“Here’s to the final four,” Marcus says, and we clink glasses. “Here’s to love.” The other girls echo him.
“Jac.” Priya is at my side again before I can even get a sip of champagne down. “Someone wants to speak with you. We’re going to drive you over to a hotel where the crew is staying, and then you’ll fly out for hometowns. You ready to go?”
Mystified, I agree. All of our bags are already packed, so I just follow Priya out to a van. She puts me in it, and Henry hops in next to me, seemingly appearing out of nowhere.
“What’s going on?” I ask him, after the door is slammed and the car is driving. “Am I in trouble?”
He glances over at me, his eyebrow raised. “What do you think?”
“God, this is dull,” I say, leaning my head back against the headrest. Henry neither assents nor dissents, so we are quiet on the ride to the hotel. He helps me out of the van once we get to the resort, still in my evening wear from the elimination ceremony—actually, shit, it’s Rikki’s gown and I need to give it back to her—and I follow him as he leads me to the elevator and punches the button for the fourth floor.
“Just,” he says, as the elevator door slides back open, “don’t say anything,” he finishes cryptically.
“Oh, because I’m so good at that.”
He turns down a hall carpeted in beige with royal blue coconut wallpaper and stops in front of one of the doors. He knocks.
After a few seconds, the door opens to a partially deconstructed production room, full of televisions and chairs and assistants dismantling them. In the corner, not doing anything except scrolling through his phone, sits a white middle-aged man, broad, but not quite overweight. His eyes flick up as Henry comes in with me.
“Give us a minute. Uno minuto,” he says to the crew, and a dark-haired woman wearing a black hat gestures for everyone to follow her out of the room, closing the door behind her.
“Miss Matthis,” the man says, putting his phone away and standing up. “Our little star. Is it okay if I call you Jacqueline?”
“Miss Matthis is fine,” I say.
He barks out a laugh, and I feel Henry shift beside me. Is this it? The firing squad?
“Jac, this is John Apperson. He’s the creator and executive producer of the 1,” Henry tells me. The second part isn’t needed; I remember our conversation weeks ago at the mansion in LA.
“I’d say it was a pleasure, but—” I shrug.
“You’re fun,” John says with a smile. He’s got that slick look of Hollywood about him—late forties, unmistakable hair plugs giving him wavy light brown hair. He wears dark-rimmed designer glasses over a face bloated from too much alcohol.
“Henry did tell me you liked hot, mean women.”
“Henry and I have that in common,” John says, and when I look at Henry, his cheeks are red. “But you’ve crossed a line here.”
“Can’t wait to hear which one that is,” I say.
Henry glances over at me. I feel him sweating, begging me to shut the fuck up. “He’s talking about Elodie,” Henry says.
“What else would he be talking about?” I answer lightly, my gaze not leaving John’s.
“Stop fucking around,” John tells me, cutting to the chase. He isn’t angry; more like a dad of teenage kids sick of our shit. “We can still make things good for you. You’re an author—there’s no contestant we had on this year who can benefit from what we’re doing here more than you. God knows the fucking failing publishing industry could never drum up publicity this good. Let me help you.”
I pause, like I’m considering the offer. “I’ve had enough of your team’s help to last me a lifetime. I think I’ll just play by my rules now.”
John frowns. “We’re going to have to fire Elodie. You realize that, right?”
I touch one of the devices on the desk next to me, fingering the speaker. This must be where they feed info into the producers’ earpieces from. Someone wasn’t paying enough attention to Elodie the other night.
“She had a lot to say. A lot of interesting things about Marcus and Shailene that I think the public would want to hear.”
“You’re under an NDA,” John snaps.
“I don’t believe you’re going to fire her,” I say, ignoring him. “Then again”—I meet his gaze squarely—“it would be nothing for you to throw a woman under the bus for this television show, would it?”
“Jac,” Henry hisses.
“Aw, babe.” I look over at him, grab his arm. “Is Daddy mad?”
“Enough,” Henry says, shame written all over him, as he pulls my arm away.
John doesn’t look so amused now. “Are you going to be able to control her for another month, Henry?” he asks, like I’m not even there.
“Jac’s not stupid,” Henry tells John. “She’ll finish out the season and keep quiet.”
“You’re damn right,” John says, looking back at me. “If she doesn’t want to be sued into next century for violating her contract.”
“It doesn’t have to be like this between us,” I say. “You could eliminate me. I could keep what I know about Shailene a secret.”
“Let me get something straight with you, sweetheart,” John says. “You have no power here. You go home when we say you go home. You keep your mouth shut and make good TV, or we’ll make this ten times worse for you. Because we are headed down a very dark path right now, and you do not make the rules.”
I stare at him, my eyes burning with unshed tears. I have all that ammo, and still I know he’s right. I signed my life away. Instead, I say, “Do your worst.”
“We could’ve helped each other,” John replies, clearly disappointed in me.
I don’t answer.
