Page 123 of One to Watch

“Bea.” Lauren looked contrite—and, Bea noted, a good deal more haggard than normal. She was in leggings and a sweatshirt herself, a far cry from her normally polished attire. “I need to tell you again how sorry I am about Luc.”

“What about Ray?” Bea’s voice was soft, but firm. “Are you sorry about him too? And Asher?”

“I had no idea Asher would walk out on you.” Lauren shook her head. “I mean, really, he couldn’t stick around to have a conversation? Couldn’t even wait to see if you would let Ray stay? I expected him to handle Ray’s arrival more maturely—didn’t you?”

“Maybe if you had warned me,” Bea argued, “I could have done something differently, or at least told him first about Ray being engaged.”

“Bea, come on. I’m still making a TV show here, I can’t just give you a quick heads-up about the biggest twist of the season.”

“But why do it!” Bea demanded. “Why bring Ray here at all?”

“Because I thought it was the right thing to do!” Lauren looked genuinely confused. “You decided that you wanted to find love on this show, and from everything he told me, the guy is genuinely in love with you—and he seemed to believe that you felt the same way. He insisted that you wouldn’t want to get engaged to someone else without knowing how he felt about you first, and I believed him. Yes, I orchestrated his arrival for maximum drama, but I never, ever thought you’d be so upset about it—and honestly, I’m still not totally sure why you are.”

“Because he hurt me,” Bea said quietly. “He hurt me more than anyone else in my life ever has.”

“And don’t you think,” Lauren asked gently, “that the reason he was able to hurt you so badly is because you care about him so much?”

Bea buried her face in her hands, knowing that of course Lauren was absolutely right, but desperately fearing what it could mean, after all this time, to open her heart back up to a man who had treated her so callously.

“I don’t know,” she rasped. “I honestly don’t know if I can do this.”

“Bea, I know you’re in pain. How could you not be? Yesterday morning, you thought you had Luc and Asher, and now you don’t have either of them. Of course you’re reeling; it would be insane if you weren’t. But I also need you to see the good in your situation. You’re in Paris. Sam is here, and he loves you. Ray is here, and he broke off his engagement for you. Millions of people are rooting for you to find love, and they think Asher and Luc are jerks. They want you to be happy. The question is whether you want that too.”

“And if what I really want, more than anything, is to walk off this set, buy a plane ticket, and go home?” Bea asked.

Lauren sighed. “Is that actually what you want? To shut yourself off from these men, to deny yourself the chance to find out whether you could really be with one of them? If you’d told me that when I first met you, Bea, I would have believed you. But after everything that’s happened, and how much you’ve changed? I don’t believe it now.”

“Even if that’s true,” Bea conceded, “I don’t know what to say to Sam, and I really don’t know what to say to Ray, and I—”

Bea’s voice broke. She’d never experienced this many intense emotions in her life, and she was starting to feel extremely ready to shove them all in a box to be shut in an attic and never seen again.

Lauren looked at her with sympathy. “Would it help if you talked to Marin?”

“Really?” Bea felt a small lurch of hope. “How?”

“Magic!” Lauren joked. “No, Skype, obviously. The camera guys will bring a laptop with a line to Marin, and you can video chat.”

“I’m really looking forward to the day when everything I do won’t be documented for an audience of millions.” Bea sighed.

“I’m getting a taste of that myself this week,” Lauren groused. Bea shot her a puzzled look.

Lauren picked up her phone and handed it over to Bea, who frowned.

“I’m not allowed to see a phone.”

“And I’m not allowed to sleep with a cast member, but here we are. Just look. It’ll make you feel better.”

Bea looked down—Lauren’s phone was open to an article on TMZ revealing, in big bold letters, that Lauren had slept with Luc.

“Holy shit,” Bea muttered.

“See?” Lauren prodded. “And you thought you were the only one having the week from hell.”

“One might argue you brought this on yourself,” Bea countered.

“Yeah, well.”

“Is this true?” Bea looked up from the article. “They really might fire you?”