God, what didthatmean? Before I could scour my memory, Troy cracked the door, tapping his watch. “I need five minutes!” I snarled, then revolved to Andie. “Young lady, you know you can’t watch television without your aunt’s supervision.”
“I didn’t! It wasn’t on the TV, it was on the iPad—”
“Then congratulations, you just lost all screen privileges until I get home.”
Andie naturally threw a tantrum and stormed out, a bewildered Wallace tottering after.
“Sorry, she must have snuck down after bedtime,” Jenny sighed, clearly exhausted.
“It’s not your fault, Jen.” I refused to direct my frustrations at her, not after she’d paused her entire life to rescue mine. I tried not to dwell on how surreal and challenging this extended residency had to be, a daily simulation of the motherhood she’d long chosen to forgo.
She bit her lip. “I was wondering… is it time to cut bait and come home? You’ve made it how many episodes? That’s a sizable chunk of change.”
I paused, unsure how much money I’d racked up by this point. I’d lost track somewhere between Cortona and Shanghai. “Honestly, my first thought when Barnes showed up was to quit. But… there’s more money than ever at stake now that it’s an individual game. Jen, I think I could actually win,” I said slowly, as if it were sacrilege to even imagine that far. “Besides, I can’t leave Imogen and Erika alone here. God only knows what Barnes would inflict on them with me gone. If I’m going down, I have to take him with me.”
After our goodbye, a PA brought me to the production office, where Shawn sat before Troy and Zara. This couldn’t be good.
“Guys, we’re mortified about the footage leaking,” Troy began. “The camera department in China told us all mounted units in the penthouse were removed, but clearly a few remained. Someone from the hotel likely stole them and sold the footage.”
I resisted the urge to snap. “Can the network do anything to make this up to us?”
Zara sighed. “As you know, your contracts permit us to record you everywhere except a bathroom, so while the network could never air the footage in question, they doownit.”
“Can’t they stop it circulating? Or get Marco Polo to pony up a settlement?”
“Luke, it’s the internet. Genie’s out of the bottle,” Troy replied with a wince. “And as much as we suspect the hotel staff, the network—”
“Isn’t going to piss off a major sponsor,” I concluded. “So it’s done.”
Zara nodded grimly. “It could be a bargaining chip in negotiations for future seasons?”
“That’s useless to me. I’m never doing this show again.”
“Bud, you don’t know that,” Troy said in his maddening simper.
“Don’t tell me what I know. Not after what you pulled.”
“I knew this conversation was coming.” He exhaled heavily. “Luke, Barnes calledus.”
“I can’t imagine you put up a protest. It was immaculately orchestrated, by the way, guaranteeing Shawn and I saw him together,” I replied, Shawn gulping beside me.
“The biggest scandal of the year came knocking at our door. Every news outlet would kill for this footage, but it’s happening here on our show,” Troy said evenly. “Do you really think the network gave us a choice?”
“Well, I hope the folks at headquarters are comfortable with the check they wrote because it’s buying him one episode. He’s getting his ass handed to him today.”
Troy clapped, his smarmy marquee grin revived. “That’s the spirit, big guy! Settle it on the field! And remember that line for interviews later.”
“Whatever.” I stood to go, reminding myself I still couldn’t hit a producer, and signaled a catatonic Shawn to follow. “And, Troy? Call me ‘bigguy’ again, and I’ll show you what it looks like to settle something on the field.”
“Here we are at the mouth of Te Awa Wakatipu—”
“Call it the Dart River,” Zara implored.
“But the Maori—”
“Have endured enough.”
An affronted Ecklund proceeded to outline the “Halo Top” Tribulation, petulantly kicking the weathered smoke-gray pebbles of the riverbank as we stood in our wet suits and life jackets. With the Southern Alps looming above us, we’d travel the Dart in jet boats, shooting like bullets over the turquoise water of the wide glacial tributary. In this spruced-up ring toss, we’d each have five minutes in a “captain’s chair” to aim twenty biodegradable golden “halos” at the dozen foot-long poles mounted in a triangle on the boat’s prow, all the while praying the rings didn’t ricochet into the water or get blown off course as we sped along.
