Valerie felt every eye in the clearing lock onto her. Including Adrienne, whose spine had snapped straight. She still looked genuinely blindsided. But was it even that surprising that Sienna knew? Isla definitely knew. It only made sense that more people did too.
Valerie embraced the heat wrapping around her neck like a scarf, the fast beat of her heart, and the tingling in her toes and fingers. The less guilty she looked, the better. “Sienna, I think you assume that being a Saint means a martyr who deprives herself of everything.” Valerie chose her words very carefully. “In a game that’s built entirely on deceit and paranoia, finding something genuine is the purest thing a person can do. So, if I get to the final two, I’ll be winning this game as a Saint.”
Sienna looked pleased enough for Vivian to clap her hands. “Alright. Now that everything has been said and all the dirty laundry aired out in the open, it’s time to vote.”
Isla leaned over and muttered into Valerie’s ear, “Sorry, I had to tell Sienna,” she said.
Valerie huffed out a breath. “Of course you did.”
Isla laughed. “Secrets have the life expectancy of fruit flies around here. You, of all people should know that.”
Valerie sent her a glaring look just as Vivian stepped onto the pedestal. Not that she blamed Isla. If the roles were reversed, Valerie might have done the same exact thing.
“Each of you will come up and place a stone in a cup of the pair you’d like to see in the top two,” Vivian instructed, bracing her palms on the wooden edge. “Carmen, you’re up first.”
Adrienne leaned over and reached for Valerie’s hand. Since everyone knew about them now, there wasn’t much point pretending otherwise. Valerie squeezed her fingers back. “Whatever the vote, we’re good,” Adrienne said quietly. “No animosity, remember?”
“No animosity,” Valerie repeated. And she repeated it again in her head while the Final Council stepped forward one by one. Then again, while Vivian counted the stones. And then, when the count had been made, Valerie held her breath while her nerves swarmed in her stomach like aggravated bees.
“ISLA AND SAFIYA!” Vivian declared with a loud clap of her hands.
For a second Valerie didn’t react. The words floated somewhere in front of her, detached, like Vivian had announced the weather forecast, or she’d spoken in another language. Surely there was another name coming up... her name.
Valerie stared at her, waiting for the correction, but instead, applause erupted. People were standing and cheering. Safiya had her hands over her mouth. Isla looked completely stunned, and suddenly Valerie felt the world tilt. Her ears filled with pressure, and she felt her legs go numb.
“It’s okay,” Adrienne said, pulling Valerie to her feet. Feet that weren’t working because she couldn’t feel them. She couldn’t feel anything. “Isla played a great game. I’m definitely voting for her to win this season. I think even if she...”
But Valerie wasn’t listening because it wasn’t okay.
Not for Valerie.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Adrienne wasn’t surprised when Isla gave the speech of her life. Nor was she surprised when every single vote had gone in her favor. What Adrienne hadn’t expected, though, was Valerie whispering goodbye in her ear the second Isla had sabered the first bottle of Dom Perignon with a giant knife. They had been at the wrap party in mainland Mykonos, and the DJ had just playedFuegoand by the time Adrienne had actually made sense of what Valerie had said; the engineer was gone. Valerie had vanished into thin air.
Adrienne hadn’t been able to find her at Villa Helios either. She’d spent the hour before midnight in a frantic manhunt, checking the infinity pool, the outdoor bar, even the dark cobblestoned paths winding down to the private beach. But there had been no sign of Valerie. Although Adrienne had accidentally found Carmen heavily making out with one of the camerawomen inside the Villa’s stone chapel, and if Adrienne hadn’t been so consumed with finding Valerie, she would’ve happily interrupted them to point out the roaring hypocrisy of it all.
Instead, she’d rushed back to the villa to check Valerie’s room. After ten minutes of knocking, and a very inelegant peek under the doorway—Adrienne had gone nose to the floor and had seen nothing but furniture shadows—she’d gone to her room, locked the door, cracked open all three of the tiny bottles of Grey Goose Vodka she’d found in the small fridge, and dumped them straight into a mug. Then she’d run a scalding hot bubble bath while Mazzy Star looped from the speakers.She scrubbed every last bit of dirt from her fingernails before massaging lavender oil into her skin. Unfortunately, none of it had made her feel any better. The truth was that Adrienne was a wreck.
She’d honestly expected Valerie to pull her into a kiss under the cascade of confetti like Tamsyn had done with Isla in their Flinders Ranges season. She’d spent all of Safiya’s speech imagining Valerie begging Adrienne to move to Sitka with her, or at the very least, ask Adrienne for her cell phone number so they could connect after all of this was finished.
But nothing.
There had been a moment right when Eden had licked the tequila out of the waitress’s belly button when Adrienne had found herself wondering if the connection between them was entirely imagined, or worse, that it had been one-sided. But then she remembered what Valerie had said: finding something genuine is the purest thing a person can do. Surely Valerie had been referring to her. And if that was the case, didn’t Adrienne deserve a little more than a whispered goodbye? Yes. She. Did.
Which was why she yanked open her door, stomped out into the bright corridor that still smelled richly of the buttery, honey-soaked bougatsa pastries that were delivered to everyone’s suites this morning, and took a left back toward Valerie’s room. She was about to give it to Valerie so hard that Valerie would feel the burn two Alaskan winters from now, but when she got to Valerie’s room and banged her fist against the wood, there was no answer. She knocked again. And again. And again. When her fist ached from the pounding, she rested her forehead against the wood and sighed so dejectedly she even felt sorry for herself. “You can’t freeze me out just because we lost, Val. Even if you think it’s my fault.”
Because that was all this could be right? Valerie was upset with Adrienne for being too disliked to get to the final two. Shewas blaming Adrienne for losing to Isla and Safiya when, really, Isla had deserved to win this season all along.
“Can you just open the door?” she muttered, then gave another half-hearted knock. “I just want to talk. Please. I can’t be the only one who feels this.”
“What are you doing?” a voice suddenly said.
Adrienne jerked back as if the door had shocked her. Her heart vaulted into her throat.
But it wasn’t Valerie. It was Tamera.
Adrienne groaned. “Oh. It’s just you.”
