My Bachelor (11 page)

Chapter 14

Rafe

At least it
was a nice day, a warm sun but not too hot and just enough breeze floating through the palm trees to feel refreshing. It was about the only positive thing I could come up with after a long night of trying to find a way out of this. Short of sitting through a grueling lawsuit in court, I had no option except to see the show through to its end.

The staccato sound of the golf cart chugging up the hill caught my attention as I stepped off the front porch. There it was. One more positive thing in the midst of this whole damn mess. Eliot. I’d quickly grown to think of her as a friend. Hers was the only face I needed to see this morning.

I took long steps down the driveway and reached the road that connected the studio with the estate on top of the hill. I met the slow golf cart halfway up.

Eliot pulled over and patted the passenger seat. “I was just on my way up to see what you needed. Where are you headed?”

“Down the hill to Oz.” I  climbed into the golf cart. It leaned slightly to my side.

Eliot stuck it in gear and spun the cart around. “I’m sorry I’m late. I had class this morning.”

“No problem. I had to get out of the house. I was pacing around like a caged animal.”

“The gym,” she said suddenly.

“Who is Jim?”

“Not who. The. The gym. There’s a really nice one on the studio lot. A lot of the stars use it when they’re filming on set. I can find a time when it’s empty. That might help you with some of that energy. You seem like a man who needs to toss a few dumbbells around for a good time.”

“You are a genius, El. That would be great. I wish I’d thrown some of those weights around this morning before the meeting.”

“What meeting?”

“I’ve been summoned by Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dweeb in a backwards hat. What’s he hiding under that thing? Horns?”

Eliot covered her mouth to hide her smile. “Never thought of that. I just figured his hair was thinning up there.”

“Might be both.” I stretched my legs forward but there was no room in the cart. “You know what, El, and this is no reflection on your chauffeuring skills, but I really need to get out and walk. I’ve got some bottled up tension I need to get rid of before I reach that meeting room.” I hopped out before she slowed to a complete stop.

She left it in first gear and chugged along next to me.

I raked my fingers through my hair and kept walking. The green and white studio buildings came into view. I could have been anywhere in the world, surfing in Hawaii, rock climbing in Zion, dirt bike riding in the desert, but I was on a hot road in the middle of a brushy hillside heading down to a television studio. I picked up a branch that was sitting on the road and hurled it across the semi-parched hillside. For a fleeting second, I expected to see Tracker race after it. But he wasn’t walking along next to me. He was, no doubt, growing plump and lazy, sitting next to my dad on the couch watching movies and eating potato chips. I missed the big goof.

“Eliot, have you ever made a mistake so big, so fucking enormous, that if a big dark hole opened up in the ground, instead of running from it, you’d jump in just to get away?”

The golf cart lurched along, panting and puffing in low gear. There was no response from the driver and then it hit me. I was so absorbed in my own pool of pity, the words had just spurted out. I looked over at her. She was staring straight ahead.

“Shit, and now this has made me a self-centered idiot. I know you’re dealing with something too, Eliot.”

“No, you’re not self-centered. Although I think we could pin the description of completely clueless about the ins and outs of show business and reality television and sponsors and directors and . . .” She stopped. “I ran out of list.”

“Yeah, I got the point with the first two. Thanks.”

The golf cart stalled out of first gear. She restarted it and put it in neutral to coast downhill without the bother of a clutch. “I know there was an incident last night. I don’t know all the details, but I’m not surprised. Doug has a tendency to give a little helping hand with the sexy drama.”

“I noticed. I’m sure that’s why I’ve been called to a meeting. I cut the drama short.”

“Doug knows his stuff. He knows what people want to see and what keeps fans coming back for more, but—”

She stopped as if she was reconsidering what she was about to say.

“Tell me, El. Your opinion is the only one I care about.”

She pressed on the brakes. I stopped walking. She took another clumsy, futile swipe at the curl. “Keep this just between us. You might care about my opinion, but I assure you, the big shots down below don’t give a darn about it.”

“Which proves my theory that they are just plain ignorant. Tell me.” I rested my arms on the top of the vehicle and stared down at her. She was exceptionally pretty when she was outside, in the sunlight. She wasn’t the type who needed special lighting. Just the outdoors and her own natural beauty, which showed no matter how hard she tried to conceal it.

“All right. But don’t let this go to your head. I’ve seen many bachelors come and go. Some make an impression on the viewing audience, and others are forgotten almost the moment the show ends with a lackluster kiss and proposal. But you, my friend, you have shot quickly to the top of the memorable bachelor heap. And Doug knows it. That’s why he’s freaking out. He knows lady luck has smiled down on him this season, and because I know how he thinks, I know he sees it not just as success but as
potential
success. He wants to make sure he gets every damn ounce of gold out of his six foot two gold mine.”

She lifted her foot off the brake and started rolling again. I followed along next to her. “Here’s the real point I wanted to make,” she continued. “Doug knows reality television. He has to. He’s been working and directing it for years. And I might be making a silly assumption here, but there’s usually backbone to my silly assumptions.” The cart hit a dip in the road. She popped off the seat for a second and laughed as she positioned her bottom squarely in place again. “K. Where was I? My mind is still cluttered from class.”

“You were about to tell me your silly, but with backbone, assumption.”

“Right. Doug knows what makes good television.”

“Yep. You said that.”

“But something tells me that when it comes to knowing women, you’ve got the expert hand in that.”

“Hand and everything else,” I said, cockily.

“You must have missed the precursor to this conversation about not letting it go to your head.”

“Right. Sorry. So where is this assumption leading?”

We were getting closer to the studio. She stopped the cart again. “I think you should stick to your intuition and do what you think will win the hearts and minds of the women in that house and the viewers at home. You’re the bachelor, after all.”

“Unfortunately.” I tapped my temple. “But I will certainly keep your words of wisdom in here. Guess I should get to that meeting.”

“Well, if it’s any consolation, the filming crew is almost ready to move out for the day’s shoot. So the meeting won’t be too long.”

“It would only be a consolation if I wasn’t part of the day’s shoot. My heart and mind are not in it today.”

Eliot pointed ahead. “Looks like the meeting might start early. I see Doug outside. With a cigarette. That’s not a good sign.”

Doug was pacing around the exit, taking quick successive puffs on a cigarette. “Why not? Maybe the cigarette will help calm his nerves.”

Eliot looked over at me. As always, it took me a second to get over the impact of her stunning blue eyes. “Doug gave up smoking six months ago.”

“Shit.” I climbed back into the golf cart. “Any chance this thing can crash the security gates and amp up to a hundred? I’m considering a fast getaway.”

Doug took a long draw on his cigarette as he watched us approach. I could see a slight twitch in his eyebrow as he squinted through the wall of smoke curling around his face. He tossed the cigarette on the ground and extinguished it under his shoe as we rolled through the back gate.

Again, I hopped off before Eliot applied the brakes. I was ready to meet this head on. I’d thought about it long and hard last night. This jerk wasn’t my boss. I really could have cared less about anything he had to say. He could toss legal threats around all he wanted. I just didn’t give a shit.

The acrid smell of tobacco smoke surrounded him as he stepped closer but then backed off a bit when he seemed to remember that I was six inches taller and six inches broader and that I could pound him into the fucking asphalt with hardly any effort. Not that I would ever waste my fist on a wormy little asshole like him.

“Rockclyffe, we need to talk.” I noticed that he’d switched from the friendly familiar use of my first name. Using my last name seemed to give him some sense of control.

“No problem. Let’s talk.”

He held his hands out in question. “Explain to me what the hell happened last night.” It seemed he had too much to get off his chest to hold it in until we reached the board room. Or maybe he preferred to have a tantrum out of sight and earshot of the producer.

“Two of the contestants showed up at the bachelor house. One, who was extremely drunk and obviously not thinking clearly, and another, who was thinking quite clearly about that extra little paycheck she’d be getting from the studio this month.”

The twitch in his eyebrow migrated down to his cheek. He turned as if he was going to lead me into the building but then he swung around again. “You know what the fuck I’m asking, Rafe. Don’t play dumb with me. We had that talk earlier in the evening and you said you’d deliver. One of those girls, or hell, both of them should have ended up—”

“What? Naked and in my bed?”

“Or at least close to it. What the hell went wrong, or did we completely underestimate you? Because, frankly, you’re not going to tell me that a guy like you—” He waved his hand in front of me. I wanted to grab it and wrench it behind his back. “A good looking, ex-army ranger with tattoos, who is rich and single, hasn’t fucked every pretty piece of candy on the west coast.”

“That’s what you think?” I laughed. It made the whole side of his face twitch uncontrollably. “Then you have underestimated or, should I say, overestimated me. Because under all this—” I waved my hand around in front of myself, mimicking his obnoxious gesture. “There is also a man with a conscience. Shyla was extremely drunk, and in my codebook, extremely drunk is off-limits because it is always followed with major regret. And, as for Peyton—I don’t need you to send in your fake bachelorettes.”

“Again, you’re telling me how to do my job.” For the first time he seemed to notice that Eliot was still sitting in the parked golf cart. His nostrils flared with rage. “For fucksake, Eliot, don’t you have some place to be?”

“Don’t take this out on her.”

Eliot quickly climbed out of the cart.

“El, if you don’t mind, could you make me up a breakfast plate? Eggs and a bagel?” I asked.

Eliot nodded and scooted past us to the door. She disappeared inside. Her insightful words were still circling my brain.

“Look, Doug, as you so nicely pointed out, I know a little something about women. So trust me in making sure that I do this bachelor thing right. Just don’t expect me to humiliate or hurt anyone in the process. Because if that’s what you’re expecting, you’ve got the wrong man.”

The twitch in his face subsided, and he seemed to be considering everything I was telling him. “All right, here’s the deal. Let’s see how the outing with the other half of the contestants goes today. No scripts. No leading the women or you one way or the other. Just the bachelor and the women vying for his attention.”

“And the women who are planted in that house?”

He held up his hands. “I don’t have anyone else except Peyton on payroll. And she stays, by the way. She is there mostly to keep a watch on the other contestants. Believe it or not, she’s there for safety reasons more than anything else. The first few seasons we had all kinds of shit happen in that house that could have been grounds for lawsuits, including one girl trying to burn another contestant with a flat iron.”

“What’s the other side of that coin? Because this went just a little too smoothly.”

“Yeah, well you can probably thank the cigarette for that. I told my wife I needed those damn things. Of course, if I tell her I started up again—” He shook his head to redirect himself. “You asked about the other side of the coin. The horseback ride and bicycle date air this weekend in the big two hour event. We’ll watch to see the reaction on social media. If it falls flat, then we go back to my way.”

“Fair enough.” I stuck out my hand. He looked at it for a moment before shaking it.

“I’ll let Kiley know we talked this out. She’ll be glad she didn’t have to step in. She doesn’t like conflict.” Doug looked up at me. “Just profit.”

We headed into the building. “The vans will be leaving in an hour. The location manager has chosen a scenic park with a bike trail and lake about fifty miles from here. I’ll see you soon.” Doug broke off at the fork in the hallway that led to the conference room and I headed toward the aroma of food.

Eliot met me with a plate of eggs and a bagel. “I figured you would want the everything bagel because it has garlic.” She grinned up at me. “Kisses and garlic just don’t mix.” She glanced past me to the hallway. “No meeting?”

I took the plate from her hand. “We’ve worked things out for now.” I plowed a forkful of eggs into my mouth and swallowed. “How was Sparkys?”

“The same. Crowded. I waited on a table of women who decided you were a whole new species of man.” She pointed up at me. “But don’t let it go to your head.”

“A new species? Like Neanderthal or something?”

“Nope. I think the ex-husband you were being compared to was the primitive man. Or at least that’s what I gathered from their snippets of wine-soaked conversation. We should get you back up to the house. You need to get ready for your lakeside bike ride.” She winked and an amused smile tilted her lips. Lips that were quite plump and kissable.