Chapter Twenty

Ginger brushed the toe of her shoe against a piece of gravel on the floor, left by the crew. When she looked up at him again, it was impossible to disguise her frustration. But it wasn’t directed at him anymore. She wished she’d never taken this stupid job.

What did she need from him? What she needed was to get out of there before she did something insane like fall into his arms and beg him to kiss her and rub her head until she fell asleep.

Wrong feelings. Super bad.

“Do you want me to fall madly in love with one of the women here?”

She’d rather the Hacienda were destroyed in a landslide. She managed to nod and make an affirmative sound. “Mmhmm…”

“Do you understand what I’m asking you?”

Sure she did. It was a different version of what he’d asked that morning. Did she wish things were different?

They. Weren’t.

So who gave a shit what she wished? “If there’s something you want to say, stop trying to get me to say it for you. What, Elliot?”

He cracked more than she expected him to. “I’m confused, Ginger.”

“About Jenna?”

“No. Fuck Jenna—Jesus Christ. I’m confused about this.” He gestured between them. “Is there something here? Do we need to be dealing with that?”

“We’ve dealt with it.”

“Yeah, I thought so, too, but I’m still feeling—”

“What?” She was half-dying to know what he was going to say. Maybe his answer would help un-confuse her.

“Unresolved.”

“Still?”

“You’re not?” he asked.

She couldn’t even lie. It would have come out so fake, and the conversation would never end. “I mean, I am, but I don’t know what to do about it. Talking about it doesn’t help. Fucking doesn’t help. I figure at this point the best thing to do is pretend it never happened and follow our own separate destinies. And look, I’m handing you your long-lost love on a silver platter.” She sent a flourish out with her arms and gave him a slight bow. “You’re welcome.”

“I would have been fine without her.”

“Yeah, well, the show wouldn’t have. So I suggest you welcome her back with an open mind and open heart. Congratulations in advance on your happily ever after.”

“You can’t be serious,” he scoffed.

“Of course I’m serious.”

“I don’t want anything to do with her. That was the whole point of this.”

He was angry, but he’d see the light. They always did. Jenna was his light. “Give her a chance, Elliot…”

“I hate to break it to you, Ginger, but I’m not gonna wind up with her at the end of this. If you were banking on that—don’t.”

She swallowed the rising bile in her throat. “I think you’ll find she’s the right person for you in the end.”

“What makes you think that?”

“She came back, didn’t she?”

“So did you.”

That stopped her cold. Her lungs clamped down so hard, she was afraid they might never open again, and she’d die right there in Elliot’s guesthouse with all those emotions and unspoken words caught inside her.

He couldn’t mean he’d rather have her over someone like Jenna. Based on what? The promising career she’d been playing fast and loose with? Her complete lack of restraint? The bitter resentment she carried over this entire process? He deserved better. She needed to give him some space and time. Time to reconnect with Jenna. He’d remember how right they were for each other, and Jenna would fight tooth and nail to keep him.

“I’m a placeholder, Elliot. You know that as well as I do. But here she is. She wants you more than ever—and she wants all those things that you came here looking for. Maybe it’s not fair to the other women, but you weren’t giving them a chance anyway. You missed her. Admit it.”

His mouth hung half-open like he couldn’t make the words come out. “A placeholder?” he finally blurted.

“I get it, okay? Up until now, this hasn’t gone the way you expected. I may not have handled your disappointment as professionally as I should have considering the circumstances, but that’s all in the past now. We can both move on. You and I can both get what we came here for.”

He eliminated the space between them in less than a heartbeat. He took her by the arms, giving her a little shake. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

She balked, offended. “Excuse me?”

His hands moved, grabbing her head. His eyes searched hers, nearly frantic. She didn’t fight the urge to lean in. Couldn’t. All her worst instincts kept pushing her closer to him until their mouths met in a crushing kiss. “If you had returned one fucking email—” He kissed her again.

And then she was melting, partly from exhaustion, but mostly from his scorching heat. Never mind anyone could have walked in at any second. His kiss was a claiming, warm and soft and so deep it filled all her hollow places. Breaking away on a breath, she tried to think her way out of it. “We aren’t—we can’t—”

He shut her up with the perfect pressure of his mouth, the obliterating sweep of his tongue. So right…

Had they had a chance? Would an email months ago have been all it took to have him for hers? For good? Would she have trusted it the way she couldn’t dare to now? She moved away from him, unable to look him in the eye and see everything she’d ever dreamed of taking and having for herself—all her fantasies crushed by the reality of where they’d ended up. “It’s too late.”

“I don’t accept that.”

Ginger wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and worked to get her hair back in order. “It’s still the truth.”

Friday night was Elliot’s last elimination where The Panel save was in play.

No elimination night was the same. Occasionally it was a formal ceremony in the gardens, sometimes it happened casually in The Panel’s room, and other times, like that night, it was designed around what was coming next. The women always knew when to show up, but they never knew how it would unfold.

After dinner, each woman would meet with The Panel, and they’d either receive a plane ticket to Paris, or they wouldn’t.

And—twist—Elliot wouldn’t know who The Panel saved until she walked up to him afterward with a ticket to Paris in her hand and a smile on her face.

Elliot and Davis waited together on the bougainvillea-bedecked back patio for the final five women to arrive. Elliot was impossible to look at. In slim-fitting gray slacks and a white dress shirt with the top two buttons undone, he was an erotic after-work fantasy. Sitting with an ankle on a knee in a casual slouch with an arm draped across the back of the sofa he and Davis shared, Ginger thoughts drifted to the moments they’d stolen, the passion they’d shared. That last kiss.

God, had it really been the last?

“Here comes Cassie,” Davis said, his enthusiasm on point.

Ginger looked on from the edge of the patio as Elliot and Davis stood to greet Cassie as she bounded down the path, waving her ticket in the air. When she reached the patio, she leapt at Elliot who caught her. She wrapped her long legs around him while planting a big kiss on his cheek. It was the most ostentatious display of affection on camera so far, and it was nauseating how cute they were together.

“Paris? Are you freaking kidding me?” Her excitement put one of the most genuine smiles on Elliot’s face Ginger had ever seen—eye crinkles and all.

The embers of jealousy in Ginger’s heart flared wild and bright. A bonfire of bitterness.

Elizabeth arrived next, then Hannah, Maggie, Daisy, and finally Jenna appeared at the head of the path.

Elliot cleared his throat as he waited to greet The Panel’s obvious save. He wasn’t surprised. In fact, if Ginger had to name the look on his face, she would have called it resigned.

Of course, Jenna had no idea Elliot tried to eliminate her, but everyone else did. The mood on the patio took an awkward shift with complete silence descending.

Jenna filled the void with her scampering footsteps and helpless giggles as she hurried to get her own piece of Mr. Hale.

She didn’t leap at him the way Cassie had, but she did fall into his arms before letting go a sob of relief at being chosen.

Ginger studied Elliot closely. His clenched jaw, his tense shoulders, and his gaze boring into the cobblestone. He was resisting every second of this.

It was not ideal from a production standpoint. They didn’t want him cringing when one of the women approached, least of all the woman America had a preexisting relationship with.

Give her a chance, Elliot.

How much Jenna wanted this was obvious. Did it come off as desperate? Sure. But she was doing something so many women only dreamed of being bold enough to do—go after the man she wanted, no matter what. No matter how many Twitter trolls hated her, no matter what her family must have been thinking, no matter how badly her heart could be broken, Jenna wanted him so much, it was sure to be irresistible.

But that night, Elliot resisted.

“Thank you and The Panel for giving me another chance, Elliot. I feel like I’m in a dream. Being able to see you again and touch you.” She linked a pinky with his, for emphasis, a gesture of theirs from her season.

He unlinked immediately. “We’ll see what happens. I’ve been taking this process one step at a time.”

“Of course. I completely understand. Can I say one thing?”

Head tilted to the sky, Elliot took a sharp breath before looking back down at Jenna.

“I would do absolutely anything to change what happened, but I have to think it was only an interruption. I love you. I love you so much I can’t even imagine what it would be like to walk out of here without you. Thank you for giving me a chance to make it okay again.”

Every word out of her mouth was like an icepick in Ginger’s heart.

Elliot’s head shook as he took a step away from her. “We’ll see you on the plane tomorrow—I need—” He glanced around and found Ginger, pinning her with his eyes. “Are we done?”

Kat swooped in, wrapping an arm around Jenna’s. “Let’s chat.” Her voice was perky as she whisked Jenna up to the house before Elliot could decompensate further.

Ginger considered pulling him aside to process off-camera but quickly dismissed the thought. They were both wound up—potentially an explosive situation. Instead of interrupting the shot, she gave Davis a firm nod to address the star’s agitation. The cameras were still rolling, and they could use the footage.

Davis sprang to his feet. “Have a seat with me, buddy. Let’s talk about tonight.”

“I need a minute,” Elliot grumbled, reaching around his waistband to unclip his microphone.

Ginger stepped in. “Let’s get through the night. I can see you’re emotional, but it’s better—”

“Good TV, you mean?”

She adjusted her expectations, lowering them significantly. “Have a seat. Let’s finish up.”

His glare took on a shade of viciousness as he returned to the couch with his microphone battery pack in his lap. “What? What do you all want to know?”

Davis glanced uneasily at Ginger. She nodded for him to get on with it.

“Why’d you react that way to Jenna?” Davis asked.

Elliot’s response was short and clipped. “She wasn’t my pick. None of this was my idea.”

“What is it about her that gets you so emotional?”

“I’m not answering that.”

“Elliot…” Ginger warned.

His jaw clenched. “Next question.”

Davis cleared his throat before changing the subject completely. “This isn’t your first time going to Paris?”

“No, Davis, it isn’t.”

“Any favorite spots?”

“I’ve got a few.”

This wasn’t working. He wasn’t going to cooperate, whether out of spite or because he was too upset. Marlon’s voice echoed through her head: Solve the problem, Ginger.

“Elliot. A word.”

He bolted up from the couch like it was suddenly a thousand degrees and charged toward the pool. Ginger followed at a measured pace and reminded herself she could do this. It was her job.

“You want me to handle this?” Matt asked as she passed him on the lawn.

“I’ve got it. I’ll let you know when he’s ready.”

“Take ten everybody.”

Elliot paced the far edge of the pool, his hair a mess from what his overwrought hands had done to it. He didn’t acknowledge her arrival.

“I should have let you take a minute when you asked,” she said.

He stopped walking, hands on his hips with his back to her. He was breathing hard.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“No.”

She took a few steps closer, and reached a hand out to his upper back, but stopped before it connected. “Do you want to talk or do you need me to leave you alone?”

His next breath shuddered. “I can’t do this.”

“Of course you can. You’ve been doing amazing.” That close to him, her entire body filled with the need to touch and have and hold. He was her problem to solve. Hers.

She had to stop thinking that way.

“Drop your guard a little,” she said. “Let yourself feel whatever it is you’re fighting.”

He turned. Their gazes met and held, stealing the breath right out of her mouth. “Was any of it real?” he asked.

Anxiety spiked. “What do you mean?”

“Why did you shut me out after that night?”

The question put her heart in serious danger of breaking. All those emails he’d sent. The ones she’d ignored after the first night they spent together. “I didn’t know how to reply to your messages, Elliot. I knew you’d be back. I knew you were looking for more, and we’d give you a chance for all of it. How could you say no?”

“I would have,” he whispered.

“I didn’t want you to.”

“So it was meaningless.”

“It was a fantasy,” she said, the words soft and true, and a lie all at the same time. “I have to think bigger than what I want in a moment. So do you. You have to see beyond all this. To what could be.”

His stare only grew more intense. More profound. Devastating. And then, in a flash of vivid color, she saw something else—a future with him she’d never allowed herself to picture. It wasn’t full of babies and picket fences. It was him, looking at her like that in some different venue in an imaginary future, and her knowing exactly what he was thinking, able to sweep a thumb along his tense jawline and tell him it would all be okay. That they were in it together.

God, she wanted that. She wanted to be the one he trusted with all his secrets, all his passion, all his days and nights. The only one. His match. It would be worth—

The pool vent gurgled and spit beside her, snapping her mind back to reality. She looked away from him, down at the rippling, illuminated water. Their courses were set. Signed in ink and locked down. There was no way out that didn’t involve some kind of ruin for them both.

“I don’t think it’s impossible,” he said, like he was reading her thoughts.

Heaviness settled in her chest. The weight of a million unrequited wishes. “It isn’t worth it.”

He closed in on her. Stepped up until they were nearly toe-to-toe and she had her neck bent all the way back to look up at him. God, if anyone saw them like this…

“Do you have any idea how much I want you? The kind of thoughts I have when you’re this close? Do you have a clue how impossible it is for me to consider a future with any woman but you?”

His face blurred in her vision, his words like a drug. There was no doubt in her mind he meant every word, but did he understand what a confession like that did to her? How he was ripping her in two? How was she supposed to choose? Was there a choice? She turned to face the dark valley. “I’m sorry.” The apology came out choked, harsh.

“Sorry for what?”

“For not being able to say no. For wanting you…”

“How much do you want me, Ginger?”

She shook her head. “I can’t say…”

“I want you so much I’d do anything. I’d kiss you right now and end all of this.”

She held up a hand, not to touch him, but to stop him from getting any closer. He was already much too close. “It was just sex, Elliot.”

“Sex isn’t meaningless.” He said each word carefully with its own emphasis, making it sound like the deepest truth ever spoken. “Not with us,” he added in a whisper.

And she was supposed to walk away? From him? She couldn’t. She was physically rooted to the spot a foot away from him with zero desire to be anywhere else on earth. “I don’t know what to do,” she said to the valley. “I don’t see a way…”

“I’ll find the way,” he said with so much certainty she almost believed he could.

“What if I’m not worth it?”

“What if we are? Spend one more night with me. In Paris. If at the end of it you can picture me with anyone else, I’ll do whatever you say.”

“And if I can’t?” Because that was what she was afraid of. One more night and she’d never be able to let him go.

“Then you leave the ending to me.”