Will You Accept This Rose?

4. Always Be Right

"Hey there, Houdini."

Lucy heard a man's voice behind her and cringed as she slowly turned around; she was so close to entering the mansion and had snuck back onto the property after her date with Tim, but of course right when she thought she had gotten away with sneaking out and breaking the rules, she got in trouble, which was why Lucy was a rule follower.

"We haven't had the pleasure of meeting yet. I'm one of the producers. My name is Wes," Wesley Evers introduced himself smugly.

"Hi," she replied awkwardly.

"You've pulled off quite the disappearing act twice, and I have to say, I'm impressed. See, I look through the footage every night to see what drama we'll be cutting together for the show, and I noticed how you seem to vanish from this camera blind spot only to reappear hours later."

"I like to take walks to clear my head," she lied easily.

"The rule is that you can't leave the property. Take walks around the pool or on a treadmill."

"Listen..." Lucy puffed out her chest, ready to advocate for herself, but then Angela appeared.

"Go inside for head count," Angela ordered then spun on her heel while Lucy obeyed her command. "Who are you?"

"I'm a producer on the show. Who are you?" Wes inquired.

She eyed him curiously. "Also a producer. I work with the contestants."

"Normally I follow the bachelor around, but I haven't seen Tim all day."

"That's not my problem, so why are you bothering one of my contestants?"

"She blatantly broke the rules. I saw her disappear while looking at the daily footage and just caught her sneaking back onto the property."

"Whatever you think you saw, forget it."

"Noah says..."

"I don't give a shit what Noah says," Angela cut him off. "Tim is my best friend. I'm here to help him find a wife. I don't care about drama or ratings. I want my best friend to be happy, and that woman you want to tattle on could be the key to his happiness, so you're not going to say anything to anyone. If you ever see her doing anything against the rules ever again, you're gonna look the other way," Angela said firmly.

"You're not the boss of me. Noah's our boss, and last time I checked, he's a stickler about this kind of stuff."

She rolled her eyes and put a hand on her hip. "Are you always this insufferable?"

"We have an obligation to the show."

"Maybe you do, but my only obligation is to Tim. We're gonna go erase any footage that shows Lucy escaping, well, I'm about to do that, and it's in your best interest to join me."

"Why's that?"

"You don't want to get on my bad side."

Wes took a step forward and gave her his most serious expression."News flash, you don't want to get on mine."

For a very brief moment, she kind of sort of liked his passion even if he was wholly annoying. Angela kept all positive and negative feelings about him to herself and walked towards the video room where the camera footage from Lucy's disappearances could be erased, and she held back from smirking in her amusement when Wes followed.

He watched her navigate to the right files and delete it all permanently so that there was no evidence of Lucy's escapes. "I don't like this," Wes said with a wince to make his opinion very known.

"Then, you don't have to be here. Especially if you don't want to be complicit in case Noah finds out."

"I want to make sure you erase the footage properly and don't ruin the whole system."