Ineligible Bachelor (12 page)

“If you don’t agree with Freddy’s choice, you can override the pick and save her.”

The ladies clapped in delight.

“But,” the host continued, “you only have one save and none when we get down to the final two. Plus, if you do use your save, Logan, Freddy will have to pick another lady to send home.”

Groans of protest rose again. Freddy didn’t like it much either. If he saved the poet, who should go?

She had no time to think about it. The show’s host took her elbow and steered her toward the table with the flag. He showed her to her spot and turned to face the ladies.

“It’s time for Freddy to tell us who is going home and who is going on a one-on-one date with our eligible bachelor.” Then he turned to the camera across the room. “And she’ll do that right after the break.”

“And cut,” Roberto shouted. “Three minutes, people.” The key grip holding the boom mike relaxed, and the key light dimmed.

The makeup crew draped some cloth across Logan’s shoulders and began dabbing at his face with sponges. “You look nice,” he said as Freddy approached him.

“So do you,” she replied, with her hairstylist coaxing a curl back into place and securing it with spray.

“Who’s going home?” he whispered.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Actually, I would.”

Freddy wrinkled her nose at him. “You have a save.” She jabbed him in the chest with her forefinger. “I bet that was your idea.”

He held up both hands in a defensive gesture. “I found out about it the same time you did. Honest.”

“I don’t believe you,” Freddy countered.

“I swear. I didn’t know.”

“Prove it.”

“How?”

Freddy was about to respond when Roberto appeared and buzzed around them. “Places everyone. We’re live in thirty seconds.” He turned to Freddy. “When the host asks ask you who is going home, don’t answer. The camera will pan the contestants for a few seconds for drama. When the camera comes back to you, tell us who will be going home.” Roberto pulled her back to her spot.

The show host returned and took his place on the X taped to the floor between Freddy and Logan. One makeup artist pulled the towel from Logan’s shoulders, while another scooped up the makeup-filled train case. In another second, the production crew vanished into the background. The boom mike lowered, and the key light snapped back on.

“Ten-second tape recap first and then we’re live.” Roberto finished with hand signals before backing away.

“Welcome back to
Eligible Bachelor
.” The show host smiled at the bachelorettes. “The first elimination challenge tested your
athleticism on the paintball field. The goal was to capture the flag given to Freddy and Logan. The task seemed simple enough—six against two. So which bachelorette got the flag and the automatic date?” He motioned to a large flat-screen TV set across the room that served as a monitor. “Let’s take a look.”

Freddy’s shoulders dropped. She was so screwed.

Everyone turned back to the show host when the video finished. He looked at Freddy. “Quite an interesting game you played.”

Freddy tossed her head. “I went with my gut feeling.”

“And that gut feeling was to mark everyone, including our bachelor.”

She shrugged. “I got caught up in the moment.”

The host gestured back to the screen. “Including this one.”

Freddy’s heart hammered, and she watched in stunned silence as the scene of her and Logan inside the bunker earlier in the day played out like a soap opera plot. Though the camera crew had been nowhere in sight, or at least that’s what she thought, tape rolled on her time with Logan in the bunker.

Just as she suspected, the conversation was highly edited. Coupled with some creative camera shots from outside the bunker at just the right moment, the effect came out very interesting. No, she decided, “incriminating” described it better. She and Logan had been portrayed as very close that afternoon.

Fortunately, not as close as they had almost gotten thanks to Jade and her bouncing paintball. That alone would probably save her.

But Freddy would bet the proverbial ranch that her future held a very stern lecture from Roberto.

“So, Freddy, can you tell us what happened inside that bunker?” she heard the host ask.

She turned toward his voice and pasted on a smile as she saw the camera shot zoom in on her face in the monitor off to the right.
“Actually, nothing happened. Logan and I have been friends for a long time. What you saw was just us collaborating on a course of action.”

“It would be interesting to find out what our viewers think.” The camera homed in on the host’s face. “You can post your thoughts on Facebook and Twitter or you can text your comments to the number on the bottom of the screen. Next week we’ll reveal the results of what our viewing audience has to say. We’ll choose the best scenario from those posted and send that lucky viewer to a night on the town in exciting New York City.”

Freddy let her expression drop and quickly adjusted it. A prize for tweeting? She guessed it would be worth a whole lot of people’s time to post their version of what may have happened in the bunker. She had to admit it, Roberto was making the best of what she handed him. One point for him.

“Any more thoughts on what we saw?” she heard the host ask.

She held out her hands. “What else can I say? We were in an enclosed area, hiding, and trying not to get marked.” She glanced over at Logan, who just raised his eyebrows on response. She hoped the camera didn’t pick it up.

“In any case,” she heard the host continue, “it is time to make one bachelorette very happy when you choose her for the date for Logan and one very unhappy when you send her home.”

Groans filled the air, making Freddy feel suddenly guilty. She opened her mouth to comment, but Roberto—out of camera range—made sure he caught her eye and raised the clipboard with his left hand and waggled it for emphasis.

She vowed to burn that clipboard the first chance she got. Maybe with Roberto still attached.

The host picked the flag up from the table and held it out to Freddy. “First you choose Logan’s date, then we’ll get to the process of sending one of our lovely bachelorettes home.”

She took it hoping the camera didn’t show how much her hand shook. She still had no idea who would be getting it.

She saw the cameraman with the handheld camera take a step closer to Logan. Logan’s handsome face filled the TV monitor just as the host spoke.

“Logan, would you like to say something to our bachelorettes before we begin?”

He stepped forward, hands clasped. “It’s been an interesting few days.” He cut his gaze to Freddy before quickly returning it to the contestants. “I find this an impossible situation. Six lovely ladies and one has to go home. In the short time together here, I think I got to know all of you a little better, but I would have liked to have had more time with each of you.” The camera shot moved across each of the ladies’ faces, settling on Stacy, whose eyes appeared to be welling up. Logan took a handkerchief from an inside suit pocket and handed it to her.

Stacy dabbed her cheeks. “I’m going to keep this in case I’m the one sent home.”

“Remember, our bachelor has a save,” the host reminded.

Logan nodded his acknowledgment as the rest of the bachelorettes glared at Stacy. Slowly, he returned to his mark. Behind him, every reaction got sent coast to coast by the camera crew for the viewers to judge.

The TV drama suddenly gave Freddy an idea. Stacy would be saved for sure—saved for the rest of the ladies to take on later for trying to get a leg up on them with the snake oil tears. Being around all those five-year-olds, Stacy had probably learned how to summon up the waterworks on demand to get attention. Freddy smiled. She’d let the rest of the bachelorettes submarine the kindergarten teacher for her.

Showtime.

Taking a deep breath, Freddy took the flag and faced the bachelorettes. The cameraman shifted, moving the shot from left to right across the waiting faces. As each close-up appeared on the monitor, a wide range of emotions could be seen: hope, anger, anticipation, accompanied by some personal pleas.

Stacy had her hands together, fingertips touching her nose as if in prayer, and Jade’s knuckles were white. Careelyn wrinkled her nose and waggled her fingers at the viewing audience. Emily looked over at Freddy and then locked her gaze on Logan. Lori and Madison held hands like they were BFFs.

For Freddy, that sealed Emily’s fate. She wasn’t getting anywhere near Logan.

Freddy took a breath. All the possibilities raced with rapid-fire speed through her mind. In dramatic fashion, she walked in front of each of the bachelorettes and made sure she held each one’s gaze for agonizing seconds before moving on. After scrutinizing them one last time with a forced but barely held deadpan expression on her face, she held out the flag. “Jade, have a great time.”

Jade screamed and grabbed the flag from her hand. The rest of the bachelorettes gathered around her, offering congratulations with forced smiles. Jade ran to Logan and threw her arms around his neck. His arms circled her waist while over her shoulder, he looked at Freddy.

Freddy didn’t expect the wave of emotion that hit her when she saw another woman in Logan’s arms. Apprehension, concern, jealousy, and fear seemed to take turns punching her in the stomach before settling inside her head and squeezing the backs of her eyes. What had she done? She had just tossed the man of her dreams into the arms of a perfect size-two runway model with great hair. Now what?

But she couldn’t think much about that right now. She had to get rid of someone, if only to make herself feel better. “Oh, and by the way, Emily. Have a nice trip home.”

The last thing anyone saw before the TV monitor faded to black was the horrified look on Emily’s face.

Back in his suite, Logan massaged the back of his neck, trying to shake the headache Freddy gave him. Right after she eliminated Emily, Freddy left the room.

Once filming wrapped up, he extracted himself from the bachelorettes and tried to find Freddy. He needed to talk to her, but she didn’t answer when he knocked on her door. According to the schedule Roberto left on his desk, tomorrow morning after the group breakfast he had a series of fittings with representatives from Ralph Lauren in preparation for the commercials to be shown with the next airing of the series. Right afterward, he had the date with Jade, so he needed to talk to Freddy tonight.

For a while, he got caught up in watching the elimination thing torture Freddy and looked forward to finding out with whom she would set him up for the day. But the look he saw on her face when Jade hugged him really threw him off his own game, for a number of reasons.

One, for a minute, he thought Freddy might actually start crying on camera.

Two, he didn’t like thinking she was hurting.

And three, he felt different around her since they started spending so much time together.

Though today’s premiere episode would air in a few days during prime time around 9:00 p.m., the show taped early in the day to allow for editing. The clock on the wall said 6:00 p.m., early enough to leave a long night ahead of him. He glanced at the schedule again. Nothing pressing for the rest of the night.

He looked toward the door. Freddy couldn’t hole up in her wing of the suite forever. She had to face him sooner or later. There were still five bachelorettes remaining, with four episodes left. With nothing in the contract as far as he could see forbidding him from discussing things with her, his curiosity about Freddy’s thinking made him head to her side of the mansion again.

He’d like to know why she threw Emily under the bus and gave the model the date. If he had been a betting man, he would have lost his shirt on the odds in Vegas. He thought for sure Jade would have been the one packing. She’d been the most visible and the bachelorette most engaged with the activity.

At her door, an image of Freddy filled his mind almost in anticipation. He could clearly see the planes of her faces, the laughter in her eyes. He could feel the warmth of her skin, its softness. Then he thought about the kiss, so tender at first, then filled with a passion he hadn’t felt in a long time.

What was happening between them? Dozens of attractive women expressed interest in him. Being single and having a great job guaranteed that. He hadn’t really thought about any of the women he knew in terms of a relationship, though. At least not until now, with Freddy hell-bent on forcing one on him with this TV show.

How many hours did he spend wondering what she was going to do or what she was thinking since they were thrust into living together in this mansion? How many times did he wonder what would happen if they ditched the show and escaped somehow?

Too many to count in such a short amount of time. The situation he found himself in seemed a contradiction in terms. If he
played it out to the expected end, exactly whom would he find waiting there? And if he walked away, would he possibly find something better?

Or
someone
better?

He thought back to what she said about his flaws. Weaknesses. She was right about that. He thought he had just found a big one. He balled his hand into a fist and raised it to knock on Freddy’s door just as it opened.