Chapter Twenty
“What do you mean Megan doesn’t want to carry on with the show?
” Elise stammered, feeling her entire body spasm like she’d stuck a fork into a socket.
“There are five contestants left. Five rose ceremonies.” She couldn’t believe this was happening again.
“I take one fricken personal day and the entire show goes up in flames.”
Gillian winced like Elise had thrown a lemon from the fruit bowl at her face. “It happened so fast.”
“Car crashes happen fast,” Elise snapped, spinning around the small space of the production tent.
Everyone who had been inside—six grown adults with jobs to do—had magically vanished the moment Gillian had broken the news.
“Heart attacks happen fast,” she added. “Tornados ripping through small Midwestern towns happen fast. Megan deciding she’s found the love of her life before the final rose ceremony is not something that happens fast.”
Gillian opened her mouth, then closed it again. Twice, like a goldfish struggling to breathe. Gillian was clearly panicking, and even though Elise wasn’t far from ripping the tent poles out of the ground and sticking someone with the sharp end, she knew this mess wasn’t on Gillian.
It was Megan’s fault. Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe this show was cursed, as Elise had suspected all along. Maybe the more Elise fought to hold it together with duct tape, the faster the threads seemed to yank loose.
She pinched the bridge of her nose so hard that she saw stars in the center of her vision. “Start from the top, please,” she said, trying to sound calm. She wasn’t calm. Her insides were doing laps. “Maybe we can salvage something. It’s possible we could spin the story.”
Gillian didn’t look hopeful, but Elise didn’t care.
She was extremely good at her job. The last two seasons she’d worked on had to be flukes.
She would undoubtedly find something to save from the footage.
After that, she’d go speak to Megan. If she went straight to the horse’s mouth right now, she’d probably do more than just shout.
And Elise needed this job too much to be charged with assault.
“Okay, Jamie went missing right before we were set to start shooting,” Gillian said, exhaling. “So, I asked Harper to find her. Which she did. When Jamie arrived, she looked very emotional.”
Of course Harper was somehow involved.
“Emotional?” Elise repeated. She couldn’t imagine Jamie ever looking emotional.
“Yes,” Gillian insisted. “Not like herself. Anyway, the date starts. The chef, Iris Marziale, starts explaining why they use different pasta flour in the south compared to the north, and the next minute Jamie is telling the cameras to stop rolling, which of course they didn’t, and then she’s taking Megan’s hand and telling her that she’s in love with her. ”
Elise’s eye twitched violently. “What did Megan do?”
Gillian hesitated. She even took a step back like she was moving out of Elise’s firing range.
Smart woman. Elise had once thrown a clipboard so hard that it had embedded itself in a corkboard.
“She kissed Jamie and said she was in love with her too.” Gillian ran a shaky hand down her face.
“When the kiss ended, she looked straight at camera B and said she didn’t need the rest of the season.
She’d found her final rose. I told her that’s not how things work. ”
“Where is she now?”
“I think she’s in her bedroom,” Gillian said.
Elise raised a single eyebrow. She had a feeling there was more to it than Megan simply hiding out in her bedroom. Gillian, with her puppy dog-like brown eyes, had always been a bad liar. “Just her?” she asked.
“Ah, I think so.” She looked down at her white Chuck Taylors. A dead giveaway.
Elise shot her a look as sharp as a hunting knife, and Gillian flinched.
“Fine, Jamie is with her,” she relented. “The car dropped them off earlier. Last I saw, they were slipping through the villa doors, holding hands. I assume they are still together.”
Elise saw red. A scarlet cape type of red. She could feel her pulse thundering like a bull’s hooves across the sand. Without even considering what her game plan was, she spun on her heel and marched out of the production tent.
Gillian scrambled after her. “Where are you going? What are you going to do?”
“What I always do,” Elise replied as the sun hit her. The air had that muggy feel to it that clung unpleasantly to her skin. “I’m going to fix this. I’m not going to let this season die on these cliffs. This is The Sapphic Match. Not the fucking Never Rose Show!”
Elise stopped dead.
Harper was standing on the top step of the villa.
Her hair was pulled back, sunglasses pushed up onto her head.
Her camera was nowhere in sight, which gave Elise the strange feeling that she was staring at Harper naked.
Which was weird. She’d seen Harper without her camera plenty of times.
She’d seen her naked too. But this felt different.
“Hey,” Harper said, stepping down. “I heard about Megan and Jamie—”
“Now is not a good time,” Elise said, cutting her off. She didn’t stop her march toward the villa, but she did have to redirect. Now that Harper was in her way, she’d have to bypass the deck and go in through the front door. “I have a fire to put out. A fire that I think you started.”
“Me?” Harper said, stepping toward her.
Elise found herself moving in a wide arc just to avoid her.
She couldn’t have Harper any nearer. She didn’t know what she would do if she looked directly into Harper’s warm honey brown eyes, if she got close enough to touch her soft sun-kissed arm, see all those freckles she was sure she could count one by one if she gave it the time.
“What did I do?” Harper asked.
“Weren’t you the one who found Jamie right before the date?” Elise shot back, her voice way too strained. But then again, the show was in the middle of falling apart. Surely her voice was allowed to be strained.
“I did.”
“Well, did you say something to her?” Elise asked, very aware that Gillian was standing behind her, just a breath away. But if Gillian hadn’t figured out by now that something was going on between Elise and Harper, she wasn’t as smart as Elise gave her credit for. Hell, everyone probably knew.
“I told her to take her shot,” Harper admitted. “That if she didn’t, she’d regret it her entire life. I didn’t want her to go through what I went through.”
Elise groaned. For starters, she wanted to bite Harper’s head off for encouraging Jamie to confess her undying love for Megan on camera.
And then another infuriating part of her wanted to ask Harper what she had meant.
What had she gone through? Which was a ridiculous question, because Elise already knew.
Harper made it clear as a crystal vase that her feelings for Elise extended back ten years and had never left.
That was why she was here, why she envisioned a life with Elise after the show came to an end.
A life Elise had knocked down like a tower of Jenga blocks.
There were just too many questions swirling in her head. Too many thoughts.
So, instead of doing any of those things, she walked away.
Thank goodness Harper didn’t follow. A minute later she was heading up the stairs to the second floor, taking two at a time, which her short legs were actually not made for.
Megan’s bedroom sat at the end of the long stretch of hallway.
Elise reached it quickly. She knocked on the door with her fist, despite the overwhelming urge to throw it open.
“Megan,” she called through the wood. “Are you in there? Open the door. We need to talk.” She was aware her voice came off biting and if anyone ever spoke to her like that through a closed door, she probably wouldn’t open it either.
At least Megan had more common sense. Elise heard soft, padded footsteps, and then the door swung open.
Megan was smiling. She was actually glowing.
Positively radiant. Elise couldn’t remember her cheeks ever being that pink, or her eyes ever that bright.
In fact, Elise wondered if she’d ever really looked at Megan, because this woman was sparkling. Literally sparkling.
Behind her, sitting cross-legged on the bed, was Jamie, who was also smiling.
“I know you’re here to tell me that I can’t do this,” Megan said.
“But I have to. I’m in love with Jamie. I’ve been enamored with her since the introductions.
” She glanced back over her shoulder and smiled at Jamie with gooey love in her eyes.
“Since she gave me that stuffed teddy bear with a plaster cast on its leg.”
Elise was deeply thankful the rest of the contestants were in the kitchen because if any of them were standing here, overhearing this conversation, there would be chaos.
Frankly, she too would’ve preferred to go her entire lifetime without witnessing the smoochy nonsense currently unfolding right in front of her.
“You know that isn’t how this show works,” Elise said. “And I don’t care that the last three seasons have followed the same pattern,” she added quickly before Megan could point that out. “It’s unfair to the other contestants.”
It was Provence and Sabi Sand Game Reserve all over again.
Many of those contestants were hurt and upset when the show was cut short.
Production had received numerous angry, teary, passionately worded calls from women who’d made it close to the end only to be told the bachelorette had cared about someone else all along.
Never mind that Elise refused to have another Never Rose Show air; she had the contestants to think about too.
“There’s something you should know,” Megan said, stepping sideways. She then gestured for Elise to come in, which she did. But just a step through the doorway. She didn’t feel like being trapped in Megan and Jamie’s love bubble.
“What do I have to know?” Elise asked.
Megan glanced at Jamie, who nodded. Then she turned back to Elise and said, “Tori and Elena have been sleeping together for ages. We only found out this morning. Tori said she couldn’t keep it a secret any longer.
Then Rebecca confessed that she’s in love with Amelia.
The two of them have been sneaking into each other’s rooms at night.
” She inhaled and then exhaled. “Which is why I felt like I could kiss Jamie and tell her I love her too. I never would have done that if I had known I was hurting the other girls. But I’m not. ”
What the actual fuck?
Elise felt like she’d been slapped in the face by a jellyfish.
She walked over to the chaise and collapsed into it.
Her brain was overloaded. Her neck muscles hurt.
One massage session wouldn’t make a dent in all the tension she’d been experiencing the last few days.
She needed at least ten. Maybe twelve. Maybe even a month-long retreat where no one said the words final ceremony.
“But I know how important this show is to you,” Megan said, kneeling beside her. “I watched your interview after last season, the one about you wanting to restore the magic of the final rose. Which is why we’re going to finish the show. All of us.”
Elise vaguely remembered the interview with Veronica Slate from CineMedia, but she definitely didn’t recall using the word ‘magic’. “You are? Really?” Elise asked, sitting forward suddenly. It felt like she’d had an IV of espresso injected straight into her veins.
“Yes,” Megan said. “We had a villa meeting about it when we got back. We’ll do everything like we were supposed to do. The dates. The rose ceremonies. We’ll be so convincing the viewers will never know.”
Elise couldn’t believe her ears. Yes, the show wasn’t being truly authentic, and yes, it was technically lying, but if they just cut that scene with Jamie confessing her love and pretended it never happened, they could finally get to that final rose ceremony.
No one would ever call it anything other than The Sapphic Match ever again.
“Okay, let’s do it,” Elise said.