Of course, she wasn’t going back.
Except the money had tempted her from the beginning, no matter how hard she’d pretended it hadn’t. Adrienne was only the thing that pushed her from maybe to yes.
Her plan was simple. She wanted to make enough money to go home and build something permanent. No more yachts. No more waking up in a different marina every week. No more living according to charter schedules and rich people’s whims. No moreValentine.
She wanted a house. A life. A kitchen with wide windows overlooking Sitka Sound. A garden bed with Nootka roses, clusters of blue flag irises, and wild bleeding hearts that would survive the mist. Of course she would have heated vinyl floors so her mother’s feet wouldn’t ache in winter. And the walls would be made of cedar that smelled warm after the rain. A mudroom would be permanently cluttered with Xtratufs and damp jackets. She could picture her father standing on her wraparound deck with a mug of coffee, grumbling that the fog rolling in was too thick for fishing. Bald eagles would be perched on spruce trees, and smoke would curl from the fireplace. The salty smell of low tide would drift up from the shoreline.
Nowhere in those blueprints did she see herself standing on a sun-scorched beach in Greece, surviving off rice and beans while her cortisol levels skyrocketed because she was constantly terrified of being voted off.
But then she thought of Adrienne, standing in that garage in that bikini. It had taken absolutely every ounce of Valerie not to look the woman up and down. She wondered why a woman like her would even want to go on a show likeOutlast Her. Clearly it wasn’t for the money. Adrienne had more than she could ever know what to do with. Valerie, on the other hand, hadn’t grown up with a lot. Her mother had worked as a hairdresser until cancer had made standing all day impossible, and her father spent thirty years working for the Sitka harbor department repairing docks. Her beginnings were humble. People like Kyle and Adrienne Vale were born with golden spoons, and they knew it. And more times than not, they made sure everyone else knew that too.
Valerie groaned and rubbed a hand down her face.
The thought of Adrienne winning was more than agonizing. It was needling. It had worked its way under her skin and festered. She couldn’t stop thinking about it. But was it enough for her to do something stupid? Was Valerie Lang really that petty that she would delay her entire Sitka plan because a billionaire heiress made her feel unnecessarily competitive? Or worse. Was she arrogant enough to believe she could actually go back and win the million dollars this time?
“JESS!” she shouted, shoving the laptop to the side. She kicked the blanket off her legs, swung them over the side of the bed, and dusted crumbs off her lap. “JESS!”
Red curls appeared through the doorway first, followed by a deeply irritated-looking Jess whose sea-foam green face mask had hardened into a cracked crust across her cheeks. “What are you shouting about?” she grumbled.
“Tell me the honest truth,” Valerie said.
Jess leaned against the doorframe. “What other truth is there?”
Valerie ignored her tone. “How dumb would I be if I went back onOutlast Herand tried to win the title again?”
Jess took a moment to reply. Then her mask tightened as her eyebrows shot up. “Only as dumb as someone who jumps back into shark-infested water after already losing an arm.”
Valerie pulled a face. It was the answer she expected and agreed with. It was dumb. Extremely stupid. Entirely idiotic. “Do you think the Vales will let me quit mid-season?”
“They’d have another engineer in your room by the end of the week.”
This was also the truth, which was why Valerie picked up her laptop again and clicked reply to Elise’s email.
WHEN VALERIE STEPPEDonto the dock in Mykonos, two things became crystal clear.
One: the boat they were boarding was a custom-built, forty-foot luxury tender that a young Valerie would’ve sold a kidney to take apart piece by piece. Its pearlescent hull shimmered like an abalone shell, and the cream-colored leather looked so buttery soft it felt illegal to sit on it. Every chrome fitting gleamed. Every teak panel was polished. Then there were the twin 400-horsepower engines that would propel them toward the island at a speed that turned the Aegean wind into a gale. And two: Adrienne was nowhere to be seen. Which had been a relief.
After their interaction in the garage ofThe Valentinetwo months ago, there had been almost no further contact during the Vales’ visit. No more probing questions. On the second morning, Valerie found a handwritten note sitting on the dining table addressed to her. My iPad’s refusing to connect to Wi-Fi. On the third, there had been a follow-up emergency involving a bedside reading lamp that had started flickering. On the fourth,Adrienne had walked past her with a single, steely glance, and by that evening, when Valerie had come up from the engine room after replacing a coolant sensor in the generator, Adrienne had left for Austria.
Had Valerie spent the weeks thereafter thinking about Adrienne far more than was mentally advisable? Yes. Had she downloaded Instagram again only to secretly stalk the woman’s socials late at night, hunkered in her bed while everyone else was asleep? Had she zoomed into each photo of Adrienne on the powdered slopes of St. Anton am Arlberg; Adrienne waist-deep in crystal-clear water in the Seychelles; Adrienne standing beside fashion model Erica Litzman on a beach in Saint Tropez? Absolutely yes. And was she bothered by the fact that the billionaire heiress, who had claimed that she was partaking in Season Ten ofOutlast Her,had either backed out, which was the most likely explanation, or simply lied?
One hundred percent.
“All right, contestants,” Elise shouted across the marina. The boom mic in her hand dangled uselessly against her cargo shorts. Her voice was loud enough. “We’re starting soon.”
Earlier, Elise had caught Valerie by the arm and leaned in close enough for Valerie to smell espresso and peppermint Trident gum on her breath. “You coming back on this show means a lot to me. Don’t fuck it up.” Then she’d marched through the crowd toward the end of the gangway and stepped onto an old salt-crusted fishing crate.
“As you’ve probably realized, there are only six of you standing here... because you are the Saints tribe. The loyal ones. The moral compasses. The expected fan favorites.” She gestured toward the group with a sweep of her arm. “Congratulations, ladies, for being the good ones this season,” Elise said, tucking strands of blonde hair behind her ears.
Valerie frowned deeply. Only six of them? With the camera crew weaving around the dock, and production swarming everywhere, six people had looked like twelve. Besides, she’d been too nervous to count, and it wasn’t like they hadn’t been escorted to the marina in separate vehicles specifically to avoid communication beforehand. She’d forgotten how stealthy everything felt, like they were government agents transporting nuclear codes instead of a bunch of lesbians about to survive on an uninhabited Greek island for national television.
Valerie’s stomach twisted into a pretzel. Did that mean Adrienne was here? Maybe she was just on another boat, and she would be competing in this game as a Sinner.
Valerie squinted at the horizon. The sea was an impossible shade of peacock blue with white-crested peaks created by the Meltemi wind. And there, in the distance, was a white speck.
“The boat will slow down about half a mile from shore, and you will all jump out and swim the rest of the way,” Elise said. “The water’s a bit choppy, so we’ll have lifeguards out. If you’re struggling, please don’t panic. Just wave your arms and you will be assisted.”
Valerie almost snorted. She’d swum in far worse conditions than this. At nineteen, she’d jumped from a fishing trawler off Kodiak Island to untangle a fouled line in water so cold her hands had numbed. In Croatia, she once ended up swimming half a mile back to where a drunk guest had left her behind after she’d gone to rescue him from a faulty jet ski. Half a mile in the Aegean Sea was easy.
