Page 114 of One to Watch

Bea forced a nod, but she felt sick.

“I have to think about my kids. This is going to be on TV in a few days, and they just met you—it’s too fast. I can’t throw caution to the wind. I have to show them I’m being more careful than that with their future. I’m so sorry, I should have brought it up much sooner that sharing a room was never an option for me.”

“But …” Bea couldn’t get a clean breath. “I thought it went so well with them.”

“It did,” Asher entreated. “Bea, it was better than I could have hoped. But we have time, right? We don’t have to do this tonight. We have all the time in the world.”

He hugged her tightly, and she wanted to feel comfort, but the gnawing, ragged emptiness tore through her a pit, like a whisper: First Sam, now Asher. He doesn’t love you. None of them do.

After they wrapped their shoot, Bea had to walk alone across the entire property to her secluded, romantic suite, the one where she and Asher had been meant to stay together. Asher had offered to walk with her, but somehow, that felt worse. When she got to the room, she closed the door and turned off all the lights, hoping that, if she could make the space quiet enough, the voices in her head would stop screaming.

For so long, Bea’s recollection of her night with Ray had felt like a movie on loop, playing over and over in her mind’s eye, more vivid and alive than any other memory she had—the colors more intense, the sensations more acute. These past few weeks, though, Bea had started to feel the movie fading—after all these months, it was like she finally had the ability to change the channel. Tonight, though, after hours of tossing, restless and alone, Bea gave in. She let the movie wash over her, bright and gripping, and imagined Ray beside her, subsisting for one more night on the memory of how it had felt to fall asleep in his arms.

Bea woke feeling groggy, her head pounding with exhaustion and dehydration and general wretchedness. She wanted to be excited for her final date of the week—a day with Luc at her favorite château—but after all the pain and rejection of her nights with Sam and Asher, she found herself wishing she’d kept Wyatt around after all. She just wanted some part of this to feel easy.

“Hey.” Lauren approached her on the little propeller plane they’d chartered. “This seat taken?”

“All yours,” Bea said glumly, and Lauren strapped in beside her.

“Shitty week, huh?” Lauren looked like she genuinely felt for Bea.

“Not the greatest,” Bea said quietly. “Any chance I can skip today and just go home?”

“Sadly, no,” Lauren sighed. “I wish I could tell you that this was all for show, that I’m the one who made the guys decide to spend the night on their own for ratings, for a twist. I told you this would get a lot harder if real feelings got involved.”

“Congrats.” Bea rolled her eyes. “You nailed it.”

“No, come on, Bea, that’s not what I mean.”

“What, then?”

“A couple of things, because I know you’re going through hell right now, and I have a lot of information you don’t—I’m the one interviewing these guys ad infinitum when you’re not in the room, okay?”

Bea looked up at Lauren. “What do you know?”

“First, that Sam and Asher both really care about you. I know Jefferson got in your head, flared up all the doubts you’ve been having since day one. And I know how badly it hurt to have two guys in a row refuse to spend the night with you—but neither of them knew the other was going to do that. You’ve worked so hard to trust them—don’t stop now.”

“Because it would be bad for the show?”

Lauren exhaled in frustration. “Bea, we’ve been through this—at this point, what’s bad for the show is also bad for you. You want to spend your last two weeks here moping and feeling sorry for yourself and end up alone? Have at it. But I also want to remind you that there’s an exceptionally attractive man waiting for you in Amboise, who frankly hasn’t fucking shut up for weeks about how badly he wants to get you in bed.”

“Really?” Luc had said as much to Bea, but somehow hearing it from Lauren made it seem like it could actually be true.

“Yes.” Lauren sighed. “Really. So maybe we can put this week in a different perspective? You had great dates with Sam and Asher. You opened up to each other and got closer, and they both told you in no uncertain terms that they want to stick with you for a long time. So you didn’t spend the night with them? Fine. You have a fresh start with Luc today—and I have something really special planned for you guys. Don’t waste it. Don’t let every fear and bad thought you have about yourself stop you from having the fabulous fantasy with him that you deserve.”

Bea knew Lauren wanted what was best for the show—to avoid another depressing episode on the order of the boat catastrophe. But she also couldn’t help feeling that Lauren had grown attached to her, had begun to root for her success. And she was right, in any case, about their goals at this stage being aligned. It wasn’t Luc’s fault that Sam and Asher had rejected her—there was no sense in punishing him for it.

“Okay,” Bea told Lauren. “I’ll do my best.”

Bea wasn’t sure what Lauren meant by “something special,” but when they got to the hotel in Amboise and began filming, she saw Johnny lounging beside a full-on Cinderella horse-drawn carriage. It was painted gold, driven by a man in fancy pantaloons and a white powdered wig, and drawn by four white horses with elaborately curled manes.

“What is all this?” Bea laughed, somewhere between giddiness and horror.

“I have an invitation that explains everything,” Johnny pronounced, then handed her a scroll that was tied with red ribbon. Bea unfurled it and read aloud:

“Dear Bea, you’ve spent the whole season planning such amazing dates for me and the other men here.” This was hardly true, she noted internally—Lauren and the producers did most of the planning. But she read on anyway: “So today, I wanted to plan something special for you. Will you join me for a royal ball at the Château de Chenonceau? I’ll see you there when the clock strikes five. Oh, Jesus,” she added despite herself.

“Do you accept the invitation?” Johnny asked.