Most eligible, p.14
Most Eligible, page 14
“Come on,” Philippa wheedles, poking Chloe in the side. “No one’s going to take a picture, and the power’s all out, so there’s no cameras.”
Leaving Monica on her bunk, Olie grabs an armful of tampons and sprints from the room. The others follow cautiously, but I hang back for a minute and wander over to Monica’s bed.
“Do you need anything?”
She’s facing the wall, but flops onto her back to look up at me. “I just thought this would be easier.”
I blink at her in surprise. Our relationship hasn’t been antagonistic like with Addison, but we’ve hardly spoken.
“Me too,” I say, then push a little further. “Did anything happen?”
She bites her lip and tugs her pillow from under her head, her black hair fanning out on the mattress. Hugging her pillow to her chest, she says, “I’m really fucking good at tennis.”
I let out an involuntary laugh. “Hell yeah.”
She smiles a little. “What I mean is that it’s something I know, I’m really good at it, and I’ve been doing it for so long that I can’t imagine doing anything else. If I have trouble with something, I train twenty-four seven until I’m the best at it. But I can’t do that here. It’s like every time I mess up, they want to pick me apart—hang me out to dry. And I can’t train to make myself better. Like with my…” She pauses, unsure if she should go on, but then she does. “I take medication for my anxiety, and when the producers found out it was like this dirty thing. I’ve never felt ashamed before, but…” She breaks off, tears sparkling in her bright eyes.
I sink onto the edge of her bed and nod. “I know what you mean. Not about the tennis thing obviously. I suck at sports.” She laughs a little. “But the producers are ruthless. For what it’s worth, I think it just makes you seem stronger—being a real person.”
“Thanks, Georgia. I’m really glad Addison didn’t kill you on your date.” She winks at me, and I smile, but I’m also a tiny bit insulted. Did everyone think I was a goner? “Now go enjoy the pool party,” she says.
I leave her on her bed and head downstairs, where I find the others huddled around the bar, which Kevin seems to have abandoned.
Olie is rifling through the cupboards. She straightens up, her shirt hanging open, with several dozen tampons stuffed into her bra.
She holds out a bottle of tequila to me. “Georgia?” she says around the stem of a maraschino cherry. I hesitate, then take it and press it to my lips.
After Nina and Philippa both take double shots of the tequila, Olie downs about a fourth of the bottle and starts taking off the rest of her clothes.
“Where do you guys think Roland is right now?” Chloe asks, dreamily unbuttoning her shirt.
“No!” Nina shrieks, rounding on her. Chloe looks startled but stops talking. “No Roland talk,” Nina says. “Sorry, I just … if another person asks me how much I love him, I’m going to fucking explode.”
The real question is where Addison is right now—and I have a feeling that wherever she is, Roland is too. But none of the others seem to be wondering about her.
“Bet he’s doing strength training,” Olie says, oblivious to Nina’s outburst. “He’s gotta train extra hard for Wimbledon—you know, with his bad knee.”
Nina gapes at her.
“What?” Olie asks innocently, her huge eyes twinkling. “We talk.”
Nina smirks and keeps undressing. “I think we better watch out for you, Olie.”
“Sorry,” Olie says, cheeks coloring.
“Don’t be.” Nina smiles at her. “I’m happy for you.”
Olie leads us outside and wastes no time jumping in the pool, followed by the others. The rain has stopped, leaving a muggy heat in the air.
I wrinkle my nose at the pool full of women. “This is such a good way to transmit diseases.”
“Which none of us have!” Philippa shrieks gleefully. “The producers made sure of that. Come on, Georgia, get in!”
Her words are punctuated by a loud splash as Nina, newly nude, jumps in beside Johnna, who winces as water splashes onto her pixie cut. Not that we’ve talked much, but I wouldn’t have pegged Johnna as the naked-pool-party type. She and Mara, a divorce attorney currently clinging to a pink pool floatie, have mostly kept to themselves.
What the hell. If a badass attorney can do it, so can I. I pull my top over my head and shimmy out of my jeans, dropping them onto a chair and kicking off my sandals. I’ve just peeled off my underwear when I hear a voice behind me.
“What the—”
Rhett doesn’t finish his sentence before I turn around, shriek loudly, and fling myself backward into the pool, where I collide with Nina. But I only have eyes for Rhett. Rhett who is now standing, fully clothed, poolside. He’s soaking wet, his black shirt sticking to his skin.
“Come on, Rhett, join us!” Olie yells, splashing merrily.
A catcall whistles through the air, and I look around to find Mara waving at Rhett. Someone’s really come out of her shell.
Rhett cocks an eyebrow at her, then his gaze finds me and the eyebrow hitches higher. I shrug as if to say, Can’t handle it? Keeping his eyes stoically on my face, he swallows, jaw tensing.
“Thanks, but not today, ladies,” he says. Then he turns on his heel and walks away.
“Isn’t he fiiine,” Mara sighs.
Olie cackles. “In your dreams, Mara. In your dreams.”
Rhett is almost out of sight inside the shadowy mansion. Ignoring Olie and Mara, I hoist myself out of the pool, grab a fluffy white towel, and wrap it tightly around myself. Maybe I don’t need Serena to find dirt on Rhett. Maybe I can find it all on my own.
“Bathroom,” I mutter, but no one except Olie, who salutes me, is listening. I stop to grab my clothes and sandals, and then tiptoe inside.
Rhett has split off toward his wing of the mansion. Glancing behind me, I follow carefully, feet light on the cool stone floors. I peek around the corner of a long hallway; the door at the end has been left ajar. I sneak forward, listening hard. But the sounds I hear are coming from the other end of the hall, the way I just came. My heart leaps into my throat and I turn. Rhett must’ve gone a different way, because his footsteps are coming toward me. And he’s not alone.
“—a total disaster,” Lainey says. “You should’ve seen it.”
Heart beating fast, I look from the hallway to the door and make a split-second decision. Before they can see me, I push the door open and close it hastily behind me.
I seem to be in a suite. A freshly pressed suit hangs on the closet door, and men’s toiletries are strewn across the bathroom vanity. My eyes bulge at the open guitar case on the floor.
Rhett and Lainey’s voices get louder on the other side of the door. I sprint into the bedroom and search frantically for somewhere to hide. The door to the suite opens. I consider the closet, but what if he needs to grab something in there? And the huge sliding doors leading to the deck might make noise if I open them. There’s nothing else for it, so I throw myself onto the floor and wriggle under the bed, the towel the only thing between my naked body and the carpet.
“After my injury, I had a really hard time recovering. It felt like I lost a part of myself when I wasn’t playing anymore. But thanks to my amazing trainers and family, I’m excited to say that I’ll be back at Wimbledon this year—just a few months after I finish filming Love Shack.”
—Roland Marchetti, in an interview with Good Morning America, three months ago
Chapter Seventeen
When I went into investigative reporting, this wasn’t quite what I had in mind: lying naked under a low-slung bed to get intel. My clothes and shoes are still clutched in my hand, and I pull them out of view as Rhett and Lainey enter the suite.
“She didn’t even bite,” Lainey is saying. “Addison pushed her off the ladder and she didn’t so much as fight back.”
“Hold up,” Rhett says. From underneath the bed, I see their shoes stop in the middle of the room. “Addison pushed her off a ladder? Is she all right?”
I try to ignore the concern in his voice.
“She’s fine,” Lainey snaps. “There was a crash mat.”
“You can’t do shit like that, Lainey,” he says. “She could’ve been seriously hurt.”
Lainey’s designer loafers slap impatiently on the floor as she walks to an armchair and sits down. He sits opposite her, facing the bed. Quietly as I can, I scoot further back, holding my breath.
“I have to do something,” she hisses. “You know the situation I’m in. I have to get the ratings up or else we’re done. And the network wasn’t exactly thrilled that you were the only one willing to host.”
Rhett gives a short, dry laugh. “You didn’t give me much choice.”
“Take it as a compliment,” Lainey says. “They didn’t want you to upstage Roland. Though maybe that’ll end up being a good thing.”
My ears perk up.
“Would it really be so bad if it came out?” I see one of Rhett’s boots lift, like he’s placed his foot on his knee. “It might actually get ratings up—intrigue and all that.”
“I’d be fired because I cast him even though I knew,” Lainey says.
“But it’ll come out eventually—you can either be the one who tried to cover it up or the one who tried to fix it. He only took them for a few competitions,” Rhett says. I hold my breath, listening hard. “It’s not like he hurt anybody.”
Lainey sighs dramatically. “Yes, but some of his sponsors came over to us. It would look like I ignored it to get the money.”
My mind is whirring so fast I almost miss what Rhett says next.
“My lips are sealed,” he says. “But I still think you’d be better off going public, saying that Roland is working on it and taking a step back from playing until he recovers. It’ll come out eventually, you know that.”
Serena will go rabid for this when I get ahold of her. Right now, all I can do is speculate, but once I get more evidence, this could be a huge story. Who would’ve thought? The great Roland Marchetti, doping his way to success.
Lainey stands and starts pacing back and forth until she stops in front of something on the floor. I squint at it and my heart drops. Lainey’s hand comes into view and she pinches the object between her fingers.
“These yours?” she asks Rhett, holding up my underwear.
My chest throbs with each terrified heartbeat.
There’s a long pause, then Rhett says, “Never seen those before. Must’ve gotten mixed up in the laundry.”
Lainey pauses, then tosses the underwear back onto the floor. “Rhett, if you’ve been—”
He cuts her off before her voice can crescendo. “I’m not sleeping with any of the women.”
“Because after what I did for you—”
“I wouldn’t do that.” Rhett stands and moves toward the door. “Are you planning on staying much longer? I want to get changed.”
After a few more muttered words, Lainey sweeps from the room and the door shuts behind her. I let out a silent sigh of relief.
But I’m still naked and hiding under Rhett Auburn’s bed. I watch with bated breath as he steps forward, picks up my underwear, and remains still for a few moments. I see his feet turn on the spot. That very underwear might’ve been in my laundry pile when he spent the night in my apartment. But there’s no way he’d recognize them, right?
Now is the moment to let him know I’m here. Otherwise, I could be trapped for who knows how long. But demanding answers when I just naked-spied on him seems wrong somehow. I’ll do it another time when I’m fully clothed and haven’t been lurking under his bed. Right now, I have to get out of here.
He tosses the underwear onto the bed and walks back into the sitting room. First, his shirt falls to the floor, then he kicks off his boots, peels off his socks. In any other situation, this strip tease would be sexy, but right now all I feel is panic.
Finally, his jeans drop into sight. I hear the sliding doors to the patio open as he walks outside. This is my chance. I wriggle out from under the bed and pull my towel more tightly around myself, clutching my clothes and shoes in one hand. I stare longingly at my underwear, a black spot marring his pristine white comforter, but I don’t dare. If I take them, he’ll know someone was here.
Once I’m in the sitting room, escape starts to seem impossible. The sliding doors out to the deck are solid glass, not to mention wide open, giving me a full view out and him a full view in. There’s no chance I’ll be able to get across the room without him noticing.
I step forward, taking in the pink-tinged rectangle of light framed by the sliding doors. In the center, Rhett sits with his back to me, on the edge of his private hot tub. He’s holding his guitar and humming quietly to himself. The tan skin of his back stretches miles between his shoulders, the valley of his spine curving down into his waistband.
I stand, transfixed, watching him strum the guitar, arms moving ever so slightly as he plays. I step forward so I can hear what he’s singing, and make out a few words: “Sometimes, it’s a hard time, being new.” A melancholy tone, full of longing.
“That’s beautiful,” I whisper. The words are out before I can stop myself, and I brace for his surprise. Or shock. Or even anger. But he just turns around and stares at me, brows raised in typical Rhett fashion.
“So that was your underwear?”
“Um, yeah,” I mutter. “Sorry … I dropped them when I was crawling under your bed.” What a ridiculous statement. “I…” I hesitate, wanting to explain myself. “I came to talk to you.”
Still twisted around his guitar, he frowns. “I’m glad you’re okay. I—if I’d known what Lainey had planned, I’d never have let you out of my sight.”
“Please,” I say, putting on a brave face. “You think being pushed off a ladder can get me down? I’m made of stronger stuff.” I walk out onto the patio. The first landing of the deck has just the hot tub, but farther out, down a few steps, is the pool I fell into on the first night. Beyond that: the ocean, choppy from the storm. But the body of water closest to me, the man sitting on the edge—it’s the most dangerous by far.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asks. I meet his eyes and he stares back, x-raying me. Part of me wants to split in half and let him sew me back together. But the stronger part nods and pulls on a tight smile.
“I can’t believe Lainey would do something like that,” I say, hoping he can’t tell I’m fishing for information.
“She’s done worse,” he says simply, resting his fingers on the strings of his guitar.
The sun is starting to set, peach and pink and the receding purple storm striping the horizon. If the sky were music, it would be a summertime melody, sad and happy all at once, not unlike the song Rhett was just singing.
“Want to get in?” he asks.
I bite my lip, looking to the left, where the long hedge rises, separating Rhett’s space from the naked pool party happening on the other side. “What if someone sees?”
He waves a hand dismissively. “Power’s off. No cameras over here anyway.”
“I—I don’t have a swimsuit.”
Instead of responding with words like a mature adult, he looks pointedly at his own underwear. When he raises his eyes back to me, I blush and humph, stalking back inside to grab the thong I chose to avoid underwear lines on camera. Since I didn’t wear a bra, I pull my top (which barely covers my stomach) over my taped nipples, then walk back outside and step into the hot tub. Rhett’s eyes rise to the thin waistband cutting across my hips, the lace arrowing between my thighs, and his jaw ticks as he looks back down at the guitar resting on his lap.
As I sink into the water across from him, I sink back into that night. My eyes trace over the tattoo winding around his arm, the minimalist black lines inking tall peaks, carving mountains out of muscle.
“The Smokies,” he says, catching me looking. Last year, I never asked. My cheeks heat and I look away, but I’m right at eye level with his crotch, so I blush again. He hooks a smile and sets the guitar down on the pavement beside him, moving his arms so I can see the tattoos on his stomach and chest. A large jumble of lines stretching over his chest and down almost to his navel.
I imagine following the lines with the tip of my finger, balanced between holding back and tipping headfirst into oblivion. I sink deeper into the water, letting it fill me to my neck, as my eyes wander over his skin. A large flower covers the left side of his chest, stem extending to his stomach. Ringing the flower is a state outline. It’s haunted me for long enough that I know it’s Tennessee.
“You ever been?” he asks.
I nod. “I’ve been to Nashville.”
“I’m probably not supposed to tell you this, but we’re going next week.”
“We’re going to Nashville? All of us?” Just when the Malibu mansion was starting to feel safe, they’re going to rip the ground right out from under our feet.
He nods in response, running a hand over his jaw. “When I promised I’d take you sometime, that’s not exactly what I had in mind.”
Going with him, Roland, and a plethora of other women isn’t what I had in mind either. I pick my nail, thinking of something to say that isn’t that. My eyes flick to his wrist, to a small tattoo of a guitar that I don’t remember. He catches me looking and holds his arm out. I take his wrist in my hands.
“When…” I trail off.
“Last year,” he breathes. His pulse beats hot in his wrist and surges through my body, making me warm in places that have nothing to do with the hot tub.
“You know when.” His voice is so quiet that it melts into the water right along with me.
After us. After me.
“It’s…” He trails off, the pencil line between his brows more evident than ever. “It’s a reminder, I—” He runs a hand through his hair. “Last year, I was in a bad spot. I lost sight of what I came to Nashville, then LA, to do. Music.”
He shrugs and pulls his arm back. Instantly, I feel the absence of his touch deep in my bones. The ache is familiar, like I’ve woken up to find him gone, but he’s right there in front of me.
