One To Watch(35)

“I really want to kiss you.”

No, roared a voice inside her, not like this.

His mouth was almost on hers, but Bea stood up so fast she sent water sloshing everywhere, knocking over one of the flutes of Prosecco and shattering it on the deck.

“Can I get a towel?” she shouted at a PA, who came rushing over with one that Bea prayed would be large enough to wrap around her body.

“What the hell?” Marco rose, wiping water out of his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Bea said, hating herself for apologizing to this asshole who’d made her feel like a freak, an oddity. “I’m just not interested.”

Bea turned her back on Marco, hoping he wouldn’t see how badly he’d upset her. All she wanted was to get back to her dressing room to find a cozy robe, but she was interrupted by Kumal, one of the personal trainers on this date.

“Hey, there you are!”

“Here … I am!” After the shock of her interaction with Marco, Bea was so not in the mood for small talk—especially not while soaking wet and wrapped in a towel.

“I’ve been looking for you.”

“Well, there are ten of you and just one of me, so …”

“I know, but it’s such a big boat.”

Bea nodded. That it was.

“Anyway, I’ve been wanting to tell you, I think it’s so cool you’re here. I’ve wanted to meet you for a while, even before I knew we were going to be doing this show together.”

“Really? You knew who I was?” Bea peered at this sculpted man—he didn’t seem the type to follow plus-size fashion bloggers on Instagram.

“Yeah! I had this client who wanted to show me how big she used to be, except she couldn’t find any old pictures on her phone, so she pulled up your feed! And I was like, Wow, I could really help that girl. So it’s wild that now I actually get to meet you.”

Bea’s expression went dark. “Help me how, exactly?”

“I mean, obviously you don’t want to look like that, right? There’s so much we could do together! Diet, exercise regimen, but like, really holistic stuff, mind-body wellness—it wouldn’t be about changing your looks, per se. It’s more about helping you be healthy.”

Bea could hear her heart pounding in her ears. She could deal with Ben K.’s absurdity and Nash and Cooper’s insults and Marco’s fetishizing, but this was a step too fucking far.

“Tell me, Kumal,” she said, her voice low, “what exactly do you know about my health? Have you seen my blood sugar? My heart rate? My cholesterol?”

Kumal looked completely baffled. “No?”

“No, you haven’t. Yet you assume I’m ‘unhealthy’ because of my weight. Is that right?”

The conflict had attracted the attention of a few of the other men: The two Bens, Jaime, Nash, and Cooper approached to see what was going down.

“I just think that you can change,” Kumal insisted.

“No,” Bea countered, “you just think that I should change, because you can’t imagine I could possibly be happy and healthy and fat all at the same time. You’re presenting yourself as some great guy who’s just concerned for my health, but you and I both know you aren’t. You’re concerned with getting some camera time, and with telling everyone at home that it’s not okay to be fat and that you’re not attracted to me. All of which you’ve now done. Congratulations!”

“You’re seriously overreacting,” Kumal said with a condescending laugh. “I was trying to help, but hey, if you want to die at thirty, that’s your business.”

“Well, I don’t turn thirty-one until September, so I guess there’s still time.” Bea smiled. “And if you really want to help me, I know how you can: by leaving this show right now.”

A stillness fell over the group. Kumal looked like he couldn’t quite believe it.

“Don’t be upset, Kumal.” Bea smirked. “You don’t want to date me. And now you don’t have to.”

She spun around and marched back toward the bar—she’d broken her glass of Prosecco getting away from Marco, and after those two interactions, she damn well deserved a fresh one.

The men were still talking among themselves near the hot tub, so the bar was blissfully empty, save for the camera that never left Bea’s side. After a moment, though, Asher sidled up and took a seat next to her—it was the first time all day he’d left his book and his little table, far from the action of the rest of the group.

Bea looked at him expectantly, but he didn’t say anything—just watched her drink, as if he were a field scientist and she were a rare breed of puffin.

“What?” Bea asked curtly, pleased with how good it felt to stop giving a shit what any of these men thought of her.

“Nothing,” he mused. “I’m just trying to figure out what you’re doing here.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Bea turned to face him, taking in the angled slopes of his frame, his jaw, his cheekbones.

“Exactly what I said,” he clarified. “I was roped into watching a few earlier episodes of this series, and it’s my impression that usually, the leads come here looking for love. They spend every minute telling every suitor they can find how eager they are to fall in love—but from what I’ve observed, you haven’t done that once. In fact, you don’t seem eager to talk to us at all. So I’m trying to figure out what you’re doing here.”