One To Watch (30 page)

Sam sighed. “Partly, yeah. Things can get tense around the house—going off to be on TV seemed like a much more fun alternative.”

“And are you having fun?”

“Come on.” He lowered his voice. “You know I am.”

“What—um …” Bea wasn’t sure how to ask the question. “Is it
just
fun, though?”

“Are you asking if I see this as fun or something more?”

Bea flushed, a little embarrassed. “I guess I am.”

“Bea”—he took her hand—“I am really into you. Like—really. Really, really. Okay?”

Bea knew all the reallys were intended to reassure her, but they had the opposite effect—she suddenly felt more nervous than she had before.

“What about you?” Sam nudged. “Where do you think we stand?”

Bea ducked her head, her voice small. “I know you make me smile. And that I want to spend more time with you.”

“If that’s the case,” he smiled slyly, “you’re in luck.”

He took an envelope out of his jacket pocket and handed it to her.

“What’s this?” Bea turned over the blank envelope in her hands, suspicious.

“It’s an invitation to a luxury hammam. I’m supposed to ask if you want to go there after dinner; apparently they have a private treatment all set up for us.”

“What kind of treatment?” Bea asked, leaning closer. Under the table, Sam’s knee touched hers.

“I don’t know exactly. But I’m told it involves a series of pools, hot water, different oils and scrubs.” He pressed his leg against hers, and Bea felt the flush from their dance creeping back into her system.

“I know you said you didn’t like wearing a bathing suit on that yacht,” he added, “but since this would be just the two of us … and since you did deprive me the last time …”

Bea nodded. “Yes. Let’s go.”

The entry to the hammam was hidden in a maze of winding alleys deep in the Marrakesh medina. The reception room felt much like a traditional spa with its bleached wood floors and shelves of products you could take home to attempt to re-create your time here, desert-salt scrub and orange-blossom shampoo. But once Bea and Sam had checked in, changed into the bathing suits Alison had surreptitiously provided to the producers, and covered up in thin cloth robes, they descended a stone staircase and emerged into what felt like another universe.

The hammam was absolutely cavernous, with smooth gray floors and soaring arched ceilings inlaid with swirls of blue and purple tiles arranged in intricate mosaics. Carved lanterns lined the room’s perimeter, surrounding a placid blue pool that was bathed in a thousand points of light. This was the communal bathing area; two of the hammam’s workers—a stocky man and a slight woman—led Bea and Sam to a private room for their traditional hammam treatment.

“It is more intimate this way,” said the woman, who introduced herself as Rehana.

“Nothing’s intimate with these guys around.” Bea gestured to the cameras, but Rehana’s manner was immovably calm.

“You’ll see, you’ll be very relaxed,” she assured Bea with a smile.

The treatment room was warm and cavelike, lit only with candles, made entirely of the same gray material as the floors in the communal room, with a low, curved ceiling and a steaming tub of water that ran the entire length of the wall opposite the door.

“Your robe?” Rehana held out her hand. Sam handed his robe to his helper, Issam, without hesitation, giving Bea her first glimpse of the rippling muscles that had so far been hidden by his clothes. She felt herself flush red—Sam’s face creased with concern.

“We don’t have to do this. We can just go back to the
riad,
have a drink by the fire.”

“No.” Bea swallowed hard. “I want to.”

She handed her robe to Rehana, revealing the swimsuit Alison had sent over: a black Cynthia Rowley one-piece with a notched neckline that dipped low between Bea’s breasts, tied together with a little bow. She kept her gaze trained on Sam’s face, waiting for his expression to betray some hint of disgust. But his pupils dilated as his eyes traveled down her body, and he clenched the towel he was holding.

“Are you ready to begin?” Issam’s voice was deep and honeyed. Bea nodded. Issam and Rehana positioned Bea and Sam in the middle of the room, facing each other. They brought over wooden buckets filled with steaming water from the tub, gently ladling the water over Bea’s and Sam’s arms, legs, torsos, and finally their heads until they were both warm and wet.

Sam reached out and wrapped a lock of Bea’s wet hair around his fingers. She had a sudden urge for him to yank her closer, to kiss her hard and shove her against the hot, smooth wall of this dim room where everything was slick with condensation.

“What?” he asked, his lips curving into a smile that matched hers.

“Can you read my mind?”

“I hope so, because I
really
want you to be thinking what I’m thinking.”

He had to step back so Issam and Rehana could continue the ritual, first scrubbing them down with rough black soap, then washing it away and soothing their skin with sweet mango butter, and finally massaging their scalps with rose oil. When it was over, Bea and Sam stood close together in the center of the room, hot water cascading over them and rinsing them clean. The air around them felt warm and thick, the tension buzzing between their bodies, the anticipation of touching him so strong Bea couldn’t think of anything else.

Once they were dry and back in robes, they made their way back to the communal bathing room—it was empty now except for Bea, Sam, and a couple of camera ops and sound techs. Even the producers had left, probably to lull Sam and Bea into some false sense of privacy. They shed their robes and stepped gingerly into the warm pool, which was perfectly calibrated to match the temperature of the balmy air, and of their bodies. They waded toward the center, where the water was deep enough to reach Bea’s chest. After all the noise of the rushing water in the private room, this room seemed incredibly still and quiet, nothing audible above Bea’s and Sam’s own breath.

“If I don’t kiss you right now, I’m going to lose my mind,” he rasped.

“We can’t have that,” Bea responded, and then his hands were on her, grabbing her hips under the water and pulling her close, kissing her firmly, roughly, just like she’d wanted him to—there was nothing tentative about this, no question of faking it. He wanted her, and she wanted him back. He kissed her cheek, and then the spot at the edge of her jawline just below her ear. Bea heard a groan escape her, a guttural sound, and then threw her hands over her mouth.

“What is it?” Sam asked, flustered.

“We’re on
television,
” Bea squeaked, and then she burst out laughing.

Sam turned and good-naturedly splashed some water at the cameras. “You guys can’t give us a break, huh?”

Bea covered her face, somewhere between arousal and mortification and total joyous bliss. Sam lifted her fingers to peek underneath them.

“Hi, Bea.”

“Hi, Sam.”

“I like you a lot.”

Bea’s heart pounded so hard she knew Sam could feel it.

“I like you a lot too.”

The morning after her hammam escapade, Bea woke feeling—well, if not entirely confident, then at least more comfortable than she’d been throughout filming. She lazed in bed as the
riad
staff brought sweet mint tea, fresh orange juice, and eggs scrambled with herbs and olive oil. She let her mind drift to kissing Asher in Ohio and their intense connection, to Sam last night in the hammam and his electric energy. It wasn’t fair to compare those kisses to Ray last Fourth of July—she and Ray had known each other so much longer, the buildup to their night together had been so drawn out and fraught that kissing him had felt like an ocean of clear water after years in endless desert, drinking so quickly and deeply that she went from parched to drowned.

With Asher, and now Sam, it was different—they were finding their path together, all excitement and uncertainty. And then … there was Luc. She was looking forward to their date this afternoon—and perhaps to kisses that would feel less agitated and complex than those they shared the night of the yacht and the crème brûlée.

Bea felt that same rush of effortless chemistry when she saw him waiting for her in front of the
riad,
sporting dark jeans, a charcoal sweater, and just the right amount of transatlantic scruff.

“Morocco suits you,” he murmured as he leaned down to kiss her on the mouth, a soft hello that lingered for a delicious moment.

“You like me in menswear?” Bea teased. She was wearing head-to-toe Veronica Beard today: high-waisted linen trousers in a soft brown clay, a ribbed white shell with a low scoop neck, and a stunning slouchy houndstooth blazer that made her feel like Rosalind Russell circa
His Girl Friday
.

“I like you anywhere.” Luc smiled and kissed her again; he tasted like salt and smoke.

“If that’s true, then I think you’re really going to like me today.”

“Oh?” He let his hands settle at her waist, comfortably holding her as they talked. “What adventures do you have planned?”

“I thought we could spice things up a little. Maybe add some flavor to our date.”

“You are making cooking jokes, yes?”

“Yes. Cooking puns, technically.”

“Ah. And perhaps my English is to blame, or perhaps the puns are bad?”

Bea grinned. “The puns are awful.”

They rode in a fancy old car to the Marrakesh spice market, an open square stuffed with dozens of vendors whose glass jars filled with rainbow spices lined shelves that stretched to the roof of each stall like some kind of Wonka-esque dream. Luc’s eyes lit up as he took Bea from stall to stall, sharing tastes of hot cayenne and pungent cumin and savory ras el hanout. He held out a strand of golden saffron for Bea to try; she went to take it from his finger, but he shook his head.

“It is too delicate. This way is better.” He lifted his finger to her lips, and it felt so much more erotic than kissing as she took it into her mouth, gently letting the intensity of the pure saffron wash over her tongue.

He let his finger rest on her lips for a moment, and she wanted to kiss it, to kiss him, to get the hell away from the crowd of bystanders and the laughing merchants she felt certain were mocking her in Arabic.

Instead she just smiled, and Luc ran his fingers along her jawline. “A pity I need my hands back at all. I’d rather leave them with you.”

After the spice market, they went to the home of a squat, exuberant grandmother who offered cooking lessons in her copper-filled kitchen.

“Today, we make chicken with couscous, vegetable, and saffron. You like saffron, yes?”

Luc put his hand on the small of Bea’s back. “She loves it.”

Luc’s tendency to veer over-the-top was one reason Bea couldn’t see herself trusting him—was he putting on a romantic performance, or was he just genuinely European? But chopping chicken and vegetables together while Grandma Adilah yelled at them to adjust their form, Luc cursing under his breath in French that she didn’t know the first thing about knife work, then laughing when Bea understood well enough to call him out, Bea felt she was starting to get a sense of what a life together might actually look like, how his character might be outside the trappings of all these grand gestures.

“Tell me about your restaurant?” Bea asked, mincing ginger as Luc butchered a chicken, his knife easily finding the magic spaces between the joints.

“It is not
my
restaurant.” He sniffed.

“But you’re the head chef there, right?”

“Yes, it is my place—but I am cooking someone else’s vision. Ultimately, nothing is your own unless you can make your own choices, unless success or failure rests only with you. Like with your work, no? No one tells you what to photograph, what to say. You say what you think, and this is why so many people adore you.”

Bea hunched over the ginger so he wouldn’t see her blush. “That’s kind of you.”

Luc shrugged. “It’s just the truth, no? This is what I want, to get my own place—many places, if I can.”

“In America or Europe?”

He smirked. “And why not both? Would you object to summer in New York and winter in Paris?”

“Spring in L.A., autumn in Rome?”

Luc paused his chopping and leaned in toward Bea. “I think this is an excellent plan.” They kissed, and it was all so easy, so attractive. A shared little fantasy where they both were welcome tenants.

Once the cooking was done, they ate their meal in Grandma Adilah’s twinkle-lit garden, where warm blankets and space heaters were required to keep them from freezing in the desert night. After dinner, they fed each other slices of orange drizzled with honey, and Bea thought she’d never tasted anything so perfectly sweet in her life.

Back at the
riad,
Luc kissed Bea good night, surrounded by cameras and bathed in artificial light. When Lauren called cut and declared the date was a wrap, Bea said a quick good night to Luc and made her way back to her room. The date had been flirty and enjoyable—time with Luc always was—but Bea didn’t feel any more certain about him than she had beforehand. She washed off her makeup and threw on sweatpants and a ratty old T-shirt, then crawled into bed; she was looking forward to a good night’s sleep before her day with Asher and Jefferson tomorrow.