Chapter 28
‘I’m not even going to ask how long you’ve been watching me sleep,’ says Cam, opening one eye. A huge grin spreads across his face. ‘How is it morning already?’
‘Best night of my life,’ I gush. ‘Who knew it could be like that? Best. Ever. Ever. Night. Ever.’
My whole body is on maximum alert. Every nerve ending. Every fibre. Every muscle aches. Even muscles I had no idea about. I have butterflies upon butterflies upon butterflies flitting about in my stomach.
‘I hope you… enjoyed the…’ Is calling it lovemaking too much after a first time? ‘Erm, the… encounter as much as I did. I mean… how was it for you?’
Are there TikTok tutorials on appropriate pillow talk? Because I feel this sounds more like a straw poll for Uber.
‘And would you consider doing it… again? Perhaps?’
Yes, I sound needy. Yes, I sound desperate. But yes, he’s fucking amazing so who cares?
Cam rolls over and leans up on one elbow.
He flicks the sheet off my chest in one smooth movement and places his lips on the nearest nipple.
A frenzy of delicious sparks ignites somewhere deep in my soul.
He trails a lazy hand down my body to between my legs.
He lifts his head to look lustfully into my eyes.
‘Honey, the problem is never going to be me not wanting to make love to you.’
He slips his fingers inside causing me to moan softly. I want him so badly.
‘Oh my God,’ I say with a gasp. He’s circling something down there which is causing me to throb like an engine. A pulsating heat is radiating out all over my body. ‘Again. Do that again.’
‘Do what?’ he says playfully, his eyes sparkling as he disappears under the covers to spread my legs wide.
* * *
An hour later, we are in the corridor outside my room.
‘So, we appear to have ignored everything we said to each other about taking things slowly,’ Cam says as we make our way to Tyrone’s room to set up the surveillance and hatch our plan to switch me back in for Lois and to get me dumped from the island without getting Cam sacked in the process.
‘Uh-huh,’ I say, happily.
‘And you’re sure you’re okay? I mean, it’s a big deal and all.’
‘I’m fine. Better than fine. I am so unbelievably fine, it’s unbelievable.’
I’m twenty-six. I can handle it. Even though I feel like I’m going to explode with excitement. I am desperate to tell Lois everything. Cam and I have been making love. Love. His words. And we made love three times. Four if you count what just happened.
‘And you’re sure you want to keep this’ – he flicks his finger between us – ‘under wraps until you’re out and we can figure out how to be together?’
I nod. We agreed to keep our fledgling relationship under wraps for now.
It’s too early days to be telling people that we have amazing, off-the-charts sexual chemistry.
It’s too early to say that all I can think about is him, how lost I become when he touches me, or how my heart melts the moment he looks into my eyes.
‘Absolutely. Let’s keep this professional until we get a solid plan together. I’d hate for you to become too distracted,’ I say, gazing lovingly at him. ‘By the way, you look utterly gorgeous this morning.’
He gives my hand a sneaky squeeze and pulls me to him. He leans over to place a light kiss on my cheek.
I snap to attention just as Tyrone opens the door. He welcomes us in and gives Cam a hand setting everything up.
Ty keeps flicking subtle glances between me and Cam but saying nothing. Then he starts trying to hide a smirk every time he looks at me.
Seriously? It can’t be that obvious.
‘So, you guys have fun last night?’ he asks while setting up the monitors. ‘What did you do?’
What didn’t we do?
‘Did you come up with a plan? Or were you too busy?’ Tyrone says, managing to keep a straight face. The game is up. We managed to hide our secret relationship for almost a minute.
Cam goes bright red and is the very picture of guilt.
‘We discussed a few things,’ I say in an innocent tone, while scrapping about in my sex-fuzzled brain for something concrete to give him.
There was very little discussion going on last night.
Very little. I may have asked if Cam needed some water one time when he emerged from beneath the sheets looking utterly exhausted.
Apparently, I am one of those women who can have multiple orgasms, one after the other.
But I am also one of those women, he said, who becomes wildly insatiable when not fully serviced. Who knew?
‘Great. What’s our next step?’ Ty says, switching to efficient lawyer mode.
Now it’s my turn to go bright red.
‘We established a good solid foundation for going forward,’ Cam says diplomatically. ‘Okay. Let’s see what is going on inside the villa.’
He has executed a perfect deflection to spare my blushes.
We watch Lois interacting with all the Islanders.
Cam rewinds footage of last night and he and Ty listen to me ooh and aah about how gorgeous my sister looks, and how friendly and open she is being with all the cast. She’s an expert at flirting, that’s for sure.
Then we watch Lois perform her much-talked-of party piece.
Tyrone groans as we watch Lois undress one of the fellas with such speed and efficiency that, when she steps back to reveal him wearing a mankini made entirely of bandages, everybody gasps as though she is a real magician.
She’s even had time to fold his clothes and places them carefully in his outstretched arms.
The Islanders love it, and Lois gets lots of claps and praise.
I’m in no hurry to go back to the villa. I could stay in bed with Cam instead, doing all manner of exotic things for days on end.
‘Lois is enjoying herself way too much for my liking,’ says Tyrone. We watch her being pulled for a chat by a very hot muscle-mountain who is clearly impressed with her skill set. ‘How fast can we airlift her out of there?’
‘Cam can smuggle me back in during one of the next outings,’ I reluctantly say. ‘But how do we get Porscha to change her mind about me being on the show?’
‘Simple,’ says Tyrone. ‘She’s jealous of Cam with other women, right?’
We listen to Ty outline a perfectly plausible yet quite ridiculous plan that involves Cam spending too much time alone with Porscha in order to deflect the attention away from me.
‘No. He shouldn’t be doing that,’ I say. ‘It’s too haphazard. Too reliant on external variables.’
I have developed a sudden jealous streak.
‘Well, the alternative is you do it,’ says Tyrone. ‘Make sure you couple up with one of the guys in the villa to take the heat off Cam instead.’
‘No,’ says Cam. ‘Too obvious.’
Maybe he has suddenly developed a jealous streak too.
‘Are you going to veto any suggestion that involves you not being with each other?’ Tyrone asks. He’s gone full barrister mode.
‘No.’ And yes.
‘Is there something going on that I should be aware of?’ he probes, his shoulders starting to shake.
‘No. Of course not,’ I say.
‘Are you sure?’ He’s finding himself increasingly hilarious. ‘You two are behaving like loved-up teenagers,’ he adds, sounding like a father figure.
Cam is studying the keyboard while I am studying my lovely, pedicured toenails.
‘We do need to agree on something,’ says Tyrone. ‘I would like my fiancée back so that we can enjoy our holiday together, rather than me watching her enjoy the holiday on her own.’
He’s right.
* * *
Cam has engineered it so that Lois is going on a date with one of the new guys.
The date is a romantic candlelit picnic on the beach at sunset.
When Lois needs to go to the nearby makeshift toilet cabin, I will be waiting inside, ready to switch clothes.
I’ve had to study what hair and make-up she is doing and, thanks to Cam, she is bringing the lipstick with her in her purse. It should work.
‘Ready?’ Cam asks. ‘If it all goes to plan, we should have you out of there in under two days.’
‘Great. And I’ll come back to this hotel once I’m out?’
‘Correct. I’ll be waiting for you,’ he says.
His eyes have not stopped sparkling since our…
let’s just call it our date night. We seem to have ignited a fire in each other.
He is all glorious flames, burning brightly, and I appear to be shining like the sun every time I look at myself in the mirror.
Gone is the grey, lifeless, haunted look that we both wore when we first met.
‘I’ll do my best.’ I feel empowered and strong, like a proper boss-lady, as I make my way stealthily to Cam’s SUV.
‘Wait,’ calls Tyrone, running towards us.
‘I was watching the live footage. Porscha just pulled Giovanni and told him to dump Amber so they can throw her out. Then she told Mimi to dump Carlton so that she can steal one of the new guys, but really, Porscha told Destiny it’s so that she can throw Mimi out too.
She says “Libby” is becoming too popular and she wants to get rid of any allies.
She paired you with a guy called Eugene. ’
Cam looks at me smiling. ‘It is totally playgroundy, isn’t it?’
‘Nobody does playgroundy like teachers.’ I smirk. ‘It’s time to play her at her own game.’
‘Good luck in there,’ says Tyrone, trotting back towards the hotel.
‘I’ll keep feeding you information once you’re in, seeing as Porscha seems to be changing her mind every two minutes,’ Cam says with a note of exasperation. ‘We need a new code word for the blind spot.’
‘How about every time I say “fix you”? As in let me fix you a drink or something like that?’
Cam is smirking again. ‘Nope. I feel like you want me to enable this obsession of yours with fixing people through the medium of song. It’s very troubling.’
I start laughing. He’s bang on the money.
‘Okay. How about I say “Canadians do it better” and then you come running?’
‘That’s more like it.’ Cam revs up the engine and off we go.
I am studying the top-secret notes that Cam is given each day by Porscha and the rest of the team.
They scribble down options for changing the narrative to create surprises and shocks.
If it weren’t playing with real people’s emotions, it would be quite clever really.
‘These are so good. It’s like reading a film script.’
‘Please don’t pretend that you didn’t sneak a look all those times when I left them lying around.’
‘I swear I didn’t. I have a real problem with that kind of thing. I think it’s because I’m a teacher. We’re like bloodhounds when it comes to pupils lying. We know all the tells. And we’re, like, socially conditioned to follow orders.’
‘You’re going to really struggle with this plan then. It basically involves you going around lying to everyone.’ Cam chuckles.
‘No. It involves me going around planting seeds of doubt. There’s a huge difference.’
‘Well, if it gets too much, you know what to do.’
‘Thanks. It’s good to know you have my back in there.’
‘We make a good team, don’t we?’ he says, taking his eyes from the road to quickly glance over.
After only a week in his presence I feel like the best version of myself. And even better, I feel like this is only the beginning.
‘I had a thought,’ he says as we trundle along a back road towards the beach where Lois will be having her date. ‘A way for us to be together. After you leave the villa.’
Play it cool, Libby. Play it cool. Do not yell or scream or let him know you have been imagining yourself in wedding dresses all morning.
‘Would you consider…?’ he says, but before he gets a chance to finish, his phone rings. The Bluetooth picks it up. Cam puts a finger to his lips.
‘Hello?’
‘Cam, it’s me, Graeme. Listen, I need to tell you something. It’s about the cameras and the accidental blind spot. I wasn’t going to tell you, but something came up.’
‘What came up?’
‘I, er, it’s sort of… well, the camera that was supposed to cover the bins was rigged up to cover the actual blind spot in the PANTRY.
It’s the only camera that Porscha doesn’t know about.
And we didn’t tell her because she’d have a fit if she knew what she was saying to contestants confidentially was caught on camera.
But our team caught her threatening poor Libby so many times.
It’s really upset them.’ There’s some crackling as the reception breaks.
‘Boss, we also have her on camera blackmailing you and Libby. We don’t know what to do. ’
Cam looks at me. ‘Bring me that footage pronto. Tell no one.’ He clicks off the call. ‘Looks like we have our secret weapon.’