Chapter Eight
Adrienne was pissed. Properly incandescently pissed in a way that made her teeth feel too tight in her mouth and her hair feel too heavy against the back of her neck.
She quickly twisted her hair into a bun above her head and then picked up a stick, which she used to thwack a clump of dried sea fennel.
The brittle stems snapped satisfyingly. Then she stomped further along the shoreline, past the shelter.
Past the stretch of beach where the camera crew was set up.
When she reached the spot where the beach narrowed, she squeezed between the sea and a jumble of sun-bleached limestone boulders where tamarisks and pine trees grew out of impossible cracks in the rock.
It felt wonderfully private. And quite possibly the best spot for a protection bracelet to be hidden in plain view.
If she found one—though last season there hadn’t been one, which showed just how highly unpredictable Outlast Her was—she certainly wouldn’t show it to Valerie.
Not a chance. Not after she was quite certain Valerie had thrown the challenge and squashed their chances of winning that reward.
The thought of the reward brought fresh tears to her eyes.
Literal tears. Adrienne blinked them back and ignored the hollow growl coming from her stomach.
Two days in and she already couldn’t stomach the taste of rice or beans, or more accurately the absence of taste.
Even the occasional fig and sour wild grapes they found growing near the cliffs weren’t enough to satisfy her craving.
Adrienne had been eating caviar since she was two.
Her favorite meal as a toddler had been truffle pasta shaved tableside at a restaurant in Milan, where the waiter used white gloves to handle the delicacy.
She’d never even had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Never eaten instant noodles out of a packet or stood over a sink at midnight eating cold leftovers.
Wherever she went, there was always a chef.
Always. Which was why when Vivian announced the feast, Adrienne’s toes had curled with excitement.
“A traditional Greek feast awaits the winners. Freshly grilled dorade. Warm pitas. Thick tzatziki drizzled with olive oil. Horiatiki salad. Golden Saganaki and herb-packed keftedes,” Vivian had said.
In fact, she could even taste the reward in her imagination because she’d had it all before.
Adrienne had eaten dorade in the south of France, at a cliffside restaurant near Eze.
The tzatziki reminded her of Santorini three summers ago, which she’d used to smother warm pitas while sitting on a terrace overlooking the caldera.
The sunset had turned the whitewashed buildings pink and gold.
The saganaki made her think of Hydra, where she’d eaten lunch with her mother at a waterfront taverna while they’d watched donkeys carry luggage through the narrow streets.
And the keftedes transported her right back to Cyprus, where she’d spent the evening with a tall blonde who had tasted nearly as delicious as the decadent dessert Ekmek Kataifi.
Each memory made her hungrier.
Was this really what she was resorting to? Self-punishment.
“What are you doing?” a voice said so loud and clear behind her that Adrienne whipped her head so fast, her body followed, and then, in some bizarre twist of events, she was fighting gravity.
Her arms clambered for something to grab onto, and her right foot dropped into a narrow crack between rocks.
Her left foot stepped forward, hoping for steady ground, but didn’t find it.
She was just about to hit the rock face first when suddenly she stopped falling.
Valerie was there. She had both hands on Adrienne’s waist. Adrienne could feel her fingers like burn marks against her bare skin.
And then nothing.
Valerie stepped away just as that drop in Adrienne’s stomach snapped back into place as if it hadn’t been there in the first place.
“Now we’re even,” Valerie said matter-of-factly.
Adrienne, who quickly stepped onto a smoother, flatter rock in case she lost her balance again, shook her head in disbelief.
Not so much for being saved—although for some reason she had expected Valerie to watch her fall—but because of that snarky comment.
As if Adrienne were going to send her an invoice for helping her back aboard The Valentine.
She was many things, but she didn’t keep a scoreboard for basic human decency.
“I wasn’t expecting you to pay me back.”
Valerie said nothing. She just leapt onto another boulder, and before Adrienne knew it, she had mountain goated her way up to a higher ridge where the limestone opened into a narrow spine of rock threaded with scrubby juniper and pale, wind-bent grass.
Adrienne could turn around and continue her search for the protection bracelet. But who was she kidding? She was completely incapable of letting Valerie go. Not after that.
So, instead, she followed her along the rocks.
Although slightly less gracefully and way more methodically.
Adrienne stayed closer to the sea where the rocks were smoother, while Valerie moved inland over the rougher limestone.
At one point Adrienne’s shoe slid on a patch of loose grit that sent a small avalanche of pebbles skittering down toward the ocean below.
Her stomach had done that swooshing thing when she nearly knocked her cell phone off her bedside table in the middle of the night.
Then Valerie angled across a wider rock shelf, and suddenly they were closer again.
Their paths converged without either of them saying anything.
The production tent shrank behind them until it was nothing but a speck against the sand.
The rocks were too narrow and uneven for the shoulder cameras, which was probably why production stayed near the beach unless a challenge forced them farther out.
Once Adrienne was certain none of the camera crew had followed, and Valerie had slowed to a more manageable pace, she finally asked the question that had been gnawing at her. “Did you throw the challenge?”
Valerie came to a complete and sudden stop. She whipped her head back and frowned so deeply that Adrienne had to bite back a comment regarding frown lines and aging. “Are you seriously asking me that?” she snapped.
“Yes,” Adrienne said matter-of-factly, then she hopped onto a boulder shaped like a hippopotamus’s back. “I am. I think you threw the challenge because you want to get back at me for the swap thing.”
Valerie inhaled deeply and turned her head toward the sea.
“No,” she said softly. “I didn’t throw the challenge.
” The wind picked up. Adrienne could see it tugging at the water’s surface until it broke into frothy whitecaps that kept forming and collapsing.
She didn’t have to see Valerie’s expression to know that she was lying.
But why? Why not just come out and say it?
“You don’t like me, do you?” Adrienne asked, stepping over onto another boulder.
If she had any sense, she’d stay put. But she couldn’t.
She felt like a stray piece of iron being dragged toward a giant magnet.
Valerie was the magnet, and the more she hopped, the closer she got.
“You haven’t liked me since you met me on The Valentine. ”
“I never said that.”
“But you don’t have to say it,” Adrienne said.
“I can see it in your body language. In the way you look at me.” Adrienne was no stranger to people looking at her with both admiration and deep dislike.
She’d spent her entire life watching women smile at her face and then lower their voices the second she walked away.
Her life was too easy. Her beauty opened doors before she could reach for the handle.
She was spoiled. Entitled. Shallow. Oftentimes all three.
But Adrienne didn’t mind; it was the tax she paid for existing in her family.
“How do I look at you?” Valerie asked, looking amused, as if Adrienne were a puppet performing at the Bob Marionette Theatre, or some kid moaning about a drippy ice cream.
It irked Adrienne enough to pause and really think about her reply. Unfortunately, the best she could come up with was, “Like I’m a pot with mold growing inside of it.”
“I’m surprised you know what that looks like,” Valerie shot back without pause.
“There it is again.” Adrienne huffed, feeling exasperated. She felt worse than exasperated, if there was even a word for how she was feeling. “You think I’m just some trust-fund cliché. You think all I care about is holidaying overseas and my skincare routine.”
“Isn’t it?” Valerie said, cocking her head to the side. “Isn’t your entire image tanning on yachts in the middle of the Mediterranean and using serums more expensive than a house?”
“There’s more to me than my family’s wealth,” Adrienne snapped back. “There’s more to me than what I put out there on social media. I’m not the person I portray on social media.”
Valerie stepped forward. In fact, she leaped over an entire rock, landing on top of another with the grace of a ballerina. “Do you know what I see when I look at you?” she asked.
Adrienne knew better than to reply. Either way, she wasn’t going to like the answer.
“I see someone who was five minutes into this game when she decided she could take what she wanted without thinking about anyone else,” Valerie said, skipping over another rock.
Then another, moving ever closer to Adrienne, whose legs felt like thick cement blocks.
“You’re selfish and egotistical.” She leaped over yet another rock.
“And you don’t care about anyone else but yourself.
” And then one more rock. “But this life isn’t just about you.
There are other people in this world. People who don’t have your money or your last name.
And yet you seem to forget that you were born into your life, Adrienne.
You didn’t earn it. You didn’t work for it.
You’re no more significant than a street sweeper or a garbage collector.
In fact, you’re less than them, because at least they do something good for this world. ”
Adrienne went still.
Not because of what Valerie had said. But because Valerie was standing on Adrienne’s rock, because Valerie was so close to her that Adrienne could see the salt crust on her collarbone, the faint line of sunburn on her shoulders, and the thin strands of hair that stuck to the sides of her neck.
She was still dressed in the same black sports bra and raspberry purple exercise shorts she’d worn during the challenge.
But the smears of dirt were gone from her cheeks. Her hair was wet from a dip in the sea.
Then, for the longest second, Valerie stared at her. At her eyes. At her nose. At Adrienne’s mouth.
And for some reason, Adrienne felt a growl between her hips. A surge of desire she hadn’t expected. A feeling so sudden it seemed to throw every sensible thought clean out of her head.
Adrienne wanted to kiss Valerie. In fact, she wanted to do more than just that.
Suddenly the wind shoved a loose strand of hair across Valerie’s face.
Adrienne moved one inch closer to her but didn’t touch her.
She didn’t skim her finger across her cheek where the strand lingered, or dip her finger to Valerie’s exposed clavicle, even though she was desperate to.
And she sure as hell didn’t smooth her hands down Valerie’s ribs despite the tingling itch in her hands.
If there was any touching today, she wanted Valerie to cross that line.
But would she?
Valerie stared at Adrienne’s lips a second longer, and Adrienne felt it like a shift in the air, that hesitation, that very specific moment where something could have gone one way and instead...
didn’t. Adrienne sighed. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t disappointed, that she’d hoped Valerie would feel the sexual tension in the air because surely, one would have to be numb not to.
Valerie stepped in suddenly and closed the gap between them completely. Her lips were pressed against Adrienne’s lips before Adrienne could even redirect her disappointment. Before Adrienne could even realize that she’d misinterpreted that moment.
Valerie’s hand shot upward and curled around the back of Adrienne’s neck, tilting her head down.
Adrienne didn’t hesitate; she hooked her fingers into the waistband of Valerie’s shorts and tugged her flush against her until Adrienne’s hardened nipples crushed against Valerie’s chest. The height difference felt insignificant.
The taste of wild mint on Valerie’s tongue was overpowering.
Adrienne drank it in like a woman dying of thirst.
Then, Valerie’s lips left Adrienne’s mouth and traced a searing path down her neck. Adrienne’s head was spinning. The world felt upside down. Or was it the right way up? Was having a woman’s lips on her neck way more normal than being out here on this Greek island?
“You’re right,” Valerie muttered as she tongued Adrienne’s skin. “I don’t like you. But I also haven’t stopped thinking about you since The Valentine.”
The confession sent a wicked, thrilling shiver straight down Adrienne’s spine, because, fuck, there was nothing sexier than a woman who despised her but couldn’t keep her hands off her anyway.
Every bit of Adrienne’s self-control that she’d been clinging to snapped clean in half.
Before she realized what she was doing, her hand was moving down to Valerie’s legs, to her thighs... her inner thighs...
“Not here,” Valerie muttered, her breath so raspy Adrienne felt a sense of satisfaction she couldn’t quite justify. “Somewhere more private.”
Adrienne couldn’t agree more. She pointed to a dense cluster of pine trees further up the shore. “What about over there?” But she didn’t wait for Valerie to agree before she slipped her hand into Valerie’s and led her over the rocks.