Love Elimination Read online

  ‘We are weak and tragic,’ Hadie added. ‘Please don’t hold our jealousy against us.’

  Anna frowned. She hadn’t heard Hadie or Liu Kun in the group of gossiping contestants that day she hid on the stairs, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t been there, failing spectacularly to defend her.

  ‘We were wondering whether we would see dolphins. And then we were talking about our scars and how we got them. Not the romantic tête-à-tête you were imagining, I bet.’

  ‘Oh,’ Hadie said. ‘Well, that’s okay then. You are permitted to cover all grotesque subjects including—but not limited to—bodily functions, waste removal and decay.’

  Liu Kun wandered over to Luke and Hadie seized the opportunity. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to come out like that. It just hurt to see Luke giving you so much attention.’

  ‘But, Hadie, you’ve only known him for less than two weeks.’ Anna immediately wished she could bite back the words and keep them inside her.

  ‘But I’ve pinned so much hope on this—on Luke being The One. I left my son. I’m taking time off work, losing money that I need to pay for Matty’s school and clothes and health and whatever else,’ Hadie replied, her voice quiet. ‘And I’ve only known you a little over a week too. But I’m not going to be jealous any more. If I can’t have him, I’d rather he falls for you than any other contestant here.’

  ‘He hasn’t chosen anyone yet. It’s the second week—’

  ‘The end of the second week,’ Hadie interrupted.

  ‘There is plenty of time for you to get to know him and for him to find out just how amazing you are.’

  ‘Oh stop.’ Hadie grinned.

  * * *

  It took Luke twenty minutes to extract himself from Yvette and Jessica and return to the cabin. Excusing herself from the circle, Anna made her way back to the deck. Hadie and Liu Kun deserved their time with him. Maybe one of them could change his ways? If anyone could keep a man’s attention, it had to be Hadie. She had enough energy to power a small country during the Christmas lights season.

  Anna remained outside, watching the water, until the catamaran slowed and the driver reappeared.

  ‘Now, who wants to go in?’ he called in a Mason-esque voice. Anna wondered whether Joe had put him up to it, or whether he took it upon himself to imitate the television presenter. Either way, she couldn’t begrudge him the moment as he ran them through some instructions and distributed snorkels. Excitement ran like electric shocks along her spine. The only thing that could detract from it was having to strip down to the bikini Kate had organised for her. It was a deep emerald green number that contrasted with her hair and skin, but it was so skimpy. Anna never wore a two-piece without a baggy shirt over the top. She’d grown up with pale skin and the pervasive Australian sun-smart message.

  She slathered herself with sunscreen and, when she saw Luke approaching, convinced Hadie to cover the parts of her back that she couldn’t reach. While Yvette and Jessica were both holding their bottles out to him, Anna was not going to give the show any more footage of them together than was necessary.

  And then they were in the water. Anna had never seen anything more stunning. The reef was incredible. There were more colours than Anna had thought could occur in nature. The fish came in all shapes and sizes. They swam past her like she belonged in the ocean with them, as though she was just a large creature they passed every day on the way to wherever they were going. She wanted every single sight to be captured like a snapshot in her mind.

  ‘This is incredible,’ Liu Kun gasped, popping her head up at the same time as Anna. Then she started coughing.

  ‘It’s more than incredible!’ Anna couldn’t keep her glee contained. A fish brushed past her ankle and Anna dipped underwater for a second. When she bobbed back up, she choked on some water she hadn’t yet forced out of the snorkel.

  When they were called back to the catamaran two hours later, it was too soon, even though Anna’s limbs felt like they were filled with ocean water.

  Anna put her snorkel in a bucket of clean water to soak for the next group. Meanwhile, Luke led Yvette and Jessica onto the top deck where there was a spa.

  ‘Come on.’ Hadie tugged at Anna’s arm. ‘Do you want to leave him alone with just Yvette and Jessica? They’ll be licking the salt water off him in less than a minute.’

  ‘Ew.’ Liu Kun scrunched up her nose and followed Hadie without any further prompting. Even Anna let herself be dragged along. She could see Yvette running her hands around Luke’s muscles and Jessica sat on his other side with her back arched, her breasts standing to attention on the surface of the water.

  The three of them climbed up the steps and into the spa. The water was hot compared to the ocean below them. For the first time since she’d jumped off the deck into the ocean, Anna felt herself succumbing to the desire to wrap her arms around herself, but doing so only served to push her breasts higher. She sank her body beneath the water and hoped the cameras couldn’t see them.

  CHAPTER

  10

  Every man dreamed of finding himself in a spa bath surrounded by beautiful women. But they probably didn’t include the cameras, a film crew and PG-rating restrictions in the fantasy. The only problem with Luke’s version of the dream was that he couldn’t keep his eyes off one woman in particular. And it wasn’t Yvette, who dragged her hooked nails over him, or any of the other women who actually wanted to be there. The only woman he could even think about was Anna, who would ditch him in a second if it meant she could return home to her café full of tradies.

  ‘Who’s up for a game of Truth or Dare?’ Hadie asked, winking at him. Luke only caught the expression because she was sitting opposite him, next to Anna.

  ‘I hate Truth or Dare,’ Anna mumbled quietly, as if she only meant the comment for Hadie.

  ‘Why?’ Luke ignored the exchange of looks between the other women.

  ‘In Year 3 I told my friends that I had a crush on Stephen Alessandrini. Then they told him and he asked me out in front of pretty much our entire year level. By which time I’d lost interest in him. I had to tell him no.’

  ‘And how did that go down?’ Luke shifted into the middle of the spa, submerging his shoulders beneath the surface of the water.

  ‘He got really angry and punched the kid who told him that I liked him. There was a full game of Chinese whispers before it got to him.’

  ‘I thought the message was supposed to change by the end in Chinese whispers?’ Jessica said.

  ‘It kind of did. He heard that I was desperately in love with him and wanted to spend lunch kissing behind the art building.’

  ‘You were in Year 3? What would that make you, about eight, nine?’ Luke had to ask. He was pretty sure kissing hadn’t even been on his radar until Year 7 when Emelia Martinez asked him to the ice skating disco.

  ‘Sure was.’

  ‘When was your first kiss?’

  She glanced at the cameras before answering, then shifted her body away from the nearest one as if ignoring it. ‘Fifteen.’

  The blush in her cheeks pushed all other thoughts from Luke’s mind. How had he not noticed how beautiful she was that first night? No other woman here could compete. He couldn’t have looked away now if he tried.

  ‘How old were you when you had your first kiss, Luke?’ Hadie asked.

  ‘Nineteen.’

  ‘Why so late?’ Yvette cried.

  ‘I was always so focused on my snowboarding and I trained almost exclusively with guys. I was privately educated from Year 10 to Year 12.’

  ‘Why did you stay in school until Year 12? Weren’t your exams only one or two months before you competed in the Olympics?’ Jessica said. When everyone looked at her in awe, her cheeks flushed. ‘My family are big skiing and snowboarding fans.’

  ‘My dad made sure I got a complete high school education.’

  ‘That’s stupid,’ Yvette said. ‘As if you weren’t rich enough to retire at twenty-one.’

  S
he was serious. Her eyes scanned him like they could X-ray his head and find out how much was sitting in his bank account. When he looked around the spa, he wondered how many of them were secretly thinking the same thing. The next elimination couldn’t come fast enough.

  ‘The tabloids exaggerate everything.’

  A long silence followed his statement and Luke would’ve wanted to kiss the woman who broke through the awkwardness. Of course it was Anna who jumped to his rescue, although she looked like she wanted to sink under the water and stay there for the attention it brought.

  ‘What’s the worst thing you’ve ever read about yourself?’

  ‘There have been so many. At sixteen I was a child genius, at eighteen I died in a freak accident and when I was twenty-three I married a British pop star.’

  ‘Wow. The media is crazy.’

  Luke nodded. He’d better have been right telling himself that nobody cared enough about Love Elimination to put the spotlight back on him, beyond the network-organised interviews and other coverage, that was. Of course he wanted it to be a success for his father’s sake, but he did not want journalists on his doorstep—wherever that was—or long-lens shots of him doing ordinary things through his window.

  ‘Have you had far-fetched rumours spread about you?’ He drifted to the opposite side of the spa and made space for himself between Anna and Liu Kun. Anna scrunched up to make room for him, also managing to push her breasts up with her crossed arms. A weaker man would have leaned over and kissed her right then.

  ‘People often assume that I’m a model,’ Yvette jumped in.

  Hadie laughed and added, ‘My mum spread a rumour that I’d adopted my son from a crappy ex-boyfriend who’d got his girlfriend pregnant.’

  Somehow they’d pinged between two extremes. Luke didn’t know how to react. This time Liu Kun stepped in.

  ‘In high school there was a generally held belief that I didn’t speak English,’ she said. ‘I was super shy.’

  ‘Anna?’ Luke nudged her with his shoulder. But she shook her head.

  ‘Nope. I’ve got nothing.’ Or at least, nothing she was willing to admit to, Luke thought.

  ‘Jessica?’

  ‘Also nothing. Though I started a rumour once that I was going to China with my family over the school holidays.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I was getting bad grades and needed to do some holiday tutoring.’

  ‘Did you pull it off?’ Hadie’s voice was incredulous.

  ‘Yes, actually. I didn’t bump into anyone from school. It sucked though. It was a really boring holiday.’

  ‘Was it worth it?’ Anna asked. So apparently she was fine with making eye contact with Jessica, but she hadn’t looked straight at him the entire time they’d been in the spa. All he could see were her eyelids fluttering. Her eyelashes were thick and long; nothing like the fake ones that had stuck to Luke in the ocean, floating from Yvette’s face to his forearm.

  ‘I’m still undecided. My grades improved and it was so boring that I never fell that far behind again. But it was the worst three months of my teenage social life.’

  * * *

  The sun was starting to set when they reached the dock. As it made its final salute, the crew directed the women into a minibus and Luke into a sleek black sedan. He huffed at the sight of Joe in the backseat with a file in his hand.

  The director opened his mouth the second the car door slammed shut. ‘Westwood, you have got to stop with the favouritism.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Anna. You can’t keep your eyes off that girl. Every time you speak, your shoulders face her. And every question seems to link back to her. The only girl you seek out for alone time is Anna. What is it with her?’

  ‘I don’t know. She just doesn’t seem as desperate. She can just have fun.’

  ‘Let me remind you, you’re supposed to be in this show for a serious girlfriend. You’re looking for marriage material, not a fun time.’

  ‘Cut to the chase, Joe. What do you need me to do?’

  ‘Keep the suspense alive, for God’s sake. Everyone knows Anna is going to win. You’re giving us nothing to work with.’ The director pulled the contestants’ headshots from the file in his lap. ‘Now, you and Jessica look good. We got a fair bit of footage with her this date, plus she had the most recent single date. Liu Kun will be a good red herring for the competition. Invite her or a contestant you’d like to eliminate on the single date tomorrow.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Now who did you decide to evict tonight?’

  ‘Oh, crap. Tonight?’ Luke barely kept his frustration under control. He should’ve never signed up for the show. He was dodging calls from his team for the first time in his life. Even knowing they’d be fine with the coaches left behind, it felt weird not knowing what was going on with them.

  ‘Are you even reading the packages?’

  Luke scowled. ‘I read them.’

  ‘The network wants a proposal at the end of the season.’

  ‘That is not going to happen.’ There was nothing in his contract about a marriage proposal. He sure as hell wasn’t going to throw away his life for the ratings. Even for his father’s network.

  ‘That is not the right answer.’ Joe’s voice dropped an octave. ‘You signed on for this show. It might not have been your idea, but you did. What that meant is that you agreed to keep an open mind and date all the women, knowing that any one of them might be The One, and only make a decision when it gets to the final two. Or I may compromise at the final three.’

  ‘That’s bull.’ Luke restrained himself from shouting, but he couldn’t keep the anger from his voice. ‘I signed on to act like a serious girlfriend/potential wife would fit into my life. I agreed to open myself up to public scrutiny once again—despite my better judgement. And now you want to get pissed because I like one of the women?’

  ‘Just flirt with them all! Any other man would kill to be in your shoes right now. These girls are the real deal: beautiful, smart, successful.’

  ‘The real deal? You television types actually use that jargon in conversation?’

  ‘Just. Play. Along.’ It was almost comical, the way Joe ground his teeth. ‘Who are you going to evict?’

  ‘Yvette,’ Luke shot back, knowing the director wasn’t going to agree. The woman was clearly set up to be the villain.

  ‘Yvette is not an option. She wasn’t on the list.’

  ‘Why not? Her fake tan rubs off on me every time she gets within a thirty-centimetre radius. Which, by the way, is all the time. The woman is a barnacle.’

  ‘Yeah, the audience hates her too. And that’s exactly why she gets to stay. Everybody wants someone to hate.’

  ‘So who can I send home?’

  ‘Brooke, Sandra or Tallulah.’

  ‘Let’s go with Brooke,’ Luke said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t remember which one she is.’

  ‘You haven’t memorised their names and faces? Are you kidding me?’

  ‘Give me a break.’ Luke turned to look out the window. Surely their car ride would be over soon. He sighed and pressed an elbow against the car door, leaning his head into his hand. Luke was convinced the director thought about punching him at least every meeting that they had, however informal.

  The car pulled up and Joe ushered Luke to the back of the villa, where he waited for the camera crew to be ready. Hair and make-up took less than two minutes to ready him for the lights. When he was called in, he was met by nine nervous faces and Mason’s orange one.

  After a sufficient amount of dramatic suspense, Mason finally asked, ‘Luke, who are you sending home?’

  ‘Today I am saying goodbye …’ he announced dramatically, as instructed, ‘to Brooke.’

  Joe nodded from behind the camera, his relief playing out across his face. Luke returned his gaze to the woman whose name he’d called. She maintained a stony expression as she allowed Luke to escort her ou
t. A car was waiting. Luke walked her to the door and the cameras followed. He knew Joe wanted a big emotional scene from Brooke and that he was supposed to coax it from her, but he just couldn’t do anything better than say, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s okay. I’d rather go home now than find out later, after I’m emotionally invested, that it wasn’t meant to be.’

  Luke wrapped her into a hug. ‘Have a safe flight home. I hope you find the person you’re looking for.’

  It was one of the lines he’d been provided in the package. Once the emotional moment passed and Brooke had climbed into the car, Luke glanced behind the camera for the director to see if he noticed and appreciated that Luke had read the material. But really, he was distracting himself from the stupidity of the whole thing. It was cruel to keep so many women locked in a house under the pretence that they had a chance at true love. Maybe with some other guy it would have happened, but the network chose him. They chose fame and reputation over someone who actually wanted to fall in love and get married.

  ‘Good work.’ Joe clapped a hand on Luke’s back. ‘That’s a wrap for today. We’ll announce the single date bright and early tomorrow, so get a good night’s rest.’

  Luke looked back once and caught sight of Anna trudging back to the contestants’ villa. Her face was etched into a deep scowl. Had she expected him to send her home tonight? It wasn’t going to happen. For the first time, he’d actually planned a date she was going to love. That debt he’d mentioned in exchange for her staying just a little longer on the show would be paid, and then some. Maybe she’d even want to stick around and get to know him when it was over.

  She disappeared between the trees and Luke shook his head clear of all his frustration. Without a backwards glance he escaped to his pool house, away from the cameras and the women and all the fakery designed to elicit viewers. There were just a few more details he needed to confirm before the next date.

  CHAPTER

  11

  Anna flopped down on her mattress. The third week was almost over, with days of waiting between dates; especially when she wasn’t invited. Since she wasn’t on the single date—that pleasure went to Sandra, who no one seemed to consider a threat even after she’d been chosen—there was nothing to do except wander around the house. Cooking had been ruled out because Yvette and two of her minions were occupying the kitchen. Anna had used the gym for two hours in the morning, stretching out the workout for as long as possible. She wished she could go to sleep and only wake up for the parts of the filming for which she was required. Every moment she was left doing nothing, her body itched to get back home and do something for her business.