‘Ready?’ Cam asks. ‘If it all goes to plan, we should have you out of there in under two days.’
‘Great. And I’ll come back to this hotel once I’m out?’
‘Correct. I’ll be waiting for you,’ he says. His eyes have not stopped sparkling since our… let’s just call it our date night. We seem to have ignited a fire in each other. He is all glorious flames, burning brightly, and I appear to be shining like the sun every time I look at myself in the mirror. Gone is the grey, lifeless, haunted look that we both wore when we first met.
‘I’ll do my best.’ I feel empowered and strong, like a proper boss-lady, as I make my way stealthily to Cam’s SUV.
‘Wait,’ calls Tyrone, running towards us. ‘I was watching the live footage. Porscha just pulled Giovanni and told him to dump Amber so they can throw her out. Then she told Mimi to dump Carlton so that she can steal one of the new guys, but really, Porscha told Destiny it’s so that she can throw Mimi out too. She says “Libby” is becoming too popular and she wants to get rid of any allies. She paired you with a guy called Eugene.’
Cam looks at me smiling. ‘It is totally playgroundy, isn’t it?’
‘Nobody does playgroundy like teachers.’ I smirk. ‘It’s time to play her at her own game.’
‘Good luck in there,’ says Tyrone, trotting back towards the hotel.
‘I’ll keep feeding you information once you’re in, seeing as Porscha seems to be changing her mind every two minutes,’ Cam says with a note of exasperation. ‘We need a new code word for the blind spot.’
‘How about every time I say “fix you”? As in let me fix you a drink or something like that?’
Cam is smirking again. ‘Nope. I feel like you want me to enable this obsession of yours with fixing people through the medium of song. It’s very troubling.’
I start laughing. He’s bang on the money.
‘Okay. How about I say “Canadians do it better” and then you come running?’
‘That’s more like it.’ Cam revs up the engine and off we go. I am studying the top-secret notes that Cam is given each day by Porscha and the rest of the team. They scribble down options for changing the narrative to create surprises and shocks. If it weren’t playing with real people’s emotions, it would be quite clever really.
‘These are so good. It’s like reading a film script.’
‘Please don’t pretend that you didn’t sneak a look all those times when I left them lying around.’
‘I swear I didn’t. I have a real problem with that kind of thing. I think it’s because I’m a teacher. We’re like bloodhounds when it comes to pupils lying. We know all the tells. And we’re, like, socially conditioned to follow orders.’
‘You’re going to really struggle with this plan then. It basically involves you going around lying to everyone.’ Cam chuckles.
‘No. It involves me going around planting seeds of doubt. There’s a huge difference.’
‘Well, if it gets too much, you know what to do.’
‘Thanks. It’s good to know you have my back in there.’
‘We make a good team, don’t we?’ he says, taking his eyes from the road to quickly glance over.
After only a week in his presence I feel like the best version of myself. And even better, I feel like this is only the beginning.
‘I had a thought,’ he says as we trundle along a back road towards the beach where Lois will be having her date. ‘A way for us to be together. After you leave the villa.’
Play it cool, Libby. Play it cool. Do not yell or scream or let him know you have been imagining yourself in wedding dresses all morning.
‘Would you consider…?’ he says, but before he gets a chance to finish, his phone rings. The Bluetooth picks it up. Cam puts a finger to his lips.
‘Hello?’
‘Cam, it’s me, Graeme. Listen, I need to tell you something. It’s about the cameras and the accidental blind spot. I wasn’t going to tell you, but something came up.’
‘What came up?’
‘I, er, it’s sort of… well, the camera that was supposed to cover the bins was rigged up to cover the actual blind spot in the PANTRY. It’s the only camera that Porscha doesn’t know about. And we didn’t tell her because she’d have a fit if she knew what she was saying to contestants confidentially was caught on camera. But our team caught her threatening poor Libby so many times. It’s really upset them.’ There’s some crackling as the reception breaks. ‘Boss, we also have her on camera blackmailing you and Libby. We don’t know what to do.’