The urge to yell ‘Cut!’ rushed through Rob as the grinning bachelor lowered his head to Jane’s.
Cut. Cut. Cut!
He didn’t want to see this.
He couldn’t look away.
One of the cameramen zoomed closer.
Jane’s fingers crept into the man’s blond locks, and she twisted his hair.
Savage urges shook Rob. Her hands belonged on him. In his hair. If he went out there and choked the daylights out of Bachelor #10, reality TV would plummet into a whole new market. Murder and mayhem.
Of course, ratings would probably skyrocket. He could see the headlines now. Hollywood producer strangles bachelor on the make with co-star. He slammed the button to kill the monitor instead of the unsuspecting bachelor who’d already had one undeserved beating today.
“You’ve got it bad,” JP swore under his breath, leaning back in his chair so far Rob thought he might tilt right over.
He pulled a cigar from his shirt pocket and chewed on the tip as he stared at him.
“Maybe you should make a trip into the city, pick up some European hottie, and work off your excess testosterone.”
If Rob thought it would help, he’d do exactly that. Not any woman would do. He stared at the blank screen. He wanted her.
“My testosterone levels are just fine.”
JP snorted. “If you say so.”
“I say so.” He pushed back his chair and stood. “I’ll be in the exercise room if you need me.”
JP had the gall to laugh. “Tired of cold showers, eh?”
Rob called him a foul name and walked away, but not before hearing JP’s parting shot. “Just think, you’re only stuck with her for another four weeks.”
Aw, hell.
Murder and mayhem might be the theme of this reality show yet.
# # #
Princess Isabella Jane Strovanik paced across the floor of her private quarters in the west wing of Strovanik Castle. What had she done by allowing these crazy Americans into her home?
“Gregory, I think I have made a horrible mistake,” she muttered to the dashing young man she had spent the last month with so he could learn all the things he’d need to impart to the woman impersonating her.
“Your Highness?” he asked from where he sat in a wingback chair that had been her great-great grandmother’s.
“I should never have agreed to this.”
“Why ever not?” He sipped vintage wine from her late father’s wine cellar in a goblet that was three centuries old. Just the sight of the goblet in his careless hands provided a reminder of what she had brought upon herself. All because of a man.
“I am making a mockery of my heritage, allowing another woman to pretend to be me. My father would be outraged if he knew what I have done.”
“The film company is paying you good money for your role in this,” he reminded.
She threw her hands up in frustration. “I am not doing this for the money.” Which wasn’t entirely true. The royal coffers were not as full as they’d once been. Her father’s refusal to modernize the workforce had stifled her country.
Gregory’s shoulders lifted. “Then why are you doing this?”
Good question. She had sold herself a crock full of lies, telling herself the show would be good for her country’s tourism industry as the show would reveal the terrain’s beauty.