“You already know,” I answer, low. “A New York City bitch who wants all the wrong things. Marcus sees that. He saw it today and in Chicago and at the airport. I told you I want to go, and you know why. Marcus knows, too. Let me leave.”
Henry blinks, frowning deeply, and he understands. He takes a deep breath.
My heart is pounding. I see Henry see me, and it stupidly makes me miss him already, but anywhere but here has to be better than this.
His gaze drops from me, and he answers softly. “I’ll try.” He glances back up; his eyes meet mine, and I see a vision of him from across the table at a bar, dark eyebrows, joy and sorrow. “But it’s not my choice, Jac.”
“And what’s going on down here!” someone calls, too bright by half. The disembodied voice takes shape: Becca in a matching two-piece with a palm tree design. “Can I talk to you for a sec, Jac?”
Henry meets my gaze for the last time and then we both look away. I rub at my eyes like I’ve been crying, which I definitely haven’t, but I need to play into this act. It has to seem like a hard decision. People quit this show all the time; it’s all in the performance.
I don’t say anything to Becca.
“You mind if we go back up to the patio?” Becca asks me. I shake my head no.
“All right,” she says, “then we’ll just do it here!”
“Do what?” I ask.
“Jac,” she says in her producer voice, “unlike everyone else, I know how hard this is. I’ve been here.”
“I doubt it.” A crew member has brought a lighting rig over to shine on us, and the two of us are now glowing like it’s the middle of the day.
She smiles at me like I’m an old friend she knows well. “Marcus is up there crying, knowing you might leave.” And I just bet he is, milking this for all it’s worth. “He feels like he doesn’t know where your hesitations came from.”
“Marcus doesn’t want this either,” I tell her.
“You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen him the way I did,” Becca answers serenely.
“I want to go home.”
“You think we wouldn’t let you do that if we thought it was what you really wanted? But this is the first mention of it. You’ve been happy, Jac. It’s okay to freak out. We all did it at one point or the other.”
“I’m not freaking out,” I return sharply, making the whole thing seem like a lie. “It’s not possible to fall in love in a place like this. It’s all an illusion.”
“I’ve been married six years,” Becca tells me. “And now Brendan and I are starting a family.” She places her hand over her flat stomach. “That real enough for you?”
I look into her eyes to confirm what she’s said. Christ. Becca just dropped a pregnancy announcement in the middle of my attempted escape. That’s when I know they’ll never let me out.
“Aren’t you exhausted by it all?” I can’t help but ask her.
Her mask drops, momentarily, and she does look tired. But she pastes a bright smile back on. “Would you be willing to go talk to Marcus?” she asks me, putting her character solidly back in place. “Before you leave.”
I almost beg her not to make me, but I can’t sink that low. I already feel the guillotine hanging over my head.
They walk me back up to the patio where Marcus is sitting slumped on the stairs, like he collapsed there. Everyone is staged around him for a conversation, so I take a seat on the stairs next to him. Without asking, he takes my hand.
“Becca said you wanted to talk,” Marcus says, straight-faced. I’m almost amazed by him now. He’s much better at this than I am. “You’re thinking of leaving?”
I try for a diplomatic approach. “This is overwhelming, Marcus. You understand it better than anyone.”
His hand tightens on mine. I fight the urge to pull it back. I can hear his voice in my head from earlier: I know you’re fucking Henry.
“What happened?” Marcus urges me. I meet his eyes, eyes I now realize never quite match his expression. Is this his endgame? For me to confess on camera? To seal my fate as the villain?
“There’s only a few weeks left,” I say. True enough. “And today is the first time it seems like we’re really seeing each other clearly.”
I see it in him now. He likes it. He likes that it’s all for show. He gets off on the performance.
“But isn’t that—” He puts a hand on my cheek. Bold. “Isn’t that the whole point of this? We’re intense people, Jac. We test each other’s limits. That’s the kind of relationship I want. One where we’re always discovering new facets of each other.”
I release a breath. His hand is cold. Henry is here; I know he is. “Something burns too hot, maybe it leaves ashes in its wake,” I whisper to him. The mic pack is like a noose. Solemnly, I say, “I think I should go, Marcus.”
“But I don’t want you to,” he answers, his voice ringing out. The meaning is clear. “What could I say to convince you? That it wouldn’t be fair to either of us if we don’t see this relationship through to the end? That I couldn’t stand to see you leave? I don’t know what it would do to me. I don’t know what I might do. Maybe I’d follow you. Maybe I’d be destroyed. Maybe you would, too.”
He gives away his plan then, his eyes flicking over my shoulder. That’s where Henry stands.
I don’t think about the cameras at all, but they’re also the only thing I can think about. Marcus is a breath away from giving this show its moment of the season—maybe even moment of the decade—at the expense of my reputation and livelihood.
I playact softening ever so slightly. “I’m scared,” I admit. Marcus is exactly the type of guy who wants to hear that.
His index finger trails down my cheek, where his palm is still resting. “I know,” he tells me. His face is dangerously close to mine, both of us leaning fully forward into each other. “Stay.” It sounds like a threat.
I close the distance between us to kiss him, not wanting to give him the satisfaction, and he accepts it. It’s my admission of defeat, so I launch my doomed last stand and sink my teeth into his bottom lip. He doesn’t pull away; in fact, he is fully pulling me into his lap and we are kissing like the night in the hot tub until Janelle calls for him to stop. A part of me knows it should make me sick, but I’ve lost myself in it; in my hatred for him and myself, the violence of the kiss felt right. He pulls back at Janelle’s command, though, pulling away from me, our eyes locked.
“That was really good, Jac,” he whispers to me. “Almost worked.”
“You’re welcome,” I answer, neutral.
