Prologue
Savannah
Los Angeles, California
There is not enough booze in all the world to help me survive this.
Twenty-seven men. One reality TV dating show.
And me.
The bachelorette.
America’s so-called “sweetheart.”
The girl most likely to end up facedown before the night is over, if the contestants I’ve already met are any indication of how this hot mess express is going to go. First there was the guy dressed in a dinosaur onesie. Then another who dropped to one knee, a Ring Pop clutched in hand, for an impromptu proposal. (I let him down gently, then discreetly threw the cherry-flavored candy in a nearby bush.) And, to round up ’em all up, the last man wheeled out of the limo in a pair of lime-green roller blades . . . only to promptly wipe out on the cobblestoned driveway.
His arms pinwheeled wildly.
I launched to the side but couldn’t escape his grasping hands.
One second my red strapless dress was looking modestly sexy, and in the next?
Nip slip, y’all.
Nipple. Slip.
Only two hours in, and I’ve already managed to surpass every worst-case scenario I’ve imagined since being told Put A Ring On It would be my new reality.
Yay me.
Cheeks burning with the never-to-be-forgotten memory of flashing the production crew, Mr. Roller Blade Man himself and, possibly, even the universe at large—if the editors don’t do some major snipping to the final footage, that is—I skip the champagne flute and grab the bottle off the table instead. The red ribbon, wound around the glass neck, tangles with my fingers as I dramatically salute the empty dressing room.
“Bottom’s up,” I mutter under my breath, then toss back a swig of the bubbly. My eyes water and my chest inflates, and, you know, I’m not much of a drinker, but now seems like a good enough time to start as any.
The good news: as far as first nights go, I’m on the homestretch.
Only five more guys to meet.
It’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. So what if my heart hasn’t fluttered with excitement tonight? Not every relationship kicks off with metaphorical fireworks. Hell, look at my parents; sometimes I’m not even convinced they like each other, let alone married for love. And, really, so what if I flashed everyone and their mother within the first few hours of filming?
A nervous giggle bubbles to the surface.
Yeah, I’m not fooling anyone. More champagne is definitely in order.
I guzzle it down, only to freeze mid-gulp when the dressing room door flies open and rebounds off the wall with a heavy thud.
Panicked, my gaze tracks the woman storming inside. One of the producers, I think. Rocking an official-looking headset and a pinched expression, she might as well be yanking along the accompanying cameraman by a leash, from the way he trails after her like an obedient puppy.
I sit up tall. “I was told I could have a few minutes before meeting the last group of guys.” A few more minutes to remind myself—yet again—that contracts have been signed, promises have been made, and I’m not the sort of person who exits stage right when people are depending on me. Even if I have just managed to flash fifty-or-so people my naked chest.
Never let it be said that I’m not a trooper.
The producer slides me an icy stare. “Your few minutes are up.” Her brown hair is a tangled mess on the top of her head, and whereas I’m on dress number two for the night (a gold sequined number that makes me feel like a sausage stuffed into inflexible casing), she’s decked out in a T-shirt, ripped jeans, and an old pair of Vans. The plastic ID hanging around her neck reads Matilda Houghton. “We need a testimonial.”
With dread pricking my skin, I set the champagne down. “Right now?”
“Yup.” The P pops in time with her smacking a piece of gum in her mouth. “No one hired you to just sit around and look pretty.” Jerking a thumb toward the cameraman, she follows up with a chop-chop snap of her fingers. “C’mon, first impressions of the contestants you’ve met so far. Smile big now.”
I have approximately two-point-five seconds to prepare myself.
Blinding light beams into my face from the bulb fixed to the top of the camera.
A bead of sweat trickles down my spine.
Like a cornered animal, I dart my gaze from right to left, left to right. Think. Think! “The guys are”
“Specific names, please,” she cuts off, somehow managing to look both aggravated and bored, all at once. “Who stood out to you?”
Not. A. Single. Soul.
Is that pathetic? So far, I’ve met twenty-two guys. Accountants and Hollywood stunt doubles and even a former NFL player, and my stupid heart has not quickened for any of them. Objectively, I know they’re a good-looking group of men. Better than good-looking, honestly. Half of them could be models, and I . . . I can’t recall any of their names.
I’m not the right bachelorette.
It’s obvious to me, even if it isn’t yet obvious to everyone else, and it’s only a matter of time before the guys realize that my heart isn’t locked and loaded for this all-too-public journey. Any other woman would be thrilled to be in my position. Any other woman would be dying to spend their days flirting with twenty-seven sexy strangers.
Any other woman but me.
“I, uh . . .” I squint, trying to summon visuals of the men to mind. Dinosaur Onesie. Ring Pop Man. NippleGate Orchestrator. Stiffening my shoulders against a residual shudder of horror, I stare directly into the camera and blurt out, “I’ve always loved Jurassic Park.”
Matilda rolls her wrist in a keep-going gesture.
I force a strained smile. When Matilda slices a finger across her throat—like she’s worried about me terrifying viewers all across America—I shake out the nerves by wiggling my toes in my shoes. Dial the smile down some. “Matthew”—Richard? Who the hell knows at this point—“seemed fun. It’s, uh, nice to know that we might have something in common.” The last time I watched Jurassic Park, I was in the seventh grade and still wore a hot-pink mouth guard to bed every night. “That’s all I could hope for, coming on the show. To meet someone who matches me, inside and out. Common interests. Shared dreams.”
Any hope I have that my answer might satisfy Matilda goes out the window when she nods, then plants a hand on my shoulder to keep me seated when I start to rise. My ass, swathed in Spanx and sequins and skin-clinging fabric, collapses with enough force that the wooden seat protests with a squeal.
Nonplussed, Matilda retreats to the cameraman’s side. “If your dream man could step out of that limo tonight, what would he look like?”
It feels like a trick question.
But for the first time all night, my heart gives an erratic thump-thump-thump. I despise the excitement currently singing in my veins. Despise it as much as I crave it. Because the truth is: I never wanted to be Put A Ring On It’s bachelorette. No, the honor was meant to belong to my younger sister, Amelie. She’d submitted the first audition tape. She’d been on the hunt to live it up on reality TV and date twenty-seven men after breaking up with . . . him.
Ruthlessly, I shove the excitement away, sticking it in the Bad Thoughts box that I refuse to dwell on. Because thinking of him—and every tiny tattoo he’s inked on my skin in the dead of night over the last year—does nothing but make me wish for something that can never, ever be.
End of the day, it doesn’t matter who my dream man is.
I’m on this show because the host and creator, Joe Devonsson, came across Amelie’s audition, only to stumble across a separate application my mother submitted online for me. A submission, I’d like to add, that she never once told me about until Devonsson’s voice was in my ear, hollering through the phone, as he boasted about all the merits of having the Rose sisters battle it out for a suitor on TV. He thought it would make for excellent audience ratings, a way to edge out the longstanding The Bachelor franchise. And then there are my parents—both high society New Orleanians—who thought Put A Ring On It would be an “utter delight.” A way to harken back to the glittering world of debutante balls, various men vying for the affections of a woman, and, as always, a way to get more eyes on the family business.
Except that I didn’t come here for any of that. I came here for Amelie.
Because everything I’ve done in life, I’ve done for my little sister. I’ve subjected myself to the special brand of tough love that my parents dole out in spades, all so she could take off to California and then Hawaii and then, finally, to Florida. I’ve glued myself to the trajectory laid out for me since birth, so that my parents’ attention would be otherwise preoccupied when Amelie shaved her dark hair down to her skull and pierced her nose and strutted around wearing clothes that left her bronze skin nearly bare because she’s always been one to express her moods through her wardrobe.
I gave my parents all of me so my sister could keep all of her.
Which was great and all—until she backed out of the show two weeks ago, citing a business opportunity in Europe that she could not pass up, and now I’m here.
Alone.
Sticky with sweat and nerves.
And dreaming of a man who once belonged to my sister while I’m being courted by twenty-seven other guys.
Not even free champagne can fix this mess.
Clearing my throat, I finally answer: “He’d look like a man who could put up with my family’s special brand of crazy.”
It’s a witty response, a deflective one, too, considering all the heartache that’s gone on behind the scenes in the last few weeks, but Matilda and the camera guy must be ready to hit the cocktails themselves because after a few more surface-level questions, I’m being shuffled back down the winding staircase and out through one of the side doors. The crisp air teases my skin with goose bumps.
“Rock ‘n’ roll time, folks!” Joe Devonsson bellows, off to my right. “Let’s do this—no more crazy shit, you hear me? If I see one more man come out of that limo wearing a ridiculous costume, I’m going to fucking lose my mind.”
You can say that again.
With feet that feel heavy like iron anvils, I trudge to my marked spot on the circular driveway. The grand mansion is to my back, the waiting limo to my front. I have absolutely zero expectations that the next five guys will rev my engine, so to speak, but Matilda’s question continues to nag me: If your dream man could step out of that limo, what would he look like?
Temptation. The word slips through my mind and clings fiercely. My dream man would look like temptation.
“Savannah, you ready?”
After a quick thumbs up to Joe, I pin a serene smile in place like the debutante I once was.
Press my shoulders back.
Pray with every bit of my soul that even if the next guy to climb out of that limo isn’t my dream man, hopefully he’ll be someone I find attractive—or, at the very least, someone who will do a damn good job of convincing me that although I don’t want to be on a dating show, I made the right decision in honoring my contract by showing up.
The glossy limo door swings open and a pair of black-leather dress shoes hit the stone driveway. One foot, then the other, and maybe I’m crazy or already tipsy on too much champagne, but my stomach dips with anticipation.
Begrudging anticipation, but anticipation nonetheless.
Black slacks appear, and I curse the set director for placing me near the walkway leading up to the mansion. Case in point: my view is nothing but limbs. But yeah, this guy—whoever he is—he’s got great legs. Thick thighs that strain the fabric of his pants. Tall-looking, too. Definitely taller than I am.
Wanting a better look, I shift up onto my tiptoes, the rasp of my sequined dress against the cobblestones echoing loudly in my ears.
Tattooed hands are revealed next. Thick, masculine fingers. A palm that could easily span the width of my back, tugging me close for a romantic dance, or a hot kiss, or a gravelly whisper in my ear.
I never cared for tattoos, not before him. Not before I watched him work diligently on every person who walked into his parlor. Not before I sat on that flat table, aware that I was rebelling in a way that I never had before, and felt the weight of his big hands coasting over my skin to mark me with black, irreversible ink.
I swallow hard and remind myself that Los Angeles is thousands of miles away from New Orleans.
Pull yourself together, Rose.
And maybe I would have been able to, if the man exiting the limo hadn’t stepped into the soft light just then and thrown my already teetering world straight into the abyss of chaos.
My dream man.
In the span of a heartbeat, I soak in his familiar face. The dark, tousled hair. The dark, close-shaven beard. The dark, bottomless eyes that always seem to anticipate my every move—even when I wish he couldn’t read me at all. The tattoos that creep up to the collar of his black suit, and cling to the base of his thick throat.
I’m accustomed to seeing him in jeans and flannel shirts but decked out in a tailored, black suit like he is now . . . God, he looks raw.
Savage.
Powerful.
What is he doing here?
Instinctively, I step back—off the X taped to the stone beneath my feet and away from the man who isn’t supposed to be anywhere but in his tattoo shop on Bourbon Street.
Certainly not here. With me.
Amelie.
My sister’s face flashes in my mind’s eye and I wrangle my rapidly beating heart into submission, pushing the traitorous thing down until the pounding in my ears is nothing but ambivalent white noise.
He doesn’t heed the shock that’s no doubt kicked my placid smile to the curb.
No.
Without taking those glittering black eyes off me, he ambles close, all loose limbs and simmering confidence, until we’re breathing the same air, taking up the same space, existing in the same moment.
Temptation.
Goddamn temptation.
“Give me your hand.”
It’s all he says but spoken in that rough New Orleans drawl of his, it’s both a request and a command all at once.
Flustered, my gaze shoots over to the crew, to all the cameras trained in our direction. The lights are damn near blinding but there’s no mistaking the way Joe sits on the literal edge of his seat, looking enraptured by the scene unfolding before him.
One thing is clear: no one is going to help me out of this.
It didn’t occur to me until just now how very public this experience will be. And I’m no idiot: Joe Devonsson will gleefully air this moment all over America in just a few short months, rubbing his hands together in anticipation of skyrocketing ratings. Then everyone will know, just by looking at my face, that I feel like I’ve been pummeled by an eighteen-wheeler.
I lower my voice, my hands balled into tight fists down by my sides to keep them from visibly trembling. “You shouldn’t be here.”
His sharp jaw clenches tight. “I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.”
I’m short on breath. I want to blame it on the too-tight dress. I want to blame it on the California weather, but it’s late November and the air is cool, for once, without even a hint of humidity. I want to blame my lightheadedness on anything but the man standing a hand’s width away, looking like the Prince of Darkness.
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