Most eligible, p.16
Most Eligible, page 16
“They don’t look your size.”
“I like them like this,” Nina says, her face an inch from Lainey’s. “After having a baby, things fit me differently. And unless you’re going to have every naked woman here try them on like the Sisterhood of the Traveling Yeast Infection, you should believe me.”
For a second, I think Lainey is about to parade each of us up and into the jeans, but instead, she releases Nina, who grabs the phone.
“I’m leaving,” she says, crossing her arms over her bare chest. “I can’t do this anymore. It’s too hard for me to be away from my daughter. I’d like to say goodbye to Roland, if I’m allowed.”
Lainey huffs but recovers from the whole situation masterfully fast. “I want everyone in the sitting room in thirty minutes, fully clothed. That includes you, Rhett,” she says, practically spitting his name. With that, she goes back inside, shouting, “Where the hell are Roland and Addison?”
The handheld camera is discarded, dollies brought out, hidden cameras probably rolling again. All bets of secrecy are off. I hurry over to Nina and wrap her in a hug even though she’s half-naked and soaking wet. She puts her arms around me, but as I start to thank her, she cuts me off, whispering fast.
“I had to, Georgia. Don’t thank me—it was the right thing to do. I wanted to leave anyway—it was never going to be me and Roland, but I think you have a real chance at finding something here.” She looks over my shoulder and I follow her gaze toward Rhett, who is standing on the periphery of the patio.
“How did you—”
Her hands fumble at my waist, the cool metal of the phone pressing to my stomach, trapped in the hem of my tight top. “I think I’ve gotta keep the pants though,” she whispers. “Give ’em hell, querida.”
“What’s going on?” Roland sprints onto the scene and collides with Nina. He looks her up and down, his face flushing. His shirt is untucked, hair messy, and he has a conspicuous lipstick mark on his jaw. Olie lets out a growl as Addison tiptoes behind him and perches on the edge of the pool beside Brooklyn, who turns pointedly away from her.
Once we’ve all gotten dressed, and I’ve hidden the burner safely back in my bag, we gather downstairs. Philippa and Chloe finally join the group again, both looking giggly and sheepish.
“Jesus,” Olie mutters to me and Brooklyn. “Is everyone having sex except us?”
I pull the collar of my shirt higher, hoping Rhett didn’t leave any marks on my skin aside from the goosebumps still crawling up and down my back.
“Things are going to be different moving forward.” Lainey’s loafers click-clack across the floor. “If I hear that anyone else is hiding phones or sneaking around, you’ll be out like that.” She snaps her fingers, making me wince.
Roland is sitting off to the side, nursing coffee like it’s a baby bottle. My eyes pass between him and Addison, the matching lipstick stain on his skin and her lips.
“You have two days before this week’s elimination ceremony,” Lainey says. “Most of you won’t see Roland until then. I suggest you shape up and think about what you’ve done. Roland, Addison—with me, now.” She snaps her fingers, and Roland and Addison shuffle off after her, though I doubt they’ll get in trouble.
“I heard she’s seeing someone at home,” Monica whispers. She seems to have recovered from earlier, but dark circles still ring her eyes.
“Where’d you hear that?” Olie asks.
Monica shrugs. It’s a hallmark of Love Shack drama, proof that someone isn’t here for the right reasons. It would line up with what Addison said to me on the Ferris wheel.
“She told me,” Monica says. “The other day. We’re sort of friends, but … well, you know how she is.” Which means that Monica doesn’t know Addison is intentionally going for the villain angle.
Or she’s playing the game just as fiercely as Addison and this is her attempt to take out the competition. I have to hand it to her: Monica knows how to win.
Once the cameras cut for the day, I excuse myself under the guise of taking a shower in the extra basement bathroom. I leave the tense bunk room, where Olie is still glaring at Addison, who proudly informed us that she’s not in trouble; the producers just wanted to make sure she and Roland “used protection.”
I scamper downstairs and pass Norbert in the entryway, whistling merrily to himself.
“I’m going out for a little walk, is that all right?”
He peers down at me, halting mid-tune. “It’s dark out!” he exclaims. “You could meet a madman out there—or a racoon! Ye know, when I was a laddie, I caught one with my bare hands.”
I blink at him. “A madman or a racoon?”
“A racoon,” Norbert says seriously. “And he wasn’t messing around. Shall I join ye?”
“Thanks, but I’m good. I just want some time to myself.”
He nods, his forehead scrunching. “I know ye’ve had a rough go of it,” he says. “But I’m looking out for ye, all right?”
“Thanks, Norbert,” I say, patting his arm. “I’ll be back soon, don’t worry.”
I head out through the mansion’s front doors and take off to the right, in the opposite direction of the tennis courts. The wet grass squelches under my sandals, but I don’t stop until I’ve reached the fence lining the property. I lean back against the wrought-iron slats and look back up the hill at the mansion, ghostly in the darkness. Only a few lights glitter in the windows. Lainey maybe? Norbert? Rhett’s suite is around back, so the lights can’t be his, but I wonder anyway if he’s awake.
Tearing my eyes away from the shadowy building, I pull out my burner and dial the familiar number, praying she’ll pick up.
“Serena?”
“Georgia!” she says.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner, things have been intense. I only have a few minutes.”
“What do you have? Have you gotten time with Lainey?”
I tell her about the one-on-one interview and the Ferris wheel debacle, and she gasps at all the right moments.
“Addison pushed you?” she exclaims. “Holy shit, I’m glad you’re all right.”
“That’s not even the biggest thing,” I say. “I’m pretty sure Roland has been using performance enhancers.”
She sucks in a breath. “Damn. Because of his injury?”
I drum my fingers against my thigh. “Maybe. I’m not sure.”
“What’s he taking? Did he compete on them?”
“I don’t know exactly what kind, but yeah, I think he did.” If Rhett is to be believed, anyway.
“But he didn’t fail a doping test,” Serena points out. “If he had, he wouldn’t have been allowed to keep playing. How do you know all this?”
“I overheard Lainey,” I say carefully. It’s not untrue—though Rhett was the one who spelled it out. “She knew before Roland was cast but went ahead with it anyway.”
“Georgia”—Serena clicks her tongue—“you need more than overhearing. You need proof. Can you get a picture of Roland’s pills or maybe a copy of Lainey’s emails? You need something more than hearsay.”
“I know,” I say. “I know. I’ll get it, I promise.”
“What about the other women? Anything interesting there?”
I could tell her about Monica’s interview experience, how the producers pushed her about her anxiety, but for some reason, that feels worse than airing Roland’s dirty laundry. And if I told Serena, I’d be no better than Lainey. “Not really.”
“Hmm, well that’s okay,” she says. “If we can get more intel on the cover-ups, that’ll be enough to really sell this. Especially given what I have.” She pauses dramatically, waiting for me to ask for more information.
“What do you have? Something about Roland?”
“No,” she says. “It’s about Rhett.” Her tone makes me uneasy. It’s the same one she used to pull out at college parties when she wanted to send a piece of salacious gossip pinwheeling across the room. For the first few years of our friendship, I ignored her tendency to publicize any secret she was entrusted with. After all, she never shared my secrets, only other people’s. It was what made her such a good journalist. But now I’m not so sure.
“You know he and Cassidy were only married for a few months, right?” she continues.
“Four and a half months,” I say without thinking. “Or something like that.”
“Yeah.” Serena says. “People thought they divorced when they announced the breakup publicly in, like, May of last year. But I have a source saying they didn’t actually get divorced until months later.”
My breath hitches. That would mean that Rhett was still married when I met him. But why would it matter to Serena? There’s no way she could know. “Don’t those things sometimes take a while to process?” My own parents’ divorce took almost a year before it was final.
“Well,” she says in that same sickening voice. “I have a photo of him making out with a woman at a club right after the public breakup.”
“Journalism is about uncovering the truth. You just have to be ruthless enough to get it. Most people aren’t cut out for that.”
—Serena Romero, pop culture editor of Vivid magazine, Instagram Live
Chapter Nineteen
My heart skips a beat, and I sink into a squat against the fence.
“Why—why now?” I manage to get the words out, though my mouth has gone dry.
“Dude,” she laughs, “we’re getting flooded with stuff about him ever since he was announced as the new host. The tip line has like six hundred unread emails.”
I shudder at the memory of my first few weeks temping at Vivid, when it was my job to sort through the tip line inbox for anything that looked noteworthy.
“Most of it’s junk,” she continues. “For example, I’m pretty sure ‘Is There a Heaven for Horses?’ isn’t a flat-earther anthem. But I did some digging and this picture seems real.”
“But…” I bite my lip, grasping at straws. “Wouldn’t it be in the news already? Everyone loves a celebrity hookup. They must’ve tried other places too, right?”
“I thought the same thing,” she continues. “But there’s not a peep. So I did some digging, and it turns out that they paid big bucks to keep it out of the press. I mean Rhett was still technically married, so what else could they do?”
“Wait—what?”
“Love Shack paid off the press,” she says. “Or the network did. It doesn’t really matter who—either way, they paid a lot to keep it quiet.”
I’m silent for so long that Serena says, “Hello? Are you still there?” I only grunt in answer. All the layers of the situation settle over me and I rub my arms against the chilly breeze.
“But…” I’m grasping at straws now. “If he and Cassidy were broken up, or separated, I guess, then it doesn’t really matter, does it? They’re not Love Shack’s golden couple anymore.” Even as I say it, I feel a twinge in my gut. Not so much about Rhett having still been married, but because I might’ve been just a rebound.
“You’re the one who wanted leverage,” Serena says. “I think that’s pretty good as far as—”
“Do they know who the woman is?”
“No—I’d kill to find out.”
I almost laugh at the absurdity of it—the fact she’s on the phone with the very person she’s so desperate to find. Unless … Unless I wasn’t the only one.
“It must’ve been a lot of money,” she continues. “I wonder if the women were celebrities or something.”
“Wait, women? How many others?”
“I don’t know,” she says airily. “There were at least two payoffs. I guess they didn’t want the Love Shack brand to be tainted. But this is perfect, right? Something to use against him to see if he knows something about Lainey?”
I frown. I’d wanted to keep him quiet about my secret, not blackmail him into giving me intel. “What are you going to do with the information?”
“Nothing yet,” she says. “It won’t do you any good if everyone already knows. Anyway, I’ve got to go. Be safe and stay sane, okay?”
“Yeah,” I breathe. “And I might not call for a while. We’re traveling next week, so I can’t take the burner.”
“Okay,” she says. “Bye, G.”
“Bye.”
As I hang up the phone and stretch my legs, something clicks into place. Serena’s excitement about Rhett hosting, her twisted logic about blackmailing him into talking. I told her he was hosting, and days later, an article appeared with that same information. There are any number of people it could have been, but maybe I’m still unwilling to see the worst in her.
I start back up the hill to the mansion and pause halfway up next to a patch of roses. I dig into the soft soil with a stick and bury the burner phone under a white rosebush. Then I keep walking, brushing my dirty hands off on my legs.
Maybe I’m being silly. After all, Serena’s never told anyone about my pen name and that’s a far bigger secret to keep.
I slip through the front doors of the mansion and back upstairs into the bunk room, where everyone else is either asleep or pretending to be. Brooklyn rolls over and I freeze, but she lets out a quiet snore and I breathe easy. I wade through the pile of clothes beside my bed, then collapse onto the mattress.
Now that I have my leverage, I’m not sure I even want to use it. If Rhett paid people off to keep me out of the news … that means he saved my career. If he’d given my fake name, if it had been linked to a photo of the real me, I’d never have been cast on Love Shack in the first place.
I punch my pillow into submission and pull my sleep mask over my eyes.
How many others?
But it isn’t the information about Rhett that keeps me tossing and turning. It’s Serena. During our phone call, she reminded me of someone. Someone cool, collected, in charge, but threatening all the same.
She reminded me of Lainey.
* * *
I don’t know how I’ve made it through two full weeks in this mansion. Adrenaline and sheer force of will is my guess, because it sure as heck isn’t the promise of Mr. Roland Marchetti.
Today has passed even more slowly than usual—a combination of inactivity and the anxiety about tonight’s elimination ceremony. No matter what Roland said on our date, I can’t be sure he’ll keep me into next week.
I head downstairs early for the ceremony, in search of something from the bar to calm my nerves before I get mic’d for the night.
The producers are setting up in the rose garden, adjusting lights and cameras to the perfect angles where they’ll become invisible. It would make my job a hell of a lot easier if I were invisible too. If I could blend into the background as seamlessly as the boom mics hovering just above the camera frame.
My maroon dress whispers across the living room floor, but I don’t make it to the bar before a hand catches my arm. I whirl around and come face to face with Rhett, his jaw set and his eyes dark.
“Come with me,” he growls. “We need to talk.” Without another word, he pulls me into an interview closet off the front foyer, clicking the lock into place as he flicks on the light. In the absence of the usual camera lights, we stand under a single naked bulb.
Of course, Rhett still looks hot as hell in this harsh, washed-out lighting. A lock of hair falls across his forehead, but otherwise he’s impeccable, black suit buttoned and collar left fashionably open. He sticks his hands in his pockets and paces as much as one can pace in a room this small. Finally, he sinks onto the arm of the producer’s chair and looks me up and down, no trace of want, humor, or warmth left in his expression.
I’d be less anxious if Lainey were sitting across from me, fangs bared.
Folding my arms across my chest, I drop onto a spindly stool. I feel inexplicably naked without the buffer of a camera. The foot and a half of stained carpet between us is like a battleground, and I attack first.
“Is this an interview?” I ask. “Gonna pry out all my deepest secrets?”
He lets out a long breath. “I know it was you.”
I bite my lip so hard I feel the bitter taste of blood spring onto my tongue.
“Someone leaked to the press that I’m hosting. Nina said the phone was hers, but it was yours.” His green eyes are so dark now that they look almost black as they bore into mine. “I thought I was protecting myself, keeping what I knew about you a secret, but maybe you’re more dangerous than I thought.”
My fingers tighten into a ball of anxiety. I skim my nail over the cuticle of my thumb and press, white-hot pain streaking up my hand.
He has no proof. All he knows is that I had a phone. He can’t be sure that I’m the one who leaked information. I don’t owe him anything. Just because he almost went down on me in a seaside hot tub doesn’t mean I’m required to spill all my dirty secrets to him. That’s not how the world works.
“Say it,” he growls. “Tell me it was you.” His ragged voice makes me sweat. It’s the same tone he used at the concert, when he rasped into my hair, You’re fucking beautiful. My heart beats like a hummingbird, hands sweating, dying to tangle in his hair.
“It wasn’t me.” I stand, ready to leave the room. “Whatever you know, whatever I told you in the past … That’s not why I’m here. I don’t do that anymore.” It’s a feat of strength to ignore the wave of guilt that crashes over me.
He remains glowering but stands to match me. “Then why did you have a phone?”
A million lies land on the tip of my tongue, but if I speak, he’ll see right through me.
He runs a hand through his already tousled hair, then crosses the few feet between us. “Look, I know this show is bullshit. If you’ve made a deal with TMZ or something, good for you,” he spits. He stops inches from me, hands on his hips, a faint sheen of sweat glossing his forehead. “But I don’t want any part of it. Write about whatever you want, but if you’re just using me for information, then we’re done.”
My cheeks flare to rival the color of my dress. “Why did you even come back? Isn’t this a major downgrade? To go from mediocre country singer to reality show host? I mean, your entire job is to watch someone else fall in love.”
