How To Lose A Bachelor (7 page)

He groaned into her lips, grinding himself against her bikini bottoms. “My God,” he breathed against her mouth.

And that was when she stopped it. She had won. But in a way, he had won, too. She’d promised herself that Grant would never get to kiss her like that anymore. He didn’t get to kiss her like this ever again. Yet there she was, attached to him like Velcro to carpet, drawing memories and feelings and pain to the surface. Not to mention something else she never expected, never dreamed she would feel again for him.

Desire.

Abruptly, she shoved him away, so hard that he stumbled a bit before catching his footing. For several long moments, she struggled to catch her breath, taking small satisfaction in the fact that he was doing the same. The roar of their small festival audience had heightened to a deafening clamor. In her panic, she’d almost forgotten about them. About the crew. About America.

Omigod
.

Mortification settled over her as she looked at the camera, which was still focused directly on her face. Heat burned her swollen lips and seared her cheeks and seemed to spread like lava down her body. “Cut!” she screamed. “Cut!”

Chris Legend wriggled his way to the front of the crew. “That’s a wrap,” he said, visibly amused.

“That is
not
going on air,” Rochelle informed him.

“Oh, yes, it is,” Chris said. “It’s the juiciest footage we’ve gotten all day.”

She lunged then, but Grant caught her before she was able to get her hands around Chris’s neck. Still, the show host looked a bit pale. Good—it was smart for him to acknowledge the very real danger he was almost in.

“We both agreed to this,” Grant whispered in her ear, holding her in an impenetrable bear hug.
Since when did he get so strong?
“We both agreed that we’d play this game.”

“We don’t have to play this game,” she hissed. Slowly, he let her slide down the length of him. “You could just vote me off.”

He laughed, a loud, cruel sound that startled the people around him. “Not in a million years.”

Chapter Ten

T
onight’s Friendship Ceremony would be easy for Grant. There would be no more back and forth about whether or not he should let Rochelle off the hook, whether or not he should hand her the bouquet of sweet peas and let her be on her conniving way.

The kiss this afternoon at the festival changed everything.

He would never let her go again. Not ever.

Even though she showed up to tonight’s ceremony wearing hideous flannel pajamas and wet hair. Even though she gave him the death glare during his monologue for the sake of building tension on camera. Even though she faked a coughing attack in the middle of the take in a blatant attempt to be excused.

They still had something. There was still something that happened when their lips touched. Nothing as cheesy as a jolt or a spark. No, it was deeper than that, always had been. It was a craving, long-denied. An insatiable yearning, a hole that could never be filled no matter how long he was in possession of her mouth. Or everything else.

Tonight Grant was in no mood to string along his other victims. One by one, he pulled forward each contestant and told them plainly what they did or didn’t do to please him that day. No pausing, no breaking, no hesitation, though most of it was commendation, anyway—even for Rochelle, whose kissing booth had managed to get under his skin better than any ambitious tick ever could. Watching her kiss other men… His jaw still hurt from clenching it so hard.

It was something he never wanted to see again.

At least tonight’s choice was an easy one. Of all the contestants and their innovative ways to make money for the charity, one stood out like a rock among diamonds. “Grace, please step forward,” he said amiably. This would be easy for him. The only hard part would be fixing his expression to show something other than disgust.

It was probably the first time the heiress had ever done what she was asked without question. Since the beginning, she’d refused to allow the studio’s makeup artists to touch her, insisting on bringing in her own staff. She’d insisted on boarding the skydiving plane first. She’d turned down every selection of wine her server offered her at dinner, declaring it all inferior. Even the crew had taken to calling her Your Grace.

Smiling, Grant accepted her hand and placed a small kiss on it, which pleased her immensely, he could tell.

“Grace, your monetary donation today was very generous and greatly appreciated. It couldn’t have gone to a better cause. But…” He paused for the camera, but mostly to keep Grace herself in suspense, rubbing her white-gloved hand with his thumb. “I like a woman who’s not afraid to work. Who’s willing to get dirty for a good cause. I have my wealth now, but what if I lose it all one day? What if you do? Would you be willing to work to put food on the table? Gas in the car? Keep the lights on? I know I would be willing to, and I expect the same from any woman I marry. Today, I saw that you aren’t a team player.” He walked to the pedestal and extracted the bouquet of sweet peas from it, fighting the urge to grin. “I’m afraid to say, I’d rather be friends than anything else.”

“Wait,” Grace said, stricken. “You’re voting
me
off? Are you stupid? Look at this riffraff behind me! And it’s
me
you’re sending home?” She turned to Chris. “
Do
something.”

One of the cameras followed the host as he walked onto the veranda where Grace and Grant stand. “I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do,” he said. “It’s up to Grant to decide who stays and who goes. My condolences.”

Chris was eating this up, Grant could tell. It was just the kind of outburst the show needed. Richie would practically drool when he saw this clip. It was amusing, after all, to see someone as poised as Your Grace looking as harassed as an agitated cat.

“You can keep your condolences,” Grace spat. She turned to Grant. “You’re nothing. What, I’m supposed to be
impressed
by your big biceps and dimples and the fact that you’ve built your own fortune? You built your fortune off of people like me. If people like me didn’t need professional protection, people like you would be out of a job!”

Grant nodded. “You’re right. If you people weren’t so helpless, I’d be out on the street. Chris, remind me to send her a thank you card?”

Chris’s eyes went wide. “Uh, will do, Grant.”

This elicited chuckles from the crew behind him. Grace’s nostrils flared. She snatched the bouquet from his hands and threw it to the ground, stomping on it as best she could in those daredevil stilettos of hers.

“That’s not very nice,” Grant observed.

“No,” Chris said, thawing in time to enjoy the moment. “Not at all.”

“Screw you both! Screw this show!” Grace stormed off like a frilly tornado of black tulle.

G
rant could hear Colby shuffling papers on the other end of the phone. That was Colby, a diligent, multi-tasking fool. Grant knew he was lucky to have someone as trustworthy as him as his business partner. They’d met in college when he had been tutoring Colby in biology; Colby had been on scholarship for an accounting degree, and Grant was volunteering for his fraternity house. They’d hit it off immediately and had remained friends ever since.

“We’ve got a Mr. Ely Jameson practically banging down our door for you to train him in abduction prevention,” Colby was saying. “Apparently he just won the Connecticut lottery and only now realized that the people he called friends, aren’t.”

He could tell his friend was only half-listening to him recount the events of the Friendship Ceremony. If he was going to snap his friend out of work mode, he had to do something drastic. He needed someone to talk to. He hoped being around all these women wasn’t making him soft. “I kissed Rochelle,” he blurted.

The paper shuffling stopped. Colby sucked in a breath. “What?”

Grant nodded into the phone, knowing the action was lost on his friend. “Rochelle opened a kissing booth for the charity fundraiser. So, I decided to help her out and—”

“Did she kiss you back?”

What kind of questions was that? “Of course she did.”

Nothing. It was a rare thing for his business partner to be shocked into silence. “Well. That’s…interesting.”

Interesting? That’s all he had to say? “I’m going after her. I want her back.”

“And how does she feel about that?”

“She’s elated. She doesn’t just realize it yet.”

More silence. It was the first time he’d ever considered Colby a useless confidante. “What’s with you?” he said. “You thought
Luring Love
was a great idea when Chris pitched it to us. Now that I’m actually giving it a fair shot, you’re about as excited as roadkill.”

“Man, I’m sorry. It’s just that…Well, is this what you really want? She destroyed you last time.” Grant thought he could hear the clicking sound of a calculator.

“I took matters into my own hands. And anyway, she acted like she was destroyed, too, if keying my car was any indication.” Of course she’d keyed his car. He’d callously broken up with her out of nowhere. She was destroyed. But he could change things now. Make them better. He knew it.

A long pause on the other end let Grant know he wasn’t getting any help from Colby today. Maybe the guy just needed time for the shock to wear off. Then he’d be Grant’s willing accomplice again. He always was. “I’ll have to call you back. Richie will send someone looking for me if I don’t show, and I can’t risk getting busted on the phone.”

“Okay. Keep me posted.”

G
rant opened the door to Richie’s office and strolled in with a wary smile. Richie was waiting for him, sitting on the edge of his huge desk, a sheet of paper in his hands.

“You asked to see me, Richie?” Grant said.

The older man nodded. “Have a seat, Grant. Can I get you anything? Whiskey? Port? They stock this place with some amazing stuff.”

“Are we celebrating?”

Richie grinned. It was an ugly grin. “I just got the ratings for the first episode.” He shook the paper in his hand triumphantly. “Highest ratings since we’ve aired. In a word? Marvelous.” He hopped down and walked around to sit in his high-backed chair. “You should hear what the target audience is saying about Rochelle. They cannot believe you didn’t vote her off after the dinner stunt. And then the maze? Fans of the show are practically rioting!”

“Is rioting good?” Grant said. The actual filming of the show was ahead by a few weeks, so the first episode just aired last night. Grant didn’t care to watch it. Living it was enough.

“Rioting is fantastic. Someone even started a blog called
Bachelor and the Beast
in order to get Rochelle voted off. They’re reaching out to you, Grant. They want to help you. They’re connecting with you in a way that’s never happened before.” When Grant said nothing, Richie gave him a thoughtful look. “How are things with Rochelle, anyway?”

“With Chelle, it’s hard to say.”

Richie gleefully slapped the desk. “Chris showed me the footage of the kissing booth. That was hot stuff! She really opened that door for you, didn’t she?”

And for about a hundred other men, which still had him clenching his fists. But none of them received even a fraction of their money’s worth. Not like he did.

“Chris said you paid her five hundred dollars. Was it worth it?”

Was making sure she won the booth competition—and therefore a one-on-one date with him—worth five hundred dollars? Of course it was. “She’s always been a good kisser.”

“I’ll bet.”

“So you called me here to tell me about the ratings?” Grant asked, bored already. Besides, he still had to go oversee the gym setup for the next group date. He was going to be teaching the contestants self-defense. He was hoping it would send a message to Rochelle. After all, she was the reason he’d started teaching self-defense in the first place. She and her mother had had a hard life living with Roy Ransom. If they had known self-defense, maybe they wouldn’t have been his favorite targets.

“No, no. That’s a bonus. Actually, I wanted to let you know that Rochelle came to me earlier today. Said she’s not sure she can do this. She seemed really upset.”

“Upset?”

“Upset in a good way.”

Grant couldn’t imagine a good kind of upset.

Richie shook his head. “Don’t you see? Before, she was virtually an ice queen. You’re defrosting her, Grant. She’s coming around. I saw that kiss. Maybe you two are compatible after all?”

He wasn’t sure if Richie really did see something in the kiss or if he was BS-ing. But what Grant
felt
during the kiss was very convincing. Rochelle was definitely coming around, even if it was against her will. There was a moment, a few sweet seconds, where she was Chelle again, and she was kissing him just as much as he was her. In fact, she’d tried to take over, and he’d allowed it, to his detriment, no less. It had left him with an appetite for her that kept him awake all night. “How did you talk her into staying this time?”

Richie winked. “Now Grant, that’s an invasion of Rochelle’s privacy, don’t you think? How would you like it if I told her everything you and I talked about?”

“Point taken.”

“So what’s your strategy now?”

“Rochelle is too unpredictable for a strategy. The only thing I can do is plan for the unexpected.”

“Good luck, my friend. And keep up the excellent work.”

Chapter Eleven

R
ochelle couldn’t help but feel that she was in an endless beauty pageant where all the contestants were lined up on stage for inspection for days on end, expected to present themselves with an unwavering smile and sucked-in gut. Today, that stage was the gym of the mansion. All the treadmills, weights, and ellipticals had been removed, giving them a full view of themselves at every angle since the walls were floor-to-ceiling mirrors.

They were told to wear workout attire for today’s group date, and Rochelle was more than happy to don her noxious anti-Grant team sweatshirt again, even though it meant technically complying with the show’s expectations—something she’d grown too comfortable with doing, lately. She had to step up her game if she was going to get Grant to kick her off.

At this point though, she was unsure as to whether Richie wanted her to comply with the rules or not. He seemed excessively amused by the fact that she kept undermining the episodes in one way or the other—and she couldn’t decide if she wanted the producer excessively amused or excessively irritated. All she really wanted was to be voted off the show. Especially after that kiss with Grant a few days ago.

Oh, the emotions it brought back. Feelings she’d long since packed down, poured concrete over, chained, and left to die in the deepest chambers of her heart. How could one kiss unearth the many feelings she’d worked so hard to entomb?

That can never happen again.

She was already planning her one-on-one date with Grant that she’d earned by having the highest-earning booth. She’d been irate to find that he’d paid not
five
dollars for the kiss, but
five hundred dollars
. That one kiss had brought in more money than any of the other booths had made all day. He’d basically rigged the competition with that stunt, just to get under her skin. Why else would he want a one-on-one date with her? Still, it was five hundred dollars toward helping battered women. Wasn’t it worth the gaping crack in the armor she’d put on for this contest? Couldn’t she pull herself together for that reason alone?

Of course she could.

Rochelle glanced around her now, using the mirrors to spy on the contestants not close to her in line. Maya was decently attired in an athletic T-shirt that somewhat hugged her, and plain black yoga pants. She couldn’t hide her rock solid body even if she borrowed Rochelle’s raunchy sweatshirt. Everyone else seemed to have taken the prompt to mean “wear the least possible while working out” or “if we can tell you’re not wearing panties, you’re doing it right” or “nothing is better than something”.

They had yet to see Grant, but Chris Legend informed them that he was in the building and likely in makeup. Rochelle wondered how well he was adjusting to some good old-fashioned makeup. She hadn’t detected anything ridiculous on him like eyeliner or lip gloss, but she could tell his complexion had a touch up, and there was no way he’d voluntarily stay clean shaven for this many straight days in a row. Not the old Grant, anyway.

Rochelle wondered why they had to keep waiting for Grant to arrive from his secret location anyway. Why couldn’t he just stay in the mansion? Why did they bother separating the sultan from his harem?

The reasons weren’t entirely obvious to Rochelle, especially if Richie wanted ratings. As the “season” progressed, Grant would eventually be permitted to stay the night with the contestants of his choice in the Paradise Suite—so why hold off the inevitable? It would have been way more convenient if they sped that particular segment along. Surely some of these girls had talents that would better sway Grant to vote Rochelle and her unworldly knowledge right off the show.

Because she sure as heck wasn’t staying with him in the Paradise Suite.

Grant materialized at the door then as if she’d thought him into existence, and Rochelle found herself relieved to tuck away the insanity that the thought of spending a night in “paradise” with Grant could cause her. She also wondered if the Paradise Suite at least had a kitchenette, where knives would be readily available.

Confidently, Grant strode to the center of the room, giving the cameras time to focus on his face as he smiled and the contestants time to eat up his masculine gait. He was rather good at this whole reality show thing, Rochelle realized. But then again, what
wasn’t
Grant good at?

Well, tact isn’t his specialty.

“Ladies, how are you this morning?” Grant’s generic little icebreaker was effective. Rigid stances melted into puddle-like, flirtatious statures and mindless fidgeting down the line. When his gaze met Rochelle’s it had a deviousness to it that bothered her. Or rather, got her hot and bothered. Obviously satisfied with this result, he folded his hands in front of him and addressed all of them. “A few days ago, we participated in a festival, the proceeds of which went to care for victims of domestic abuse. I hope that gives you at least a small glance into my character and my beliefs. Today, I want to show you even more.”

He walked down the line then, as if he was an officer addressing a row of soldiers. “The festival had its purpose; there will always be victims of domestic violence. There will always be someone who needs our help. But today I want to concentrate on prevention. As you all know, I’m a tactical training consultant. Which means, among other things, I teach people how to defend themselves. For today’s group date, I will show you, one-on-one, how to defend yourself during an attack.”

Excitement bubbled forth from the line while Rochelle choked back an emotion she couldn’t quite name. Her mother had been the victim of her father’s abuse for their whole marriage. It was one thing Rochelle could not, and never had been able to, tolerate. That Grant was so interested in being an advocate for such a cause… Did it have something to do with her, with her past? Or was he mocking her?

Back when they were still together, he’d known how important it was to her that abused women had a voice. He understood what she went through as a child. In college, he’d helped her pass out flyers to raise awareness, to get his frat brothers to hold fundraisers for domestic abuse shelters. And the warmth and strength of his embrace had always been there when Rochelle herself broke down on occasion. When
she
needed to cry about the injustice of it all. He had been there for all of it.

First the festival, and now this. Was he
trying
to revive horrible memories of her childhood? Or was he
trying
to stroke her nerves like some sort of stringed instrument, reminding her of everything she’d lost when she walked out of his life forever? His love, his compassion, his warmth. Did he still care about those things? Did he still care about
her
?

No, she had to stop that line of thinking. She reminded herself that she didn’t lose everything. Because she’d never had it. None of it had been real. If any of it had been real, he wouldn’t have broken up with her and definitely not as callously as he did. She had been prepared to move in with him, to ask him to come with her. To take the next step in life with her.

But he pummeled it all with his words.
I don’t think we’re working out. I’ve grown bored with you, in fact. So I guess this whole law school thing worked out for the best.
He’d been so cold, so indifferent, even when congratulating her.

Rochelle swallowed bile back down into her churning gut. She couldn’t let him do this to her. Not again. She had to get out of here.

“Who would like to go first?” Grant was saying. Of course, everyone save Rochelle raised their hand, even Maya. Rochelle couldn’t help but feel a small betrayal that Maya was showing genuine interest in Grant.
Of course she is, stupid. That’s the reason she came on this show. Not everyone ditches their life and lucrative career to participate on a deplorable show to champion a sinking cause.

Some people were actually looking for love.

Oh, Maya. Don’t try to win this. Don’t try to win him. You deserve so much better.

An overwhelming sense of disgust engulfed her. This was just a chance for him to put his hands all over these willing, enchanted nitwits under the guise of a good cause—
her
good cause. It was though he was slapping her in the face. She knew the drill. She’d taken many a self-defense class herself. Even taught one at Helping Hands. The intimacy between trainer and trainee could be invasive, if done unprofessionally. And this? This had all the makings of a petting zoo. Grant would probably grope each and every one of them in the name of teaching self-defense.

He’s not going to turn something I care about into a joke
.

“I’ll go first,” Rochelle said, stepping forward so she was the most visible in line. Why Grant looked so surprised she couldn’t possibly have guessed. He’d been the perfect sidekick in college. The perfect helper. He, of all people, would know how she felt about this group date. Of
course
she would be interested in self-defense. Of
course
she would be interested in helping to prevent the abuse of victims. Statistically, they both knew that at least two of the women here could already have been victims themselves. Or had he forgotten even the most basic parts of their relationship? Had she really been so blind to his insensitivity? Apparently so. He’d taken something she had been passionate about and exploited it for a living, after all.

“Rochelle, you can be my first student,” Grant said. She wanted to strangle him for looking so pleased.

Careful to arrange her expression into one of curiosity and uncertainty, she approached him slowly. “Is this going to hurt?” she asked good-naturedly. Of course it was going to hurt. It just wasn’t going to hurt
her
.

His smile wavered. “I would never hurt you.”

The flame of temper licked her insides.
I would never hurt you
. Words they both knew were not true.

She stood in front him, and they exchanged a look. His was quizzical, she decided.
Why the sudden cooperation
? he asked with his eyes.

Because of this
, she answered with a small smile.

And she promptly kneed him in the groin as hard as she could.