One To Watch(104)
Once they arrived in Paris and the producers let Bea into her hotel room, she double-locked the door and crawled into bed, fully clothed. She was exhausted from being up most of the previous two nights—first a night of bliss with Luc, then a night of agony tossing and turning and wondering how this all could have gone so wrong. She was grateful that her first day in Paris was a travel day with no scheduled filming so she could finally get some rest, but try as she might, bone-tired as she was, sleep still wouldn’t come. Bea thought back to the first night of filming, to that anonymous man who’d taken one look at her and walked away. How ironic that Bea’s fears that others would follow in his footsteps never materialized until now—and when a man she truly cared for finally did choose to leave, it wasn’t because of Bea’s looks, but her lies.
Bea knew on some level that she wasn’t the only one to blame—that Asher was jealous and judgmental, that he’d made her feel insecure throughout this process, that he was probably already looking for an excuse to bail in order to have done so that quickly and completely. But here in this lovely hotel room with a view of the Seine, Bea felt hollow without him, like some essential part of her had been scooped out.
The sun rose, and Bea’s start time for her day of shooting came and went. The producers called and called, so she turned off the ringer on her hotel phone. Who was she even supposed to see today—Sam or Ray? She hadn’t technically said that Ray could stay, but she suspected Lauren would insist: It would be an awfully boring finale if Sam were the only man left. And besides, she thought, Ray broke off his engagement and flew all the way here. To see her. To try and work things out between them. To stop her from getting engaged to someone else. Someone else like Asher … the man she’d thought might really be her husband. And now, because of Ray, he was gone for good. Was that reason enough to dismiss Ray outright? Or was there a chance, after everything, that they really were meant to be together?
There was too much to think through, too many conflicting emotions to parse with no clean point of entry. Lacking any better ideas, Bea decided her best available option was to take a long, hot bath.
Her suite’s bathroom had bleached wooden floors, gleaming slate walls, and a gigantic soaking tub made of smooth white ceramic. Bea piled her hair into a bun and slipped into the steaming water, feeling like some tiny portion of the awfulness of the past twenty-four hours was beginning to leach out of her. Bea closed her eyes and willed herself, for just a moment, to relax.
That’s when the knocking started.
“Fucking fuck,” Bea muttered, keeping her eyes closed and willing the knocker to leave her alone. She ducked her head under the water, but when she came back up a few seconds later, the knocking was even louder, and was now accompanied by shouted entreaties.
“Bea, come on!” Lauren’s voice was muffled from the hallway, yet still had a piercing quality that was completely impossible to ignore. “I’ll stand out here and scream all day if I have to, you know I will! We have the whole floor, so there’s no one to complain! Come on, Bea! We have a finale to shoot, and you can’t hide in there forever! Aren’t you hungry? I brought pastries!”
Bea exhaled audibly. The truth was, she was starving. And as much as she wanted to shut herself away in this bathroom until everyone she’d ever met (and the collective consciousness of the Internet) had forgotten she’d ever agreed to do this show, she knew that wasn’t entirely tenable. So she dragged herself out of the tub, toweled her hair dry as best she could, and wrapped herself in an all-too-thin cotton robe before opening her door.
“Du Pain et Des Idées is your favorite, right?” Lauren affected an air of nonchalance. “That bakery up in the tenth? I sent a PA to get these for you.”
“You think you’re going to bring me a pistachio elephant ear and all will be instantly forgiven?” Bea narrowed her eyes, but she took the pastry Lauren held out to her all the same, and couldn’t help but utter a small groan of pleasure as she took the first perfect bite. Lauren came into the room and shut the door behind her.
“Bea.” Lauren looked contrite—and, Bea noted, a good deal more haggard than normal. She was in leggings and a sweatshirt herself, a far cry from her normally polished attire. “I need to tell you again how sorry I am about Luc.”
“What about Ray?” Bea’s voice was soft, but firm. “Are you sorry about him too? And Asher?”
“I had no idea Asher would walk out on you.” Lauren shook her head. “I mean, really, he couldn’t stick around to have a conversation? Couldn’t even wait to see if you would let Ray stay? I expected him to handle Ray’s arrival more maturely—didn’t you?”
“Maybe if you had warned me,” Bea argued, “I could have done something differently, or at least told him first about Ray being engaged.”
“Bea, come on. I’m still making a TV show here, I can’t just give you a quick heads-up about the biggest twist of the season.”
“But why do it!” Bea demanded. “Why bring Ray here at all?”
“Because I thought it was the right thing to do!” Lauren looked genuinely confused. “You decided that you wanted to find love on this show, and from everything he told me, the guy is genuinely in love with you—and he seemed to believe that you felt the same way. He insisted that you wouldn’t want to get engaged to someone else without knowing how he felt about you first, and I believed him. Yes, I orchestrated his arrival for maximum drama, but I never, ever thought you’d be so upset about it—and honestly, I’m still not totally sure why you are.”