Reality Love Bites

Chapter 19.


Lauren slipped into the mansion with the stilettos firmly in her hand so that she wouldn't make noise on the marble flooring in the grand foyer. She'd had a close call with one of the cameramen having a cigarette outside of one of the trailers assigned to the crew, but other than that sneaking back into the mansion had been a cake walk. She silently patted herself on the back as she practically floated up the stairs towards her room. Lauren was still on cloud nine after the wonderful hours she had managed to spend with Bo. She smiled as she opened the door to her room, slipped inside and closed it softly behind her. She breathed a sigh of relief as she closed her eyes and leaned against the closed door. A hand moved up and touched her lips that still felt swollen from Bo's deep kisses of farewell, which had lasted way longer than intended.

It had been just as difficult, if not more so, to leave Bo for the second time in as many days. Lauren had never felt like this before and she smiled a huge, dopey grin as she thought about the women she had left standing half naked and sexy as hell in that hotel room. The clock showed Lauren that it would be dawn in just under an hour and the crew would start making noise downstairs setting up for the final days within the mansion.

Only a few days and I'll be in Bo's arms again and I will never leave them again.

Lauren knew she was being presumptuous. She was a realist and knew that love very rarely lasted a lifetime, but at this time, in this moment, none of that mattered. Bo made her feel so loved, so special, so beautiful like she was the only one.

I would marry her tomorrow if she'd have me, she thought to herself.

"I do," she whispered softly before giggling to herself and rolling her eyes at how silly she was being.

"You do what?" came out of the darkness scaring Lauren out of her blissful, fantastical bubble.

"Jesus!" Lauren blurted. She blinked rapidly as light illuminated the soft darkness from one of the lamps on the bedside table.

"Nope, it's just me," Ciara responded from her position on the spare bed.

"You scared the hell out of me!" Lauren left her position leaning against the door and crossed the room to sit on her own bed to face the smirking English woman.

"Well, you shocked me as well. You never struck me as the rebellious type that would sneak out in the middle of the night to see her forbidden lover."

Lauren let out a snort of laughter, knowing that her friend was teasing, "Hardly forbidden. We did get to spend last night together, remember?"

"Oh, I remember all too well, thanks to your report this afternoon over champagne. I just didn't expect you to run off for a second helping tonight, that's all."

"It wasn't exactly planned. I was perfectly content with just calling the hotel using the phone, she had slipped into my pocket. But after she sent me a picture of herself wearing the present I enlisted the concierge to purchase for me, well, I just had to have her in my arms again." Lauren placed her head in her hands and groaned, "oh God, I'm a goner, aren't I?"

"I'm afraid so," Ciara answered with a delighted laugh at how head over heels in love Lauren was. "Now if I can produce that kind of love and devotion from Tamsin tonight all will be right with the world. I only hope I'll be able to stay awake long enough to accomplish what Bo has obviously achieved with you. I don't think I have ever seen anyone so blissfully happy and in love. Is she the ONE, Lauren? I mean... I've known for a very long time that Tamsin was the one for me, even if she had no idea and I feel that that is what you are experiencing right now. That all encompassing feeling that you have found a missing part of your soul that you didn't even know was missing. Is it like that?"

Lauren flopped backwards onto the bed with a sigh as she thought about Bo and the sensations she felt within as she did so. Her heart seemed to swell and threaten to burst, while her loins heated and pulsed with the memories of Bo's scorching touch. "I do. She completes me, Ciara. The thought of being without her physically hurts. It's crazy! This isn't me. I don't do this. I don't lower my guards and open my heart so willingly. EVER! But it's like Bo possesses the key to my heart, to my soul. I don't think that anything in this world, or the next, would be able to keep me from her. I am hers completely, and it is scary as hell, but also so exhilarating and freeing. Gosh," Lauren exclaimed breathlessly as she sat up and faced her friend with a self-conscious smile as her face heated up with embarrassment from her candid, lovey dovey outburst. "Sorry..." She chuckles awkwardly. "I hardly recognise myself at the moment. I don't talk like this... So open.. About my feelings and such. I am reserved, precise and stand-offish. People think me cold usually, but here I am a complete mushy puddle of goo whenever I think of Bo Dennis. I don't feel like me, Ciara."

"It's wonderful! I want what you and Bo have found. I want it so badly. I don't want to wait anymore and I can't bear the thought of standing back and watching Tamsin choose someone else...not again. My heart couldn't withstand it. What if I have made the biggest mistake of my life, Lauren?"

Lauren frowned, "What do you mean? What mistake?"

"THIS!" Ciara says in a high pitched, panicky tone, throwing her hands into the air. "I had Vex create this insane premise, all because I was too much of a coward to just go up to the woman I have loved for almost forever and tell her how I felt. I haven't been able to sleep at all. I was waiting for the sound of the front door opening. For the sound of Evony returning after being rejected by Tamsin because she wants me...because she loves me." Tears spilled over and Ciara's voice hitched as a sob escaped her and her face crumpled in sadness and despair. "But Evony hasn't returned and the sun is about to come up! I wasn't brave enough to tell Tamsin how I felt on my own and I instead had Vex select a smorgasbord of single, beautiful women for her to choose from and it looks like she's chosen. I should just go now and hide away and lick my wounds until I can face Tamsin again and be able to stomach only being friends with her. It's over and I've lost to a complete BITCH! I would rather Tamsin have chosen YOU, over that WOMAN!"

Lauren moved beside Ciara, who was unravelling before her very eyes and put her arms around her in an attempt to calm her. "You told Tamsin to be true to herself. You told her to explore the connection she had with Evony. Just because Evony hasn't come home with her forked tail between her legs doesn't mean that she has won Tamsin's heart. I know that Tamsin loves you, Ciara. I KNOW IT!" Lauren forced her friend to look at her, to see the certainty in her eyes. "You are still in this race for Tamsin's heart and I would bet my prize money on you coming out on top. SHE LOVES YOU," Lauren repeated, wanting to push all of her belief and faith into those three words so that Ciara would believe it and stop feeling so defeated and dejected.

"Oh, to the angels and God's ears, Lauren. I cannot be without her. I just can't!" Ciara hugged Lauren tightly and cried out her desperation and fears and replacing those feeling with the strength, belief and hope that radiated from the friend holding her.

She even hugs and comforts me like you used to, Jess. I miss you, but even if it doesn't work out with Tamsin, I'll have found a new friend in Lauren. I'll have gotten something out of this entire fiasco, Ciara thought. She spoke silently to Jess often and probably always would. A sensation of calm filled her and it felt divine as if her long lost friend herself was telling her that this was the way it was meant to be and that whatever happened in the next few days, it would all be okay. That she would carry on and live a full life, filled with people that loved and cared for her and a dearly departed best friend that watched over her from the heavens above.

Ciara pulled back her hands moving over the material of Lauren's coat as she did so. "Gosh, Lauren, I didn't even give you the opportunity to remove your coat before I started babbling and crying about my worries! Here, let's get you settled."

Lauren stopped Ciara's hands as she went to help her out of her coat and the only barrier between exposing a hell of a lot of flesh to her new friend. Lauren felt the heat rise to her face as she blushed furiously and Ciara looked at her quizzically, "What's the matter?"

Lauren stepped back and let out a small chuckle, "I'm not wearing a lot under this coat, sweetie and I'm not sure how Bo would feel allowing you to get an eyeful of my goodies."

Her friend's eye went wide and her eyes involuntarily moved from Lauren's face to the front of the coat that she was clutching with her hands, before looking her in the eye again. She gave a chuckle of her own and motioned towards the adjoining bathroom, "You'd better get yourself into something more practical then. I'd like to stay in here if you don't mind. You have a calming presence and I really need that right now."

"Of course, I don't mind. I'll be right back and I'll hold you within my calming presence and you'll hopefully at least manage a couple of hours of sleep, okay?"

"Thanks, Lauren. I'm glad we met and have become friends."

"Me too, Ciara," she responded with a smile and a wink. "Be right back. Get settled."

A few minutes later Lauren was in her familiar and comfortable, lightweight cotton pajamas. She settled herself next to Ciara on the single bed and held her in a comforting manner until a short while later her friend's breathing evened out in an exhausted, dreamless sleep. Lauren closed her own eyes, also weary after the night's activities and fell asleep with thoughts of Bo and the life she wished to have with her.


Evony informed the driver that she needed a moment before he opened the door for her and she had to face the camera's and the two women who would probably be waiting just inside the front door. "It's game time," she muttered to herself as she used a small hand mirror to ensure that her hair had that 'fucked all night' look and pinched her cheeks to add a little extra colour to her flawless olive skin. She had even serviced herself upon waking up this morning to hopefully exude an air of complete satisfaction. "Make the bitches squirm, Evony," she said as a final pep talk before knocking on the window to let the driver know that she was ready for her grand entrance and quite possibly her greatest performance of the entire show.

She was hurting from Tamsin's rejection and at the intense anger that the show was a complete setup and that all of the contestants had been pawns in an elaborate scheme to get Ciara the woman she loved. Evony would have admired Ciara for having the balls to use her contacts and money in this way just to get the woman she wanted if she hadn't been one of the people duped in the process. She was ruthless when it came to getting things she wanted and would not have given a crap about all of these other woman's feelings if she had done it either, but she was one of these women and it was her feelings that had been hurt.

Which means I can't let her get away with it. Not unscathed. She needs to hurt even if it's just for the day. She needs to believe that I spent the night between the sheets having hot and sweaty sex with the woman she loves, Evony thought as she smiled and glammed it up for the camera's and answered the few questions that the spokesman asked, before she went inside and faced her adversaries.

She may believe Tamsin when she tells her that nothing happened, but all she needed to do was add just a sliver of doubt and she would have a small victory, no matter how tiny. Evony took a deep breath and opened the front door in a sweeping motion and came face to face with a few cameras and a boom mic, but nothing else. No Ciara. No Lauren. Just cameramen and the expectant cameras.

Heat rose to her cheeks naturally now as anger consumed her. She really isn't worried about losing, is she? She thought bitterly.

Evony slammed the door loudly and announced her arrival in a loud and confident voice full of triumph and satisfaction, "come and greet the victor of this farce. After the night I gave her, she couldn't possibly want another!"

Minutes passed and nothing happened. Nobody appeared. "Ah, hello? Where the fuck is my welcoming committee? Get your asses down here bitches, the show isn't over yet!"


Lauren jolted awake and raised her free arm that wasn't completely numb and trapped beneath Ciara to her head and groaned as Evony's petulant, shrill holler rang out within the house again.

"GET DOWN HERE!"

"Ciara. Ciara, wake up," Lauren whispered hoarsely. She desperately needed a glass of water.

"Five more minutes," came the mumbled response from her slumbering friend.

"Evony's back. We should have been downstairs waiting for her."

"Well, whoop-dee-do, Princess Evony is back. She can go suck an egg. Bitch."

Lauren pulled her arm out from under Ciara and got up. She shook her arm in an attempt to recover some feeling in it as she yanked the blanket off of her friend with her functional one. "Do you want to be late getting to your date with the woman of your dreams? The woman you declare to have loved for almost forever, because we have to play our parts with Evony for the cameras before you can go be with your destiny. Now get your lazy English butt up!"

More mumbles were followed by a frustrated, resigned growl. "I don't want to deal with her. Can't I skip that part?" Ciara opened one eye and looked at Lauren.

"I'm afraid not. The sooner we get down there, the sooner you will be in Tamsin's arms. Now come on!"

Lauren grabbed her dressing gown and headed towards the door as she tied it securely around her slim waist. "I'll go down first and keep her occupied, but be quick because you need to still get your hair and makeup done."

Lauren turned around to look at Ciara as she opened the door to ensure her friend wasn't planning on just going back to sleep the moment she left. To her relief Ciara was now in a sitting position and rubbing her eyes. "Tamsin has seen me at my most dishevelled, she won't care if I'm all made up or not."

"Whatever, just hurry up. I don't want to be left alone with the devil in high heels for too long," Lauren hissed before heading off.

Evony looked up at the sound of a door opening upstairs. She stood up a little straighter and put on her gloating and self-satisfied expression when she heard Lauren call out 'to keep her panties on. That she'd be down in a moment."

"I'm not wearing any panties," she replied smugly, as she watched Lauren take the stairs quickly, still in her sleeping attire. "Have a late one, did we?"

"You could say that," Lauren responded without enthusiasm. She really didn't like the look of triumph the irritating woman was wearing. "Ciara will be down in a moment."

"I'm surprised she isn't ready and excited for her date! Not that she has much hope after the night I just gave the love of her life. The words, unforgettable and epic come to mind. So much chemistry and passion. I feel like a new woman and think that Tamsin has seen that we could be really great together," Evony crooned trying to put as much optimism and confidence as she could muster.

She hadn't noticed that Ciara was coming down the stairs until she heard a small yelp and saw her stumble down the last few, but managed to keep her feet. Evony couldn't hold back the grin of satisfaction at the flustered and nervous demeanour being displayed by the rake thin and usually elegant and graceful English woman. She was dishevelled in a pair of lavender yoga pants and a loose, plum coloured pullover, no makeup and her hair in a rough braid.

"So nice of you to join us, Miss Thing! Even if you are looking a little more like a hassled soccer mum, rather than a queen," Evony sneered.

"Bite me, Evony," was Ciara's uncharacteristic response, which momentarily threw Evony and caused Lauren to suppress a laugh.

Evony recovered quickly, however, and set a challenging gaze on a scowling Ciara. "Don't be sore, CC. I am a hard act to follow, after all."

"And yet, I see her tonight. You know the saying, Evony, 'saving the best till last'! By this time tomorrow whatever you shared with Tamsin last night will be a distant, barely there memory. You may think you have won, but I have a distinct advantage over you that can't be beat."

"Oh, and what, pray tell, would that be?" Evony said with a raised eyebrow. She hadn't expected Ciara to meet her fire with some of her own. This new confidence was unexpected, especially after the obvious fumble on the stairs. Ciara had recovered quickly and her quiet and reserved air was replaced with a fierce sense of determination and confidence that she had never displayed before.

"History, Evony. History... Tamsin knows me inside and out. She has seen me at my worst and at my best which can only ever be better with her by my side. We are meant to be and I should have told her well before now. I was a coward. I was afraid of being rejected and risking our long-standing friendship, but I can no longer hide this love that I possess for her and I won't allow her to make a mistake in thinking that you are better for her than I am. You've already lost, Evony. You just don't know it yet."

"I could make her happy, Ciara. You don't have a monopoly on knowing what is good for Tamsin. I have developed very strong feelings for her and can see us having a life together. I have a lot to offer, as much as you do and from the way she kissed me last night, she knows and feels it too. Hmm tasty," Evony finished as she licked her lips for emphasis."

Lauren was entranced by the interaction between Ciara and Evony. She sensed that Evony hadn't expected Ciara to come out fighting like she had with her obvious attempts to rub in the fact that she and Tamsin had shared some intimacy the previous night. She just hoped it didn't continue to elevate and that one of them would walk away soon.

"Oh, you certainly do have your gifts, Evony. You wouldn't have been selected to take part in this circus if you didn't, but I could bring just as much passion out of Tamsin while looking like a soccer mum then you did dressed to the nines like a high-class HOOKER!"

"I'll take that bet."

Ciara faltered and tilted her head in confusion, "What? I didn't bet anything."

Evony crossed her arms and looking at Ciara with a challenging and hard stare. "I dare you to put your money where your mouth is. I am no HOOKER! Just because I take pride in my appearance and wear fabulous dresses that accentuate my assets, doesn't make me a HOOKER.."

"I, um, I didn't mean..."

Evony cut Ciara off and Lauren readied herself for the explosion that looked set to come from the fiery European. "Oh, you meant it. I have no illusion about the way you see me, Ciara. But I am a successful and beautiful woman and I will not apologise for it. I also agree that this whole show was a setup and a farce from the start and we were all at a disadvantage, right from the get go!"

Evony circled Ciara menacingly, her voice going low and shaking a little with the rage she was feeling at the injustice she felt at not being able to prove that she could have been a supportive and loving partner to Tamsin. All because of Ciara. "I dare you to walk out that door, as is, and go to your date with Tamsin. No makeup, no fancy clothes, and your hair looking like a complete mess. You don't need any of that stuff, right. So go. Just fucking go and get your girl from this rigged piece of bullshit television. It's all just a complete joke. Get out of my sight before I do something that would put me behind bars. I've had enough of all of it!"

Ciara was actually a little scared at just how close to the edge Evony was, but she hid it well and held her head high, her jaw firmly. "Very well, Evony. I will!" And with those words Ciara marched to the front door and walked out, just as she was, bare foot and dishevelled and got into the waiting limousine, slamming the door behind her.

Lauren and Evony watched the car start and make its way down the long winding drive until it was out of sight.

"SHOW'S OVER!" Evony yelled, causing Lauren to flinch in her place beside the livid, enraged woman. "Show's over," she said again, more softly and completely defeated, before silently walking away, heading to her room and slamming the door.

Lauren stood for a few minutes digesting what had just transpired and having a feeling that Evony knew that she had lost. That when she had said 'show's over,' she had been talking about herself rather than the production itself. "Well, that was interesting and is sure to make some rather interesting television," she declared to the camera that was trained exclusively on her. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get some much-needed sleep."

"What am I supposed to tell Vex when he asks where the rest of today's footage is?" Lauren turned back to the cameraman from her place at the foot of the stairs. "Didn't you hear what Evony said? Show's over. Take a day off, Philip," the blonde responded softly before going to her own room...


Author's Note: I know it took a long time, but it's finally here and I hope you enkoyed it. Thanks for your patience with me.

Doccubus21

xoxo