AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Five in all,” Fern said, handing Maire a glass of pale liquid.
Maire was surprised. She had assumed there would be at least a dozen contestants. That seemed to be the average number of players in all the reality shows she had binged over the past month.
She nodded over Maire’s shoulder. “We are just waiting on two more,” she said, looking at her watch. “And they should be here any moment.”
Two more? Didn’t she mean three? She scanned the large room and her eyes fell on a tall man, well over six feet, with a close-cropped head of hair and a silver-flecked black goatee. His dark eyes settled on Maire and she nearly spilled her wine. How was this possible? It wasn’t. There was no way.
It had been twenty years, but she knew this man. Knew him well. Maire’s heart stopped and then started again, skittering raggedly. The last time they saw one another, they vowed never to see, write, email, or speak to one another again. It was too chancy, too much of a risk. And until this moment, they had kept that promise.
They stared at one another, and the years slipped away. A cold, starry night, a partially frozen lake, the crunch of metal, his strong arms holding her tight. Then they were running, running for their lives.
FOUR
THE CONFIDANTE
Pulling her Prada suitcase behind her, Camille Tamerlane followed Fern Espa across the glistening marbled hallways of the villa, still not quite believing she could be a mere two weeks away from ten million dollars.
The email she hadn’t realized she had been waiting for had come a month earlier. Normally she would have deleted the message without even reading it, but the subject line snagged her attention. ARE YOU READY FOR THE ADVENTURE OF A LIFETIME? Why not? She clicked on the email.
A reality show, Napa Valley, ten million dollars. She laughed out loud. Yeah, right, she thought, but didn’t stop reading. The name of the show was One Lucky Winner and, apparently, she’d been nominated by someone to be a contestant. Someone who described her as “a woman who has dedicated her life to helping others become their best selves.”
A jolt of self-satisfaction coursed through her. She was San Francisco’s premier psychiatrist and hosted a number one podcast called Your Best Life with Camille. Her schedule was packed and her array of clients included a congressperson, a former child star, a world-renowned cello player, and a professional baseball player. Not that she would ever stoop to name-dropping—Camille would never do that. It would be unethical. She wondered who had made the nomination and flipped through all the possibilities: one of her patients, a Your Best Life with Camille listener, Parker (her producer). It was most certainly not her ex-husband.
But it was the ten million dollars Camille was most interested in. She needed that money. And fast.
Admittedly, she had gotten greedy—the Victorian home office in one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in the Marina District, the cars, the artwork, the designer clothing, the no-fail investments that failed miserably. Camille’s stomach burned at the thought of her maxed-out credit cards, her ex constantly knocking on the door for overdue spousal support, the whole mess with Travis Wingo, or Wingo as he liked to be called, a troubled former client.
At the end of the month, once she was declared One Lucky Winner, she would settle her debts and go back to being the sensible doctor that she was. Probably.
She quickly replied to the email and hit Submit, thinking she would never hear anything about the show again.
But a week later, Camille received another email notifying her that she was officially a contestant. All she needed to do was sign a release form and play the game. Why shouldn’t she be the winner? She was in good shape and she was smart. She could read people. That was her superpower. She was an expert in noticing and reading body language. She could sit across from a client in complete silence, no one uttering a word for an entire session, and learn volumes.
This was why she was such an effective psychiatrist.
And now here she was, in this gorgeous villa, just minutes away from meeting her fellow competitors. She smoothed the front of her navy dress, ran her fingers through her dark hair, and tried to ignore the way her Louboutins pinched her toes. She wished she hadn’t drunk all that champagne on the car ride over. First impressions mattered. But it was Dom Pérignon after all.
“I trust you had a good drive in,” Fern said, leading her down a long, dim corridor.
“I did,” Camille said, dragging her eyes away from what had to be hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of artwork and examining Fern.
Fern’s slight build, dark hair, lopsided smile, the square of her shoulders—all so familiar. But it was her voice... Had she heard that voice before? She had a brief phone call with Fern about the show, yes, but there was more. They moved down a shadowy corridor. Camille had definitely encountered Fern Espa before.
She tried to puzzle it out as she followed Fern but was distracted by the magnificence around her. Despite the metal poles and wooden planks used for scaffolding, it was as if she had stepped back in time into a moody and complexly textured Renaissance painting.
“The library,” Fern said as she opened a door and stepped aside so Camille could enter.
Immediately, Camille’s eyes found a barrel-chested man sporting khakis, brown cowboy boots and flashing a broad grin. Camille recognized him instantly. Senator Richard Crowley. Interesting. She had seen Crowley make the rounds on cable news and wasn’t a fan.
Camille responded with a wan smile and turned her gaze to a woman with a wild mop of curly red hair and a sprinkle of freckles across her nose, standing next to an unlit fireplace. She paid no attention to Camille, but instead sipped a glass of wine while covertly watching a tall, dark-haired, handsome man standing at a table that held a wide array of appetizers displayed on silver platters.
The dark-haired man had a meticulously groomed goatee and the slim, muscular build of an athlete. He picked up a wafer-thin plate and placed a bacon-wrapped date atop it, then added a spoonful of what looked like fresh calamari salad. Camille’s stomach roiled at the sight, though eating something might be the best thing for her. She needed something to soak up all the champagne she’d consumed on the drive.
Camille watched as the man retreated to a far corner of the room with his plate, casting his own glances at the redhead who sipped from a wineglass. The way the man and woman kept ping-ponging looks at one another, Camille had a feeling there might be more to that story. The woman patted the pocket of her oversize cardigan and an expression of pure misery crossed her face. So she was missing her phone just as much as Camille was. Giving up her phone was hard. Without it, she was cut off from her patients, along with the rest of the world. Camille felt naked without its weight.
“Just waiting on one more,” Fern called out as she pressed a glass of wine into Camille’s hand, then retreated to a corner of the room. She watched as Fern’s face furrowed in consternation as she pressed two fingers to her ear. She was wearing an earpiece and talking to someone. Whatever was being said was not going well. Camille strained to hear but was too far away.
After a moment, Fern moved to the center of the room and tapped a wineglass with a spoon. “As you know, I’m Fern Espa, and I’m your host for One Lucky Winner—the first reality competition of its kind to offer the winner the incredible sum of ten million dollars. All you have to do is outmaneuver your fellow competitors.”
