Page 60 of Most Eligible
I frown. I’d wanted to keep him quiet about my secret, not blackmail him into giving me intel. “What are you going to do with the information?”
“Nothing yet,” she says. “It won’t do you any good if everyone already knows. Anyway, I’ve got to go. Be safe and stay sane, okay?”
“Yeah,” I breathe. “And I might not call for a while. We’re traveling next week, so I can’t take the burner.”
“Okay,” she says. “Bye, G.”
“Bye.”
As I hang up the phone and stretch my legs, something clicks into place. Serena’s excitement about Rhett hosting, her twisted logic about blackmailing him into talking. I told her he was hosting, and days later, an article appeared with that same information. There are any number of people it could have been, but maybe I’m still unwilling to see the worst in her.
I start back up the hill to the mansion and pause halfway up next to a patch of roses. I dig into the soft soil with a stick and bury the burner phone under a white rosebush. Then I keep walking, brushing my dirty hands off on my legs.
Maybe I’m being silly. After all, Serena’s never told anyone about my pen name and that’s a far bigger secret to keep.
I slip through the front doors of the mansion and back upstairs into the bunk room, where everyone else is either asleep or pretending to be. Brooklyn rolls over and I freeze, but she lets out a quiet snore and I breathe easy. I wade through the pile of clothes beside my bed, then collapse onto the mattress.
Now that I have my leverage, I’m not sure I even want to use it. If Rhett paid people off to keep me out of the news… that means he saved my career. If he’d given my fake name, if it had been linked to a photo of therealme, I’d never have been cast onLove Shackin the first place.
I punch my pillow into submission and pull my sleep mask over my eyes.
How many others?
But it isn’t the information about Rhett that keeps me tossing and turning. It’s Serena. During our phone call, she reminded me of someone. Someone cool, collected, in charge, but threatening all the same.
She reminded me of Lainey.
I don’t know how I’ve made it through two full weeks in this mansion. Adrenaline and sheer force of will is my guess, because it sure as heck isn’t the promise of Mr. Roland Marchetti.
Today has passed even more slowly than usual—a combination of inactivity and the anxiety about tonight’s elimination ceremony. No matter what Roland said on our date, I can’t be sure he’ll keep me into next week.
I head downstairs early for the ceremony, in search of something from the bar to calm my nerves before I get mic’d for the night.
The producers are setting up in the rose garden, adjusting lights and cameras to the perfect angles where they’ll become invisible. It would make my job a hell of a lot easier if I were invisible too. If I could blend into the background as seamlessly as the boom mics hovering just above the camera frame.
My maroon dress whispers across the living room floor, but I don’t make it to the bar before a hand catches my arm. I whirl around and come face to face with Rhett, his jaw set and his eyes dark.
“Come with me,” he growls. “We need to talk.” Without another word, he pulls me into an interview closet off the front foyer, clicking the lock into place as he flicks on the light. In the absence of the usual camera lights, we stand under a single naked bulb.
Of course, Rhett still looks hot as hell in this harsh, washed-out lighting. A lock of hair falls across his forehead, but otherwise he’s impeccable, black suit buttoned and collar left fashionably open. He sticks his hands in his pockets and paces as much as one can pace in a room this small. Finally, he sinks onto the arm of the producer’s chair and looks me up and down, no trace of want, humor, or warmth left in his expression.
I’d be less anxious if Lainey were sitting across from me, fangs bared.
Folding my arms across my chest, I drop onto a spindly stool.I feel inexplicably naked without the buffer of a camera. The foot and a half of stained carpet between us is like a battleground, and I attack first.
“Is this an interview?” I ask. “Gonna pry out all my deepest secrets?”
He lets out a long breath. “I know it was you.”
I bite my lip so hard I feel the bitter taste of blood spring onto my tongue.
“Someone leaked to the press that I’m hosting. Nina said the phone was hers, but it was yours.” His green eyes are so dark now that they look almost black as they bore into mine. “I thought I was protecting myself, keeping what I knew about you a secret, but maybe you’re more dangerous than I thought.”
My fingers tighten into a ball of anxiety. I skim my nail over the cuticle of my thumb and press, white-hot pain streaking up my hand.
He has no proof. All he knows is that I had a phone. He can’t be sure that I’m the one who leaked information. I don’t owe him anything. Just because he almost went down on me in a seaside hot tub doesn’t mean I’m required to spill all my dirty secrets to him. That’s not how the world works.
“Say it,” he growls. “Tell me it was you.” His ragged voice makes me sweat. It’s the same tone he used at the concert, when he rasped into my hair,You’re fucking beautiful. My heart beats like a hummingbird, hands sweating, dying to tangle in his hair.
