Chapter Nine
Harper had never attended a rose ceremony before, and she was glad for it.
The whole setup was far more stressful than she had ever imagined.
There were lighting checks, mic checks, and Fiona was blotting some kind of anti-shine powder on Megan’s cheeks.
A PA was obsessively adjusting the bright yellow Banksia roses—nine long-stemmed beauties with perfectly shaped petals resting on a carved limestone pedestal shaped like a massive Amalfi citrus branch.
A sound tech was crouched behind a potted lemon tree, fiddling with a cord which Harper couldn’t even begin to understand where it came from.
Somewhere to her left, someone shouted for ‘last looks,’ and someone else was begging for just sixty more seconds to fix whatever was wrong with camera B.
The entire place felt like a hive about to collapse under its own anxiety.
At least Harper had managed to keep a level head.
A reality TV show based on a staged scramble for one woman’s heart never stopped being ridiculous to her.
Over the last fifteen minutes or so, she had taken several slow, roaming shots, a few tight close-ups as well as a couple of wide, sweeping frames of the villa’s gold-lit foyer.
Now her camera was aimed at the contestants. Instead of photographing skittish wildlife, Harper was photographing skittish women. Same wide eyes. Same stiff posture. Same sense that one wrong move could be the end.
All of them were lined up on the stone steps that led down from the villa.
Harper lifted her camera just in time to catch Kira tugging at her canary yellow body-con dress that not only looked too tight but was too tight.
Harper had spotted her earlier, shimmying her way to the steps.
She then captured a shot of Elena pulling out a small tube of lip gloss, which she smeared all over her lips, and then Mara cracking her knuckles.
She caught a shot of Jasmine shaking out her shoulders while she leaned over to whisper something in Amelia’s ear, whose gaze kept skittishly scanning the driveway.
Frankly, Harper had seen painted dogs in Okavango look calmer than this.
And those poor animals had to continually defend their prey from the lions.
“We’re five minutes behind!”
Harper whipped around so suddenly she nearly tripped over an extension cord snaking along a section of the driveway. But it wasn’t Elise, only someone who sounded like Elise, and Harper felt a hole open up in her stomach.
It had been more than twenty-four hours since the picnic, and Harper hadn’t seen Elise since.
Not even a blur of her blonde curls. Then this morning, Harper had popped by Elise’s house, hoping she could slip in and surprise her again, but alas, the door was locked.
She’d considered knocking but had reached the conclusion that Elise would in fact ignore her no matter how hard she knocked.
So, she’d given up prematurely and spent the rest of the morning photographing the small group date.
Megan had chosen five contestants—Kira, Tori, Elena, Jamie, and Nadia—to do a limoncello-making workshop with a local Nonna, who had shown them how to press the peels into small glass jars and use the correct ratio of sugar, water, and neutral grain vodka.
After that, they had gone on a scenic Vespa ride through the winding roads, which had nearly taken an ugly turn when Kira and Megan’s scooter had wobbled for some unknown reason as they slipped into the small town of Nocelle.
Harper hadn’t had a second to breathe, let alone track Elise down.
And now, at the rose ceremony, she was nowhere in sight.
Which was disappointing. Harper had even dressed up for tonight, despite thankfully not appearing anywhere on camera.
She was wearing an ivory suit with short sleeves and black, clunky ankle boots.
Her hair was up in a low bun and parted sleekly in the middle.
A delicate gold chain peeked at her collarbone, and thin gold loops glinted from her ears.
She wanted to impress. She wanted Elise to swallow her breath and choke on her life choices.
And so she gave one last glance around the driveway before giving up and heading inside.
There she scanned past the camera crew and lights, past the heavily decorative foyer where Megan was standing under a grand arched window filtering in the last of the sunlight.
Around her feet were small, barely there markers showing where the contestants should stand when they received a rose.
The console table with the flower arrangement was gone, and ivy adorned the dark wood balustrades of the sweeping staircase.
“Everyone ready?” Monica asked, stepping down onto the travertine floor wearing a plum-colored dress that brought out the brown tones of her skin.
She walked toward Megan and smiled, and Harper captured the moment with a quick 85mm portrait lens.
“Your first rose ceremony,” she said. “How are you feeling?”
“Nervous,” Megan said, rubbing her palms together.
She wore a ring on practically every finger.
Her nails were short and lacquered in a metallic sage green, and her dress matched perfectly.
“I don’t think I’ve given the bachelorette on the previous seasons enough credit.
It’s hard to send someone home. Especially so early. ”
“It is,” Monica agreed, giving just the right amount of sympathy. “Anyone with a heart feels it. Nerves just mean you care about getting it right. It’s a good thing.”
Megan nodded and took a deep breath as if she were preparing to take the bar exam. Seriously, why was this so stressful? She put on a brave smile that Harper caught with a tight, intimate close-up.
“Okay, people.” Elise appeared out of nowhere. “We’re going to bring the contestants in. I want soft lighting across the front.”
Harper remembered thinking once upon a time that Elise had the ability to appear as if she could walk through walls.
Which she technically had seconds before they had first met.
It was the second day of shooting, and Harper was taking photos of an abandoned kitchen in the ghost town of Kolmanskop.
One minute she was adjusting the angle of her lens, and the next Elise was climbing through a crumbling gap in the wall, dust puffing up behind her like a mini sandstorm.
“What the hell are you doing?” she’d spat.
“You’re supposed to be at the post office photographing Jim and Patty.
” And Harper had thought; This woman is an absolute bitch.
That evening over a beer, Harper had told Elise that, and Elise had laughed so hard she’d farted.
Loudly. In front of everyone. And then, with the straightest expression ever, she had said, ‘Mind your faces.’ And Harper might have fallen in love with her then. She just didn’t know it yet.
Elise caught Harper’s gaze.
But before Harper could smile, or even wink, because yes, despite not seeing her today, she felt oddly brave after yesterday’s picnic, Elise whipped her head toward a man in tight black jeans that barely covered his bright blue socks holding a sterling silver tray.
“I need that over there, Jeremy.” She pointed to a small wooden table at the exit that the contestants were going to use on their way to the confessionals.
Harper assumed it was where the roses were to be discarded.
“Seriously, is it so hard for anyone to just read my mind?”
Jeremy nodded, muttered something Harper shouldn’t repeat out loud, and did what he was told.
Elise walked toward an interleading door that led to a living room.
Harper wanted to follow. She was going to follow, but then Elise barked, “Everyone into position. Let’s get started!
” and the next minute the contestants were ushered into the foyer.
It was fine. Harper wasn’t deterred. In fact, she had a plan so clever that she was even willing to preemptively pat herself on the back. All she needed was access to a few roses and for the introductions to end. Which, frankly, felt like it was never going to.
“Welcome, ladies,” Monica began. “Tonight marks the first rose ceremony. I know you’re all nervous, and that’s understandable.
The Banksia rose symbolizes connection. Whoever receives one will take it as an invitation to keep exploring that connection.
” She turned to Megan and said, “Are you ready?”
“As ready as can be.” Megan then called up each contestant in turn, and Harper snapped photo after photo. Kira was called first. Then Tori, who looked close to tears. After Tori was Elena, who kept flicking her hair over her shoulder. Then came Jamie and so on until the only one left was Mara.
“I’m so sorry I can’t give you a rose this evening, Mara,” Megan said, all apologetically.
Harper didn’t have time to feel bad for Mara because she was already on her way out of the villa. Harper’s plan was simple: woo Elise.
Which was why she carried an armful of roses she’d pilfered from the extra bouquets she found in the kitchen, why she’d plucked each petal and scattered the whole lot across the front door of Elise’s house, why she broke into Elise’s house using only a credit card and a pair of tweezers, and proceeded to scatter the rest of the petals all across the tiled floor, and why she found every pillow, duvet and spare blanket she could scavenge and piled them all into a soft, lumpy nest out on the small balcony.
She did all this in the dark, all with a heart thumping like she was being ushered off a bus in Bosnia for a passport check.
The thump in her chest grew into proper heart palpitations when the front door suddenly flew open and the light flickered on, flooding the living space.
“What the fuck are you doing? Are you insane?” Elise snapped, her eyes wild, almost feral.
Shit!
Harper, who was still plumping up a navy-blue cushion with white tassels, spun around so quickly she felt like she was flying. And maybe she was. Maybe she was flying close enough to the sun to burn.
“Really?” Elise asked, looking around at the petals all over the floor. “Do you really think this is going to work? You’re literally breaking and entering. I can have you arrested for this. I should have you arrested for this.”
“You could,” Harper said, walking in from the balcony. “But you could also sit with me. Just for a minute. Watch the moon go down over the sea.”
Elise blinked at her like Harper had gone mad.
Which, technically, in hindsight, was a possibility.
This was probably the craziest thing she’d ever done.
And not just breaking into Elise’s house but applying for the job and then flying to Italy to see the one person in the world she couldn’t forget.
“Did it ever occur to you that maybe I don’t want to see you? Maybe I want to forget you, forget what happened ten years ago. Has it ever occurred to you that I never wanted to think about you again?” Elise said tightly.
The words hit harder than a slap in the face. In fact, they knocked the air out of Harper’s lungs. “No,” she said. It was the truth. The thought had never occurred to her. “I didn’t ever think that.”
“Well, now you know,” Elise said, softer this time.
“Ten years ago, you kissed me. You started something. And then you left. There were two weeks left in production, and I had to walk into every location pretending I didn’t feel like I’d been sucker-punched.
I kept thinking you’d reach out. Or show up.
Or explain. And when you didn’t, I replayed every second of that night, wondering if it was me. If I had done something wrong.”
“Elise…” Harper stepped closer. “I didn’t leave because of you.” Actually, that wasn’t true at all. She had left because of Elise, because a feeling had formed in her chest, a feeling she knew shouldn’t be there, and it had scared her. In fact, it had absolutely terrified her.
Harper opened her mouth, then closed it again. There was a decade’s worth of words crowding up in her throat. But if she said anything, she’d say it all. She’d lay it all bare.
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. I moved on,” Elise said when Harper didn’t reply.
“We both did. We got what we wanted, didn’t we?
Close enough at least.” She headed to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of wine out of the fridge.
“So,” she said, sighing before she turned back to Harper.
“Are we going to watch the moon or what?”