seventies judging by the yellowed pages and the slightly psychedelic cover art.” She laughs softly.
“But the story... it was about this girl who kept losing everything—her home, her family, her sense of belonging. And then she discovers she has this incredible power to be reborn, like a phoenix, gathering strength from every loss, every hardship.”
I watch her face as she speaks, the way animation replaces melancholy, her hands moving expressively in the moonlight.
“I read that book six times before we moved again,” she continues. “And when we had to leave, I did something I’d never done before—I stole it.” She looks at me with a hint of mischief. “My first and only crime. I couldn’t bear to leave it behind.”
“I won’t report you to the library police.”
“Appreciate that.” She nudges my shoulder playfully.
“But that book... it gave me a framework for understanding my life. The constant moving, the starting over—I wasn’t just losing things.
I was gathering strength, collecting experiences, building myself from the ashes of each departure.
I started writing my own stories after that.
Creating worlds I could take with me wherever we went. ”
“And now you write for television.”
“Now I write for television,” she says. “Though I still disappear sometimes when I’m on deadline. There’s this cabin I rent in the mountains, completely off the grid. No internet, no phone service.”
“That sounds like my nightmare,” I say. “I’d be checking my phone every five minutes, convinced August needed me.”
“It’s terrifying at first. But then it becomes liberating. Just me and the story, no distractions. It’s where I do my best work.”
I try to imagine her there—alone in a mountain cabin, surrounded by nothing but trees and her own imagination.
It’s a solitary image, and yet it fits what I’ve come to understand about her.
Brielle builds worlds from words, creates connections through stories.
Her isolation isn’t about disconnection but about finding a deeper way to connect.
“What about you?” she asks, turning those perceptive eyes on me. “What was little Hayes like?”
The question brings a rueful smile to my face.
“Quieter than August, unsurprisingly. Less confident, for sure.” I lean back against the bench, memories surfacing like bubbles in still water.
“My parents split when I was six. Dad remarried almost immediately—that’s how I met Skye, actually. She was my stepmother for a while.”
“I know. She told me that.” Brielle’s eyes widen. “That’s nuts!”
“She was my father’s second wife. There have been several since.”
“Wow.” She processes this. “That’s... complicated.”
“Family usually is.” I pluck a fallen leaf from the bench between us, turning it over in my fingers. “Dad wasn’t around much after the divorce. He’d show up for birthdays sometimes, take me for a weekend here and there, but mostly it was just my mom and me.”
“Like August,” Brielle says softly.
I nod, the parallel not lost on me. “Except August lost his mother, not his father. And I’d cut off my right arm before I’d be as absent as my dad was.
” The fierceness in my voice surprises even me.
“That’s why the show has been so hard. Being away from August, missing weeks of his life.
If it weren’t for my mother helping out. ..”
“She sounds amazing.”
“She is. Strongest person I know. She raised me alone while working full-time, never missed a school event, taught me everything important.” I smile, thinking of how she’s doing the same for August now. “I rely on her too much, probably. But single parenthood is...”
“Challenging?” Brielle offers.
“Terrifying,” I correct. “Especially after—” I stop, something catching in my throat.
We’ve ventured into territory I rarely discuss, even with people I’ve known for years, let alone a woman I’ve actually spent so little time with.
Yet there’s something about Brielle, about the quiet darkness around us, about the lingering shock of almost losing her today, that pushes me toward honesty.
“After Sarah died,” I say, the words feeling rough. “There’s this constant fear that I’m not enough, that I’m failing August in ways I won’t even recognize until it’s too late.”
Brielle’s hand finds mine again, her touch gentle but grounding. “From what I’ve seen, you’re an incredible father.”
“I try.” I look up at the stars, finding it easier than meeting her eyes for what comes next. “But I wasn’t always an incredible husband.”
The admission sits heavily between us. I can feel Brielle’s attention, patient and unwavering, giving me space to continue or retreat. The night holds its breath around us.
“You don’t have to tell me,” she says when the silence stretches too long.
“I want to.” And I do, I realize with some surprise. I want her to know me—the real me, not the edited version that appears on television screens or even the carefully curated version I present to the world. “It’s just... complicated.”
“Most important things are.”
I take a deep breath, organizing thoughts I’ve kept buried beneath grief and guilt for three years.
“Sarah and I—our marriage wasn’t perfect.
Especially toward the end.” The words feel like betrayal, but I push forward.
“I was traveling a lot for photography gigs, trying to build my career. She was home with August, carrying so much of the parenting load. We were just... missing each other. Physically, emotionally.”
Brielle listens without judgment, her eyes steady on mine when I finally look at her.
“I should have been there more,” I say, the closest I’ve come to speaking the full truth aloud.
“I was chasing success, recognition, trying to prove something—to my absent father, to myself, I don’t know.
And then suddenly, she was gone, and all those career ambitions seemed so meaningless compared to what I’d lost, what August had lost.”
I swallow hard, stopping short of the detail that haunts me most, and I move on. “I promised myself that August would always come first after that. No career opportunity, no nothing would ever take precedence again. And August wanted me to find someone...”
“And then you signed up for a reality dating show.” There’s a hint of wry understanding in her voice.
“Ironic, right?” I let out a humorless laugh.
“The ultimate contradiction—seeking personal happiness while leaving my son for weeks. I rationalized it: the exposure would help my photography business, finding a partner would be good for August long-term, and it was only temporary. But then his call, his voice so small and lost...”
“Hayes.” Brielle shifts to face me fully, her expression intense in the moonlight. “Being a good father doesn’t mean sacrificing every moment of your life. It means being present for the important things, yes, but also showing August how to live a full, balanced life. Including finding love again.”
Her words unravel something tight in my chest. “You sound like my mother.”
“Smart woman.” Brielle smiles. “And for what it’s worth, I think Sarah would want you to be happy, too.”
The mention of Sarah’s name on her lips creates a strange collision of worlds—past and potential future briefly occupying the same space.
I search Brielle’s face, looking for judgment or jealousy or the discomfort most people show when discussing a dead spouse.
I find only compassion, understanding, and something warmer that makes my heart rate quicken.
“There’s more,” I say, the words catching. “About Sarah, about what happened. Things I haven’t told anyone.” The secret weight of that day, of my choices, presses down.
Brielle cups my face with her hand, her touch impossibly gentle. “You don’t have to tell me everything tonight,” she says, somehow understanding exactly what I need to hear. “Some stories take time. I’m not going anywhere.”
The simplicity of her acceptance breaks something open inside me.
Without conscious thought, I lean forward, drawn to her like a tide to shore.
Her lips meet mine halfway, soft and certain, tasting faintly of the hospital’s antiseptic and something sweeter that’s entirely Brielle.
Unlike our careful kiss in the hospital, this one deepens immediately, her uninjured hand sliding into my hair, my arms circling her waist to draw her closer.
I pull away, just enough to murmur, “I meant what I said at the hospital. I’m falling for you. ”
“I’m falling for you, too, Hayes Burke.”