12
I look down to the end of the canoe where the English contestant sits, trailing her hand in the dark water, her posture completely relaxed as she reclines on plump pillows and sips champagne. The lantern at the stern throws her features into stark relief, which is none too flattering.
I’m rowing lackadaisically down the river, not really caring where the current takes us, despite the directions laboriously detailed by the director prior to shooting. Consequently, the camera crew is now working hard to keep up and maintain correct angles and lighting.
I’d chosen Cherry deliberately for this date, not just because the Italian suggested it.
I’d actually wanted the English contestant to be the first one-on-one knowing it would draw jealous payback and potentially eliminate her early.
I’d only offered the date to Catriona because she’d been so gracious at the cocktail party.
As it turns out, she and I were on the same page when it came to the Londoner.
Describing herself as an ‘influencer,’ she’s the one I least liked during the cocktail party, with her sharp eyes and nails and overly forward strokes of my thigh.
I won’t personally kill anyone this season, but I’ll play the game.
I hope the other contestants will dispense with her early.
I mean, she’s not unattractive. Peaches and cream complexion, long legs, natural lips.
Her nose leaves something to be desired, and her eyes are hard, hair overdyed and over-styled.
In theory none of this really bothers me.
It’s her personality that really lets her down; she outwardly exudes warmth, but her actions and words reveal she’s anything but.
I wonder just who she influences, and whether she’d done society a favour by entering these games.
But then, someone like her just might win if I’m not careful.
After all, she seems completely unruffled by the fact that one of her fellow contestants was murdered in her sleep last night.
“No, well, she snored so loudly that apparently no one could get their beauty rest,” she shrugs when I ask what she knows about it. “Then she just woke up dead.”
“No one wakes up dead,” I smirk. “Who killed her?”
“Nobody,” she smiles innocently. “Sleep apnoea.”
I guffaw and shake my head.
According to the director, the beautiful Zahra from Azerbaijan, the daughter of a large industrialist family, had been suffocated in her sleep by her three roommates.
The roommates, a set of Swiss twins who I still can’t wrap my head around, and a Romanian with the intellect of a genius, all claim to know nothing about it.
Unlike the rest of the mansion, there are no cameras in the bedrooms or bathrooms. The producers acknowledge it isn’t befitting to show a future royal wife either sleeping or bathing — showing them slaughter one another, though, that’s fine.
But this time there was no slaughter to show, and no contestant had claimed the kill.
The director, slammed by the producers for allowing this to happen, was beside himself.
The rules clearly state that each contestant can only eliminate one other contestant inside the mansion.
All others need to be taken out during the challenges, which were the highlight of the show, as were the budding romances the bachelor was expected to participate in.
To murder inside the mansion and not claim the kill was a blatant breach of the rules, and the director had no idea how to deal with it.
Part of me is a little impressed that the women on my series are rule-breakers.
I’ve never been one to toe the line. It’s somewhat encouraging that a potential wife might share the same sentiments.
Part of me also enjoyed watching the director flabbergasted, defied, and unable to do anything about it.
But I do concede that the only thing we really have to cling to in this disgusting game are the rules, and if they’re breached, we have nothing but chaos.
Consequently I’d bent a little to his insistent urging that I follow the rules and bite the competitors.
As much as I intend to play this game my own way to a certain extent, I’ve been forced to acknowledge that I must also appear to be sticking to tradition.
To that end I’d agreed I would bite, not kill, but bite, the contestants at the end of each date.
As the director had pointed out, this really was the so-called ‘heart-stoppingly-suspenseful and romantic’ part of each date, and not something he could fudge filming.
I’d eventually agreed a little nip wouldn’t be out of the question. Of course, he had no idea I’d probably just ‘nip’ everyone I took on a date.
That would have included the prematurely deceased Zahra, whom I hadn’t even had an opportunity to get to know before she was eliminated.
‘And she was in the car that was attacked the first night.’
I remind myself to phone Falcon.