Chapter Thirteen
Cal was pissed. The contract had stated that he would not be required to go on individual dates. After the competition, he’d stormed into the event tent, demanding to see Eddie.
“You’re in breach, and I’m of a mind to pull the plug,” Cal stated.
His hands up in appeasement, Eddie said, “I know. I’m sorry we didn’t have a chance to warn you, but it’s our biggest criticism so far. Viewers want to see you getting to know the ladies in a more…personal manner.” He gestured to a large computer screen where a chart displaying viewer satisfaction and comments showed that 83 percent wanted more physical interaction.
“I don’t care what viewers want,” Cal said. “I would never have agreed to this if it had been a part of the original contract.”
Eddie nodded slowly, but there was a glint in his eye that told Cal he wasn’t backing down. Raising his voice, Eddie called, “Everyone out.”
The people who had been milling around after the afternoon’s shoot filed out the main door.
“What?” Calum asked.
“I want to show you something.” Eddie indicated the chair in front of a laptop sitting in the corner of the room. “Sit down.”
Calum sat, his anger brewing. He was losing focus. This week was supposed to be about securing shares and the vote in two days, not getting caught up in this media circus.
And how do your evening exploits with Ms. Becca Evans factor into this?
Cal shut his eyes, thinking about the other night, about how sexy Becca looked in her teeny, tiny panties, spread-eagled against the French doors of his villa.
Leaning over Cal’s shoulder, Eddie opened a folder that was password protected. Inside were images: some blurry, some dark, but they were all of the same couple.
Calum and Becca.
He grabbed the mouse from Eddie’s fingertips and scrolled through. The first few were of them wet and lying in the surf. The second group showed them kissing under a palapa, there was another of them just talking, but the way Becca was smiling and his hand rested lightly on her hip, it was obvious there was something going on. There was a photo of them kissing outside his villa, though that one was so blurry, it was hard to recognize them. Following that was a whole series of photos. Unfortunately, these ones were crystal clear: images of a mostly naked woman pressed against a glass door with him standing behind her, the desire clear in his facial expression.
“You’ve been spying on me.” Cal’s hands shook with anger as he closed the folder and dragged the entire thing to the trash, emptying it right in front of Eddie. “And now they’re gone.”
He rose, his hands curling into fists. The urge to plow both fists into Eddie’s face was overpowering. “No one blackmails me. Ever,” he said through clenched teeth.
“No? Well, there’s always a first.” Eddie tapped his finger against the now-empty screen. “Do you really think I’m stupid enough to have no backup?”
“Delete them. Now.”
“Not until you agree to the new terms of the contract.”
Cal laughed without humor. “What you don’t seem to realize is that I really don’t care about this stupid contest. I don’t care about Men’s Magazine, and I certainly do not care about being named the Most Eligible Bachelor.”
“Actually, I do understand that. You’re a man of means. This sort of exposure won’t hurt you. In fact, it’ll probably help you.” Eddie pulled out his cell phone and tapped away before turning the screen to Cal, a picture of a smiling Becca, taken during the selfie challenge, greeted him. “But what about her? How would this exposure affect her, I wonder?”
He heard Becca’s voice in his head—thick with emotion—as she told the story of Grace being exploited and exposed in high school. This would be a million times worse. She might even lose her position at Cornell University if she was involved with this sort of scandal. There was no way he was going to allow any of that to happen to her. “You wouldn’t.”
“Oh, I would. Scandal makes for great ratings, as I’m sure you know.” Eddie patted Cal’s shoulder. “Just play along, Mr. Price, and everything will be fine.”
“What about Becca?”
Eddie crossed his arms over his chest. “End things. And whatever you do, do not tell her about the pictures.”
Calum was about to protest when Eddie held up his hand to silence him. “If I find out she knows, I will leak them.”
…
Becca tried to watch the date between her sister and Cal, who was her…what?
Her boyfriend?
Her fling?
Her lover?
Ugh.
Whatever he was to her, she couldn’t watch the date. Couldn’t help her sister sweet talk the man she was sleeping with. It was all too…weird and icky and upsetting.
So, she created feedback by turning up the volume on her laptop and then whispered to Grace that she was on her own. Yes, she was abandoning her sister in her biggest moment, when it was just her and Calum and—oh—five million live viewers, but even she had limits.
Instead, Becca stuffed her book in her bag and headed to the lobby bar for a glass of wine. Maybe she’d be able to distract herself from what was happening.
The only problem was, when she arrived, the bar was full of former contestants, all watching the date go down on big screens that had been set up around the room.
Fuck.
To add insult to injury, Kevyn—Wasinski—Khan was in the thick of things, working the room, chatting up the women like he was the most eligible bachelor, not Calum. While every ounce of common sense told Becca to get the hell out of there, she couldn’t make herself leave. It was like watching a train wreck. She was compelled by the forces of morbidity to stay. So, after ordering a glass of wine at the bar, she skirted the room until she found a quiet table in the corner where she could watch unobserved.
“She’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, is she?” Becca overheard one woman saying to another after Grace had told Cal a little bit about herself and the fact that she was working on getting her esthetician certificate.
“I don’t know. Everything she’s done in the challenges has been pretty clever.”
“Maybe she’s nervous, one-on-one. She keeps playing with her ear.”
Oh, shit.
“I think it’s all an act. Playing coy and sweet. It’s pathetic.”
Becca craned her head, hoping to get a glimpse of the woman who’d dared to insult her sister.
“Excuse me?”
Oh God. That voice.
Slowly, Becca turned her head to where Kevyn was standing in front of her, his cheesy smile filling his repugnant face.
“Yes?”
He indicated the empty chair beside her. “Is this seat taken?”
“No. Go ahead.” She indicated with a dismissive wave that he could drag the chair wherever he wanted—she assumed it was a couple tables down where five women were already sitting. Then she turned her head away, just on the off chance that Kevyn might recognize her.
“You’re Grace Evans’s sister, right?”
Becca’s neck popped because she’d turned too fast.
“Excuse me?”
“Grace.” He indicated the big screen where there was a close-up of her sister eating—healthily. “You’re her sister, I understand.”
“Yes.” Becca blinked. Had he also put together the fact that they’d gone to the same high school? “Surprising, I know.”
“That must be hard,” he said, his face taking on a serious expression.
“I’m sorry?” Becca’s voice rose.
“You know. Having such a beautiful sister who’s become the trending sweetheart, and here you are.” He indicated the table. “Sitting alone.”
Becca gazed into Kevyn’s face. For all the boyish charm he exuded, his eyes were hard and calculating. Serpent eyes.
In those snakelike eyes, Becca saw that he recognized her. The question was, what message was he trying to communicate by being a dick to her now?
She wasn’t about to sit around and find out. “To be honest, I’m quite happy to be sitting here on my own. You know why? I enjoy my own company and prefer it to that of many others. Like yours, for example.” She stood. “Be careful, Kevyn. Get too close to me, and you might get that nasty infection all over again.”
While her back was straight when she strode out of the bar, her legs nearly gave out once outside. Becca leaned against the stucco wall of the hotel, taking deep breaths.
…
Cal downed two extra-strength Tylenol and chased them with a glass of Scotch. Dinner on the beach with Grace, while being surrounded by a film crew, was not his idea of a good time. Neither was having his balls in a vise by a fucking director of a magazine-sponsored beauty pageant.
His phone rang.
“You lied.”
“Mom?”
“It’s kind of like Bachelor in Paradise meets Survivor. It’s so good, Calum. Why didn’t you tell me you were going to be doing this show?”
“You watched?”
“Of course. It’s trending, and I just followed a link on Facebook.”
His mother was on Facebook? She knew the word “trending”? What?
“Listen, I know you’re busy with all this. But, it says it ends the day before Dad’s retirement. If there is any way you can come, I know your father would be thrilled…”
There was a soft rap on his French doors.
Shit.
“Look, Mom. I’ll see what I can do, okay? I’ll call you later.”
He ended the call and then went to the doors and slid them open to find Becca. Her lips were stained red and looked so fucking kissable, it was like a jab to the solar plexus. It didn’t help that she wore a loose T-shirt exposing one tasty, sun-kissed shoulder. The skirt she had on was shorter than anything he’d ever seen her in and showed off the beginnings of a tan on her slender legs. Even though the wind was warm, Calum felt as if a bucket of ice water had been dumped on his head.
“Hi,” she said softly. “Can I come in?”
He opened the door and then closed it behind her, pulling the curtains closed in case someone was watching.
She stopped just inside. “Well, that was super weird tonight, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
Jesus. How he wanted to tell her everything, about being blackmailed into a date, about the producers threatening to expose Becca if he told her the truth, about the fact there was probably some asshole hidden in the trees just waiting to take more pictures.
But he couldn’t say any of that. No, there was only one thing to do, one thing to say that would convince Becca to leave him.
Though doing it would tear him apart…
“What’s wrong?” she asked, resting her fingertips lightly on his shoulder. “You seem tense.”
“Becca, we need to talk.”
Stumbling back as if he’d pushed her, she said, “Oh, no, not the ‘we need to talk’ speech.” She laughed, though it was not like any laugh he’d ever heard from Becca before. More hyena than human.
“Becca, look. Things are getting…complicated.”
“Oh my God.” She threw her hands up in front of her, as if to stop something from falling on her. “Please stop using every clichéd breakup line in the book.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“How about you talk to me like I’m a person you care about, not one of your beauty queen contestants.”
Cal exhaled and then inhaled deeply. He hated himself right now. “I just went on a date with your sister.”
“I know. I saw. Along with millions of our closest friends.”
“And, things have changed.”
Becca blinked up at him. “How, exactly, have things changed?”
He hated how her lips quivered and then how she bit down on them to try to control the trembling. He hated how her eyes filled with tears and she kept blinking in the hopes of keeping them in check. He hated hurting her…
God—if there was one—forgive him for what he was about to do, even though he was only doing it to protect her from public humiliation. “I enjoyed tonight,” he said slowly. “More than I expected.”
“Wh-at?” she asked, drawing the word out. “Are you saying you have feelings for Grace?”
“I don’t know.”
Her mouth opened, and a strangled sound came out.
“It’s probably nothing,” he added quickly, because the last thing he wanted to do was come between the siblings, but this was the only thing he could think of that would ensure distance. “I just realized that I shouldn’t be sleeping with you if I’m having”—he paused to psych himself up to utter such complete blasphemy—“feelings for your sister.”
“I see,” she whispered softly. When she finally raised her head, there were damp streaks on her cheeks. The sight of her tears was a lance to his heart, and Cal almost caved right then, confessing to the ridiculous lie, pulling her into his arms and admitting that he was only saying all this shit to save her from public disgrace.
“Becca, I’m sorry.” It was his first genuine statement of the night. His hands fidgeted with wanting to touch her. With wanting to soothe away the pain of his words, but he forced his hands behind his back where he clasped them together in what he hoped made him appear aloof and arrogant.
Even uncaring.
All preferable to leaked images of her naked body all over the internet.
Her head bobbed, and her lips moved silently as she came to terms with what was happening. What thoughts were passing through her mind? Probably something along the lines of:
I knew all along he was an ass.
How could I have trusted him?
Of course he would choose Grace over me.
Men suck. That is all.
“Becca…” Cal made a move toward her. He didn’t want those to be the last thoughts she had about him.
But she saved him from making another mistake by backing up to the patio door, whipping the curtain back, and escaping outside without so much as a good-bye.