It had to be Rafe, because I knew for a fact that at that very moment Dante had been with me.
What about editing? What if they filmed it later? There were times we had to do things over again because the lighting was wrong or the sound guy had stepped into the shot. Maybe they’d had Genesis go to the stream again later on, only this time Dante showed up. I watched some of the Genesis and Rafe scenes, thinking it still might be a scam.
But now there was no question. As I listened to him talk, watched him move, saw his smile, I knew, without a doubt, that it was Rafe.
Rafe had been there from the beginning, romancing half of the women on the show while Dante had the other half.
Only there hadn’t been any other half for Dante. There had been only me, and the show made very certain to show it. All of our dates, all of our conversations that I had thought had been private, out there for public consumption.
Kat had been right. I could see it on his face. Documented evidence that Dante had loved me. It made the breath catch in my throat to see what I’d had.
And what I had thrown away.
I fast-forwarded again, until a point when the footage was different. This hadn’t been edited yet. There was no music, no slick scene changes, no voiceovers from Harris. It was me finding Rafe. I didn’t watch that. I didn’t want to relive it. But then there was Rafe in the backyard, getting Dante, who was waiting for me. I didn’t hear want to hear what they said, because the look on Dante’s face tore me apart. The cameras only barely kept up with him.
He came running out front, trying to stop me. And I just drove off.
Then it was the finale, and Rafe went first. Genesis waited for him in a beautiful jade-green gown that shimmered in the light. She didn’t look happy as he approached, and he looked brokenhearted.
Before he could speak, she said, “I’m only here because I have to be. I’m not interested in hearing what you have to say.”
“Genesis, please, let me explain why I did what I did.”
“There’s nothing you can say or do to fix this,” she told him with a mixture of anger and sadness as she walked to the waiting limo.
I’d been so obsessed with my own feelings, that even after I’d realized that Rafe had been there, I hadn’t given a single thought to what Genesis had been going through. I would force Taylor to give me her number, and I would call her first thing in the morning to apologize. I had been totally out of line and had no right to speak to her the way that I did. She was suffering from the deception, too.
Then there was Dante with Abigail. She wore a tight black sheath, leaving no room for her to even breathe. She must have had ten pairs of Spanx on under that thing. She held her left hand out in front her, as if she expected there to be a ring on it soon.
She looked far too smug and tossed her Disney princess hair as Dante approached. He stood in front of her.
“I’m sorry to do it like this, but I’m not in love with you. I’m in love with Lemon, and have been for a long time. I just found out that she saw my twin brother with Genesis and thought it was me. So now I’m going to find her and think of some way to make sure that she’s mine forever.”
My heart pounded so fast I thought it might rupture. He walked away from her, and she started screaming at him, and I couldn’t understand what she was saying.
Because her real accent most definitely was not British. If I wasn’t mistaken, that was one thick Cajun accent spewing out of her mouth. But what about her “family” in England? Knowing her, she had probably just hired some actors to keep up the lie.
A small part of me enjoyed that revelation as I imagined how that clip would play nonstop on the Internet indefinitely. Karma truly existed. But this was filmed last night. Why hadn’t he come? I shut the laptop. It was late, but I needed to clear my head, and I felt like the walls were pressing in on me. I slipped on a pair of shoes and went downstairs.
My mother was in the kitchen, directing the cleanup. “Everyone’s left.”
“Thank you for handling everything. I’m going to go for a walk.”
“Take the dogs with you. I’m sure they’re dying to get out of the basement.”