“Once you hit shore, Vivian will be waiting for you at the beach.” Elise gestured toward the tender. “All right, contestants, let’s load up.”
Five minutes later, the captain eased them away from the dock. Then he punched the throttle. Several contestants grabbed for the rails as the hull smacked against the chop. Ahead of her,a woman who looked strikingly like Sienna Michaels—formerly known as Sienna McKenzie—from Season Seven ofThe Sapphic Matchgrabbed for the Panama hat on her head before it blew off. But it couldn’t be, could it?
The woman sitting to Valerie’s left, who had tattoos of wildflowers snaking up both forearms, had lurched forward hard enough that she snapped back like a bungee cord. Her hand landed on Valerie’s knee. “Fucking hell,” the woman gasped, immediately snatching her hand back. “This is asking for a spinal injury.”
When Valerie stared at her as if she’d never considered getting grievously injured by a boat in her life, the woman added, “I’m an ER nurse. I’ve seen people break their backs on Lake Tahoe just because they hit the wake wrong. It doesn’t take much.”
“Well, let’s hope that doesn’t happen to any of us,” Valerie said. Then she turned back to the marina and watched the pastel houses shrink behind them. A few moments later, she turned forward again and saw the island properly for the first time. It rose from the sea in jagged pale cliffs streaked with rust-colored veins where minerals bled through the limestone. The shoreline was basically rock, giving way to small stretches of coarse sand. Then, to the right, tucked into the curve of a cove, was a dense thicket of Aleppo pines and mastic trees.
“Over there!” a woman with dark curls tied up in a sun-yellow bandana yelled suddenly.
Valerie followed her outstretched hand and spotted the Sinners’ tender cutting across the water from the opposite direction. It looked identical, but Valerie wasn’t paying attention to the boat because she was looking for Adrienne.
And there she was.
Adrienne stood near the bow. The wind snapped through the loose white linen shirt hanging open over a black bikini. Herhoney-brown hair whipped wildly around her face. She wasn’t looking at Valerie... and then she was.
Their eyes met. Valerie could see the gears grinding in Adrienne’s mind, the frown forming faintly, then more pronounced as surprise, then shock, then pure disbelief flickered across her pretty face. There had been a part of Valerie that believed Adrienne wouldn’t remember her. Why would she? Valerie was no one compared to the celebrities, socialites, and billionaires she spent her days with. But then it became crystal clear that she did.
“TWENTY SECONDS!” the captain yelled.
Valerie snatched her gaze away from the boat toward the water. Her mother’s face flashed suddenly into her mind. Pale and thin, wrapped in a soft cardigan inside the assisted living facility outside Sitka. Valerie pictured her father arriving every Tuesday with supermarket flowers. He still lived in Valerie’s childhood home, which was a narrow two-story house with steep stairs and doors not wide enough for a wheelchair. Sometimes when the weather held, Mick wheeled Hattie through the facility’s garden paths lined with damp cedar mulch. When they got to the little koi pond with a view of the water, Hattie would insist on walking. She’d grip Mick’s arm and get five breathless steps before needing to sit again.
All Valerie wanted was a place they could all be together again. That was the plan. Had always been the plan. So what the hell was she doing here?
Was this a mistake? Should she have stayed aboardThe Valentine? Would it have been better if she had worked her final year offshore and kept her head down, instead of wasting the month on throwing herself back into a game that had nearly gutted her the first time?
“GO!” the captain screamed, tearing her thoughts apart.
Before Valerie could think herself out of it, she dove into the water.
Chapter Four
Valerie fucking Lang.
Adrienne couldn’t believe it. Of all the contestants on that boat, she hadn’t expected to see the grumpy engineer fromThe Valentine. Although Sienna Michaels fromThe Sapphic Matchhad been quite a shock too. Wasn’t she married to Vivian?
The truth was that Adrienne hadn’t expected to see Valerie again, ever.
In fact, after that weekend in Porto Cervo, Adrienne had made a point of erasing the woman from her memory. At her parents’ annual ski party in Lech am Arlberg, somewhere after the third round of spiced schnapps, Adrienne had offhandedly suggested to her father that Valerie be fired for behaving belligerently. Valerie had basically shut the door in her face. What was more aggressive than that? She’d expected Valerie’s bags to be packed before the snow had even melted. No one ignored Adrienne Vale and got away with it. No one made her feel like an inconvenient chore on her own family’s vessel.
And yet, here she was.
“GO!” a voice screamed from the back of the boat. The voice was like a push against her back. Without thinking, or at least not more than she was already thinking, she dove into the sea.
In the next second, a wall of water slammed into her face, stinging her eyes and rushing up her nose. She surfaced, coughed, and immediately took another wave in the face. This wasn’t exactly Grace Bay in Turks and Caicos, but then again Adrienne had prepared for this. She’d spent three days at theU.S. Navy’s indoor ocean at Carderock, paying a ridiculous sum of money to be pummeled by programmed waves that mimicked real ocean conditions.
The thing she hadn’t prepared for was the roil of emotions that swarmed in her stomach. Or was that just seasickness? No, Adrienne had never gotten seasick in her life.
Another swell rose up and forced Adrienne under. She broke the surface, gasping. Her linen shirt was weighing her down, and suddenly it felt like her arms were not working. She ripped the shirt off and let the ocean swallow it. She felt lighter already. Then she turned her focus to the shore and gasped.
Valerie was already out of the water. How was that even possible? The woman couldn’t be much over five feet four inches. Wasn’t Michael Phelps as good as he was because his arms and legs were the length of canoe paddles? Seeing Valerie jog out of the surf was all the fire Adrienne needed.
Adrienne scooped her arms forward and kicked with every ounce of strength. She ignored the sting in her eyes and pushed through the water despite it fighting her like a wet curtain. The shoreline grew closer, and roughly three minutes later, her feet hit the sand.
“And Adrienne Vale is out of the water!” Vivian shouted. “So is Niko De Luca.”
Adrienne staggered upright and squeezed water out of her hair. Two other contestants ran past her, but as far as she could tell, it wasn’t a race, and so there was no hurry. Besides, the longer it took for her to get within two feet of Valerie, the better. Time was essential when figuring out a game plan, and Adrienne wasn’t about to walk into this war without one.
