Harper pressed her tongue to the back of her teeth and flicked her cellphone’s screen on. She read the email for the hundredth time, and before she could overthink it, hit the reply button.
Hi Jack,
Thank you for the message. I’d love to come back. Please let me know the next steps.
She hit send.
The whoosh of the email leaving felt strangely anticlimactic. No fireworks. No drumroll. Harper set her phone down and listened to the rain pick up outside. She glanced through the sliding door. The stars were gone behind a sky full of clouds. Then she pushed back her chair and headed to the bedroom.
~~
Harper stepped onto the cliffside launch platform in Furore. The wooden planks were sun-bleached from years of tourists’ sneakers, and the view was spectacular. The Fiordo di Furore yawned open beneath her, splitting the coast open like a jagged seam. How lucky was she to experience it twice, but from a different angle? Across the gorge, two parallel cables stretched toward Conca dei Marini, which looked more like gleaming silver threads than anything else.
Today, Megan and the contestants were being treated to a ziplining group date.
Which, frankly, was quite a shock to Harper’s system.
She’d been genuinely surprised when Gillian had shown up at her door that morning, looking far too cheerful—sign number one that something was amiss—informing her of today’s group date. There had even been a brief moment of panic where she’d scrambled to find her phone to check if Jack had emailed back. He had. A very polite email telling her she could return toNational Geographicon her own time. No rush. Which was good. Harper would stay and finishThe Sapphic Match,and once production was done, she’d fly back to London and step into the life she’d built for nearly a decade. Minus Harry, of course. A life that was taken from her in the blink of an eye and given back on a silver platter.
“I have never ziplined before,” Megan said, looking as ecstatic as a person who was terrified of heights peering over the edge of a platform suspended about half a mile up in the air.
“Don’t worry,” Jamie said, slipping an arm around Megan’s waist. “It’s really not that scary. The worst part is stepping off, and I’ll be right—” She cut herself off the momentshe caught sight of the warning on Tori’s face. Then her arm dropped to her side as if her leg were a magnet.
If Harper hadn’t been informed of the contestants’ entanglements—Rebecca sleeping with Amelia and Tori sleeping with Elena—she would’ve wondered what the hell was going on. But she had. Gillian had given her the scoop that morning. While it felt entirely wrong, they were all going to keep pretending for the rest of the season. Harper was somewhat relieved.
At least Elise would finally get what she wanted.
“If we’re doing tandem rides, I want to ride with Megan,” Amelia said, stepping forward just as she knotted the arms of her cream sweater around her hips.
“You can’t just call dibs on the bachelorette,” Elena said, frowning deep enough for her eyebrows to nearly meet.
“Who says?” Amelia shot back.
“Pairs have already been assigned,” Gillian said, stepping onto the platform. She wore jean shorts and VEJA sneakers, and sticking out just above the sock of her left foot was a beaded bracelet in every shade of the rainbow. A tiny plastic turtle sat between the pink and purple beads. Harper assumed Gillian’s son Hunter had made it at school and insisted she wear it for luck.
Gillian turned to Harper. “You’ll go first. Elise wants you positioned at the Conca side to photograph the arrivals.”
Harper had expected as much. Luckily she loved the thrill of a zipline and mostly just wished it could go on longer than it usually did. “Sure.”
“We’re also mounting GoPros to their helmets for social clips,” Gillian added, fussing with her iPad. The way her fingers flicked across the screen was like Mozart playing the piano. “But your shots will be used for the hero stills. Elise is looking for a billboard image over the freeway outside LAX. Preferably Megan with a rose in her hand, looking radiant and in love.” She glancedup and caught Megan standing as far away from the edge as possible. “Though right now she looks like she’s being escorted to her execution.”
“Got it.” Harper was already mentally lining up the shots: wide angles of the gorge swallowing the contestants whole, close-ups of wind-flattened smiles and if she was lucky, a hair-whipped moment where Megan was smiling instead of crying.
Gillian turned her attention to Megan and the contestants. “A safety briefing will take place first,” she said, addressing them. “Please pay attention, everyone. We don’t want any injuries. Maurine’s in bed with the stomach flu, and she’s asked me to tell you she won’t get out for anything less than a broken neck.”
Two instructors wearing polos with a single line drawing of a zipline as the emblem stepped forward. One was tall and tanned, with a whistle hanging from his neck. He reminded Harper of a young Brad Pitt inFight Club, and the other was lanky and pale and looked like a strong enough gust could sweep him off the platform. Lanky guy addressed Megan, and the contestants and Brad Pitt lookalike walked over to Harper with a harness looped over his arm.
“Hi,” he said with an Italian accent so thick it wrapped around the word. “My name is Antonio. I’ll be instructing you today.”
“Hi,” she replied, wondering if she should inform him she’d ziplined the K3 Zipline in Caledon, South Africa, and that one stretched almost two miles. But then he began explaining how the trolley locked onto the cable, how the backup line ran parallel just in case, and how the steel handles overhead were the only thing she needed to hold once they launched, and she let him. A lot of things she had let go of today without making a deal of it. One of them was Gillian showing up at her door instead ofElise. After yesterday’s blame game in the villa garden, the least Elise could do was tell her personally.
Antonio was just about to hand her the harness when she saw Elise walk up.
“Elise?” The name slipped out of Harper’s mouth like a cough. “I didn’t think you were coming.”
“I’ll be riding tandem with her,” Elise said, stopping in front of Antonio. She flicked back her sunglasses and pointed to Harper. “We go first.”
For a second, Harper thought she was imagining things, but then Antonio began fitting her with a harness, and Elise stepped in front of her, her back to Harper. Before she knew it, he was clipping a carabiner from Harper’s harness to Elise’s with a firm click. Another click and their trolley was locked to the cable above. Thick straps looped over her thighs, under her arms, and across their shoulders.
