This was not the first time I’d heard Lily make an incredibly mean suggestion to a contestant. Not even close.
But this tone wasn’t Lily Ong, producer. Lily Ong would suggest it in such a friendly tone you’d barely register it was mean. She’d convince you it was the right thing to do, the reasonable thing to do, just by behaving like it was.
‘This is supposed to be a competition,’ Lily Fireball purred, every inch a predator. ‘We’re not here to make friends.’
The words were straight out of the reality TV villain’s handbook.
She was doing this. She was really doing this. My best friend was going to step out of this limo and turn herself into a whole different person and there wasn’t a thing I could do to stop her.
Her dress over my lap was suddenly stiflingly hot. My heart was racing, pounding in my ears.
Lily was back.
Lily was here.
Lily had snapped and now she was burning her whole life down right in front of my eyes andI was never going to get my partner back.
‘Hi!’ I heard Romeo-Dylan say, distant and distorted through my earpiece and the rushing in my mind. ‘Welcome! It’s so nice to meet you.’
‘Lovely to meet you too,’ Juliet-Dylan said.
I forced myself to take a long, deep breath.
‘All of you need to be quiet now,’ I managed to say. ‘I have to listen. We can’t have any background noise pick up in the intros, or we’ll have to refilm them.’
‘Get out of the way!’ Lily said. ‘I want to get a look at the Romeo.’
She leaned across me, practically clambering into my lap, and some dam in my brain burst. ‘Lily, sit down!’ I barked, shoving her off. ‘And for the love of God, shut up!’
The look she gave me was icy, made worse by the fact that it was so familiar. ‘Don’t you dare tell me to shut up,’ she said. ‘Don’t you dare.’
Don’t shout at me, Murray,she’d told me firmly a few times over the years.I’m your partner, not your subordinate. You can’t boss me around. The daddy voice doesn’t work on me.
There was laughter in my earpiece. The Dylans, laughing together, a little too loud, a little too awkward, a little too forced.
‘I’m sorry,’ I forced out. ‘But – just – please. I need you to be quiet.’
The barest movement of her eyebrow. The smallest flair of her nostrils. The tiniest signs, the ones that no one could read but me.
‘All of you,’ I added. ‘I have to think.’
None of the other women – not Amanda, not Heather, not Cece – noticed their inclusion was a hasty afterthought.
The slightest quirk of her lips.
Lily noticed.
‘All set for package number four,’ Keira said in my earpiece.
‘Go. Now. Out,’ I said to Heather.
The limo door closed behind her. ‘Package number four in place,’ Keira said.
Lily slid over to the seat that Heather had vacated, elegant despite her complicated skirt. She leaned against the far door and swung her legs up, crossing her ankles and putting her feet on the seat, stiletto points just brushing my thigh. She was wearing gold heels with delicate straps, her toenails painted the same red as her lipstick.
‘Package number four en route,’ Keira said in my earpiece.
Only a few minutes, then. Only a few minutes before I had to let Lily Fireball out of the limo and watch her destroy Lily Ong’s life.
