She turned, eyes narrowing on Sienna, who was still crouched naked behind the nightstand. “For the love of god, put some clothes on!”
Sienna didn’t need to be told twice. She was more than ready to cover herself. But there was a tiny little problem. She’d shown up at Vivian’s place in her rose ceremony dress, and slipping it back on just felt… wrong. At least Vivian seemed to understand why Sienna wasn’t already rushing off to find it. She jerked her head toward a woven rattan chair in the far corner where a cream linen button-down hung over the armrest.
Sienna darted for it—acutely aware of her bare ass on full display—and yanked it over her head. Thank goodness thebuttons were already done. She couldn’t imagine having to fumble with them first. She was also grateful that the shirt at least skimmed the tops of her thighs. Though at this point, modesty was just a luxury.
“What are we going to do about this?” Elise said, still fuming, still pacing. Except now her fingers were yanking at fistfuls of her hair, and Sienna worried she was going to pull the strands out by the roots.
But then all at once, Elise stopped. She went still.
It happened so abruptly that even the air seemed to hold its breath. Her arms fell to her sides. Her expression went blank. The first thing that popped into Sienna’s mind was that Elise was about to faint. But she neither swayed nor collapsed. The silence just stretched. One second. Then ten. Long enough for Sienna to worry. Long enough for Vivian to catch Sienna’s eye and flash her a look that said this isn’t good.
Then Vivian stepped forward slowly. She reached one hand out but let it hover. “Elise, are you okay?” she said softly.
Elise didn’t answer. She simply stood there, staring at the floor like she was watching her life replay on the wood. Sienna considered offering to fetch Maurine, but then Elise lifted her chin, and Sienna took a step back instead of forward.
Her face had changed. Gone was the fury, the crimson blotches on her neck, the shaking hands. She looked eerily serene, almost radiant, like she’d come back from a silent retreat instead of a full-blown meltdown seconds ago. Which, frankly, was more troubling than the outburst.
Sienna didn’t like this. Not one bit.
Especially when Elise drew in a long, deliberate breath and smiled wide, unblinking, and eerily unhinged. “I’ve got a plan,” she said.
“A plan,” Vivian and Sienna both repeated.
“Yes,” Elise said evenly, clasping her hands in front of her like some demented headmistress. “The plan is for you two to act like this never happened. Finish the season. Do your jobs. Everything else… this…” She gestured to Vivian and then to Sienna. “You can finish when the show is over.”
It sounded incredibly easy, completely reasonable, if, of course, you ignored the small fact that last nighthadhappened. And then there was the part where Sienna had fallen for Vivian instead of one of the contestants.
“You mean lie?” Sienna asked. Her voice cracked somewhere between disbelief and sheer confusion. Had she heard Elise correctly? Had Elise said they should just carry on with normal and act as if she hadn’t caught them in bed together?
Elise turned to look at her and Sienna suddenly felt ten years old again. “I mean keep your mouth shut and let the cameras roll. The viewers don’t need to know you two broke the rules. The network doesn’t need to know either. Nobody needs to know. Not. This. Season.” She punctuated each word so forcibly that there was a dribble of spit at the corner of her mouth.
But Sienna wasn’t going to stand for this.
She opened her mouth, ready to argue because pretending that nothing had happened didn’t just feel immoral but delusional as well, but Vivian placed a finger over her mouth, shushing Sienna like she was a kid interrupting church service. “Okay, we’ll do as you ask,” Vivian said.
Elise exhaled, looking extremely relieved, and then looked between them one last time. “Now, let’s go make good television,” she said, her voice bright, eerily so. And with that, she turned and walked out. The door slammed behind her.
Sienna took the moment as an opportunity to launch right into a full moral monologue about lying to the contestants who’d come here to find something real, about having integrity,about the sanctity of lesbian reality dating, but Vivian held up a hand for the second time that morning and stopped her in her tracks.
“You should go,” she said. “Before any of the contestants get wind of this.”
Sienna felt like she’d been slapped in the face. At least the owner of said hand was gorgeous and lovely and had spooned her through the night. But still. She considered using all those things to her advantage and complaining anyway, but something told her not to. So, Sienna just nodded before heading to the bathroom to retrieve her dress from last night.
She made her way to the door. “I’ll see you later,” she said, turning the knob. Then hesitated.
For a second she imagined Vivian suggesting they take time apart, and her chest tightened painfully. But then Vivian said, “See you later,” and Sienna let out a breath so breezy she didn’t care that she was carrying her dress in her hand and wearing only Vivian’s shirt when she stepped out into the morning light.
Chapter Twenty-One
Vivian had always had a pretty good idea of how her life was going to go. A set plan for her future, as one would say. Yes, she’d had a few hiccups along the way. She might not be a famous movie star like she’d dreamed, might not have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, might not have scored a romantic lead opposite Scarlett Johansson, but her job afforded her enough. Enough to live in a sunlit Malibu penthouse apartment with large windows and a view of the ocean that made her feel like she was on permanent vacation. Enough to holiday at least twice a year. Santorini in spring, Kyoto in the fall. Enough to have a perfectly curated closet of silk blouses, Manolo Blahnik heels, a Hermès Birkin resting on a velvet chair in her walk-in closet, and a row of watches lined up on a leather tray. A Rolex, a Cartier, and an Omega.
Enough, frankly, to convince herself she was doing okay. More than okay.
But clearly, she wasn’t.
Not just because she’d fallen in love—and yes, she regarded that as the kind of rookie mistake which she had always thought she was too seasoned to make—but also because she had to watch the person she had fallen in love with go on dates with other women. Which bordered on the masochistic. It felt so cruel, in fact, that her chest ached like a herd of buffalo had decided to go stampeding across it.
But it was her fault, wasn’t it? She hadn’t fought back. She’d succumbed to Elise’s request, or more like a threat, with her tail between her legs and her reputation on her mind. She’d chosen her job over Sienna, and now she had to suffer.
