Page 60 of House of Desire

“Just go, Anastasia,” I interrupt. Her mouth keeps moving, but I can’t hear the words over the sound of my thrumming pulse. Honey brown eyes search my face and she nods at whatever she finds.

As if time is slowed, she takes a step away from me and my chest tightens. My greatest fear turning into reality.

Another step back, eyes still locked with mine, and my heart skips a beat.

A third step, and all the oxygen is sucked out of the entire world.

She turns around, her dress swishing around her feet as they carry her away from me. She looks at me one last time as the limo door shuts behind her and I die, my heart rending in two, while I watch her drive away from me.

Itry to hide the tears pouring down my face at his cruelty, but it’s impossible. Cameras are mounted in the corner pointing right at me. Every moment of this heartbreak is going to be shown to the country. I know the audience will love Parker. They are going to call me stupid and delusional for rejecting a man like him. But they could never understand.

As I wipe my tears, a part of my brain wonders if the harsh words he spewed is the real Parker. How, if I just saw the real Parker, was he able to seem so kind and loving every other day? It doesn’t matter that I want to be with him in the real world and give this a real shot. No matter how much I worried this would be the outcome, I know I made the right decision.

The worst part of it all is I didn’t know I would have to reject him until after he left our Desire Suite date so I couldn’t warn him. So that we could decide what to do together. If I had known before, I could have told him. Asked him, if he picked me, what we should do.

But I didn’t know.

I didn’t know until I watched him walk away from my suite in the morning, every footstep recorded by the cameras twenty feet away. After such a perfect date, I knew I wanted more of this. Chances to wake up beside him. Kiss him. Getting to know every inch of him.

But a ring on my finger would make me feel like we were still performing for an audience that doesn’t care that we are real people with real feelings.

The member of production in the front seat deems I have had enough time to wallow and opens the partition. Her face is placid. Calm and uncaring my heart is sitting, broken and bleeding, inside a horseshoe of roses.

“Anastasia, why did you reject Parker?” she asks, looking at something in her lap. Probably the clipboards they always carried around with them.

“Because I like him,” I tell her simply, proud my voice is not warbling with tears.

“Wouldn’t that be a reason to say yes?”

“I don’t want him to propose to me because I’m one of two women left at the end of a competition.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Can you give that answer again? We don’t like to call it a competition. We prefer journey.” She sits there, guileless eyes looking at me, like it’s a perfectly normal thing to ask someone going through heartbreak to reword their answer to a question so it can be used in a sound bite.

But I guess, it is normal here.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been asked to say something again or move my head or my hand or stand differently. Over the past nine weeks, it’s like I’ve been a really bad actor and was improvising until suddenly I was given one line of a script.

“I don’t want him to propose to me because I’m one of two women left at the end of this journey,” I say, emphasizing ‘journey’ so I don’t have to repeat myself again.

“Great. And did you have sex with Parker last night?” she asks, making a mark on her clipboard. I scowl.

“That’s not your business.”

“Does it bother you he, most likely, had sex with another woman so close to when you’d be seeing him?”

“That’s not your concern, either.”

“I’m afraid it is,” she says before turning to the driver. “Can you circle around? We have a few more questions to get through before she can go into the hotel.”

I hear the click, click, click of the turn signal as the driver takes the car around the block and I almost want to laugh at the absurdity of this situation. Here I sit, in a beautiful gown with tear-streaked makeup, wishing I had a chance to talk to Parker alone, and these people want to continue interviewing me.

“Now, would you say, despite your rejection, you’re glad Parker picked you?”

Emotions all over the place, a giggle escapes. I’d like to think it’s better than tears, but that’s probably not true, since this will absolutely be cut and shown in a way that does nothing but make me seem petty and mean.

For the first time in nine weeks, I make the decision not to play the game. I ignore the question, leaning my head against the seat, and I hope they are giving Parker the space they refuse to give to me.

Ifinally filmed my last interview for the start of season promotion and all I could think about since I’ve left the mansion is Anya walking away from me. In one week, people will be able to watch me fall for her and then ruin everything. A part of me is still upset I will never see her again. Never get a chance to tell her I’m sorry for the things I said.

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