“Your photo’s already got a million likes,” Nicki muttered, snatching her phone back. “You probably got like a thousand new followers just from that one photo.”
This was a slight exaggeration. The last time Adrienne checked, it was hovering around fifty thousand. She’d captured her glistening, oil-slicked legs stretched out toward the horizon where the cliffs met the sea in a blue so impossibly turquoise it looked like someone had dropped a bath bomb into the water. Then she’d posted the photo to her Instagram with the captionSardinian Soul. Within three minutes, the likes had crested to ten thousand. Her followers were already flooding the comments with heart-eye emojis. Adrienne would take pleasure in the attention if a strange prickly sensation wasn’t stuck under her skin.
She flipped her oversized Celine shades down over her eyes and watched the world turn sepia. Did the strange feeling have something to do with that woman she’d saved earlier? Was that why she couldn’t relax?
“Have you seen her before?” Adrienne asked, taking a sip of her chilled hibiscus spritz. The tartness bloomed on her tongue.
“Who?” Nicki asked, not looking up from her phone screen. She was no doubt agonizing over which photo made her look the best. All of them. But Adrienne knew her well enough that after ten minutes of self-flagellation, she’d delete them all.
“The woman who works on our yacht,” Adrienne said. “The one who nearly ate the deck. Can you remember what her name is?”
Nicki shook her head.
“She just looks so familiar. Like I’ve seen her before.” Adrienne tapped her finger against her chin as if it wouldsomehow jog a memory. But she could tap it raw, and she still wouldn’t remember.
Nicki huffed and placed her phone screen-down on the cushion. Then she cradled her knees with her arms, and Adrienne knew without a shadow of a doubt that Nicki’s self-esteem was currently lower thanThe Valentine’sanchor. “Why does it matter?” Nicki snapped. “It’s not like you’re going to become friends with her; she’s the help.”
Adrienne felt compelled to correct Nicki, who seemed to think anyone without a trust fund was essentially unimportant. But wasn’t she right? Did it really matter who she was?
“Besides,” Nicki said, stretching back onto her towel. She reached for a tub of bronzer and started smearing the cream over her chest. “Shouldn’t you be preparing? Don’t you have to know how to start fires with a stick so you don’t get voted off?”
Adrienne wasn’t supposed to tell a soul, and yet the secret had slipped out after three martinis at the Bulgari Hotel bar in Milan. She had let the news slip right after she’d received the congratulatory email from the casting director ofOutlast Her. This season was supposed to be the biggest one yet. Sinners vs. Saints.
Wait... she remembered where she had seen the dark-haired woman before. It wasn’t a memory fromThe Valentine; it was from a screen. A reality TV series she’d watched aboard Singapore Airlines while a flight attendant had silently refreshed her glass of Dom Pérignon. It had been the first season she’d ever watched and a catalyst for the obsessive binge-watch that had followed.
Adrienne shot up so fast she knocked over the hibiscus spritz, sending a wash of pink liquid and half-melted ice skidding toward Nicki. When it soaked her towel, Nicki yelped and called for Adrienne, but Adrienne wasn’t there to help her. She’d already vaulted off the sun pad and was heading toward thesalon. Where was she going? She had no idea. Just like she had no idea what she was going to do with the new information whizzing around in her head.
“Can I help you?” a woman with fiery red hair asked as Adrienne slipped into the galley. Adrienne remembered the woman from earlier when they’d all lined up to greet them. Was her name Stacy? She had assumed she was responsible for those delicious golden risotto balls she’d devoured earlier. “Are you looking for something to eat because lunch will be ready in an hour?”
“Umm...” Adrienne started. For the first time ever, she felt the cold prickle of self-consciousness. The sarong she had donned earlier was lying in a peach-colored heap, quite possibly soaked with hibiscus, and her bikini was more of a suggestion than an actual garment. It didn’t help that the chef’s eyes had traveled down to her chest, and not in a flirty way at all. It felt more like intense judgment. The chef was looking at her like she’d gone crazy, and maybe she had. “That woman with the dark hair, the one who nearly tripped. What’s her name?”
“You mean Valerie?” the chef asked, frowning. “Valerie Lang.”
Ding. Ding. Ding.
Valerie Lang. It was her. It was the woman from Season Seven ofOutlast Her. The woman who had stepped down wordlessly during that brutal balance challenge. She was the woman who had given up her and Margaret’s shot at winning the title ofUltimate Outlast Her.
“Yes,” Adrienne said, nodding so vigorously she felt her glossy waves bounce against her shoulders. Then she wondered what she would do with this information and regretted bursting into the kitchen. This wasn’t like her. At all. But then again, she hadn’t been acting like herself for the last two weeks.
Her nerves were shattered.
In less than a month she’d be forced to accept the consequences of her own actions. She’d be sleeping on a bed of damp leaves and battling mosquitoes the size of small birds. She’d be eating only rice and beans and competing against women who would no doubt find her existence an offensive joke. Surely they would judge her as a walking, talking billboard for privilege. Was it too late to pull out? Or would word get out that Adrienne Vale was too prissy to handle a bit of mud? That the billionaire heiress, who had spent her life being waited on hand and foot, had folded the second she realized there was no La Mer moisturizer chilling in a mini fridge.
“She’s the engineer,” the chef said as she lined a baking sheet with tinfoil, seemingly oblivious to Adrienne’s turmoil. “If you need help fixing something, then she’s your girl. You can probably find her in the garage.”
Adrienne nodded her thanks and reversed awkwardly out of the galley.
When she got back to the aft deck, she considered crawling back onto the sun pad, but the thought of Nicki inevitably asking her to take more photos for her mere two million followers and that sticky hibiscus mess was even less appetizing than rice and beans for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Just as she was about to turn toward the stairs, she spotted a flash of dark hair and navy cotton disappearing down a narrow stairway that led toward the waterline. Adrienne knew enough about superyachts to know that the garage was where the jet skis and whatever other water toys her parents owned were housed. Whatever Valerie was doing there was probably boring and off-limits to the guests, but that didn’t stop Adrienne from following.
When she reached the cavernous space, Adrienne nearly held her nose. She found the smell of diesel nauseating and imagined the poison seeping into her perfect pores. But instead of gettingout of there, she crossed the space to Valerie, who was hunched over some sort of engine.
“You’re Valerie Lang,” Adrienne said. Her voice bounced off the metal walls. She stole a quick glance around and spotted a row of pristine Sea-Doo Sparks strapped down, several carbon-fiber paddleboards leaning against the bulkhead, and a rack of wetsuits. Then she rested her gaze on the back of Valerie’s neck. “I couldn’t put my finger on it at first, but then Nicki mentionedOutlast Her, and I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you.”
Valerie’s shoulders tensed.
Adrienne, who expected Valerie to turn around and greet her with a smile, was deeply disappointed when Valerie simply said, “Do you need something?”