Love Elimination Read online

  Anna ignored him. So did Kate.

  ‘Why are we going shopping?’ Anna asked.

  ‘Because you need clothes for the show. You’ll need a dress for every night—and some casual clothes. Op-shop hand-me-downs are not going to cut it.’

  ‘Those women supply all the clothes they wear on the show?’

  ‘Yes. Unless there’s a special date or it’s the finale.’

  Anna ducked down to pick a stray piece of twisted metal from the ground, mainly to hide her face. ‘I can’t afford to go shopping, Kate.’ There was no way she could afford even one new dress. There was a reason she frequented op shops and it wasn’t a love of vintage fashion.

  ‘I know.’ Kate grinned, digging through her bag until she produced a shiny credit card. ‘Meet my company card, with which we will purchase all the necessary clothes appropriate for the small screen. I want my sister to be fashionably dressed, of course. Viewers love a good outfit.’

  Anna hesitated.

  ‘Come on, Anna. All you have to do is try on what I throw at you.’

  ‘Go on, Anna. What rags-to-riches tale would be complete without a shopping montage?’ Ben said.

  ‘Your dessert café is going to be fashionable, right? Don’t you think it’s important that people perceive you as stylish while on the show?’

  The argument put a halt to any further objections Anna was about to raise. After majoring in marketing at university, Kate had fought her way up the ranks of one of the most difficult industries: television. At just twenty-seven she was a producer on WestMedia’s newest hit reality show. Her sister could be trusted on this.

  Anna took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a millisecond. ‘Fine.’ She put her cleaning supplies on the ground and grabbed her jacket. ‘Thanks for all your help, Ben.’ She pulled him into a hug and he followed closely behind as they left the building.

  CHAPTER

  2

  Love Elimination was everywhere. From the moment his plane touched down in Australia, Luke Westwood was surrounded by the highly photoshopped promotions posted over buses, trains and city billboards. The women had two types of bodies: the thin, toned, sexy Victoria’s Secret supermodel kind and the Kim Kardashian curves kind. They didn’t have faces, those were cut off, because that would ruin the suspense of the first episode.

  The advertisements only disappeared when he arrived at the beachside mansion where he’d be living for the next few months. His luggage was stripped of his phone, laptop, books and anything else he could use to distract himself from the fact that he’d agreed to star on reality television. A dating show, of all things. As if the past media coverage hadn’t been enough for one lifetime. He had thought he was finished with the media the day he retired from professional snowboarding after the last Winter Olympics. The pre-show coverage was so bad, he wasn’t surprised when his mate Harrison had called practically the moment Luke’s plane landed.

  ‘What the hell, man? I just saw you on TV,’ Harrison had yelled down the phone. Luke had pushed it away from his ear, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand.

  ‘Nothing new there.’

  ‘You’re on a reality dating show. Since when did you have trouble with the ladies?’

  ‘Since never,’ Luke had replied.

  ‘You’re not thinking about settling down?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Here’s my advice,’ Harrison had said, unasked. ‘Ditch the show and get back to the slopes. I’ll even be your wingman; make sure you get laid. You can find wives up here too. You hate the media’s attention. Come home, man.’

  ‘Can’t.’

  ‘Why? Give me one good reason.’ When Luke hadn’t replied, he’d continued, ‘Come on. The coaching career can’t be that bad. I hear one of your guys got silver in the Cup Alpine Series.’

  ‘I’m doing someone a favour.’

  ‘The old man’s pimping you out now? Some favour.’

  ‘I owe him a debt.’

  Their relationship had never been easy, but Tyson Westwood had really come through for him when he was injured. For the first time in his life, Luke felt what it would be like to be close to his father. They were working on it—and Luke was willing to do Love Elimination for a chance at a ceasefire between him and his father.

  ‘If this is his way of hurrying along the grandkids, you know the bimbos on those shows just want to be famous. And your money—they’re probably all gold diggers.’

  ‘I don’t have that much money.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘None of the family riches. Just the snowboarding winnings.’

  ‘That’s not what I hear. The gossip channels are buzzing with the size of your trust fund.’

  Luke sighed, knowing his protests had fallen on deaf ears. But he really wasn’t the billionaire everyone assumed he was. He pushed the conversation out of his mind and strode further into the mansion, until he was standing in an oversized living room full of fake fruit.

  A crew member appeared in the doorway, clearing his throat. Luke followed his lead through the beachside mansion. They passed rooms of luxury that reminded Luke of every hotel he’d ever lived in, except for the fact that this mansion was in the middle of the tropics. Their destination—the boardroom—was spacious and almost entirely beige. Unlike the rest of the mansion, this room felt lived in. The Love Elimination crew surrounded a mahogany table covered with laptops, stacks of paper and folders. This was obviously the lair from which the producers and director plotted the best ways to convince twelve women to fall in love with an injured, retired snowboarder.

  Director Joe Burning, who Luke had met only once before when signing his contract, stood at the head of the table.

  ‘Please, sit down,’ Joe said, sliding a whiskey towards an empty chair. Luke tensed but did as he was asked, ignoring the glass. ‘Are you ready for today?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Have you memorised the women’s names?’

  ‘I think so,’ he lied. Watching the promo videos was enough torture that he’d only submitted himself to a one-time viewing. The contestants had bounced across the screen, introducing themselves with whitened smiles. Everything was glossy and bright. The women all looked and sounded the same.

  ‘Good. There’s one missing from your package: Anna.’ Joe tapped at his tablet and brought up a picture of a beautiful girl-next-door type. She had light brown hair that fell an inch below her shoulders, pale skin, bright blue eyes and a round face. She didn’t fit in with a lot of the other women. For a start, she wasn’t on a beach wearing yoga clothes in her promo shot. Nor was a pair of double Ds the focus of the picture—the neckline of her dress was equally appropriate for a family function as for a night in the clubs. Unlike every other promotional shot, hers was just an ordinary photo of a smiling woman taken in front of a rundown building.

  ‘It’s almost dark,’ one of the producers said. They’d explained to him earlier that they would start filming the minute the light faded from the sky and continue filming until the wee hours of the morning, just before the sun rose again. Filming Luke’s introduction to each of the twelve women would take hours and the easiest way to achieve continuity was to film through the night. Luke only hoped post-production wouldn’t get too annoyed at all the footage of him yawning. In all his twenty-seven years, he’d rarely stayed up past midnight. Those early-morning training sessions weren’t exactly conducive to all-nighters.

  Joe nodded. ‘Okay, let’s go.’

  With that, they filed out of the mansion and fifty metres down the beach to the villa where the women were housed.

  * * *

  All Anna’s priorities disappeared. She forgot about getting herself evicted and her café. Only one thing remained: she really needed to pee. The toilet was on set and she wouldn’t be allowed on set until they’d filmed her introduction.

  They didn’t tell her how long she’d be waiting before meeting the show’s suitor—the ‘ideal’ man she’d be fighting eleven women to win. Su
pposedly. Until then, she was in lockdown. No luggage. Nothing but the clothes on her back and the rings on her fingers. The driver of the black sedan wouldn’t even turn on the music; his only concession was uncovering the digital clock in the middle of the dashboard. He wouldn’t unlock the doors and he left the vehicle after an hour, leaving her with no one to direct her complaints to.

  When she was finally released from the leathery prison, her driver led her from the road onto a beach with her bladder bursting. Their location was obscured by the darkness. All she knew—from the plane ride—was that she was in North Queensland. Her first holiday in about ten years. Some holiday.

  Anna’s muscles were stiff and her ankle threatened to roll with every step of her wedge heels on the golden sand. The crew handed her a tall flute of champagne and pointed an oversized camera in her direction.

  ‘Welcome to Love Elimination, Anna! I’m the director, Joseph Burning; you can call me Joe.’ He nodded from his position behind the camera. ‘We’re about to escort you down the beach to the villa where you’ll be living. How are you feeling right now?’

  ‘Nervous, I guess.’ Anna offered a small smile as the crew chuckled politely. The director circled his hands around each other. Anna blinked, trying to remember if Kate had ever mentioned the signal or what it meant.

  ‘Keep going,’ Joe instructed.

  ‘Oh, okay.’ Anna fumbled with the bracelet on her wrist. She just wanted to get the interview over as quickly as possible. ‘I’m excited and terrified to meet everyone. I’m also hoping that, at some point, I’ll be given a full itinerary for the rest of the show. It would be great to not be in the dark. But I have a feeling that’s not going to happen …’

  It seemed her answers were sufficiently ‘peppy’: the word Anna had been hearing from Kate and the crew since agreeing to the sham. She’d been instructed to be honest (unless her answers were likely to get either sister into trouble) and give elaborate, energetic, upbeat answers. She was supposed to be ‘a character’ or an ‘exaggerated version of herself’ in front of the cameras. There had been so many marketing buzzwords thrown at her she’d felt like she was the victim of a particularly persistent salesperson.

  ‘Great, great.’ Joe nodded and the red recording light on the camera flicked off. Anna didn’t think any of it could be edited into something the resident bitch might say, but she struggled to remember exactly what she had said only moments after the words spilled from her mouth.

  Another staffer moved forwards and Anna found herself led down the beach to another camera setup. This time, she was instructed to walk between the markers lining a stretch of the beach towards the trees about twenty-five metres away. With the cameras trailing behind her, her mind focused on the sashay of her bum. The width of her thighs. The straightness of her back. The crinkle of her dress around her waist. Not looking like she needed to pee. How had she ever walked confidently in everyday life?

  Anna forced herself to take a deep breath and tried to let the tension drain from her body. You are a fully capable, intelligent person, she told herself. You will not be caught up in insecurities. You flat out refuse.

  Only then did she notice the sound of the ocean lapping against the scattered shells, the sounds of night animals in the distance. She was surrounded by pure paradise and she was worrying about her arse. How ridiculous. The thought eased some of the knot in her shoulders.

  ‘Wait, just a minute.’ She bent down and slipped out of her shoes, letting them hang from her fingers. With each step, sand squelched between her toes and the tiny grains exfoliated the skin on her feet. It was better than a five star–resort massage. She kept walking until she reached five bamboo lanterns sticking out of the sand. It felt like a survival reality show rather than the dating variety it was supposed to be. She waited for the crew and their handheld cameras to catch up, having captured their long shot of her approaching the lanterns. With the crew following closely behind and more cameras filming in front, Anna crossed over the tree line. The palm trees didn’t grow particularly thickly, but they did manage to conceal a villa with a thatched bamboo roof hanging over wood pillars. The building was two storeys, with geometric patterns in the veranda’s wooden balustrades. Either the large villa had no windows, or they were so clean they’d become invisible to the naked eye.

  The cameras watched silently as Anna took in every part of the building. If she’d known what to wish for, her heart would have wanted this. When she and Kate were young, their dad had taken them on snow trips once a year. Not once had she seen sand on a holiday. The only warmth had come from open fires and the hot chocolate in their mugs.

  ‘When you’re ready, you may make your way inside,’ Joe murmured. The villa seemed to be made up of three buildings: one large one in the middle, and a smaller building on either side. Anna strode into the courtyard the buildings formed and through the double doors in the middle.

  She found herself in a living room as large as an Olympic swimming pool. Dark grey couches with white cushions were placed around the room. Following the corridor to the right, she found the kitchen of her dreams: fully equipped with industrial ovens, stove tops and a fridge, and filled with luxury appliances atop drop-dead-gorgeous white marble benches above dark cabinets.

  High-pitched giggles echoed through the air and as Anna gravitated towards the sound, Joe stopped her.

  ‘Stop there,’ he said. ‘There’s a bathroom through here. You can relieve yourself while we set up the cameras for you to meet the others.’

  Anna stumbled through the door he’d pointed out and found herself in a bathroom with the perfect combination of marble and dark rainforest wood. It was perhaps the fanciest she’d ever encountered. When she emerged again, she felt much more human. Of course, half a second later she was an insect under a magnifying glass again. The cameras had moved to catch her ascent of the stairs.

  With another instruction from the director, Anna climbed the wooden staircase against a side wall and found herself in a hallway decorated with tribal art. All of the doors were open. Anna poked her head through the first and found two girls sitting on a massive bed. The room itself was beautiful, with rose petals scattered over the white doona and matching curtains draped on either side of the window. Another bed was pushed up against the right wall. The cupboards and wardrobes blended into the walls, so Anna didn’t notice them until she stepped into the room.

  The girls leapt off the bed mid-titter when they spotted Anna. They ran up to her and threw their arms around her.

  ‘Hey, I’m Rachel! A 26-year-old social media analyst from Adelaide.’ It was the introduction they’d been instructed to give in front of the cameras. Anna had already listed her own tagline about seven times, and that was just for the promos. How long did they have to keep it up?

  ‘Hadie, twenty-three, language teacher from Sydney.’ The woman had an open face, wide eyes and a smile that brought dimples to each of her cheeks.

  ‘Can you believe this place?’ Rachel asked. She spoke twice as fast as anyone Anna had ever met. ‘I would’ve signed up just for the size of the baths.’

  Anna grinned, glancing between the two women. ‘It’s great,’ she offered. ‘I’m Anna. Nice to meet you.’

  Damn. She was two sentences in and she’d already forgotten to follow the script. But before she could rectify the mistake, the other woman was talking again.

  ‘Did they put you through hair and make-up too?’ Rachel barely waited for Anna’s nod before continuing. ‘I was just telling Hadie, they are not going to be able to control this hair. Just look at it!’

  Granted, the woman’s red hair was voluminous and curly. The fly-aways poked out like misplaced sticks in a bird’s nest. Apparently the spray that had been used on Anna had not been potent enough to tame Rachel’s locks.

  ‘Seriously! They won’t be able to fit my face in the screen. They’ll try shooting this conversation and all they’ll get is a screen of red wiggly worms.’ She slid her fingers through her hair, o
nly managing to increase its height, and raised an eyebrow at the camera in the doorway. Anna didn’t miss the way the girl made eye contact with the lens, nor the tiny smile at the corner of her lips.

  Rachel ran to the bed and flung herself across the mattress. ‘Feel it, Anna! It must be made out of angel feathers.’

  Anna followed, shuffling towards the centre of the bed and folding her feet under her. Despite her efforts, she may have just flashed her underwear to the entire nation. That risk would take some getting used to.

  She massaged her fingers into the sheets. ‘You’re absolutely right. This is heaven.’

  ‘If you think that’s good, wait till you see the rest of the house!’ Hadie said, pulling Anna from the bed. That time, Anna’s dress definitely lifted too high. If only Kate had let her wear one of her own dresses, the long hem would never have embarrassed her like this.

  Hadie and Rachel led her to the bathroom, and then into six more identical bedrooms. They were interrupted twice by new arrivals: French-born Yvette, a 33-year-old flight attendant from Melbourne and 26-year-old netballer Sandra from Adelaide, who immediately bonded with her fellow Adelaidean, Rachel. Each time a new contestant was introduced, they all had to pause, stand against the walls and wait for the cameras to be rearranged.

  They completed the tour after the sixth arrival—19-year-old Tamsen from Tasmania, on her gap year after high school—and opened a bottle of champagne found in the fridge by entrant number seven: 32-year-old Brooke, a commercial lawyer from Sydney, and also the one with a PhD and the body of Beyoncé. It was enough to make Anna’s self esteem plummet. Anna greeted the last few women from her perch at the kitchen counter, giving each new tour a miss and instead getting to know Hadie over a refreshing glass of bubbly.

  Anna and Hadie welcomed five more glamorous ladies into the villa, starting with Tallulah—22 years old from Darwin and a student of dentistry. Followed by Jessica—26 years old from Sydney, who was a magazine editor, and Dee from Perth—a 27-year-old accountant. After a long delay, Liu Kun arrived—a 24-year-old writer from Melbourne. The last to arrive was a 22-year-old law student from Sydney, Christina.