Chapter Twelve
Adrienne hadn’t felt this exhilarated in her life and that was saying something.
Her life was the definition of exhilarating.
Most people spent months planning the kinds of experiences Adrienne stumbled into between brunch and dinner.
Like waking up to the gentle rocking of an over-water bungalow in Bora Bora while bioluminescent plankton turned the lagoon below into a swirling galaxy of neon blue, and then going to sleep with the low hum of traffic outside a penthouse in Tokyo’s Roppongi district.
Once, she’d flown all the way to Istanbul on a forty-eight-hour whim just to eat a slice of the viral San Sebastian cheesecake before racing back across the Atlantic in time for the opening runway show at New York Fashion Week.
She couldn’t remember when she’d last experienced true boredom because she was always too busy doing exactly whatever her heart desired at any given moment.
But this somehow... well, this hit blood deep.
Outlasting the others on those maddeningly narrow pegs while the swell tried to buck her off had injected something wild and entirely unpurchasable into her veins.
So had the fact that she’d chosen Niko and Amy to join them on the reward without first discussing it with Valerie. Was that a big move? Possibly.
Adrienne took a slow, indulgent bite of grilled lobster tail.
The meat was perfectly tender and dripping with garlic-infused butter.
She leaned back against the plush lounge chair with her hair twisted into a thick, fluffy white towel and closed her eyes just for a second, savoring the moment.
Her skin was completely scrubbed free of saltwater and smelled delicious from the heady mix of frangipani body oil, crushed lemongrass, and a rich Moroccan argan cream the massage therapist had slathered on immediately after her steaming-hot rain shower.
Her bikini and shorts had been washed and were currently drying over the shower railing.
“Nothing, and I mean nothing, can get better than this,” Niko said, making a sound that bordered on the deeply inappropriate.
And Adrienne couldn’t agree more.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy,” Amy said, sounding equally indulgent. “Not even when my book won the Sapphire Quill award last year.”
“Seriously?” Valerie asked in between mouthfuls of truffle-feta watermelon salad. Earlier Adrienne had watched her swallow down three Hasselback potatoes without chewing. “You won an actual, literal award for writing smutty romance?”
Adrienne flicked her eyes open in time to spot Amy nodding proudly.
“I know. I couldn’t believe it either. I got the call in the morning while I was barcode scanning returned paperbacks, and I thought it was a practical joke.
But it wasn’t. They wanted me to go to New York City the following week.
I got a glass trophy shaped like a fountain pen. ”
“What book did you win the award for?” Valerie asked.
“Spurred and Spanked,” Amy replied, stabbing a juicy slice of watermelon with her fork.
“It’s about a broody champion rodeo rider and a sharp-tongued attorney who are forced to share a failing ranch in Montana after they both inherit it.
But it’s not even my bestseller. I’ve gotten over a thousand five-star reviews for You’re My Problem on Goodreads. ”
Adrienne choked out a cough. The last thing she’d expected was the frumpy-looking librarian with her gold-rimmed glasses and khakis to write a book smutty enough to be called Spurred and Spanked.
“Are you working on anything new?” Adrienne asked, surprising even herself.
Books were boring, and she preferred scrolling on her phone.
But for a book like that, she might just make an exception.
Amy glanced up at Adrienne and looked somewhat shocked at the interest. Not surprising since Adrienne had barely talked to Amy since the game started.
But Adrienne was turning over a new leaf, so to speak, and she was desperate to survive the next vote.
This meant she needed to start building real connections and helping out at camp. One step at a time.
She flipped her legs over the side of the lounge chair and faced Amy.
“I’ve got over ten million followers on my Instagram, and if I like the book, I’ll be happy to recommend it.
A lot of my followers are part of the LGBT+ community, and trust me, they’re absolutely starved for a good sapphic romance. ”
Amy looked bewildered. “You’d really do that?”
Would Adrienne do that? Promoting a book about cowgirl spankings wasn’t exactly her brand.
Her fans adored her close-up shots of her Cartier Love bracelets glinting on her wrist with a Bora Bora villa in the background.
Or the Bottega Veneta woven totes she had draped on the chair at a buffet breakfast in Capri.
They’d think she’d gone mad if she spoke about a smutty book.
But then Adrienne caught Valerie’s eye. The engineer was smiling, or at least her eyes were smiling.
She had a tumbler glass of lime cooler pressed to her lips, and she watched Adrienne with an interest that made her legs quake.
Did Valerie approve? The small, almost unnoticeable nod she gave said yes; this was exactly the type of plaster Adrienne needed to fix the hole in her game.
“Of course I will,” Adrienne replied and smiled as sweetly as possible. The only thing she could hope for was that Amy would drink a whole lot more Limoncello spritz and forget all about this conversation.
Niko wiped a smear of butter off her chin and, with that cocky air that was beginning to grate on Adrienne, said, “Or maybe you’ll win Outlast Her, and you won’t need Adrienne’s social media to promote your book.”
Adrienne replied with a smile that looked sweet, but underneath was entirely venomous. Niko is just jealous, Adrienne thought.
Amy leaned back on the lounger and wiggled her toes. “Maybe,” she said dreamily, as if she were picturing herself at that final Sending under a haze of confetti. “What will you do if you win the million dollars?”
Niko smacked her lips. “I’d open my own hair salon in Beverly Hills,” she said with a hungry gleam in her eye.
“I’ve been dying to get my foot in the Golden Triangle, right off Rodeo Drive.
Rent is astronomical there, and the competition is brutal.
But with the million dollars, I could build a high-end luxury space from scratch. ”
“What about you, Adrienne?” Amy asked, nodding toward her.
Adrienne was momentarily caught off guard.
The truth was, she hadn’t given the prize money a single thought.
To her, a million dollars wasn’t exactly life-changing money.
It was pocket change. She’d once lost a limited-edition Hermès Birkin bag worth eighty thousand dollars at LAX and hadn’t made any effort to call airport security once she’d gotten back home.
Still, she had enough self-awareness not to say that out loud.
“Umm... I’ll have to think about it,” Adrienne said smoothly, diplomatically. “How about you, Valerie?”
Valerie glanced up at her, but luckily she hadn’t mentioned anything about Adrienne’s wealth. Up until now, no one had made the connection between Adrienne Vale and the Vale Hotel empire.
“I’ll use it to build my house in Sitka,” Valerie said. “And a house for my parents.”
“Sitka?” Adrienne asked, shocked. “Do you mean Sitka in Alaska?” The only reason Adrienne even knew Sitka was in Alaska was because The Proposal was her all-time favorite romantic comedy.
She couldn’t imagine Valerie being remotely suited for a life in a rugged, fog-drenched town unless Valerie’s family were like the Paxtons and owned an entire island.
“Yes,” Valerie said, nodding. “I grew up there. My mom used to own a small hair salon on Lincoln Street called Coastal Cut. And my dad worked at the harbor. I grew up on the dock.” She placed her glass on the wooden side table and popped a piece of feta in her mouth.
“I bought land just off Sitka, and the million dollars is all I need to get things really going.”
This was all very surprising. Shocking, in fact.
But why was it so shocking? Valerie had a past, a whole life that existed outside of this game.
It was just that Adrienne had expected her to come from suburbia, somewhere in the middle of Ohio or Pennsylvania, to parents who worked boring middle-income jobs like insurance or teaching, who sent her for extra tennis lessons and SAT prep classes.
She certainly hadn’t imagined her growing up wearing flannel and descaling fish with a fillet knife.
“That sounds lovely,” Amy started. “And so—”
“Wait,” Adrienne interrupted. Her brain was still processing and had yet to catch up. “So you actually want to live in Alaska? On purpose. Isn’t it always cold and rainy? I can’t imagine living somewhere so depressing.”
Valerie sat up and frowned. “Depressing? Why would it be depressing?”
“Because there’s no sun,” Adrienne replied, as if it were obvious.
Her body was made up of water and UV rays.
She couldn’t think of any place worse to live than somewhere that spent most of the year beneath a cloud of drizzle.
Adrienne had once forgone a reservation at a cliffside pavilion in Amanpulo just because the weather predicted a weekend of rain.
“What do you even do there when it pours for three weeks straight? Sit inside your log cabin and whittle logs?”
Valerie leaned forward. Her hair was still wet, and she had it hanging down her back.
A few strands fell forward like an inky curtain framing her face, a face that looked somewhat pissed off.
“We put on a raincoat and go outside,” she said firmly.
“Some of us don’t melt the second a drop of water touches our hair.
Besides, the mist over the mountains is beautiful if you actually have the depth to appreciate something that isn’t filtered on your Instagram page. ”
Adrienne’s jaw tightened. She hadn’t expected Valerie to lash out like that. At least not the post-hookup-in-a-pine-forest Valerie, or the Valerie who had stood up for Adrienne at The Sending. This was entirely unexpected.
“Are you implying that I don’t have depth?” Adrienne shot back, though it was a pathetic attempt at a retort. Unfortunately, her limoncello had gone straight to her head, and whatever witty response she might’ve had was currently floating somewhere out over the Aegean Sea.
“I’m not implying it, Adrienne. I’m stating it,” Valerie said, her voice dropping so low that the hairs on Adrienne’s arms stood up. “You just dismissed an entire culture and community because you don’t like rain.”
Adrienne huffed. “Forgive me if I prefer having a tan over freezing in mud.”
“It’s the Tongass National Forest, Adrienne.
It’s not some muddy wasteland,” Valerie countered.
“In the summer, we get eighteen hours of daylight, and the sun hitting the Pacific is brighter than anything you’ll see on a European beach.
We have incredible restaurants, local art, and a community of people who support each other. It’s not depressing. It’s alive.”
Adrienne’s heart was flapping wildly in her chest. But it wasn’t just anger fueling the fire; it was desire.
Adrienne had an intense, maddening desire to lean across the space and kiss Valerie until her toes curled.
She wanted to taste lime on her breath, to feel Valerie’s wet hair beneath her fingertips.
She wanted to take her behind the wooden slats of the outdoor shower and rip her bikini clean off.
Instead, she surrendered. She let out a slow breath, picked up her half-empty glass spritzer, and took a long sip before she said something she regretted, before production could politely fire her from the game. Could they do that? She refused to find out.
“Well,” Niko said, cutting in. She stretched across the table for a fig dripping with honey. “I think maybe we should change the subject to something that actually matters. Like an alliance.”
Valerie sat back against the lounge chair again. “If you’re willing to team up with us even after what just happened, we’ll be your ride or die.”
Niko laughed. “Then consider us officially locked in.” She smiled. “What do you think of bringing Sienna and Tamera into the mix?”
“If you can convince them,” Valerie said, stretching her arms above her head. “That would be amazing.”
Adrienne said nothing. She was too fucking pissed off to be happy that Niko and Amy were officially on their side.
How dare Valerie insinuate that Adrienne was shallower than a puddle?
Adrienne had depth. Entire oceans of it, thank you very much, and she sure as hell was prepared to show exactly how much.