Magic Mansion by Jordan Price (best fiction books to read .txt) 📕

sharp Australian accent. Marlene dropped her PDA and turned. Monty stood in the doorway, hands on hips, looking pissed—and surprisingly threatening for a vapid blond him-bo. “Figures.”

The very last thing Marlene wanted was a big scene. “C’mon, get in here. Close the door behind you.”

Monty slammed the door. “It’s not right, what you did.”

“Let me explain something to you. The contestants’ contracts are nothing like yours. You’re an announcer. You say your lines, and you go enjoy your work visa. What they signed up for was different. Anything goes.”

“Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. You’re driving down the street and a puppy runs across the road. Which way’re you gonna swerve?”

“Although I doubt you’re willing to let me convince you, I’m being honest when I say these were not random acts of cruelty. We de-villainized the Professor from the taint of the Red Team, and helped Ricardo into the heartthrob role he was meant to play.”

“Yeah? And what about Sue?”

Ah…so that’s what was eating him. “I seem to recall advising you to wait until she was eliminated…and remember what you told me?”

“This is all a big power trip for you, right?”

“You said, ‘Sue’s a big girl. And there’s nothing here that says we can’t see each other.’ Sound familiar?”

Monty held himself so taut he was shaking, and Marlene prepared herself for a barrage. But after a few careful breaths, he only said, “She’s gonna leave him, you know.”

“Then you have nothing to be upset about.”

Monty probably had a few more angry accusations to hurl, but instead he just shot Marlene his best blue-eyed prettyboy fuck-you glare, and turned toward the door.

“Since you’re here,” Marlene supposed she really shouldn’t give in to the urge to be catty, but she didn’t take very kindly to threats, “I have a note for you. Read all your lines. Seems that you skipped one in your conversation with Professor Topaz, when you were supposed to ask him how seeing his boyfriend’s obituary made him feel.”

“Yeah?” Monty headed out of the trailer, then tossed back over his shoulder, “There must have been something in it I didn’t know how to pronounce.”

___

Funny, how things could turn on a dime. Earlier that week when Ricardo had slipped through the kitchen into the old servant’s quarters, his belly had been aflutter with the giddy prospect of being alone with John. Now it felt like it was full of lead.

He stared at the paper star with Mr. Topaz written on it for a moment, and considered simply turning back around and soldiering on through the rest of the show…but the thought of doing that made him feel even worse than he already did. And so he knocked.

John answered. He’d hung up his tuxedo jacket and removed his cufflinks, and his bare wrists flashed through the cuff plackets—fodder for Ricardo’s fantasies if ever there was any. But that wasn’t why Ricardo was there.

Tears? No, John was dry-eyed. As somber as it was humanly possible to be? Yes, that. And Ricardo wouldn’t have realized the depth of John’s sorrow were it not for all the shots of him smiling and laughing that had just played across the backdrop of the stage. “Are you okay?” Ricardo asked.

John closed his eyes for a moment, gathered himself, and then opened them again and said, “Actually, it’s a relief.”

“What is? Being outed?”

“And having Casey’s death thrown in my face.”

“How could that possibly be a relief?”

“It was the most painful thing they could have done. Now…anything else they follow up with…I frankly don’t care.”

It was John who initiated the embrace—or tried to. Ricardo was all stiffness and tension. John disengaged, and murmured, “What is it? Are you angry with me?”

“With you?” Ricardo wrapped his arms around his leaden stomach and shook his head. “Meeting you is the only good thing that’s happened to me here.” Scenes from the last few weeks played through his mind like a slide show. “And you know what the crazy part is? I don’t actually know you at all. It’s my own damn fault, too. I fell for my own idea of Professor Topaz—that poster of you with the gloves and the coin and the one eyebrow raised? Oh yeah. I have it hanging on my bedroom wall. In my mind, that was you. Tux, top hat, and that smoldering look like you have X-ray vision—that’s how I imagined you were. All the time. Twenty-four seven.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t you dare apologize. It’s not you. It’s nothing to do with you. Fan-worship isn’t about the star. It’s about the fan, whipping up some completely fabricated image in their mind and then glorying in it and pretending it’s real—but there’s no actual relationship there. It’s totally one-sided. And I think what scares me the most is that I almost let myself be so carried away by the Professor Topaz who lived in my mind…that I would have missed getting to know the real John.”

John reached for Ricardo’s hand, slipped his agile fingers into Ricardo’s grasp, and gently pried Ricardo’s arm away from his body. Ricardo did allow himself to be held now, but his heart was still heavy with disappointment and anger. “They’ve taken Ricardo the Magnificent and run with him,” Ricardo said, “and I don’t even recognize him now. They’ve been doing it for weeks. I had no idea. And I won’t be a part of it anymore.”

John pressed a kiss to Ricardo’s temple. “It’s almost over.”

“No…that’s not good enough. It is over. For me. Whatever the next challenge is—I’m throwing it.”

John tightened his arms around Ricardo. “Even if you did, you wouldn’t be voted off. Ricardo the Magnificent is too popular. Whether you approve of him or not.”

“Then I’ll quit.”

“You signed a contract—and it’s not worth damaging your career for the sake of making a statement now. Once we’re out of the Mansion, you’ll have plenty of chances to tell your side of the story. Everyone will be salivating for an interview. You’ll get your chance to set