Chapter Eleven
Stay over tonight.
That phrase had been playing over and over in her mind all morning as Becca pointed her gaze at the volleyball tournament while a whole other scenario played out in her mind. The evening with Calum. Him dominating her. Her taking control and teasing him until he got so turned-on, he was almost angry in his desire.
She squeezed her thighs together to quell her aching bits. Was there a female equivalent to blue balls? Because she felt as if she’d had a girlie hard-on for seventy-eight hours or however long it’d been since she’d first met Calum Price.
Oh, and there he was. No longer watching on the sidelines, wearing only beach shorts and sunglasses, the man was now playing volleyball himself. He and one other player against the winning female team of three, Cindy something-or-other was the contestant on that team.
“He is something else, isn’t he?” Grace plopped herself down beside Becca. “Look at all those muscles. He’s a good volleyball player, too.”
Grinding her teeth, Becca was capable of only making a few deep-throated sounds of agreement. After she managed to get the mixture of guilt, desire, and whatever other random emotion she was feeling under control, Becca reached for her sister’s arm and wiped off the sand still stuck there from her own volleyball game.
“You looked good out there,” Becca said.
“Did I?”
“Yes. You played well, and finishing third out of six teams is nothing to sneeze at.”
“Thanks.” Grace smiled. “Every point counts in this competition.”
“You’re going to be fine. I have a good feeling about everything,” Becca said, though her feelings were anything but good.
A half hour later, the match ended and Grace went to rejoin the other contestants on the beach court with Cal.
“La-dies! How are you doing?” Kevyn appeared looking fresh compared to everyone else.
When the response wasn’t as enthusiastic as he wanted—it never was—he shouted, “I said, how are you doing?”
It took all of Becca’s self-control not to get up and grab the stupid headset off his head and smack him. But of course, she could never do that. Instead, she pulled her hat lower on her head and adjusted her sunglasses so that on the off chance Kevyn looked her way, it was even more unlikely that he would recognize her.
“Viewer polls are in, and we have all of our scores tallied and up-to-date.” Indicating the huge portable digital screen set up by the courts. “As you know, the six ladies before you will remain until the end of the week. Every day we will tally their scores, which are a combination of points for winning a challenge, points for the number of viewer votes received, and of course, points that are bestowed by our man of the week, Calum Price.”
Cheers.
“So, let’s see where we’re at.” He turned to face the huge screen, and numbers for the different categories spun like a gameshow wheel until eventually scores were provided for each contestant in each category, and the names were then rearranged from first place to sixth place.
Grace was currently third.
“Look at that! Cindy is on top at the moment.” Kevyn strode up to the woman in question. “Tell me, Cindy, do you like being on top?”
“I love it!” She pumped her fist in the air to the delight of the crowd.
“Oh, the mental picture you create is killing me,” Kevyn bantered. Then he turned to the other contestants. “So, in addition to the scores, our viewer poll has been completed, and we have our next contest.” Kevyn waved to an assistant standing beside a huge Island Mobile poster, who rushed over with a box, which he gave to Kevyn.
“Do you want to hear what the next challenge is?”
More cheers, and even Becca stood to get a better view of what was going on.
From the box, Kevyn handed each lady a smart phone. “There is only one number programmed into these phones—all provided by our sponsor, Island Mobile—and that number is for a phone that belongs to this man, here.” Kevyn indicated Cal. “You may not all be volleyball players, but I’m willing to bet you are all experts in this activity.” With a huge, cheesy grin, he took a selfie of himself and Cal before passing the phone to the other man.
“That’s right, folks. Tonight, Island Mobile is sponsoring the Seven Selfie Challenge! Submit seven of your best selfies to Cal’s number by seven o’clock tonight, and make sure they’re good, because you’re receiving points from viewers and from Cal.”
Cheers rang through the crowd.
“Keep in mind that this is being broadcast live, so keep it sexy but keep it clean. No nips, no vajayjays.”
Laughter from the crowd drowned out Becca’s groan.
“Bring your A game, ladies. Only seven selfies, so make them your best! The challenge begins…” He raised his hand and brought it down in a dramatic sweep. “Now!”
When Becca caught up with Grace, her sister had already snapped more than a dozen pictures of herself, where she was currently reclining in a lounge chair, taking shots with her head turned different angles.
“Grace.”
Snap. Shift. Snap.
Hair flip. Snap.
“Grace,” Becca said, waving her hand in front of the phone.
“Oh. Hi, Bec.” Kicking her legs off the lounger, she stood up. “Finally. A challenge I’m good at.”
“Look around you.” Becca indicated the other contestants with a sweep of her hand. They were all doing the same thing, taking shots on beach towels, kneeling in the sand, some wet, some dry, all basically recreating Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue shots.
The magazine was killing it with this contest.
“What have you learned so far about Calum?”
“Um…” Grace gnawed her lip in thought. “He likes volleyball?”
“Yes. What else?”
Grace blinked and regarded Becca thoughtfully. “He likes you.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“Yeah, I think he does.” Without warning, Grace pointed and took a photo of Becca, covered in sand, her hat clutched against her thigh. Grace showed her the picture.
“Delete that.”
“No.” Grace took another shot. When Becca tried to grab the phone from her hand, she backed away, laughing, taking more pictures.
“Stop!”
Grace only laughed more, depressing the button, taking continual pictures until Becca was laughing and out of breath, too. They collapsed on a stool by the beach bar, and Grace showed her the images. There were more than thirty pictures showing Becca’s wide range of emotions from annoyance, to irritation, to frustration until she gave in and laughed.
“This one is really good,” Grace said, pointing to a picture of Becca laughing with her mouth open.
“If you think wide-mouthed frogs are attractive.”
“Why do you do that?” Grace asked, tilting her head to one side.
“Do what?”
“Put yourself down.”
“Grace, we all know that you’re the beauty in the family.”
“You’re pretty, too. And you’re pretty in this picture.” She brushed a bit of hair off Becca’s forehead as she scrutinized her face, making Becca uncomfortable. “You’re just you. Maybe that’s why Cal likes you,” Grace said absently as she went back to scrolling through the pics.
A hot lance pierced Becca’s gut. “Cal doesn’t like me.”
“Well, he sure seems to like talking to you. I saw you two together while I was waiting at the tables after mud wrestling. Then again today, before volleyball.” Grace tapped the side of her head. “You think I don’t notice things, but I do.”
Maybe it was time to admit to Grace what she’d done with Cal. Maybe Grace would understand. “Look, there’s something—”
“Excuse me, are you Grace and Rebecca Evans?” A tall, attractive man with salt-and-pepper hair approached from the pathway.
“I’m Grace. This is Becca.”
“Oh, forgive me.” He smiled, mostly at Grace, which was not new for Becca. Grace attracted men of all ages, and when Becca was in her sister’s presence, she became nothing more than a backdrop.
Yep. This was her life.
Except…Cal noticed her. The one man who shouldn’t.
With a sigh, she focused on the man who had interrupted them.
“I’m Jeffrey Reid. I own the resort.”
“You sent the strawberries and the card?” Grace touched the man’s forearm.
The man put a hand to his chest. “Yes.” He only had eyes for Grace. As usual. “I have to confess, I’ve been following your career. You have that ‘it’ factor.”
Jesus.
Grace beamed, and in true, trusting fashion, she wrapped her arms around the man and gave him a hug. “Thank you. That’s so very kind of you to say.”
The guy had to be twenty years her senior, and yet she had him tongue-tied. “I’m glad.”
Oh good lord.
Becca inserted herself between Grace and the hotelier. “Very nice to meet you, Mr. Reid, but we should get back to the room and change. Right?” She elbowed her sister.
“Oh. Yeah. We should.” Grace extended her hand and said, “It’s lovely to meet you, Mr. Reid.”
“It was my pleasure, trust me,” he said, gazing longingly at Grace.
After Jeffrey left, Becca whispered harshly, “And now you’ve got a geriatric admirer, dare I say, stalker. Grace, you have to be more careful.”
“Who, him?” Grace glanced back the way they’d come. “He’s sweet. Anyway, like you always say, it’s good to keep my options open. You know. In case I don’t win the pageant.”
“Oh. You’re going to win.”
Grace stopped walking. “But, what if I don’t want to win?”
“Why wouldn’t you want to win?”
Her forehead crinkled and then became smooth again, and Grace resumed walking. “I don’t know, maybe I’m not cut out for how mean-spirited life in the limelight can be.”
“Hey,” Becca said, linking her arm through Grace’s. “You’ve dreamed of becoming famous ever since you were a little girl. Don’t give up now, when you’re so close. Anyway, you’ve already proven that being mean isn’t the only way to get ahead.”
“But what about what we’re doing?” She stopped, looked around, and lowered her voice to a whisper. “We’re cheating to win.”
That was true, and up until this point, Becca had never given it more than a passing thought. “Or…we’re simply using all the tools in our toolbox. You know you want this.”
“I know.”
“I want this for you, too. There’s nothing I want more than for your dreams to be realized.”
An image of Grace and Calum picnicking beneath the Eiffel Tower flashed through her brain. Shit! A cool clamminess engulfed her.
She straightened her back and said, “Come on. Get your head in the game, and let’s go work on those selfies.”
…
After a quiet dinner in his villa, Cal had been called into the hotel ballroom, which was production headquarters, where the team was sifting through the selfies posted by the remaining six women.
“What do you think, Cal?” Jeannette, the assistant director, asked when she caught sight of him.
“Was there any clear winner or loser based on viewer ratings?”
“Grace Evans was the favorite, but there were no clear losers.”
“Can I take a look at the pictures again?”
“Of course,” Eddie said, waving him toward a computer station.
While Cal had viewed the images as they’d come through on his cell phone, he wanted to put them up on a larger screen to view again. Sitting down at a station, Cal located a folder from the selfie challenge on the desktop. Inside that folder were individual ones with each contestant’s name. He clicked through each and found that it wasn’t just the seven images they’d submitted but all the other images that had been taken by the phone.
Hesitantly, he clicked on Grace’s folder. Her images were by far the best, all selfie recreations of iconic images. Marilyn Monroe with a black one-piece suit and a red-and-white striped umbrella. Elizabeth Taylor on the beach, Farah Fawcett in her red swimsuit.
“She must have brought wigs,” Jeannette said.
“Smart girl,” Eddie added.
Cal clicked on another folder titled others.
But it wasn’t Grace’s picture that Calum was looking at right now. Speaking of smart girls…
It was Becca.
Grace had taken a whole series of pictures of her.
“Who’s that?” Eddie asked, looking at the computer screen over Cal’s shoulder.
Strange. Gazing at her picture, he could not see one ordinary thing about her. Her eyes sparkled, her skin glowed, and her laugh was full of life and so infectious that he found himself smiling in return. “This is Grace’s sister, Becca.”
“No kidding,” Eddie said slowly. “I never would have guessed. The two look nothing alike.” Eddie made a contemplative sound at the back of his throat. The man’s comment felt like a sucker punch. Why?
Cal closed the folder, stood, and stretched his back, feigning indifference. But by the way Eddie eyed him through narrowed lids, he could tell that the man was assessing him.
Time for a distraction.
“Why don’t we keep the ratings for this competition live all night? That way we keep interest high until the challenges tomorrow, and I’ll give my top picks tomorrow morning, as well.”
“Good idea,” Eddie said, nodding to Jeannette in a “get ’er done” sort of way.
“Speaking of which, what’s on the agenda for tomorrow?” Cal asked.
Referring to her tablet, Jeannette said, “Surfing and Sexting are the top pics, so we’ll go with those. The next day is oyster sucking and a sexy talent contest.”
Somehow, miraculously, Cal managed to keep himself from rolling his eyes.
When Cal got back to his villa, Becca was waiting for him, sitting on the lip of his plunge pool, her feet dangling inside.
“This is a nice surprise.” Kicking off his shoes, he sat beside her and draped his own feet in the cool water. “That feels nice.” He nudged her with his shoulder before wrapping his arm around her.
Her expression was serious when she turned her face up to his. “I’ll make you a deal,” she said.
“Okay…”
“I’ll sleep over. I’ll be your sex slave, submissive, sometimes even have my way with you…” She paused, her lips quirking up at the corners, reminding Cal of some of the pictures he’d just viewed of her. Her playfulness hidden behind a serious facade.
“If…” Cal queried.
“If you choose Grace as the winner.”
“Hmm…” Cal tapped his lips, pretending to be deep in thought. Meanwhile his other hand slid from her shoulder, down her back, and around her hip to her thigh, where he single-handedly bunched the soft cotton of her skirts so that he could slip his hand beneath.
“Cal.” She panted with mock indignation. She covered his hand. “I can’t think when you do that, and I need to hear your answer first before…”
“Before I tease you?” His hand slid higher, despite her trying to stop him (with very little conviction). “Before I torture you?”
“Yes,” she panted, more of a plea then an agreement.
Just as his fingers slipped beneath the elastic of her panties, he whispered, “Deal. Now take your clothes off and get in this pool. I need you. Right fucking now.”