Chapter Twenty-Four Hell Is the Consequences of Your Own Actions
Chapter Twenty-Four
Hell Is the Consequences of Your Own Actions
The weather has taken a turn for the worse by the time we circle the island. The rain is falling in sheets, and the wind is whipping so hard that I can practically feel the helicopter fighting it. But it manages to stay in the air, even as we’re all starting to question whether it’s safe to be up here.
By the time we’re deposited just outside the villa, the feelings that have been simmering inside me have come to a boil. Lingering fear from nearly plummeting to my death. Confusion over Chase’s confession. Doubt about Leah’s promises of safety. Anger at Daniel for letting Selena win and then threatening to leave the show. And worry that Daniel was right to do so.
I hate feeling this vulnerable, and I can’t get the sensation of falling, the shriek of the wind whistling in my ears, the complete and utter loss of control, out of my mind. It’s easier to embrace my anger at Daniel than to think about that.
Daniel and I both manage to keep our shit together until we make it to our room. Then I turn on him.
“You let Selena win?” I get up in Daniel’s face, letting my fury carry me. I know the moment I stop being angry, I’ll crumble from all the fear and anxiety I have bottled up in me.
“ That’s what you’re mad about?” Daniel folds his arms. “That I couldn’t bring myself to toss my ex-girlfriend into a mud pit? I’m not ashamed of holding back.”
“Chase pushed me in, and I was fine,” I say furiously. “We could’ve lost because of you!”
“Because of me?” Daniel scoffs. “What about you? We made a deal to work together, and you sold me out for the chance to win twenty thousand dollars.”
I deflate a little at that.
“All I did was, like, lightly betray you,” I say, but my heart isn’t in it anymore.
“And here I thought you were all in,” Daniel says.
“It was the logical choice. Going after the twenty thousand dollars versus the uncertainty of staying in the game.”
Daniel rakes a hand through his hair. “I know, but that doesn’t mean the betrayal doesn’t sting, Alice.”
“I’m sorry. But I’m not ashamed of my choice,” I say, echoing Daniel. I’m just ashamed I didn’t tell Daniel sooner. “I told you, I really, really need the money. You don’t understand.”
“I want to understand, Alice,” he says, laying a hand on my arm. His gaze is on me, and he looks so open and vulnerable that I can’t help but actually want to tell him.
The thing is, I didn’t even tell Cindy how bad the diagnosis was, and we’re best friends. At the time, it had all felt so terrible and overwhelming that I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it. I did what I always do. I acted like I was fine, like everything was going to be okay, and just handled things myself. Fortunately, even without knowing how bad things were, Cindy could tell I was struggling, and she was there for me.
I should’ve trusted Cindy. Maybe now I can trust Daniel—with the truth, with my friendship, and maybe even more.
I stop thinking and start talking.
“It’s my mom. She has cancer. Stage four metastatic breast cancer. The treatment has been brutal, and we don’t have good insurance. It’s not just my student loans, Daniel. These medical bills, I’m being buried by them. And I need the money to get my mom the best possible care that I can. I want her to be able to stop working and just rest.”
I lapse into silence, dropping my gaze. I’ve run out of steam, and I’m ready to just crawl into bed and never come back out. Then I feel Daniel wrap his arms around me.
“I’m sorry, Alice. I’m so sorry,” Daniel says. “You’re right. I didn’t understand.”
I crumple against him, feeling everything—all my anxiety and fear about leaving my mother to come here, my powerlessness to do anything real to help her, my guilt for betraying Daniel over twenty thousand dollars.
His embrace is soothing and warm, and we’re pressed so close together that I can hear his chest rumble as he says, “Thank you for telling me.”
“When you were talking to Leah—” I lift my head to look at him. “Would you really have left the show?”
“No, not without you,” Daniel says. “I was mostly bluffing. I know we can’t really walk away, legally speaking. The contract is pretty airtight, and we don’t have any hard evidence to give us cover.”
I nod, but I don’t ask the question that I really want to ask. The question that my mind keeps circling back to, like a cut in my mouth that I can’t help probing with my tongue. Did Daniel let Selena win because he’s still in love with her?
Because it would be totally reasonable if he is. It hasn’t been that long since their breakup. And Selena is amazing—she’s gorgeous, she’s funny, and she’s incredibly cool.
Not to mention the fact that my relationship with Daniel is completely manufactured for reality TV drama. Just thinking about how none of this means anything, that he’s just being sweet and considerate because I’m his fake girlfriend—it hurts.
As if he can read my mind, Daniel says, “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about letting Selena win. I should have talked to you first.”
I take a deep breath and force myself to pull away from him. “It’s okay. You don’t have to say you’re sorry. You don’t owe me anything.”
“Alice.” Daniel takes ahold of my shoulders, his gaze intense. “Of course I owe you that much. We’re in a relationship.”
“A fake relationship,” I remind him. “This has always been a business arrangement. An act to stay on the show. You have every reason to still care about Selena. To love her. I don’t get to ask for more from you.” I turn to leave. I don’t want him to see the tears welling up in my eyes. I’m furious with myself. This is all fake. Why am I crying?
Daniel catches my hand.
“I’m not in love with her,” he says quietly.
“You don’t have to say that.” My voice is starting to wobble.
Now he takes my other hand, turning me so we’re fully facing each other. I’m finding it hard to look directly at him. I pray that my tears don’t start spilling over, but I think it’s too late.
“I’m telling you because it’s true,” Daniel says, his voice low. “I went easy on Selena because, well, Selena grew up in a violent household. She’s talked about it on other shows before, so it’s not a secret, and she’s gone to therapy to deal with her trauma. But when we were competing over that mud pit, I could tell that the whole situation wasn’t good for her. I didn’t want to make things worse.”
“Oh,” I say. I remember how shaken Selena looked on the bridge, the way she froze up. “So it wasn’t because…”
Daniel sighs. “Selena and I just got together, remember? I had fun with her, and I like to think we’ll stay friends after this. But I don’t have any deep attachment to her. Not like you and Chase. The two of you were engaged. I’m sure you still have feelings for him, especially after hearing how he feels about you—”
“No,” I say. I can sense the truth of my feelings rising to the surface, and I’m done being afraid. I’m done being in denial. I look out the window at the beach outside, as if the view could give me courage. “I mean, I still care about him, but I’m not in love with him anymore.”
Daniel’s thumb comes up to swipe a tear from my cheek, and I meet his gaze.
“Really,” he says, almost a whisper. “And what changed?”
“I did, in a way,” I say quietly. “Because I’ve come to realize something.”
I’m leaning in, and suddenly we’re both moving into each other, Daniel’s hands coming up to frame my face. His eyes flick down to my mouth, then back up to meet my gaze. There’s that unreadable look on his face again, the one I keep seeing at random moments—when I’m telling a bad joke, or when we’re brushing our teeth together, or—oh, god—when he’s about to kiss me.
I hadn’t known before what that look meant, but now I do.
“What did you realize?” he prompts.
“I don’t actually dislike you,” I whisper.
I don’t know who moves in first, but I do know that Daniel laughs into our first kiss, our first real kiss between us, a light touch of my lips to the generous curve on his. One of his hands stays on my cheek, sweetening the angle, while the other curls around me to anchor us together at the small of my back. We stay there for a moment, warmth rushing to my cheeks.
“I don’t actually dislike you either,” he murmurs. “Quite the opposite, actually.”
There’s something fragile and secret in the close space between us, and it’s so unbelievably easy to lift my mouth to his again, to tilt my head, to pick up where we left off.
My brain is usually an unending stream of thoughts and worries, but with every press of his mouth against mine, my world narrows down to only Daniel. With his hands sliding down my waist, I barely notice how my clothes still cling to me from the rain, and the shiver that runs through me is not from the cold air on my damp skin but from his body pressing me into the wall, a solid weight warming me through and through.
“Alice,” Daniel breathes as he breaks the kiss. I try to catch my breath before he takes advantage of our new position to kiss my throat down to my collarbone, turning his warmth into fire. “Is this okay?” he whispers into my skin as he nudges the strap of my sundress off my shoulder.
I nod, and he starts alternating between blisteringly hot openmouthed kisses and tantalizing nips, driving me wild as he follows the slope of my neckline to my chest and up again, leaving a blaze in his wake. He sucks a love bite into my neck, and I’m suddenly desperate to touch him, to return the favor and make him feel even a fraction of the heat inside me.
I can’t let Daniel win , I think dizzily, and it’s the best kind of competition now. I slip my hands under his shirt, greedily sweeping my hands along the planes of his back and over his broad shoulders. He, in turn, peels my sundress down past the dip of my waist and over the curve of my hips. I angle my head up again to capture his mouth, and he moans into the kiss, tracing a single sensual line down my spine.
This isn’t enough.
I push at him. “Off, off, off,” I chant frantically, tugging his damp shirt from his shorts. His mouth chases mine as I tear his shirt off him and toss it behind us. He’s kissing me again before I can even thumb the button open on his shorts. Our ability to multitask is really tested when we both fumble with the rest of our clothes—the zipper of his shorts and the hooks of my bra—but we succeed eventually.
Daniel’s gaze sweeps over me, and for a brief moment I feel almost self-conscious. How can I possibly compare to whoever’s in his past? But he smiles gently, his hand coming up to cup my cheek.
“Is this okay? We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want,” he says.
“But I do want,” I protest, and his returning smile is slow and full of promise. “It’s just, you’re you, and I’m me.”
“That’s kind of the point,” he murmurs into my neck. “You’re so fucking perfect, Alice.”
The uneasiness inside me evaporates, replaced with the warmth of his touch and his words.
There’s a beat where we just stare at each other, and then suddenly we’re crashing together with purpose. He catches me up in his arms, and we fall back onto the bed in a tangle of kisses. I land on top of him, and I capture his mouth again for the sweetest, deepest kiss yet. We stay there, slow and languid, almost indulgent, until the sweetness sparks into something hotter. Daniel moves his head lower, his breath fanning warmly over my chest.
“Okay?” he asks, almost a whisper.
I’m still nodding my enthusiastic consent when his mouth presses a series of kisses down my body. He lavishes attention on one breast and then the other until I’m writhing. His hands move further down, to the inner corner of my thigh and up to my center, teasing me.
I’m lost in this moment of the pleasure, of having Daniel worshiping every inch of me. All my usual anxieties threaten to crowd in, but I focus on his touch. I want to be present for every precious second of this.
Beneath the press of his fingers, I can feel myself unraveling, until it’s all I can do to ask breathlessly, “Condoms?”
“In my suitcase,” Daniel says. His suitcase is only across the suite, but it might as well be on the moon.
“Suboptimal,” I say, kissing his collarbone to get his attention back, and he laughs into my neck.
“Well, I hadn’t anticipated this turn of events,” he counters. In retaliation, I reach down to his length to stroke him once, twice. His eyes shutter with pleasure.
“Daniel, don’t you know you’re supposed to put things in their proper place?”
“Alice, you’re killing me here,” he says. He lets out a moan when I lean forward and rock against him, reaching the nightstand.
“And the proper place for condoms is where bed activities happen, so therefore—” I yank the drawer open and push past the melatonin gummies in my sleep kit to pull out a foil package triumphantly. “Here.”
“I can’t believe this is a turn-on,” Daniel murmurs, watching me rip open the condom.
“Organization is very sexy,” I say as I work it onto him.
“ Alice ,” Daniel groans.
I move above him and start to sink down. The desperation on his face contrasts with the gentleness of his grip on my hips as he guides me onto him. He closes his eyes again as he fills me, his hands reverently tracing up my spine until he’s as deep as I can take him.
“Alice, you feel so good,” he says helplessly, and the words spur me to move, heat coiling tightly inside me. I need him. Daniel seems to understand this because suddenly he flips us, taking over with a passion that makes my toes curl. He presses me into the mattress with one long, searing kiss, and I lift my hips up to meet him with every thrust, faster and faster until it’s unclear who’s spurring the other on.
If I’m being honest, I’d always known there was a connection between us, a push and pull that’s been all-consuming and, up until recently, infuriating. But now we’re moving together, perfectly in sync. It’s intoxicating, the shared rhythm of our desire, and when we both tip over the edge into bliss, it’s Daniel’s name that’s coming off my lips.
—
Afterward, we climb into the shower together, letting the hot water wash over us as Daniel massages my sore muscles, and I do the same for him.
He looks almost wistful as he bends to kiss me.
“I can’t believe that happened,” he whispers, his voice barely audible over the stream of the shower.
“You mean, because we used to be mortal enemies?” I ask.
He chuckles. “You’ve never been my enemy.”
“Okay, fine. Academic rivals, then.”
“Alice Chen, I’ve had the biggest crush on you since the first day we met.”
I give him a look. “Very funny.”
“I’m not joking, Alice.” Daniel’s fingers tangle in my hair as he moves on to massaging my scalp. God, that feels good.
“Then when you said that in an interview—”
“I was telling the truth,” Daniel admits. “It helped sell our relationship, sure, but I wasn’t lying.”
“But—” I close my eyes for a moment, trying to take this all in. “Why?”
“Alice Chen,” Daniel says solemnly, “you’ve always known exactly what you want, and you go after it so fiercely and fearlessly. From the moment I met you, when you beat me in our very first competition together, I couldn’t take my eyes off you. Whenever we competed against each other, it felt like it was just you and me in our own world. I had a crush on you in high school, and when I went away to college, I realized it was maybe even more than that. Without you around, every victory rang hollow.”
I close my eyes for a moment, remembering how I felt when Daniel left. “I know what you mean. It just wasn’t the same.”
“It wasn’t,” Daniel says. “And then I go on this show, and you’re here, of all places. Seeing you again, seeing you strategize and compete and be yourself, it made me fall for you all over again. You push me in ways that no one else can. And you’re not just competitive—you’re smart and funny and you’re almost nice to me when I’m on the verge of death.”
I swat his arm playfully, but he catches my hand and holds it.
He looks into my eyes. “Alice, I’m my best self when you’re around. You make me want to challenge myself to be better, just to prove to you that I can keep up and sometimes even win. You’re so driven—not just to win, but to help other people. To do right by them. To speak out when something’s wrong. You’re smart, you’re razor-sharp, and you’re so brave.” Daniel chuckles. “I’ve never been to bar trivia with you, but I’m sure you crush the competition every time.”
“Correct,” I murmur, nestling into him. My fingers trace gently over his tattoo, the sequence of lines that Daniel never explained to me, and then it clicks.
“It’s the Korean flag!” I say, gripping his arm.
He raises an eyebrow at me. “Please elaborate.”
“The Korean flag depicts the four trigrams for sky, water, earth, and fire. But they’re in a different order on your arm.”
“That’s part of it.”
“I think,” I say, considering, “the marks look like binary. Four digits. A birthday?”
“My grandmother’s. I had it done when she passed,” Daniel says. “I wanted to keep a piece of her with me.”
I circle the marking with my hands. “You said she raised you? I can’t imagine what that was like, losing someone that close to you.”
“It was rough,” Daniel says. “She was such a big part of my life for so long. But, in a way, her passing ended up being a catalyst for getting to know my dad. Growing up, I just didn’t have anything in common with him. To me, he was this stern, distant figure.”
Daniel sighs. “Losing my grandmother hit my dad hard. He took a month off of work to grieve. We ended up spending a lot of that time together. We even started meeting up to go running. We still do, every Sunday.” His mouth quirks in a crooked smile. “We’re planning to do the Tokyo Marathon next year.”
“That sounds like fun,” I say quietly.
Daniel hesitates, and then says, “I’d love for you to meet him.”
“As long as I don’t have to run, I’d love that,” I say, and it feels like a promise. “So what about the other tattoo? What’s the story behind the frog in the hat?”
Daniel laughs. “I just like frogs. He’s my little guy.”
I laugh with him. I’m enjoying our new intimacy on more than one level. I lean in, kissing the spot where his jaw meets his ear, my hand wandering down to trace his abs.
Then I yawn so hard, I hear my jaw crack.
“We’d better go to bed,” he says. “We’ll need our rest if we’re going to survive this show.”
“I hate it when you’re right,” I grumble, my hands passing one suggestive stroke down his body before I reach to turn off the water.
Once we’ve toweled off and brushed our teeth, we ease into the bed. I know I’m a goner as soon as my head hits the pillow. Daniel crawls in next to me, and I indulge in the lazy satisfaction of tangling our legs together as we warm up the bed.
“There’s one thing I don’t get,” he says drowsily.
“What is it?” I murmur, already half asleep.
“It’s about our last challenge. You really never called me an egotistical know-it-all?”
I snuggle closer to him. “I mean, I don’t think I used that exact phrasing, so it’s probably more of an issue with semantics.”
“Those bastards,” he murmurs, dropping a kiss on my temple. Something in me thrills at how casual the gesture is. I suppose we’ve been getting in plenty of practice.
Daniel pulls me close so that I can wind my arms around him and put my head on his chest. I grip the top edge of the comforter and pull it over us. And together, with his hand on the small of my back, we fall asleep.