Did she need something? Did inside knowledge of a game that she was determined to win count as something?
“I just,” Adrienne started, wondering how to go about this sensibly. She couldn’t just go out and ask Valerie directly for survival tips. Besides, the public wasn’t supposed to know that she was starring in Season Ten as a Sinner. Nicki didn’t count as the public. When they were trapped in a snowstorm in Austria two winters ago, Nicki had given Adrienne a Brazilian wax before her impending date with actress Lush Greer. Clearly, this made Nicki feel as close as family. Valerie was not. “I think it’s kind of a coincidence meeting you here... on my family’s yacht.”
Valerie stood up and dropped a wrench into the open tool bag at her feet with a clank. “Why would it be a coincidence?” she asked, turning toward Adrienne. She was quite a bit shorter than Adrienne. Adrienne felt like a giraffe.
“Well,” Adrienne started, just a bit taken aback by Valerie’s eyes. They were the palest green she’d ever seen. They looked like sea glass left too long beneath cold water. For a second she wondered if they were actually grey. But no. When Valerieshifted beneath the fluorescent lights, the color caught properly. “If you must know, I’ve been cast on the newOutlast Herseries.”
Valerie let out a sound between choking and gasping. “What?” she stammered, sounding so flabbergasted that Adrienne found it completely offensive. What did she mean by what?
“Why do you look so surprised?”
“I don’t,” Valerie muttered, which would’ve been more believable had she not been staring at Adrienne as if she’d just grown a unicorn horn between her eyes.
“You do,” Adrienne said, planting her hands on her hips. Then she immediately dropped them because it felt alarmingly similar to the posture her mother used on the rare occasion she disciplined them as children, and Adrienne was not Elisabet Vale. “You’re looking at me like you don’t think I’d last a day in the game, like I’d quit before the sun even sets.”
“You said it, not me.”
Adrienne blinked. She felt bizarrely irritated. What did it matter what Valerie thought? It didn’t. It shouldn’t. But then why was Adrienne seeing red? “You’re one to talk,” she snapped. “You quit that last challenge. You’re a quitter.” Geez, she sounded like she was in kindergarten.
“Thanks for reminding me,” Valerie grumbled. She swung the leather strap of her tool bag over her skinny shoulder and walked right past Adrienne as if they weren’t having a conversation. Out of Adrienne’s fifteen million followers, there were at least three million who would give their left kidney if she asked, and yet this woman was treating her like she was an annoying mosquito.
Adrienne hurried after her. “Why did you do it?”
No answer. Just the clink, clink of tools shifting inside the bag.
“Just tell me,” Adrienne pressed, unable to let it go. Or maybe she was just pissed that Valerie wasn’t offering up information the way people usually immediately handed Adrienne things. “Why did you do it?”
Valerie stopped short of the door and turned toward her. “I got a cramp in my leg,” she said impatiently. “Are you happy?”
“You’re lying,” Adrienne said. She once had a cramp in her calf after a sweaty reformer class in Ubud two summers ago, and she’d spasmed out on the floor, writhing in pain. Sally Richards, an Australian socialite, whom Adrienne was trying to outdo in the star exercise, had come to her rescue and massaged Adrienne’s calf with lavender-scented jojoba oil. There was no way Valerie had stepped off that platform with such grace if she had a muscle cramp. No way. “Just tell me the truth.”
But it seemed Valerie wasn’t going to tell her anything. Or speak to her at all. She pulled open the door, then walked right through it and up the same stairwell they’d descended earlier.
“You know, I was rooting for you. I wanted you to win!” Adrienne called after her, despite the door swinging closed in front of her with a click.
She wouldn’t admit it to Nicki, and especially not Kyle, but the image of Valerie working off her debt in that humid hotel kitchen had pricked so incessantly at Adrienne’s consciousness that by the time the final challenge had aired, the only contestant Adrienne had wanted to see win was Valerie.
She exhaled hard, smoothed her palms over her naked arms, and huffed at the closed door. “Fine,” she muttered. “I’ll just winOutlast Herwithout your help.”
Chapter Three
Valerie stuck her fingers into the grease-stained paper bag of Parmesan and wild rosemary twists Jess had left beside the half-dead succulent on the shelf in her cabin.
The crust shattered perfectly beneath her teeth. It was so divine and buttery that Valerie closed her eyes and finished off what was left. Then she stared mournfully into the empty bag. For a moment, she considered sneaking up to the galley and stealing another bagful. But that required getting up. And putting on a bra. And potentially running into one of the guests making an impromptu visit in search of Jess’ signature truffle chips. The effort felt excessive. Besides, she needed to address something very important.
Valerie looked back down at the email.
Val,
I know you probably never expected to hear from me again. But Season Ten is going to be iconic. We’re heading to an uninhabited Greek island in the Northern Sporades, just off Skopelos. It has brutal terrain, turquoise water, and zero mercy. This season’s theme is even bigger than before. Sinners vs. Saints, and we want you on it. Everyone loves a good comeback story, and we think yours is unfinished.
Come finish what you started.
Best,
Elise
Valerie read the email again and again. Two months ago, on a seemingly perfect day, whenThe Valentinehad been docked off the coast of Cala Luna in Sardinia, she’d spent the morninghelping Luke inspect the tenders before swimming off the stern platform during her break. The Mediterranean had been cold enough to sting her skin awake. She remembered climbing back on board, dripping and sun-golden, before she grabbed an iced coffee from the galley on her way to the crew cabin with its bolted leather benches and tiny porthole windows. She’d opened her laptop expecting an invoice from her mother’s care facility in Sitka when instead, Elise’s email had sat waiting in her inbox.
