Chapter 14
Cam and I exchange a panicked look. We were so, so close to sealing the deal. I’m gutted. I can feel the dopamine ebbing from my brain.
‘We were saying goodbye,’ I say, stepping away from Cam. ‘Cam was just helping… me… with my bags. I get very emotional at goodbyes. I’m not good with that sort of thing. I have overactive hormones.’ I am speaking so quickly that it all sounds very, very untrue by the time it peters out.
Porscha looks down at my one tiny case and shakes her head at me. ‘I can see why you need help with it.’
Sarcasm. The lowest form of wit.
There’s an awkward air of silence where none of us says anything.
‘God, I can’t stand you British and your need for overthinking things. You make terrible liars. I know that for sure. And where is it you think you’re going?’
‘Home.’ It’s out of my mouth before I barely know what’s happening.
She glares at Cameron. ‘And you didn’t think to tell me this minor detail? You do know how this show works, right?’ Her voice jumps up at least four octaves. She looks livid with him.
‘Not my home,’ I blurt. ‘Another home. Another villa.’
‘That’s right,’ says Cam. ‘I thought I’d switch her to a villa that’s nearer to the production village. So I don’t have too far to travel.’
‘You told her about the production village?’ She looks incredulous.
It’s time for the more experienced liar to step up.
‘It’s not his fault,’ I say in a rush. ‘I overheard him talking on his phone. I appreciate there’s a lot that still needs to be pulled together.’
‘Is she telling me what happens on my own show?’ she says to Cam.
He shakes his head. He’s probably wondering why I’m digging myself into a hole.
Porscha remains unconvinced and is eyeballing Cam. He has lost his words. I blame myself. I practically made him an alcoholic over the two days I have been in his care. And now I have put him in an untenable situation with my desire to kiss him. Shame on me.
‘Don’t worry, Porscha, I have strong moral values that I guard with the utmost integrity. Your secret is safe with me. Bono moralia, custodio integretate.’
Christ. Trust our school motto to be the only thing to spring to mind.
‘Excuse me?’ she says, looking me up and down. I immediately take a step back.
‘It’s Latin. For the thing I just said.’ I swallow a lump in my throat. Porscha should be a head teacher. She’d be perfect.
‘Cameron. Can we have a word, please?’ She looks sharply at me. ‘We have strict rules about non-disclosure…’
‘That’s not his fault either,’ I blurt. ‘I’m a professional nosy parker. I’m the problem, it’s definitely me not him.’
Taylor Swift really knows her stuff.
‘…and even stricter rules about getting involved with the collateral,’ she carries on as though I’m not there.
‘It was a hug goodbye. Nothing happened,’ says Cam, holding his hands in the air as though he’s been caught at a crime scene.
‘He’s right,’ I say, the disappointment flooding out of me. ‘Absolutely nothing happened. Nothing. It’s borderline shocking.’
This causes Cam to start smirking.
‘I think you’d better leave the adults to do the talking,’ Porscha says condescendingly.
See? Perfect head teacher material.
‘It’s obvious I need to split you two up before one of you makes a fool of herself.’
‘Now, Porscha. You’re reading way too much into—’ Cam says.
She cuts him off. ‘I think we should send her into the villa if she’s that uncontrollably horny.’
Oh shit.
‘No!’ I am in flight-or-fight mode. ‘My luggage isn’t even here yet. It’s in Dubai. I have no clothes or make-up. I’m a mess. I haven’t even got an all-over tan.’ It’s true. ‘I’ll look dreadful on camera. I’ll get voted off straight away. Surely that wouldn’t make any commercial sense?’
Porscha ignores me. ‘Is she telling me how to run my own show, Cameron?’
It’s like I’m invisible.
‘No. No, of course she isn’t,’ Cam says, defending me. Porscha stands blinking at him. He flashes her a bright smile. It has an instant calming effect on her. She tears her eyes away from him to look at me.
‘So, you do want to go on the show?’
I nod. ‘But it would be great if I could wait until my clothes get here.’
She takes a moment to stare at me. She can’t believe the audacity.
‘Oh, right. Of course. Of course, we’ll hold the entire show up while we wait for your knickers to arrive from…
Where did you say you left them?’ She screws her eyes at me.
‘I’ll send a car for you.’ She looks down at her phone, rapidly clicks a few things with her two robotic thumbs and looks back up.
‘Done.’ She waves me off as though dismissing the hired help.
‘By the way, Libby, you should know that any liaisons between a contestant and a member of the crew will result in a breach of contract,’ she goes on to quote verbatim at me.
It’s so unnecessary. ‘You’ll be sent home, and the crew member will be sacked immediately.
’ She turns to Cam. ‘Without severance pay. I’m surprised you haven’t mentioned it to her. It’s all in the small print.’
‘I will try to keep my wandering libido to myself,’ I say, furious at not being able to tell her where to get off.
‘Please do. Save it for the Islanders.’ She gives me an evil stare. ‘I’ll have a word with wardrobe. I’m sure we can find something suitable.’
It sounds more like a threat than an offer of help.
Nor am I loving her perfect impression of my head teacher. Dismissive. Uncaring. Pompous. It’s as though the whole world revolves around them and their careers.
‘Cameron, you’d better come with me. You can pick your stuff up later.’
I see Cam’s cheeks go red. He’s struggling to keep his temper. I can tell because he has this tic that goes off in his cheek. It was the same when he was talking to her on the phone. She must really get his goat. ‘You’re making out that something has happened here when it absolutely hasn’t.’
She is taken back by Cam’s forcefulness.
‘Porscha. You’ve walked in and thrown accusations around. Threatened to sack me. Assumed that I’m incapable of acting responsibly and now you don’t trust me to keep my hands to myself?’
She is back-footed by him. Her mouth opens and closes. ‘Very well. Have it your way.’
She swivels on her high wedged sandals and marches back to her car. With a loud crunch of gravel and an angry roar of the engine, she drives off.
I’ve done nothing but encourage him to abandon his core values, his not-mixing-business-and-pleasure work ethic.
And then there’s me violating his trust when he very clearly told me he is not quite ready to move on from his awful cheating girlfriend yet, and to top it all off, because of me, Porscha is threatening to ruin his career.
Poor man. I must try not to make his life any worse than I already have.
Turning to each other, we let out a sigh of relief.
‘How do you feel about going into the villa? You can still back out, you know. I’ll ring her and let her know you want to go home.’
I look at his handsome face.
‘And I suppose they’ll get me on the first flight out tomorrow?’
He nods his head.
‘Is that what you want?’ I ask him. ‘For me to go home?’
I can barely breathe. Why am I putting him on the spot like this?
He doesn’t bat an eyelid. ‘No.’
‘But if I don’t go, the only option is to go in the villa.’
‘Worst-case scenario is you don’t get voted off, and you win a hundred grand.’
‘Well, that sounds like a no-brainer,’ I say, trying to sound more cheerful about it. There’s zero chance of me ever winning. ‘Will I see you when I’m in there?’
‘Yes. I’ll be pretty much in and out the whole time. The issue is that we’d be on camera the whole time so… erm, even conversations would be difficult.’
‘If only there was a secret blind spot that no one but us knew about.’
Cam looks at me with a sparkle in his eye. I can see his mind whirring. ‘We’d need a code word.’
He takes my hand and leads me to the dining table.
He clears stuff away, gets out a roll of paper and unfurls it.
He shows me the blueprint of the villa, where the hidden cameras are, which walls are fake and turn into secret doors and, most importantly, how to switch off the microphone in the toilet while I’m in there.
He swishes his finger over his iPad to give me a virtual tour of the villa.
‘Don’t touch anything in the villa kitchen, it’s all fake,’ he warns.
‘You’re kidding,’ I say. ‘Don’t the Islanders cook their own food?’
‘Nope. We cook lunch in a secret kitchen behind the false wall in the communal bedroom. It then gets delivered to them round the back of the villa. But we never show those bits. Too boring. Dinner is cooked at the production village and brought over.’
‘Tell me everything.’
‘The place is so big you could probably avoid everyone if you really needed to. That’s the pool obviously,’ he says, pointing out an Olympic-sized kidney-shaped pool on the map.
‘You have to remember to take your mic pack off or it’ll cost two hundred dollars to replace, and Porscha will personally come down and kick you up the fanny. ’
Whaaaat?
Cam looks at my shocked face. ‘You don’t have that expression?’ He seems shocked that I am shocked. ‘So, anyway, that’s the Tree House over there for couples wanting to get intimate. Why anyone would want to climb up there is beyond me. We have four cameras up there and two microphones.’
‘How many cameras are there hidden around in total?’
Cam blows out his cheeks. ‘I’d say seventy hidden cameras dotted around and twelve manned camera hides.
That’s the bigger cameras with operators.
They usually hide behind bushes or fake mirrors to catch most of the action that we show.
Such as the firepit gatherings, the bedroom scenes and the Beach Hut. ’
‘Beach Hut?’
‘You know, where the contestants go to talk to camera. So they have more chance of getting on the final cut.’
I shudder, which makes Cam laugh. ‘The whole point of this show is to be on TV, Libby. You can’t come on it and hide away. You have to have fun while you’re in there, and let people get to know you. Let the viewers get to know you.’
‘Yikes.’
‘I’ll tell you a secret hack that will mean you get your own bedroom and bathroom,’ he says. ‘Just until you settle in. Do not let on that I told you.’
‘With any luck, I’ll be voted straight off after a few days and that’ll be that. Life can go back to normal,’ I tell him.
‘Do you want it to go back to normal?’
My heart swells as he stops what he is doing to run a tanned hand through his hair. Christ, he is so sexy even under pressure.
‘I guess not. No.’
‘Okay. Good. Good.’
Things are tense.
‘About earlier…’ I say, the almost kiss still fresh in my mind. ‘When we—’
The sudden crunch of gravel alerts us to my car arriving. The driver beeps the horn, ruining the moment. Then the driver knocks on the door and walks straight in, ruining it even further.
Cam greets him like the professional he is while I am aghast at having to leave yet again without so much as a peck on the cheek.
We follow the driver to the car and Cam puts my near-empty bag in the boot.
He takes one look at me and waits for the driver to get back behind the wheel and close his door. ‘Don’t worry,’ he says quietly. ‘I’ve got your back. Whenever you need help in there, just say the word and I’ll meet you in the blind spot. Okay?’
He shifts uneasily in front of me. ‘There’s, erm, just one thing that I need to ask you before you leave.’
He takes out his phone and scrolls down to headshots of five muscle-mountains.
‘Which three do you fancy the most?’
I must look horrified because he starts to laugh.
‘You gotta pick three, I’m afraid.’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘We’ll be asking you to pick your top three favourite guys every single morning so you may as well get used to it.’
I slide onto the back seat. ‘Remember. Do not let Porscha edit me to look like the slutty British villain.’
‘I’ll try my best. Wait,’ he shouts as I close the door. ‘At least tell me who’s your favourite out of the five guys.’
‘I’ve already picked my favourite, and he’s not on the list,’ I say, closing the door behind me.