‘What would I get out of doing that?’
‘I don’t know. You tell me. Because it sure fucking feels like that’s what you’re trying to do.’ I pointed to my eyes. ‘This isn’t just overwork, Lily,’ I said. ‘This is you. This is what you being here has done to me.’
I’d hoped for a bigger reaction, but she didn’t give me anything. ‘Then let me help you,’ was all she said.
I folded my arms across my bare chest. ‘You can help me by giving me my radio back and getting out of my way.’
‘I caused the problem. Let me solve it.’
‘How do you propose doing that from the Villa, Lily Fireball?’
There was venom in my tone, but she ignored it. ‘I’ve already started. I talked to Suzette and Carrie. Filming’s cancelled for today. You obviously don’t need to film a Last Chance Party or a Necklace Ceremony, given Heather’s been cut, and it’s in everyone’s best interests to cool off and take a breath. And a nap.’
The look she gave me on those last three words was pointed. I refused to acknowledge it.
‘The key to getting boy-Dylan back on side is to remind him why he’s here,’ she went on. ‘So I got Suzette to set up a private no-cameras chat with girl-Dylan.’
‘Great. They can talk about how they have no chemistry and fuck up my plans even more.’
‘That’s a risk, I admit, but it’s not the most likely outcome.’
I raised my eyebrows.
‘Talking with girl-Dylan should trigger some thought processes for boy-Dylan,’ she said. ‘It’ll make him remember why he agreed to do the show in the first place.’
Lily poked me in the chest with one perfectly manicured fingernail. ‘And it’ll remind him how far you specifically were prepared to go to make sure he had control over his story.’
I clenched my jaw. Almost against my will, my mind was connecting the dots.
‘Then tonight,’ she said, ‘once you’ve had some more sleep, and something to eat, and you look more like a human than a troll who lives under a bridge, you’re going to sit down with him. You’ll offer him the most heartfelt apology in the history of time.’
‘He doesn’t want an apology. He wants it not to have happened.’
‘But it did happen, and you can’t even edit it out, because just about everyone fucking hates Heather now – and if we don’t put it in the show, then someone’ll start talking about how we did a big racism coverup to protect her, and it’ll be a thousand times worse. I know.’
We.
She’d saidwe.
If Lily had realised her semantic slip, she didn’t give it away. ‘I’m confident boy-Dylan will understand that too, now he’s had time to calm down,’ she said. ‘But just in case he doesn’t, you’re going to send me on the next single date.’
I was so stuck onweit took me a moment to process that suggestion. ‘Absolutely not,’ I said. ‘He’s actively afraid of you.’
‘Look, you know him better than me. This whole situation is proof of that, so if that’s what you think, then fine. Send someone else. But hear me out first.’
‘What the fuck do you think I’m doing?’
She ignored my tone again. ‘Boy-Dylan’s a tenderheart. Too nice for his own good. He might be scared of me, but he’s much more scared of people getting hurt because of him.’
The image of him and Cece flashed involuntarily in front of my eyes. How fast he’d run down the hill when he thought she was in danger. How tightly he’d held her to him. Their fingers interlaced on the Convent verandah.
‘I’m telling you, I’m the right choice,’ Lily said. ‘At least while he’s in this frame of mind. I’ll put the least pressure on him, because he knows he can’t hurt my feelings.’
‘Does anything hurt your feelings?’
She stopped. For a few seconds, she was perfectly still.
‘What kind of a question is that?’ she asked.
