One To Watch(36)

“Excuse me?” Bea was at a total loss for what this man wanted from her.

“Maybe you came here to prove a point. Or to improve your career? Both of which are fair objectives. But you can understand how my participation under those circumstances would seem like a waste of time.” He took a sip of his beer; having made his logical point, he awaited her logical response.

But Bea didn’t feel logical. She felt exhausted. She felt hopeless. She felt exposed—as a fraud, and worse, a failure.

“Why don’t you tell me how you want me to behave,” she pleaded, her voice scratchy with emotion, “after I spend the day being mocked, and manhandled, and insulted. Do you want me to be flirty and coquettish? A tough vixen? A doe-eyed ingénue? Just tell me, Asher. Tell me how to be the woman you thought you came here to meet, tell me how you would handle it if every person you encountered found a new sadistic way to make you feel terrible about yourself and your body, and I’ll do whatever I can to stop being such a monumental disappointment.”

Bea saw the pain in her expression mirrored in Asher’s face—he clearly hadn’t intended to hurt her. It was all much too much, this man and this place and her wet body and stringy hair and the awful things these men had said to and about her—nothing, she was sure, compared to the awful things America would say to and about her when this episode aired next week. Bea excused herself and went down to her cabin, and she wouldn’t come out again until Lauren promised that the little speedboat was waiting to take her home.


When Bea finally made it back to her apartment at the compound, it was dark outside, and she wanted nothing more than to curl up and sob. She put on the comfiest clothes she could find, silently blessing Alison for leaving out some cashmere sweats. Cocooned in layers of softness, Bea turned on some music and tried to forget the sound of Asher’s words, echoing over and over in her brain.

I’m trying to figure out what you’re doing here.

After the events of this day, Bea was no longer sure she knew.

She decided her best option was to go to bed and try again tomorrow, but instead, she heard a knock on her door.

“Fucking Lauren,” she muttered under her breath, “can I not get one damn moment of peace without—”

She swung the door open—it wasn’t Lauren.

It was Luc, the devastatingly handsome Frenchman she’d met at the premiere, with a metal bowl full of ingredients in his arms and a camera crew at his back.

“Bea, hello.”

“Luc, um, hi? I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I hope I am not disturbing you, it is just, I heard you had a difficult day, and I thought, perhaps, I could keep my promise to make you something sweet?”

He held up the bowl hopefully, and Bea caught a glimpse of eggs and vanilla. He was completely right—this was exactly what she needed.

“Sure.” She opened the door wider. “Come in.”

As it turned out, Luc had come to prepare one of the desserts from his restaurant, a lavender-honey crème br?lée.

“This way,” he said as he went through her kitchen in search of a whisk, “if you are angry at a man here, you can beat the sugar with the spoon and pretend you are cracking open his head.” He tapped Bea’s forehead gently with a silver spoon. “You see?”

Bea laughed. “It’s very cathartic.”

“Good! So you sit, relax, and I will bake.”

“No, you have to let me help! I can be your sous chef.”

“Ah, so you want to work under me? But this is a coveted position. I only hire the best.”

“I think you’d be very happy with me under you,” Bea teased, wondering how it was possible this obscenely handsome stranger made her comfortable enough to flirt this brazenly.

“Do you know how to separate the egg yolks?” he asked softly.

“I know the gist.”

“Here.” He put his hands over hers. “I’ll show you.”

So together they cracked the eggs and gently tossed the yolks from palm to palm, letting the slippery whites run through their fingers.

“You are a woman of hidden talents.” Luc chuckled as Bea deposited the final yolk in a bowl.

“She blogs, she bakes, what can’t she do?” Bea laughed.

“Tell me. You must have some weakness.”

“Besides my obvious weakness for desserts?”

She handed him the bowl of yolks, and he caught her arm for just a moment, running his thumb inside her wrist.

“It is no weakness to enjoy something sweet.”

It turned out the most time-consuming aspect of preparing crème br?lée was waiting for it to cool—for an hour or more—after it had been baked. The camera guys were on overtime, so Luc had premade a couple of dishes of cream that were already cool so they could skip ahead to the fun part: burning the sugar.

“But wait,” Bea said, “when did you hear I’d had a bad day? I just got back an hour ago, when did you have time to make these?”

Luc looked to the camera guys, who just kept rolling.

“I don’t know if I am supposed to tell you this, but Lauren called another producer earlier to come talk to me. Something about a swimsuit? She felt really terrible. She asked if I could think of a way to make your day better.”