“Bless you,” Maurine said, and then she headed toward the stairwell. Vivian caught up in two quick steps and steered herback toward the lobby before taking a right that led to a long, bright corridor decorated with the same art as in the lobby.
Less than a minute later, they stepped through an arched doorway into a room that could easily have been ripped straight from a wellness brochure Vivian had glimpsed in the airport on the way here. Everything was beige. Beige walls. Beige towels. Beige flower pots holding spiky aloes and low clusters of wild sage. Both plants didn’t care if it rained or burned with heat. The air smelled like lavender and eucalyptus oil. The lights hanging from the ceiling were teardrop-shaped glass pendants, each suspended from a thin bronze cord. The windows were wide and low with a view of the bushveld. Beside the window was a bronze table holding three carafes of water, each infused with something different: cucumber and mint, orange and thyme, and the unique combo of strawberry and basil that nobody had touched.
When they turned the corner, Vivian spotted Lucille and Imani sitting in reclining chairs, holding half-drunk glasses of bubbles, looking like someone had died. She wanted to head over to them, get a scope of just how bad it was, because surely a simple burn didn’t warrant such a reaction, but then a woman in a white tunic came running toward them. “You’re the doctor, right?”
Maurine, who looked as out of place in there as a lemon amongst a basketful of muffins, nodded. “I am.”
“Thank goodness,” the woman said, looking relieved. “We’ve applied a cool compress in the meantime. She says it doesn’t hurt, but it’s already blistering, so I have to disagree.”
“Tough cookie,” Maurine said. “Or just embarrassed. Point me in the right direction.”
“She’s over there.”
Maurine immediately walked off toward the small room the woman had just pointed to, and Vivian stayed rooted tothe spot. She’d done what she had needed to do. She’d shown Maurine where the spa was and therefore had no other reason to be there. She should leave. She had a dozen other things to do. But then her feet moved her forward instead of backward, and before she knew it, she was gliding across the space until she was standing in the doorway of the treatment room.
Sienna sat on a spa plinth, looking down at her lap. She was wrapped in a towel so oversized it looked like it had eaten her. Her bare shoulders gleamed under the soft yellow lights, and her back was exposed down to the dip of her spine, while her hands clutched the towel’s top edge, covering her breasts.
Maurine hovered behind her. She applied something to her back, which made Sienna flinch so hard her knuckles went white, and Vivian’s heart did something unexpected.
It flapped. Wildly. Like a red-backed shrike caught in a crosswind. Vivian had done some birdwatching this morning while the contestants were out on the walk, and that was the one and only bird she’d spotted and marked down on the guide she’d found in her villa.
“How bad is it?” she asked, her voice coming out way higher than she’d intended. She cleared her throat just as Sienna snapped her head up.
“What are you doing here?” Sienna asked. Her brows squeezed together so tight Vivian wasn’t sure if it was from the pain or the fact that Vivian was standing there watching her get treated when clearly she wasn’t meant to be there.
What was she doing there? Why hadn’t she left yet? Why did she feel so desperate to see Sienna and make sure she hadn’t been maimed? Then again, why shouldn’t she check on her? Surely, checking on the bachelorette after an injury fell under the umbrella of host duties. She was just doing her part. There was nothing more to it.
“Maurine couldn’t find the spa,” Vivian replied. Her voice still didn’t sound right. She cleared her throat again. “I’m glad to see you’re in one piece.”
“Barely.”
“You’ll survive,” Maurine said. “The skin’s blistered, so we’re dealing with a mild second-degree burn. It’s not too deep, but it’ll be tender for a few days. You’ll need to keep the dressing on and avoid direct sun exposure. And no swimming or sauna in the meantime.”
Sienna groaned, “Great. Everyone must think I’m a walking hazard.”
“Well, you did warn them,” Vivian said, smiling.
“I did,” Sienna said, letting out a breathy laugh. The towel slipped a little, and Sienna’s hands shot up to clutch it just above her breasts. And for one heart-stopping second Vivian wondered what would’ve happened if the towel had slipped completely.
No. No. No, she thought. Nothing would’ve happened because she would’ve diverted her eyes before it could. But what if… maybe…
No!Vivian shook her head visibly and then caught herself doing it. She had to get the hell out of there. Seriously. Before she embarrassed herself. Before she waited with bated breath for that towel to shift again.
“I’ll see you tonight,” she said quickly, then turned and walked off before either Sienna or Maurine could respond.
Chapter Eight
Sienna smoothed her hand over the sides of her dusky blue dress. After the sunscreen disaster, production had a whole new wardrobe flown into the bush for her, so at least she had options again. It was a last-minute change from the one she’d initially chosen for the first rose ceremony. Her first pick had been a coral satin, backless, meant to pop against the golden hour light. It would’ve been spectacular if her skin hadn’t toasted like a marshmallow. Instead, she’d gone for one with soft flutter sleeves, a high neckline, sheer fabric that swept down to the middle of her calves, and most importantly, covered the bandage on her back.
She took a sip of the champagne a PA had shoved into her hand earlier and tried not to think about the sting that shot through her back every time she moved, or the possibility that Elise would use the whole hot stone disaster in the next episode. But then, why wouldn’t she? Disasters made for great TV. People literally made entire franchises about disasters. And what had happened to her had felt just a little Final Destination-y.
“How are you feeling?” Elise asked, walking toward her with a packet of notes clutched in her right hand. She was dressed in all black tonight, and in the shadowy corner of the lodge where the light didn’t reach, it made her look like a disembodied head hovering above the deck.
“Fine,” Sienna said, touching her hair. Fi had pinned it half-up with loose waves falling around her shoulders. “Better. It looks worse than it is. The therapist barely put the stone on my back before I jumped up screaming, and I think that limited the damage.”
“I meant about the rose ceremony,” Elise said.
Sienna felt her face heat up. “Oh,” she muttered, embarrassed.
