Chapter Thirty-Two
Overnight dates are one of the most important parts of the entire journey. It’s your first time together off camera, and while there is no explicit expectation that you will have sex, it is strongly implied.
—Shacking Up: The Definitive, Unauthorized Guide to Winning Love Shack
My hands are numb as I push open the door to my room and go straight to the shower. Tears pricking my eyes, I stand, fully dressed, under the hot water.
I don’t know how I thought that Rhett and I could work when every part of our relationship has been based on a lie. My job, my motivations, even my fucking name.
I hadn’t felt an ounce of guilt for lying my way onto Love Shack. But lying my way into Rhett’s heart—that’s much harder to stomach.
My wet clothes are heavy, so I peel them off and toss them out of the shower. I scrub my skin, but I can’t get rid of the feeling of Rhett’s fingers burning over my hips, my tattoos. The way his lips branded all the softest parts of me.
I shudder under the torrent of the shower, pulling at the handle to make the pressure stronger. I want to feel something—everything, instead of acting unaffected, like I have for so long.
Rhett and I have been hurtling toward this since the beginning.
And maybe part of me knew that, which is why I let myself keep on with all the lies.
Because if we weren’t real from the start, he’d have less of my heart to break.
Maybe the storyline that Lainey and Serena have been pushing—of me as a broken, untrusting child of divorce—wasn’t fake at all, because the pain aching in my chest is all too real.
Even though most women leave Love Shack heartbroken, I never thought I’d be one of them. I always thought those women were shallow. But really, they were in too deep. And now, so am I.
If I leave now, I could try to forget all of this. But what would I be going back to? There’s no dream job anymore, not now that I know the extent of Serena’s cruelty. Just more freelancing, going from gig to gig with little to no stability. And bailing now would leave things unfinished.
Serena wouldn’t be able to sink Lainey without my first-person accounts, and I can’t bear to let Lainey walk free. Not after what she put us through. I think of Olie, dragged from the mansion, of Brooklyn, kept on the show when Roland didn’t see a future with her.
They deserved so much better.
If I stay, I could see things through. It’s risky, but I could shop the story to other outlets.
There’s nothing stopping me from doing it—Serena was too cocky to make me sign a contract, especially since we wanted the operation to be as under the radar as possible.
The only reason I’d have not to steal her thunder and publish on my own is, well … Rhett. And that doesn’t matter now.
I have nothing to lose, so I’ll stay. I’ll go on the overnight date with Roland tomorrow. I’ll let Serena think I’m still working for her until she realizes otherwise. I’ll write a killer story. And I’ll burn Lainey’s reputation into dust. All with my real name.
Rhett and I may be over, but my job is far from done.
Stepping out of the shower, I dry off with the luxurious monogrammed hotel towel and wrap it around myself. I scrub my hands over my tired eyes and look at myself in the mirror. Then I open my makeup bag and get to work.
The sleeplessness rimming my eyes requires a few layers of highlighter and an extra swipe of white eyeliner before I look even marginally alive.
I pat cream foundation over the hickey blooming on my neck—Rhett’s hickey—before averting my eyes.
Looking at it is too painful, too much of an echo of our first night together.
But back then, I didn’t have a hundred cameras scrutinizing every pore on my skin.
I grab one of the wardrobe crew’s suggested outfits—high-waisted shorts and a cropped halter top with, yes, a built-in underwire bra. As I slip it on, Rhett’s words from last night curl around my ear.
I think it might ruin me …
His fingers dragging across my bare skin, the raw heat left in their wake.
I pull on a pair of strappy sandals, then head downstairs to the hotel lobby, where Jules hands me a piece of toast.
“You okay?”
“Not really,” I mutter. “But I’ll survive.”
“Listen,” she says. “Don’t freak out, but there’s been a change in schedule. Your overnight is going to be today.”
I nearly spit out my toast. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Something about the contract with the hotel.” She shrugs. “You’ll be okay. Remember, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
I already have, I think. But I nod and let her strap me into my body mic. If this is happening, I might as well get it over with as quickly as possible.
And making it to the finals will all but guarantee that someone will want to publish what I plan to write.
After all, sex sells.
The circular driveway is baking in the sun as I wait for Roland to sweep me away to whatever erotic paradise awaits us. I raise a hand to shade my eyes as a hum starts down the long road and grows steadily louder.
There are cameras on me—lots of them. Lainey is typing something on her phone, and Jules anxiously fluffs up my loose hair. I scoot away from her, pulling my hair around my neck where the hickey hides like a tattoo of a scarlet letter.
The hum turns into a red Vespa that rumbles down the cobbled driveway and comes to a halt in front of me.
When I rip my eyes away from the beautiful bike, they come to rest on Roland, who dismounts, takes off his helmet, and shakes out his dark hair, which is longer now than on the first night in Malibu.
About ten cameras catch this magazine-worthy moment.
They also catch the moment when he steps toward me and pulls me up against his leather-jacket-clad chest to kiss my forehead.
I bite back a frown. Why isn’t he kissing me like usual? Does he—could he possibly know?
“Come on, kiss her like a man,” Lainey yells. I flinch at her tone and at the expression on Roland’s face. His brows are furrowed, eyes bloodshot. He and Addison must’ve had quite the night.
“It’s okay,” I whisper. I take a deep breath and draw his mouth down to mine, holding our unmoving lips together for what feels like an eternity.
“Another minute,” Lainey calls. “One more angle.”
I wonder if this will be the Kiss Shot, the one that gets whittled down to a silhouette, plastered with the Love Shack logo, aired before and after every commercial break. I wonder if anyone will be able to tell how little I want this.
Behind us, the hotel door opens and shuts.
I hear a ragged breath that sounds like Rhett.
I squeeze my eyes more tightly shut, wrap my arms around Roland’s neck to keep myself from falling down.
In response, he moves his lips from mine, pecks me on the cheek, and is about to draw back when Lainey yells, “More!”
“Lainey,” I hear Norbert say, but she shushes him.
Roland doesn’t come back to my mouth but instead kisses his way down my face to my neck, and I grab his head, pressing his lips to my throat over the spot of makeup.
He hesitates for a second but seems grateful for the direction and kisses my neck harder.
When he pulls away, his lips curl into a smile.
I quickly swipe my fingers across his lips, removing the smudge of tan makeup before anyone can see.
I don’t turn around. I cannot look behind me at Rhett.
Roland sets a cream-colored helmet on my head and inspects my neck. He taps a finger to the base of my throat and winces.
“Sorry,” he mumbles.
“Don’t be.” I try for a flirty smile, but it feels more like my body is burning from the inside out.
He runs his tongue over his lips and winks, eyes darting up to the boom mic looming overhead. “I’ve got more where that came from.”
My face flushes as Lainey chastises him. “Roland! We’re creating a family program here.” She bustles forward and arranges us in front of the scooter, instructing the camera operators to capture the hotel’s sign behind us. “Rhett,” she barks. “Up here. What are you waiting for?”
Rhett runs his hand down his face. His eyes barely leave the ground as he steps forward into the sun. He looks terrible. His face is pale, his blue shirt wrinkled and untucked.
Roland, arm around me, catches a glimpse of him and chuckles. “Looks like someone had a fun night in Italy.”
The look Rhett gives him could crack stone.
When the cameras roll, Rhett puts on a dim smile.
“This is an important moment in your relationship. You get to spend time together without cameras. Without producers. Just the two of you.” He keeps his eyes fixed above my left shoulder.
I’m surprised the air doesn’t combust. “Today—tonight—is about getting to know each other on a deeper level, breaking down your barriers, and getting closer as a couple. It’s about learning whether you trust each other enough to be compatible long-term. ”
Roland and I hop onto the Vespa and zip out of the hotel’s driveway. I’m clinging to the back of his jacket, desperately hoping someone taught him how to drive this thing. But after a few uneventful minutes, he pulls over.
“Just for the cameras,” he tells me as we dismount. A black SUV pulls up beside us and we get in, leaving the bike with a few local PAs on the side of the road.
The driver brings us up the coast, orange groves and ocean dimly visible outside the tinted windows. Soon, we turn into a long driveway. Past rows of cypress trees lining the property, there’s a tiled swimming pool and, beyond that, a villa.
As I climb from the SUV, the villa’s white stucco walls bounce the sunlight back at me. We walk up the path slowly, since it’s harder (and louder) for cameras to roll backward on a shell path than on concrete.
Jules, lugging a giant suitcase, leads me into the house, and we part ways with Roland. She escorts me into a bedroom with a view of the inner courtyard, filled with citrus trees and alabaster fountains.