Chapter 12: Willow

Private pep talkswere becoming a frequent addition to Willow's nighttime routine. They started as some inspiring variation of you can do this or remember why you're here! Well, those little affirmations had officially devolved. Now, she found herself saying, "You're better at faking it than anyone you know."

Silently, of course.

Over the last few days, it had been easy to fake it with Killian. He was attractive enough. He was nice. She had clear direction for the act of her desire because she wasn't concerned about it crossing any lines.

Now there was Leith.

How was Willow meant to fake it with someone who was faking it right back?

She knew he would deny it, if she asked him. Hell, she would, too. But she really felt bad for the guy. He was not a man that was used to the art of pretending. Maybe the rest of the contestants or the show's viewership hadn't clocked him yet. Willow had.

Because Willow knew what to look for.

Not that she could very well confront him for whatever it was. She may have been a liar but she wasn't a hypocrite. And maybe he had valid reasons for it—God knew she did. And if they were both in the same position…well, this could really work out for them.

And there was conundrum number two.

Did Willow just go on with him as if they were falling in love? If they never discussed their plans with each other, it might not feel as much like deceit. But what if Leith interpreted her acting as the real thing, just like she hoped the cameras would? What if he worried she was falling for real and distanced himself to protect her? Then they would both have to find new partners to start over with, partners they had to hope brought each of them to the finale.

No, if they were going to lie to everyone else, they needed to be honest with each other.

That was, if she was right about his motives. What if she approached him for an alliance and he had no idea what she was talking about? If Willow was wrong, then she'd have burned a bridge and there'd be no recovering. She'd have ruined her chances of making it anywhere near the end of this show. Not to mention, her reputation would be in the gutter. Clearly, she'd have to approach this delicately.

It was unfortunate that "delicate" had never been a particular strength of Willow's.

Why should she start now?

"Leith?" she called from the bathroom. "Can you come in here?"

His voice was cautious through the door. "You decent?"

"Yeah, I just need help getting out of my dress," she lied.

In all fairness, the golden number did have a hard-to-reach zipper. But Willow had gotten herself out of worse. She'd have been fine if she were alone and, oftentimes, she was.

Leith turned the knob and peeked into the ensuite. "How'd you get into it if you can't get out?"

She couldn't tell if his tone held curiosity or accusation but she only raised an eyebrow. "Who says I didn't have help with that, too?"

"Fair enough," he laughed. "Turn around."

She obeyed and gave the man her back, lifting her hair out of his way. His fingers were warm and firm against her skin as he fumbled for the zipper. They soothed the cool bite of the metal when he dragged it down her spine, letting those fingers follow. If it hadn't already been in her mind to seduce him, she might have been persuaded from that touch alone.

Leith stepped back when the zipper hit its end and Willow watched him examine her in the mirror. "What now? Need me to get your shoes off?"

She didn't but she nodded anyway.

"Turn again," he instructed, dropping smoothly to his knees in front of her.

She held her dress to her body, leaning forward to see over herself, to watch him as he addressed the straps around her ankles with gentle precision. He tapped her calf when he finished the first shoe and she stepped out of it, wobbling.

"You can hold onto my shoulders if you need."

"I either hold the dress or I hold your shoulders."

Tell me to hold your shoulders.

"You've got two hands," he teased instead.

Fucking hell, had her sex appeal withered as soon as she stepped into this manor? She had men paying her for a look at her body constantly back home. Now, two men in the span of less than a week had denied her.

She frowned and repositioned her left hand to the middle of the dress, placing her right on his shoulder while he worked the buckle of her other shoe free. When he stood again, Willow couldn't tell if he was admiring his handiwork or if he was admiring her bare feet. That frustrated her. Usually, she was skilled at reading people. At figuring out what they wanted or why. It was why she thought she could do this show in the first place.

But if she couldn't tell something as simple as whether or not this man had a foot fetish…who was to say her other read had been right?

There went that reminder to be delicate again.

"Anything else?" Leith asked.

What was he, her butler? She tried not to roll her eyes or take a steadying breath before she let her hands fall to her sides. Let the straps of the dress that had slipped off her shoulders slide. Let the dress itself fall to the ground.

She hadn't worn a bra under it—she hadn't needed to, with how tight the bustier had been—and her nipples tightened when the cool air hit her breasts. She didn't look down, didn't pose or try to hide herself. She wanted him to look at her. She needed him to look at her.

She needed him to want her, if she wanted to get anywhere on this show.

"I think I'm alright," she announced, stepping around him toward the shower.

"More than."

Win.

"I'm going to take a shower. Do you…want to join?"

"Umm."

Had she left him speechless? She supposed that was good. Knowing his eyes were still on her, she slid her thumbs under the waistband of her panties and slid them down her thighs. Willow ensured that she bent at the waist as she lowered them, not letting them simply drop but guiding the fabric down every inch of her.

It was a method she knew to be effective.

Leith's harsh voice startled her, nearly sending her careening into the glass of the shower. "What are you doing?" he demanded.

Willow straightened and gave him her best incredulous, impatient stare over her shoulder. "Taking a shower?"

"No. Why are you doing—" he gestured to her body with frantic energy "—all of this? The dress and the shoes and the—the nudity."

"Well, I'm not going to shower with my clothes on."

"You didn't need my help with that zipper," he hissed. "You didn't?—"

She was across the bathroom and clapping her hand over his mouth before he could finish that sentence. Fuck, he was going to ruin everything if he kept talking. Willow pulled him down closer to her height, pressing her mouth to his ear in what she hoped looked more like a kiss and less like the exchanging of a secret.

"Take your microphone off and get in the shower with me."

He tried to pull away. Or, maybe he didn't try. He could if he put any real effort into it. But Willow kept holding her hand over his mouth. She let her free one slide down his body to where his microphone was strapped around his waist. It took a smidge of maneuvering to remove the thing with only one of her hands but she nearly sagged in relief when he took over for her, letting it hang from him until he could discard the piece around his neck, too.

She had to remove her hand for him to complete the task and it made her heart feel like it was trying to escape her ribs. But Leith didn't argue with her more. He pulled his shirt over his head by the collar. He divested himself of his pants with unhurried care.

Willow stepped into the shower to allow him the dignity of removing his underwear himself. Maybe she didn't care who saw her but she wasn't blind to the fact that not everyone was as free. He hadn't asked her to look so she wouldn't. Even if it killed her, just a little bit.

"What the hell is going on, Willow?"

"Wait until I have the water on."

"Why are we in here?"

Willow didn't allow herself to relax, didn't allow herself to answer, until the sound of the stream filled the room and muffled the impact of Leith's protests. She spun to him.

"Why don't you tell me why you're on the show instead," she suggested.

He was almost successful at keeping his face from turning white. "To find love."

She cocked her head. "Try again."

"What are you getting at, Willow?"

"I know you're not here just for love." She swiped at the dampening hair that had begun to stick to her face. "I know what faking it looks like."

That didn't ease his panic. "Why? Because you're faking it, too?"

"Yes."

"You—" Leith cut himself off when her answer finally permeated his skull. Clearly, he hadn't expected her to be honest. "You're faking it?"

She nodded and couldn't help herself from appreciating his shoulders as they fell and rose again immediately.

"What does that mean, though?" he asked. "You're faking wanting to be in a couple with me, or…?"

"It means I didn't agree to be on this show to find love," she snapped. "And neither did you."

"Then why?"

"Why did you?"

"I needed the money."

"Well, there's your answer."

Despite the scalding water at Willow's back, her skin prickled watching his face. Perhaps it was the temperature of his dread.

"You're in it for the money?" he asked. Breathy.

She was powerless to her scowl. "You don't get the right to condemn me," she seethed. "You don't get to judge me for doing exactly what you're doing."

"No—" Leith whipped a dripping hand up to his temples, massaging them before dragging his fingers down his face. "I'm not judging you. I'm not—I don't think less of you for it."

"You shouldn't."

"I know," he snapped.

"Then what was that look?"

"What look?"

Willow wanted to stomp her foot but she centered herself, instead reaching around him for the shampoo on the shelf. She didn't need to wash her hair again. Really, she shouldn't. But overwashing felt better than continuing to meet his eyes. Than letting her hands hang and fist at her sides in her idle frustration.

"If I knew what the look meant," she explained, "I wouldn't have asked you about it."

Leith sighed behind her and Willow refused to look. Refused harder when he said, "I was panicking about the money."

She dropped the shampoo. She couldn't explain why she did. It wasn't that Leith had said anything startling. She knew now that they were both after the prize. Maybe she hadn't expected him to speak candidly. Or maybe the sparking of her nerve endings were something else entirely.

She bent to retrieve the bottle, dropping it once more when she felt his hand come down on her skin to steady her. The steadying hand grew firmer, keeping her in place so he could swipe up the bottle instead.

Leith didn't give it back to her—she still hadn't looked at him—but she heard the click of the cap and the squish of the soap in his hands as he rubbed them together.

She could have known it was coming, the dig of his sudsy fingers into her scalp, but her voice still rang small and breathless when she asked, "What's there to panic about?"

Leith washed Willow's hair for her. It felt like a weird imitation of aftercare, though she'd never experienced anything to compare to it. His touch was gentle as he rubbed the shampoo into her roots, though. Not gentle in that he forewent pressure. But gentle in the sense that Willow was sure he would never administer her harm.

It was…foreign.

And made stranger when Leith said, "If we both want the money, how do we decide who gets it?"

He nudged her back into the stream, tipping her head back so nothing fell into her eyes. It could have been that she was aiding him by closing them but it could have also been that she wasn't sure she was ready to look at him. Wasn't sure she was ready to strip herself of her bravado.

"We split it," Willow murmured. "Can we split it?"

She heard another click of a bottle when he pulled her back out of the spray and then he was working conditioner into her ends. "Will it be enough if we split it?"

She'd gone into the show under the impression there had never been another option than to split the money. Of course, she'd seen this show's predecessors. She'd seen the dating competitions that inevitably ended in the ultimate test—whether the winning couple's love would win over their greed.

That love nearly always won and Willow wasn't about to make waves, not when her reputation might influence sponsors that approached her after the show wrapped.

Had Leith been planning on taking the funds for himself?

She didn't register that he'd finished applying the conditioner until he was handing her a pre-lathered loofah. She took it absently and set about scrubbing her skin, forgetting entirely that he'd asked her a question until he was spinning her to face him.

"Willow," he rasped. "Will it be enough if we split the money? What do you need it for?"

She blinked at the chest in front of her. The massive thing with tufting hair and golden skin and muscle that'd been borne of hard labor and not in a gym. She wanted to glance down. See if the rest of him was just as massive. She looked up instead.

"It's enough for me," she told him.

Tension flooded from Leith but Willow was sure it hadn't disappeared. "What do you need it for?" he asked again.

"I don't want to give you some sob story." She returned to her task of washing and felt suddenly guilty that she hadn't reciprocated the care Leith had given her. But she also wasn't sure she could effectively wash him from her vantage point, considering the top of his head was a mystery to her. She could wash his body, she supposed, but would he want her hands all over him?

"If this is going to work, we should be honest with each other."

Hadn't she had the same thought only moments ago? "It's not for me," she told him.

"Are you in debt?"

Willow shook her head. "No, it's my niece. She has aortic stenosis. She needs a valve replacement but my sister isn't bringing in enough money to pay for the surgery. I'm sure we could apply for funding somehow but I—she needs this. I'm going to make it happen, okay?"

She could tell that Leith wasn't really sure what aortic stenosis was but they both lived in the United States. Just saying that someone needed surgery was enough to make anyone cringe from the medical debt. But why wasn't he saying anything?

Willow kept talking. "You probably think it's so stupid. Coming on a show like this, spending time away from my family on the fucking chance I could win the money. And I know—I know—but I don't have enough followers right now. I don't make enough online. I needed the sponsors and the exposure. I needed?—"

"Breathe, Willow." She watched the questions he had flash in his eyes until he settled on, "What do you mean, you don't have enough followers?"

Was it not as obvious as she thought? "I'm a cam girl," she said slowly. "But I'm not making enough yet."

"Fuck."

She didn't want that reaction to hurt. She'd gotten it before, after all. Willow just hadn't thought Leith would be the type to look down on that work. Based on what, though? It wasn't like she knew him.

"That's so fucked, Willow," he muttered. She was prepared to fight but then he said, "It's so fucked that you have to sell your body to pay for fucking surgery."

She let a harsh laugh bubble from her. He wasn't wrong. But her line of work was a delicate subject. Sex work was work and those that did it were deserving of respect without judgement or stigma. But Willow also couldn't pretend that she'd gotten into it because it was something that she enjoyed. She'd gotten into it because she was desperate and there was a market for it.

"Isn't that what I'm doing here, too? It's not like it's different. Isn't that what you're doing?"

"No," Leith told her. He shook his head and Willow recognized the resolve in it. "I'm not. When we win, you're taking the money."