Chapter 1

Blake

Cosmo calls my appeal ‘steel wrapped in velvet.’

I never demanded a retraction...

If you’re in the gardens, you can’t tell. You can’t even tell if you’re standing on the balcony. But at the end of the sweeping driveway, just beyond the twelve-foot gates and the matching lion statues, there’s a swath of “journalists” which runs ten feet wide and thirty feet long. Their trigger-happy cameras pop at every shadow. They howl my name like banshees in the night.

I can’t even leave my own damn house anymore.

I heard that a picture of me is worth $500,000.

“Starting early this morning,” Miles comments drily, offering me the customary warmed towel on a silver platter.

“People like them don’t sleep.” I recline my head and lightly drape the white cloth over my face. I hear the tinkle of breakfast plates removed from the table, although I’m not sure which servants are here.

I sit back and relish the refreshing hints of cucumber and mint infused with the towel’s cotton and relax.

“Please tell me there’s nothing on the agenda today.”

“I can tell you that there’s nothing between your 11 a.m. and your 2 p.m.,” Miles offers. “But Candace Madden will be here any minute.”

I jolt and rip the warm towel from my face, skin tingling against the suddenly chilly air. “It’s 7 in the morning.”

“That was what I said.” Beneath his graying mustache, a knowing smile spreads on Miles’ lips. He’s known me for thirty-eight years, and he loves to be right. “But you confirmed with her last week. You said she was an old friend.”

“Not old enough, I’m sure.” I scowl up at him and stand to inspect my attire: blue silk pajamas. Lovely. “Send someone to intercept her from the gates. I’ll be down in five.”

Five minutes later, I’m fastening cufflinks in the master bath, cursing my reflection for scheduling this goddamn meeting. My cobalt eyes are merciless right now, glaring above the nose for which I’m famous: slightly crooked after being broken in a street fight. It reminds me of that American actor with the charming Southern accent. I scrape fingers through shaggy, wheat-colored hair and nod to myself. If only the clean-cut boy I’d been could see me now…

But my shoulders look capable. My mouth, serious. It’s a good change. I’m a man now, just as able to incapacitate an intruder as I am to dance a mean tango.

No one will be able to tell that I was just draping a warm towel over my face, enjoying some light exfoliation.

I smooth my hands down the front of my navy suit and adjust the black tie. There’s an understated luster, and that’s always been my way. Cosmo calls my appeal “steel wrapped in velvet.” I never demanded a retraction.

I stride through the master bedroom and push onto a broad balcony, watching as a fucking film crew slogs across my property.

I know they won’t be able to hear my shouted “What the fuck?” from this distance, so I march through the massive house and blow through the entry doors just as Candace Madden & co. are creeping up the long marble stairway.

“What the bloody hell is all this?” I demand, gesturing to the cameras, the gaffers, the boom mics. They’re all wearing matching black t-shirts which read ‘My Billionaire Bachelor.’

Oh, bollocks.

“It’s Ms. Madden, Blake,” Candace calls to me, struggling forward in spiked heels and a formal dress. I recognize her. She hosted a travel show about fifteen years ago, and we were in Canada at the same time once. She started a charity for battered women, too, and I gave generously to that. I was right. She’s an old acquaintance from various fundraisers—I last saw her at a yacht party, maybe three or four years ago—and she’s someone I hold in esteem. But not enough esteem for all this. Not at 7 in the morning. Not six weeks into a media tailspin. “I know you’re a little camera-shy right now,” she allows, throwing out her hands in surrender.

“A little camera-shy right now?” I scoff. “You’re going to have to get out of here. I didn’t agree to all this.”

“This is part of it!” Candace cries, finally reaching me at the top of the stairs. Her short blonde hair is spiky with an overuse of product, and her makeup cakes under natural lighting. “We have to film everything from beginning to end, Sir Berringer.”

My lip quirks. I was knighted by Queen Elizabeth after returning from humanitarian efforts in Africa in 2013. Referencing it is an easy way to access my good side. Damn her.

My eyes settle on hers, and I consider. Do I want to let an entire film crew into my home just for this interview? This interview I don’t exactly remember scheduling?

“Hm. No,” I answer easily.

“We came all the way from Los Angeles!”

“You did come a long way to ambush me in my front yard,” I sympathize. “Maybe you can use your establishing shots for next season. It’s not a total waste. The property is beautiful.”

I turn, but Candace tracks after me. “You could really use the publicity right now,” she huffs. “The entire world thinks you’re unhinged, Blake.”

“Why do you think I care?” I demand, muscles tightening beneath my suit, belying how stressful the past few weeks have been. “I don’t need the world or anyone in it.” I turn and say this to her face, even though several cameras blare their little red ‘ON’ lights at us. This footage alone will be priceless for her, but I can’t help that. I need to live my life. I need to say my peace. “If I wanted to, I could be down at those gates right now, begging for everyone to still love me. It would be easy… and pointless.” I turn away from her again, murmuring to Miles that security can escort them from the premises for their own safety.

“What if there was a point to it all?” Candace shrills behind my back. “What if TMZ could call you Lionheart again?”

“I don’t give a fuck about TMZ, Candace.” But my hand still rests on the knob, not turning.

“This could make millions for any of our charities! Or yours!”

I grimace and shake my head. She just doesn’t know me. She doesn’t know how much I hate the cameras and the makeup artists and the cue cards and everything else associated with her line of “work.” Sometimes I wish I was adopted, instead of being the heir to seventeen billion pounds of blood money. Then I would just be another British idiot, instead of the prince of them all.

“Will the show be filmed in America?” I wonder. I do love America. No one knows my face there, and I haven’t been for… how many years? “I don’t think I’ve been to America since your fundraiser. Another Chance?”

“Second Chances,” Candace answers, and I glance back at her. A slow grin spreads on her face. She thinks she’s got me sprawled across that dotted line. “Right. Your contribution rescued hundreds of women in bad situations, Blake.” She speaks slowly to let the weight of her words sink in. “I know that you’re a good guy.”

I take a deep breath and don’t let her words get me. She’s trying to work me right now. “I asked will it be filmed in America?” I reiterate.

“Parts of it.” She tilts her head toward me. “You could get away from all this. Reset. Come enjoy American culture. Meet beautiful American women. Take them on fun dates. There’s no obligation. Six weeks of your time. You tell America which date was your favorite, and she goes on a vacation. Woo. We muse on the difference between upper and middle class. We put money in a charity. Boom. Done.”

“I thought this was an interview, Candace, not a pitch,” I admonish her, eyes turning over the dozen cameras pointed in my face right now. “You’ve got two vans and twenty people here. It is an ambush. You know that, right?”

“I couldn’t believe that you agreed to it, either,” she confesses slyly. “We always film the request, and I must say, Blake, we’ve already got some amazing footage of you. You were made for TV. Hell, you were made for magazines and bedroom posters and canvases, boy.” Her eyes shimmer as they wander over me. I wonder if she just sees a giant stack of cash instead of a man. “We got you saying that you don’t care, storming off, looking so gorgeous, and then, the dramatic turn, the ‘I could beg them’—oh, god, Blake. It. Is. Gold. You’ve got to say yes.”

I scrutinize her, teetering in her heels, so determined. “No,” I answer simply. “Sorry. Was close. But no.”

Candace’s face falls. I turn from her and direct more guidance to Miles. I want the footage and cameras to be confiscated. I have not yet signed anything which would condone their use on my property. Meanwhile, behind me, Candace yells for a touch-up from the makeup artist.

She must think this battle isn’t over, but it is.

“I don’t need to run away to America,” I explain to her, twisting on my heel. I press one finger into my palm to illustrate each point I’m going to make, and there are four, but then I freeze. And everything freezes. I forget all my points.

A young woman crosses the porch in slow motion. In fact, she seems to hang, suspended in the exact second that my eyes first spark on her.

I know her.

How do I know her?

Her hair is loose, wild, and kinky on her shoulders, black tipped with gold. Her skin is radiant and young, but her dark eyes are wizened, dusky, and mysterious, like some Egyptian princess. I normally do not care much for makeup, but on this girl, it’s flawless. She’s wearing a little too much, though. I wish I could peel it back and see more of her eyes, her lips.

I wet mine as her hips swing back and forth in an excruciating rhythm.

How is she crossing the porch so slowly? How big is this porch?

“We donated over one million dollars to cancer research last season,” Candace boasts, turning toward the makeup artist and eclipsing her from my view. “Think about that, Blake. What could Our Billionaire Bachelor do for you?”

“Isn’t the show My Billionaire Bachelor?”

“Not yet!” Candace laughs. “But I’m pleased that you’ve heard of us.”

As she speaks, I catch flashes of the raven-haired girl from over her shoulder, touching a flesh-colored pad beneath Candace’s eyes, alleviating the bagginess and shadow there.

I watch her move and let a breath escape my chest. I didn’t realize I’d been holding it.

Maybe I don’t know her.

She just looks an awful lot like the girl I met at that yacht party.

But it’s not her.

Her cheekbones are a shade too high and round, reminding me of a cat. She holds herself much differently, too. That girl was wound up tightly in her own shell, terrified of the whole world, but this one holds her head like a queen as she works. Maybe she’s an aristocrat, too. Her eyes focus with pinpoint accuracy on Candace’s eyebrows as she brushes them with some tinted gel. Her lips pout while she’s focusing. I wonder what she looks like without lipstick. I wonder what her lips feel like.

They look plush, yet resistant. Like ripe fruit.

“I’m sure you know that the bachelors we’ve featured in our short, yet insanely popular previous seasons have all become fixtures, really, in pop culture. We take men such as yourself and turn them into household names. Last year, our billionaire bachelor was Jeffrey Sterling, the tech magnate. Only a certain demographic could identify him by name. But now, he’s getting a movie made about his life.”

I glower at the thought of a movie being made about my life. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea. Anyway, why am I still on this stoop? Why is Candace still talking, instead of being led back into that milieu of bottom-feeding harpies where she belongs? Forget the girl. She’s inconsequential. I don’t know her.

She just looks like someone I met once.

“Look, Candace, I’m sorry, but I don’t need any—”

Candace turns to listen to me fully, and her arm bumps the girl’s palette, spinning it. It drops between our feet and the makeup artist hurries over, shuffling between Candace and myself. “Shit, sorry.” Her voice is husky.

I recoil in surprise as she drops at the waist to scoop up her fallen tools. My mouth involuntarily fills with saliva. It’s only a split second of a glimpse up-skirt, but I have to swallow, and my peripheral pulses red. I weaken. The curve of that ass. The tantalizing strip of her panties.

I definitely don’t know this girl.

And I would remember thighs like these…

Succulent, tapering from the frayed hem of her denim mini-skirt. But all I get is a glimpse.

The girl pulls herself erect again and glances at me from over her shoulder through a tumble of black curls. “Sorry,” she breathes again. Our eyes connect for the first time, and my heart squeezes. They’re not just dark eyes. They’re a haunting slate gray. Storm clouds.

I do know her.

I remember those eyes.

And then she’s gone. Back into the crowd. Her path is only cut for a second, and then cameras cluster into the space and close her off from me.

I stare after her in complete shock.

What is she doing here?

“Blake? You were saying?” Candace prods me. “You don’t need any…?”

“Thing,” I fill in for her. I meet her gaze, and the next words to spill from my lips are: “Just a six-week commitment, right?”

Candace’s face lights up again. “Six to eight weeks,” she answers cheerfully. “Twelve max with an option to extend. Eight episodes.”

“You got me,” I acquiesce, heart thundering with renewed vigor. I’m a hunter on the scent. “Let’s sign.”