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She was good. He could almost believe her. Almost.
But he knew she was a liar and a fraud, not above breaking rules and laws to get what she wanted. He wrapped his fingers around her wrists, her deceptive wrists, because she was much tougher than she looked. He removed her hands from his face.
“You should leave. Tonight. Consider your early morning services as repayment for my not prosecuting you and your sister for fraud and no telling how many other felonies you’ve committed by being here.”
“Rob, don’t do this,” she pleaded.
“Do what?”
“You didn’t stop me earlier when you could have, when you should have. I’m willing to put that behind us, but don’t make the same mistake twice. Don’t throw away what we have together,” she said softly.
He chuckled without humor. “That’s just it, honey. We don’t have anything together. I told you from the beginning you’d never be more than an itch I wanted to scratch. Did you think a tumble in your sheets would change my mind? Not hardly.”
Her eyes filled with tears and if he thought she was sincere, he’d drop to his knees and beg her forgiveness, but for her this was all just another rung up the ladder of her acting career. Hell, she was good enough he might be tempted to cast her in another role--just so long as he wasn’t physically working on the set.
No, he’d never willingly have anything to do with this woman again. Her talon-like clutch on his chest had already created gaping wounds. Another go around would likely kill him.
Her lashes lowered, her chest rose with a deep breath, and she visibly trembled. He had to leave, before he wrapped his arms around her and begged her to go right on pretending because he didn’t want reality.
Reality. What a joke. The biggest joke of all was on him.
Her eyes opened. Her gaze full of pain, regret, and one last glimmer of hope, she stared at him. “Regardless of how you consider this morning’s activities and the events that followed, I made love to you, Rob.”
She reached for him, but he flinched away, unable to bear her touch.
“Because I love you,” she finished in a breathy rush, as if her heart was really on the line.
His gut knotted. She really knew how to hit below the belt. Somebody should give her an Oscar.
“Pity for you if that’s true. You mean nothing to me.” He wished like hell he was telling the truth. Maybe they both should be nominated for best performances.
She gasped, and all the stairwell’s already too thin and rose-tainted air vanished right along with that flicker of counterfeit hope in her eyes.
Before he spat out any more lies, or worse, started believing hers, he turned from her sinfully expressive eyes falsely mirroring his own hollow ache.
# # #
“Who’d have seen all this happening?” Bachelor #6, Steve, asked as JP sank down beside him in the throne room.
“Any good producer, I imagine.” JP dropped his head back against the pew, staring at the ornate ceiling.
“This was all staged from the beginning?”
JP snickered. “No. Not from the beginning. Just from the time several of the show’s key players got bitten by the love bug.”
“Several?” Steve’s brow rose. “Who? Kensington and Jane are cozy, but both admitted to just being friends. And what about this new chick? Who’s she? The real princess?”
“Yep. The genuine article.”
“So Jane’s an imposter?”
“Yep. She’s a wannabe actress who stepped in to fill Isabella’s shoes when the princess got cold feet and decided she wouldn’t do the role herself.”
“And she and Kensington had a thing before the show?”
JP straightened. “Sounded that way, didn’t it? I guess we’ll find out for sure when all this settles.”
The blonde, Jane’s sister, came back into the room carrying broken pieces of porcelain. That was going to cost the network’s insurance company a major penny.
