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“Got it.” Jordy slips back into the front seat beside the driver, as Gwendolyn and Isaac’s boat speeds off ahead of us. Skye and I sit behind Jordy, ignored, apparently, now we aren’t in immediate danger of drowning. Or, more accurately, now we aren’t doing anything interesting for the cameras. Now that the adrenaline rush is wearing off, I suddenly notice howquickly the temperature has dropped with evening approaching. I curl into myself to brace against what’s going to be a super freaking uncomfortable trip back to shore. My shoulders are already shaking from the cold.

Skye glances at me, then frowns. “Do you have a towel, or a blanket or something?” she asks. “She’s freezing.”

The driver shakes his head. Jordy turns around, frowning. “I can take my shirt off?” he asks.

So he can show off his chiseled back, too, and get a shot of him acting chivalrous? I think the fuck not. I shake my head sweetly. “For the sake of the show, you should leave it on,” I say. “You can’t be naked thewholefirst two episodes, or the people at home will be immune to it by next week.”

“Good thinking,” Jordy says, before promptly turning around and forgetting all about us again.

Skye sighs and sends a pointed glower to the back of Jordy’s head, then wraps her arm around my shoulder and pulls me into her. So, wearetouching-friends now, then.

Now that I’m tucked into her chest, the sting of the wind is dulled, and suddenly all I’m aware of is the heady scent of perfume on her neck. And the pressure of her arm. And the steady rhythm of her breathing as she rests her head against the top of mine.

“He’s missing a golden promo shot opportunity,” Skye whispers, just loudly enough for me to hear her over the roar of the engine. “It should be him sitting here.”

I grin up at her, then look around to check on the camera operator. He’s filming our boat dutifully, and he gives me a little wave when he notices me looking. I raise a hand in return.

“I would place any bet that this isn’t getting into the final cut,” Skye says. “Can you picture it? Sweeping music, a voiceover insisting that he’s devoted, and romantic—no, truly, everyone, we promise, it’s not what it looks like.”

“Then the camera pans to him sitting in the front of the boat, pretending we don’t exist.”

“The voiceover cuts to a clip of him shoving you in the water.”

“Oh, you saw that?”

“I did see that. I think our ex-boyfriend might be a psychopath, you know.”

“That’s what I’ve beentryingtotellyou!”

When we finally make it back to the pier, the other girls are already gone, whisked away to the mansion to get ready for the nextNotte Infinita.

“You won’t have time for a shower, Maya,” Isaac says apologetically. “Just… scoop your hair up, get dressed, and I’ll run to the hotel with Jordy and find you one of his coats to wear. We’ll spin a thing about him rescuing you and taking you both straight here.”

“Thanks,” I say wryly, and he wiggles his eyebrows at me. He, at least, seems thrilled with the “rescue” plotline we’ve given them.

Pity it made the wrong person look like a hero.

Back at the house, Skye and I hurriedly change into the dresses we laid out for tonight—Skye’s, a shocking-pink two-piece that exposes a tanned strip of stomach, and mine an off-the-shoulder with puffy sleeves in a shade of soft violet. Then we pack the rest of our suitcases—just in case Jordy decides to kick one of us off right after dramatically saving our lives—and run downstairs, where everyone else is hanging out at the bottom of the staircase.

“… photoshoot was actually really fun,” Francesca is saying to the girls. “I think I’m actually starting to like him, alittle? Is that too soon? He said he thinks I could be a model, which is ridiculous, obviously, but it gave me—”

“Oh my god, Skye!” Lauren says as she sees us. “Are you okay?”

The girls swarm in as we join them.

“We told the producers you were drifting,” Kim says. She’s standing with her own packed suitcase, ready to be whisked off with Jordy straight after we finish shooting tonight. “But you were so far out by then! They made us go inside before they even got to you.”

“I can’t believe you swam after her,” Francesca says to me, and Lauren and Kim turn, wide-eyed and earnest.

“Yeah, that was wild,” Kim says.

“It wasbrave,” Lauren adds.

“It wasdangerous,” Perrie says, frowning at me.

I shrug at the ground, uncomfortable with all the praise. Maybe if I’d earned it, sure. If they knew how un-accidental the whole thing was, they might be a little less impressed with me. “My kayak was tied up, and she was drifting, and I couldn’t get the producers’ attention, so I figured if I quickly went after her I could reach her.”

Perrie’s eyebrow quirks at what she knows to be a lie, but, bless her, she doesn’t sell me out to the others.