Natascha & Ryan Are The Sexy, Dark Horse Duo Listen To Your Heart Was Missing

Most of the latecomers on The Bachelor Presents: Listen to Your Heart haven't fared well. With such a short amount of time to make a connection, every day counted. But even though she came in during week 2 and spent a lot of her time on drama with other contestants, Natascha Bessez's relationship with Ryan Neal is going strong on screen. After their sultry performance of Rihanna's "Stay," they just may be the dark horse in the series' race to the finish line.

In case you forgot, when the show began, it seemed like Ryan was going to date Jamie Gabrielle. But she chose Trevor Holmes over him, leaving Ryan to take the last rose (and sort of a friendship one) from Rudi (just Rudi, per her Instagram) to stay on the show for the second week. By then, Natascha had come along, barreling into the competition to get answers from Trevor about his past relationship, because Natascha was friends with his ex. It wasn't until the cocktail party that she seemed to realize that she needed to secure a guy's rose to stick around. She turned her sights on Ryan, and though he was doubtful that he was her type, she assured him that "nerdy" was totally her type. Ryan gave her his rose, and to pretty much everyone's surprise, their connection only grew from there.

During the April 27 performances, Natascha and Ryan had some of the best chemistry out there, as determined by Bachelorette royalty JoJo Fletcher and Jordan Rodgers. JoJo described their performance as "hot, sexy, [and] passionate" and Jordan remarked at how much they'd been flirting during their number. They had the judges praising their growing chemistry both music and relationship wise.

But did that chemistry translate to a relationship after the show? On paper they seem like a pretty good match, with Natascha's ABC bio saying she wants someone who is mature and shares her values — and understands that her dogs are her first loves. Ryan recently posted to Instagram about his first love being his dog, so check there.

He also said he wants someone who understands what it is to be a musician, and Natascha totally does. She's been on numerous shows, including Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search For The Next Doll, in her years of hustling to make it as a singer. Check there, too. 

There are even some clues that the duo still have warm feelings post-filming. For one, Natascha absolutely gushed over him in an April 2020 interview with Refinery29. "Isn't he a cutie? I just want to squeeze him!" she said. "It took us a while to get that connection. He might have been a little scared of me … But once he started to get to know me, he kind of put whatever judgement he had from when I first walked in with my bad news [about Trevor's ex] aside. He was like, Okay, let’s be open minded." Then she dropped the L-word. "That's what I love about him. He doesn't give a crap what anyone thinks, what anyone else says, he's so his own dude. That to me is hot," Natascha said. 

Her Instagram provides a couple of other clues about her potential relationship status with Ryan. Right after returning from filming she captioned a video of her smiling, "I'm baaaaaack … Been a life changing few weeks offline and can't wait to tell u all about it so soon. Been feeling especially grateful lately. Life is beautiful man [sic]."

Sounds like someone who is really happy with how the show turned out.

And then they both used similar words to describe their time on the show to their followers, with Ryan calling it "creative, emotional, exhausting, fun, challenging, and vulnerable," and Natascha saying it "tested me creatively, personally, and put me in a place where I was my most vulnerable." They're even talking alike post-show!

Despite Natascha's late entry to the game, her chemistry with Ryan caught up fast enough for them to sail through another week together and last longer than some people who had been there since day one. Now we just have to see if their passion made it off the stage too...