Just days before Emily Maynard accepted a proposal from Jef Holm on The Bachelorette, she was hooking up with another man, runner-up Arie Luyendyk.
A source reveals to Us Weekly that despite the 26-year-old single mom’s claim that she wouldn’t allow overnight dates because she’s “a mother and a role model,” the two did get intimate in their fantasy suite. Naturally the smoldering Scottsdale, Arizona, race car driver, 30, was furious to learn that same week he wasn’t receiving Maynard’s final rose.
“He stormed off,” says the source. “He screamed, ‘You just slept with me!’ It wasn’t shown on TV.”
But Maynard never intended to lead him on. In the final days, she really was torn between soft-spoken entrepreneur Holm and Luyendyk. (I just love kissing him!” she gushed). As a show source tells Us, “She was truly in love with two good people. It wasn’t clear-cut.”
And by Holm’s own admission, his romance with Maynard “started off slowly.” By the time they reached Curacao several weeks into taping the ABC show, however, they were behaving like longtime loves. He and Maynard playfully sailed on the Caribbean and he splashed in the pool with her daughter Ricki, 7.
“You really are everything I’ve looked for,” Maynard told Holm, 28, on the July 22 finale, moments before he proposed with a 3.5-carat Neil Lane sparkler. “You are my soulmate.”
