Royal Chase (8 page)

“Yes?” I didn’t mean for it to sound like a question. But what else would I be talking about?

“I’m pretty sure that’s made out of cheese. Like in those cartoons.”

She had to be kidding. “I’m pretty sure it’s made out of rocks.”

“I don’t think that’s right.” No one could be that stupid, could they?

“Seriously?”

“Is what serious?”

“What you just said about the moon being made out of cheese.”

She looked at me like
I
was stupid. “Yes.”

The beautiful babies that Dante was sure to produce could not be infected by this gene pool. I refused to allow him to have idiot children.

Things didn’t get much better from there. There was bubbly Michelle, who thought everything in life was So Awesome. And Ashley S., who said meanly, “You’re talking to me why, exactly?” I wanted to retort that it was my job to figure out what kind of person she really was. She had spent all day smiling and being sickly sweet to Dante, and that one sentence told me everything I needed to know about her.

Then there was Ashley M., who giggled at everything everyone said. And Lisa, who spent two hours complaining about her ex-boyfriend and how their relationship had gone so wrong and she didn’t know why. She never even took a breath so that I could excuse myself and leave. I started imagining forms of suicide that would be less painful than this conversation, and decided all of them would be, including dropping myself into the tiger enclosure in the zoo and being slowly eaten alive.

Jessica R. wasn’t drinking. I thought I had found a kindred spirit, but then I saw that she wasn’t getting drunker than a peach orchard boar only because “all the empty calories in alcohol.” She told me that she wanted to start a modeling career and hoped the show would launch it. When she asked, I told her that I wanted to get into PR, and she said the show could help me, as well. “You’re not the first person to say that to me,” I told her.

Abigail had already found herself two acolytes, women named Cece and Heather. They followed her everywhere, brought her drinks, and made sure not to “stand in her light.”

Genesis came up and stood next to me. “Abigail tried to sabotage me, didn’t she?”

“She did. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. I can’t believe she already has minions.”

“I wonder if they get dental.”

“Only henchmen get dental. Minions are out of luck.”

“Yeah, they’re basically glorified interns.”

I
so
liked her. We were on the same wavelength. Dante would like her too, much as that thought made my stomach twist itself into knots.

She was tapping her fingers against her leg. “Nervous tic?” I asked.

“What?” She followed my gaze and looked down at her hand. “Oh, no. I think I’m going through withdrawal.”

Maybe I had to reevaluate her as the front-runner. “Withdrawal?”

She must have heard the alarm in my voice. “Not that kind of withdrawal. I don’t drink or do drugs or smoke or anything. That strict upbringing of mine has sort of stuck with me. I’m missing
WoW
.”

“Wow?”

“
World of Warcraft
.” I must have had a very confused expression, because she continued. “It’s a massively multiplayer online role-playing
game?”

Still nothing.

“It’s a computer game.” That I understood. “I miss it, like in an it’s-my-crack kind of way.”

Too bad she didn’t know she was trying for the wrong twin. Rafe played video games the way other people drank water. He went to MIT and earned a software engineering degree and spent a lot of time in the MIT Game Lab in order to learn how to design video games. But I couldn’t tell her about Rafe because I wasn’t supposed to know Dante already.

More lying. I was becoming an evil person.

Taylor came over and asked to speak with me in private. When we were alone, she said, “Now would be a good time to make your phone calls. All of the other producers are focused on the party. Follow me.”

She took me into the downstairs bathroom and handed me my phone. She sat on top of the closed toilet seat, texting.

I called Kat first, needing the support. It was very early morning in Monterra, as they were nine hours ahead of us, and there was every possibility that she would sleep through the phone ringing. Thankfully, she picked up on the first ring. “Hey! Do you have any idea what time it is?” She mumbled the words groggily.

“Hey, darlin’. I’m sorry for calling you so early. Dante sort of forced me to stay on the show.” Kat knew that he had promised to send me home the first night.

“Oh frak.” She sounded panicked and wide awake. “Did you murder him? Do you need me to be your alibi? Because I totally will be.”

I so missed my friend. “I haven’t killed him yet, but I make no promises.”

“Totally understandable. What’s up?”

I explained that everything she needed to know had been put into her calendar, and both her and Nico’s event secretaries had a complete copy of their schedules as well. I told her about the no phone or device rule. I gave her Taylor’s number and told her to use it if she had an emergency and absolutely had to get a hold of me.

“Don’t worry—you know everything here is like a well-oiled machine. We’ll be fine. You should just, you know, enjoy yourself. Maybe give Dante a chance.”

Kat did not like Sterling. She knew all about our past and thought he was a slimeball. Nothing I said or did would change her mind. She really wanted me to marry Dante so that we would always be sisters and part of the same family.

But that wasn’t going to happen. Dante wasn’t serious about me, and I was very serious about not ending up with a guy who would break my heart.

I hung up with her and called my parents. It was about 11:00 p.m. in Atlanta. After I apologized profusely for calling so late, I told my mother that it would be more than one episode; that I had agreed to stay for a little while. My mother fretted about what to tell my grandmother, and then she asked if they’d get to meet him. “Only if I’m one of the last people left on the show, and I’ll be off long before that.”

“Well, that’s a disappointment. Think of everyone’s face at the country club if we walked in with a real-life prince!”

“This is all just pretend, Momma.”

“I know that. But it would still be worth it just for the bragging rights alone.”

I asked about the wedding preparations, and there was a pause. Her voice sounded fakely cheery and bright. She said it was well under control, and not to worry. Everything would be just the way I wanted it to be. My right temple started to throb. She pretended like everything was fine, but I could tell she was worried. Worried that I would let her and Daddy down again and embarrass them somehow. I sent my love and pressed the “End” button.

I was dreading the next phone call the most.

I had to call Sterling’s cell twice before he answered. “Brown.”

“Hi! It’s me!”

“Me who?” I thought he was teasing, but realized after some dead air that he was not.

“Your fiancée? Lemon?” Who else would be calling him this late? It made me uneasy.

“Oh! Lemon! Sorry. I’m so swamped right now. Is this important?”

I gave him a brief summary of what had been going on, and braced myself.

“Well, you do whatever you think is best.” He sounded so distracted. I knew he wasn’t really listening.

“I just want you to know that if it looks like I’m flirting with Dante or anything, I’m only doing it because the producer is making me.”

“Sure, sure, fine. I really need to go.”

He hung up before I could tell him good-bye or that I loved him. He acted like he didn’t care. Shouldn’t it upset him? Shouldn’t he be even a little bit jealous?

And why did it bother me so much that he wasn’t?

Chapter 8

Where are you? I have put you on text probation.

I expect prompt and witty textual responses posthaste.

After giving Taylor my phone back, I was leaving the bathroom when someone opened the door to the story producers’ room. Matthew Burdette was in there. I scurried back to the party before he realized that I wasn’t where I was supposed to be.

Time to put on a show.

And I told myself that it had nothing to do with Sterling’s lack of reaction.

Dante stood in the middle of the room, talking to four different women at once. He wore an expensive custom Armani suit and looked mouth-wateringly good. I walked up to him, put my hand in his and gave him my best come-hither look. “I need you,” I said.

His hand tightened around mine as I led him out back. A cameraman had been filming a conversation between a girl who was crying and the one who was comforting her, but he came over when he saw us.

I stood too close to Dante. I ran my hand up his arm and bit my lower lip before looking up at him through lowered lashes. “I forgot how strong you are,” I said to him in a low voice. I was trying to give the show what they wanted, but instead it was making me crazy. Being this close to him; him smelling so, so amazing; touching him without feeling like I shouldn’t.

I was liable to be reckless because I was mad and disappointed.

It was not good.

“What’s happening,
Limone
? I don’t understand.”

I got even closer to him and stood on tippy-toe in an attempt to whisper in his ear. His breath was hot on my neck and it made my stomach do gymnastics and my head feel light. He instinctively moved a hand to the small of my back and I wanted to sigh. “Burdette ordered me to flirt with you.” I should have moved away, but I didn’t. I stayed put, loving the way it felt when we were pressed together. Like I belonged there. Like it was right. I contemplated nibbling on his ear, remembering how much I’d liked it when he’d done it to me.

But before I could do something dumber than a bag of hammers, he stepped back, anger flashing in his eyes. “Don’t. You should only do something like that if it’s really the way you feel.”

He went back inside, leaving me alone and extremely confused.

Dante flirted with me constantly. Did that mean
that
was how he actually felt?

Emily B., a girl I hadn’t spoken to yet, got sent home amidst more tears and promises from the other contestants to stay in touch.

We turned in for the night, and Dante had barely looked at me. When he called my name, he couldn’t have sounded more unenthusiastic. Had I really upset him outside?

Some of the other girls stayed up to party after he and Harris left. Genesis and I agreed to call it a night, only we didn’t manage to do much sleeping. It was like being back in college with Kat our freshman year, staying up laughing and whispering and finding out everything about each other.

Well, almost everything. I had no intention of telling her about any possible residual feelings for Dante.

No one needed to know that.

We did make a promise that no matter what happened, we wouldn’t ruin our friendship and we wouldn’t talk about our time alone with Dante. I didn’t want to hurt her if she ended up really liking him, and I worried that her stories might hurt me.

The next day was much like the first. We cooked and ate, put on our mike packs, hung out by the pool, found out about the date we’d go on that day or night. Sometimes we got pulled for formal interviews with the field producers. Other times we had ITMs, or “on the fly” interviews that happened right there, right then.

Some of the girls took to running laps around the pool as their exercise, since we didn’t have a gym. I decided my exercise was having to walk up and down the stairs in the mansion every day to get from one floor to the other.

There was a heart-shaped card that came a little after two o’clock with Abigail and Heather’s names on it. Dante invited them both out to dinner.

Abigail read the card loudly and slowly to the group out by the pool, and then came into the house where I was teaching Genesis how to make homemade pecan pie, and read it again.

She wanted a reaction, and we didn’t give her one. Jen L. was already outside crying. Abigail wasn’t going to find anybody to be upset in here.

“I’m glad Dante invited me out alone.” Did she forget that he’d asked Heather too? “That’s what America wants to see. I suppose I’d better go and start getting ready for my date.”

“Yeah, I bet it takes a while to shed that skin.” Genesis tried to muffle her laugh, but Abi-fail glared at us as she walked slowly up the stairs, swaying her rear end for the camera’s benefit.

The camera guy’s shoulders shook as he tried not to laugh at what I’d said. I wanted to offer him some pie, but we weren’t allowed to talk to him.

And the person I should be giving pie to was Dante. I owed him an apology. I had sort of used him, and it wasn’t cool.

Carefully carrying a slice upstairs, I looked around corners, making certain the way was clear. I tiptoed past the bedrooms, in case anyone was taking a nap as a way to kill time. At the far end was the flight of stairs that led up to Dante’s room. His master suite took over the entire third floor. I was envious of all the space and that he had his own bathroom.

There was a rope barrier and a sign, but, not seeing any crew members or cameras, I decided to risk it. My heart beat quickly as I ducked under the rope. It was exciting sneaking around. More real-life
Harriet the Spy
.

I gently knocked on the door to the master suite. Too bad we didn’t have a code. Dante opened the door, gorgeous as ever, and I handed him the piece of pie.

“Sorry I was being insane last night. Burdette is making my life miserable.”

“Thank you, and I understand.” A big, heartfelt smile, and I knew all was forgiven. Another thing I liked about Dante. He never held grudges. Me, I could hold a grudge like nobody’s business.

He took the pie and stood to one side, offering to let me into his room. I didn’t think that was a great idea. Particularly given how very tempted I was to accept.

And what had happened the last time we were alone in his bedroom.

“I just wanted to tell you to have fun tonight, and to please be careful.”

He knit his eyebrows together. “Careful?”

“Yes, Timmy. Stay away from the well.”

Now he looked even more confused.

“That’s a
Lassie
reference. You can look it up later. Abigail is not to be trusted.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Okay, well, I’m going to go do, uh, a whole lot of nothing. So, see you later.”

“Thank you for the pie.”

He closed the door and I was glad that I’d finally had the chance to do my job. Now he knew Genesis = good, Abigail = bad.

What he chose to do with that information was entirely up to him.

Most of the girls had gathered in our room, where we were having a grownup slumber party. Painting each other’s nails, braiding hair, that sort of thing. I had suggested it as another chance for me to check out the girls and their personalities. Which so far seemed mostly nonexistent. Most of them were the type of women who’d always been pretty, and so they didn’t ever need to try very hard at school or, you know, at life.

“I think he has money. Do you think he has money?” Emily F. asked.

“He wears expensive suits. Maybe he does, or maybe the show is trying to trick us into thinking he’s rich and then we’ll find out at the end that he’s really poor so they’ll see if we loved him or his money,” Jessica T. offered.

I pressed my lips together. I would
not
smile. I also would not tell them that he was the kind of rich that would buy a new yacht because the old one got wet.

“Who cares if he’s rich when he looks like that?” Ashley M. giggled, and to be honest, I could not disagree.

“I don’t think money matters. I think you should be with someone because you really like them,” Genesis said, and about half the girls side-eyed her like she’d just announced that spray tans would cause cancer.

A peaceful ceasefire and weird camaraderie existed, but the strangeness was compounded by the fact that all of these women wanted the same man. They’d all be dating him and possibly kissing him and maybe more, but I didn’t want to think about that part.

My evil witch senses started tingling, and sure enough, Abigail came floating into the room looking entirely too smug.

I wondered how she could breathe in a dress that tight.

“In case any of you were wondering, he is amazing. In every physical sense of the word.” She slowly and carefully enunciated each word in her last sentence.

She pivoted on her heels, leaving a cloud of floral-scented perfume behind. How did she know what to say that would piss me off the most?

Everyone sat silently, probably wondering, like me, if what she’d said was true. Had she and Dante actually . . . he wouldn’t, would he? That was foul.

I would seriously lose all respect for him if he had. He would be tainted. Because that girl was so stuck-up, she’d drown in a rainstorm. I decided to ignore the waves of jealousy that threatened to choke me. Even though they were also making me want to choke her.

There were cameras pointed at me. I refused to dignify her vileness with a reaction. I wished I could telepathically communicate with the other girls to tell them not to react either, but most of them already looked so disappointed.

An assistant brought in another heart-shaped card. This one had my name on it.

And only my name.

I opened the card, and saw that the “audience” had selected me to go on a “Fairy Tale Come True” date with Dante.

Just me. And Dante.

Oh,
sugar sticks
.

It was one thing to be “on” for a few minutes at a time. It would be another thing entirely to act that way for a whole evening.

“What does it say?” someone asked, but I couldn’t deal with the other contestants right then.

I jumped up and ran down to the production room, looking for Taylor. She was there. I wondered when she ever slept.

All the producers and their assistants looked at me funny. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

She followed me out of the room, closing the door. We went back into the bathroom again. It seemed like a strange meeting place, but whatever.

“I know I told Burdette I would do what I could, and I want to help you out, but what is this?”

“They’ve screened the first couple of episodes for focus groups, and you were overwhelmingly picked as the favorite.”

“Me? Why?” I wasn’t even really in the running. I was not supposed to be the one the focus groups liked.

“They liked that you wore your jersey the first night. Said it made you seem relatable and down-to-earth. And there were a lot of words thrown around about you and Dante. Like, chemistry. Heat. Obvious attraction.”

I could think of some words to throw around too. Like, engaged. Off the market. Never going to happen.

But my opinion apparently didn’t matter. I would do what I’d been doing—stay quiet, do as I was told, and make Matthew Burdette happy.