Who can blame them?
‘Well then, I’d like to apologise for all women. We can be occasionally thoughtless and self-centred and very determined when faced with men as handsome as you.’
Cam grins. ‘Really? So, it’s almost my fault women behave that way around me?’
‘Oh, yes. Definitely. Now, this crazy, cheating ex, tell me what’s wrong with her.’
I almost instantly regret asking when I find out Megan is a former model turned fashion editor and runs her own very successful ethical clothing website and charity for abandoned horses. A real triple threat: brains, beauty, kind-hearted. She sounds too good to be true. I listen as he talks very briefly about his past relationship and his regrets at how he handled it. I get a warm glow of satisfaction over how comfortable we are with each other.
‘God, I must be drunk to be telling you any of this,’ he says, before calling it a night.
‘I’m relieved to hear she has fidelity issues. She sounds too perfect otherwise.’
Cam chuckles. ‘She definitely wasn’t perfect. She couldn’t be spontaneous. She needed at least six hours’ notice to get ready. She’d never be seen without her face on, and hair done. It meant we missed out on things that would have been fun.’
I look down at my raggedy outfit. My hair is in a wild bun, and I have no make-up on. My career is down the toilet and the last time I raised money for charity was nine years ago. I am the exact opposite of his former girlfriend. In other words, the opposite of his type.
‘I’ll clear away,’ I offer, getting unsteadily to my feet after the best part of a bottle of wine.
Cam puts his hand out to steady me, and it feels like a jolt, a spark of electricity. It causes me to look wide-eyed at him.
‘I’ll do it. You head to bed, and in the morning, we can decide whether I’m sending you back home to England’ – he fixes me with a stern look so that I know he hasn’t forgotten that I am here by pretence – ‘or whether you are staying in Mexico for a shot at finding true love.’
‘Yes. True love,’ I repeat, for no reason other than I’m very, very tipsy and I want to keep talking to him for the rest of my life. I carefully enunciate every word to hide this fact. ‘Actual. Heart-stopping. Soul-melting. Sparkles-in-your-eyes. True love. That’s what I want.’
‘That’s a tall order, Mrs Cliché, but I’ll see what I can do,’ he says, giving me a sleepy half-smile. ‘Although you forgot the butterflies in the stomach and the tingles down the spine whenever they walk in the room.’
He gets it. He totally gets it.
‘I’m not a TV producer on the world’s most overrated show for nothing. I have to warn you though, we have a very poor track record. There’s a 0.1 per cent chance of you staying with anyone you meet on the show. They all split up eventually.’
He is horribly drunk. Otherwise, he’d know that I was talking about him.
* * *
The following morning, I awake from a series of torrid dreams in a bit of a sweat. I tossed and turned. Vivid images of me making out with Cam, his delicious hot mouth on mine, his hands in places they shouldn’t be, had morphed into awful images of me drowning in the pool. In one of the dreams, I was parading down a catwalk in a crowded city centre. I was in a skimpy bikini and struggling in skyscraper heels, while everyone else was in boots, coats, hats and gloves because it was snowing and I am ridiculous, and they were laughing at me. I may as well have been a fish out of water in that dream, the meaning was so obvious.
Maybe it is a good thing that Cameron sends me back home. He is clearly not ready to move on. And even if he was, it wouldn’t be with someone like me. And there’s no point in me going on the show because I’ll just get thrown off for being too dull and boring, and Josh probably won’t even know or care that I’ve been on it.
I wander through the villa to find Cam bashing away at his laptop, a slew of papers covering the table and multiple phones on the go all pinging and bleeping at once.
‘Planning a major heist? Shouldn’t we be in an abandoned warehouse?’
Cam looks up, grinning. ‘Good morning. Please don’t peek at these confidential papers. I know that will be very hard for you.’
‘Cheek! I did not peek at them yesterday while you were asleep, so I’m hardly going to bother now, am I?’
He screws his eyes at me in a friendly manner.
‘Honestly, I don’t want to know. I mean, why would a woman, isolated in the middle of the jungle, be curious that the man she is stuck with has over ten burner phones on the go?’
‘They are for the contestants. Each of them will get their own phone, but only to take selfies and to receive instructions to gather round the firepit from Destiny, this year’s host. On that note,’ he says. ‘I’ve reached a decision about you.’
Suddenly, my time here seems too short. It’s such a long way to come to stay stuck in a villa that could be anywhere in the world.
‘Wait. Before you tell me. Can I just say that I’m so sorry I lied to get on the show, and I’m sorry it was for the wrong reasons. I completely understand if you want to send me home.’
Cam looks at me as though weighing up whether I’m worth the hassle.
