Page 81 of Forsaking All Others

‘She isn’t playing hard to get. She really doesn’t want to kiss me. How very strange. Her scent is intoxicating this close. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to taste her, but I won’t force myself upon any woman.’

Running my hand up her bare back and ignoring the fact that every inch of her body is covered in goosebumps, despite the balmy evening, I plunge my hand into the thick hair at the back of her neck. Drawing her long tresses around us, hiding our faces and her lack of response from the camera, I continue the pretend kiss for a few seconds longer, before murmuring against her lips, “it’s done,” and stepping back from her.

“Cut!”

“Perfect,” the director chuckles, “now if you wouldn’t mind just waiting a moment before you take off the blindfold, Viscount. Ladies, move spots please, shuffle, shuffle.”

I wait silently for the women to mix up their locations to continue the ruse for the audience, and shake my head as I hear snatches of their whispered comments.

“He must have known it was me; there was love on those lips.”

“He goes after what he wants. It’s obvious he wants me.”

“I could kiss him all day, every day, forever and ever.”

“I seriously thought I’d come on the spot. I think I did, a little.”

Finally removing the blindfold, I frown as the director capers around behind the camera awaiting my announced ‘winner.’

Naturally it won’t be Catriona. She wouldn’t want that any more than she wanted my kiss.

But as I announce my chosen partner for the next one-on-one date there’s only one set of lips I’m thinking about.

Only one racing heart.

59

I sit with the other girls on the sun lounges and wait for the make-up woman to finish touching up our faces, and the director to decide where and how we should be situated.

It’s ridiculous to be wearing bathing suits at night. But then, everything about this show is ridiculous.

I know that soon the bachelor will step out of the resort and announce who he enjoyed kissing enough to take on a one-on-one date. That woman will win a coveted evening with him and have the advantage of flying to our new destination alone with him on a private jet.

The rest of us will follow tomorrow.

Having an overnight date is a first this season, and the winner will have a huge target on her back in the coming days and, if she lasts that long, weeks.

‘At least I don’t have to worry about it being me.’

The women around me are all gushing and planning, anticipating they’re the one. All except Valérie, who’s been told she won’t get her date with the bachelor until we reach our new destination.

“I’m furious, it’s ridiculous,” she whines. “If there was to be an overnight it should be with me, not with someone who just kisses him. I won the challenge. I fought monsters to win a date. It’s just too much, too much.”

“I think the kissing contest was a good test,” Sona shrugs, “physical compatibility is the most important thing in a marriage.”

Several contestants nod their agreement.

“When he held me against him, it was like we fit like a glove,” Miranda says to Cherry, “you say he tongued you, but I’m telling you he deep-throat tasted my heart.”

“We can’t all be poets,” Silke snaps. “It was a kiss, it was good, the end.”

“It was more than good,” Claire says, her voice wistful, “that man is a dreamboat.”

“We’ve kissed so often he knows my lips like the back of his hand. He’s going to choose me because we’re connected in a very real way,” Cherry shrugs. “The whole thing was a charade. Just wait and see.”

“Ugh. That’s why he would never choose you,” Valérie sniffs, “you have no class. With me, it was a beautiful, sweet, sensuous kiss that held promise. Perhaps it was a charade. Perhaps I’ll win this contest and have an overnight and the first date in our new destination. I wouldn’t be surprised, after all; he is French, that is the kind of romantic gesture he might make.”

I say nothing.