Page 4 of Forsaking All Others

It’s been a long, tedious night, and I’ve already had to pretend pleasure at meeting a dozen or more women from every corner of the globe. Despite knowing how the introductions would play out, I’d started out resigned, gradually grew jaded, and eventually downright depressed as the contestants kept coming, all carbon copies of nothing, and all doomed.

But with this delay, I’ve progressed to pissed off.

The director squirms under my scrutiny.

“Ah, um, ah, and please, call me Gerry. There was a little hold-up on the road…”

I narrow my eyes as I study him. He’s almost a facsimile of the director before him and the one in the series before that, ad nauseam. I imagine he’s been cast in this role just as every contestant ever was. They want a type for their director, and they have it: short, sweaty, nervous, yet somehow competent enough at his job to garner the fear and respect of the contestants and crew.

And with a name like Gerry Dott… a ridiculous little man for a ridiculous little show.

‘A show I’m on against my will. No, not against my will. I came for a reason. I have no one to blame but myself for being here. And fucking Falcon!’

The director mops his brow and looks down hurriedly at his clipboard, which seems to me to be more of a prop than a legitimate guide.

“What kind of hold-up?”

“Ah, nothing to trouble yourself with,” he says quickly, too quickly.

‘Christ, they must do a shit-load of editing before this show airs. No one warns you about the interminable time in between takes and the way the bachelor is treated like a mindless prop. Trouble myself? I’ll give you fucking trouble.’

“Director, you seem to be labouring under some kind of misconception.”

“I am?” He looks up, eyes wide.

“Gerry,” I drawl his name and pin him with my eyes. “Your last bachelor was a trumped-up little asshole from a small royal family in Bavaria with a penchant for bondage and the IQ of a rodent. I, on the other hand, am a Viscount of considerable intelligence, a specialist in tracking and torture and a keen purveyor of human folly. I can tell when you fabricate; I can tell when you obfuscate. Don’t try my patience.”

“I don’t understand…” he looks at me wide-eyed.

“I know when you’re bullshitting,” I snap. “What’s holding up the women?”

He opens his mouth to answer just as the limo pulls up, and relief crosses his features.

Before I can press him, he raises his chin and shouts.

“And… Action!”

3

I step out of the car last, the bright lights of the cameras momentarily blinding me until the director slaps one of the crew on the shoulder with his clipboard, and the lighting guy adjusts his tripod.

Smoothing down my knee-length apricot silk sheath as best I can, I notice I’m covered in stains, mostly blood and red paint, not to mention sploshes of champagne. Some of the others’ gowns were much less worse-for-wear after the attack, but silk hides no lies. I truly look like something the cat dragged in, but there’s no help for it.

Looking up, I see the bachelor standing on the expected rose-strewn, red carpet, rolled out all the way from the driveway to the mansion door. Fairy lights are strung up in all the trees and line the walk towards what the advertisements claim is our ‘royal destiny.’

I’m relieved when I get a good look at my so-called destiny, even though I don’t believe in that bullshit. He’s tall, broad-shouldered, and just as handsome as his pictures.

‘I hope he’s also as bloodthirsty as his reputation.’

As I step purposely towards him, I meet his eyes, surprised at how beautiful they are. I’m momentarily a little awed by his presence. He’s the kind of man that would command attention anywhere he went, female attention that is, he’s really fucking out-of-this-world handsome.

‘Yes, he’ll do. He’ll do nicely.’

“Welcome,” he says quietly, inclining his head in a slight nod.

His tone is warm enough, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

I stand within arm’s length of him but don’t attempt to hug or kiss him as the other competitors I’d watched had done; I’m not the touchy-feely kind, and somehow, given his body language as he’d met each of the others, I don’t think he is either.