I slump down onto a fallen log and let my body go limp. Tears fill my eyes and I shake my head. “Okay, forget it. I’m not meant for this. I give up. Just call the helicopter and have them come get me. I don’t want to do this anymore. I thought I wanted a great adventure, but this is not what I had in mind. You win. My brother wins. My father wins.”
I let one arm flail out to the side. “The entire staff at the palace—they all win. I am just a sheltered, spoiled, soft princess who has no business being out here whatsoever. I’m sorry I wasted your time and the time of the network, and I sincerely apologize to the People for Animals Society for losing the funding, but please, I must leave now.”
He holds his hand out to me and barks, “Get off that log. You’re about to be attacked by a colony of bullet ants.”
“Ouch! BEEP!”
I jump up, screaming, “Get them off me! Get them off me!!!!” while I run to Will.
He stops me with both hands, then brushes the ant off me while I continue to scream.
“It’s okay. It’s gone now.”
“No, it’s not okay,” I say, shaking my head wildly. “Just call them. Call them and get me out of here now! This is over. You were right. I was wrong. I can admit it, okay. I’ll go home and go back to giving tours to those hateful nonagenarians. It’s not that bad.”
“This is the worst moment. I promise it gets better from here.”
“No, it won’t,” I sob loudly. “I thought this was like Survivor—if something goes wrong, they always have people nearby to rescue them.”
“Survivor’s a game show. Have you not watched The Wild World?”
“I assumed you didn’t show the safety people,” I say, sniffling in a most undignified way.
“That’s because there aren’t any safety people,” he says, shaking his head. “What did you think the danger bonus was for?”
“I don’t know, to make the whole thing more dramatic?”
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no!” I plead to the screen, sitting up so suddenly, I startle Dex. I watch, utterly helpless as on the telly, I’m clicking my hiking boots together at the heels, saying, “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.”
“Why?! Why couldn’t she have cut that out?” I shut my eyes tight and cover them with my hands as I hear myself go into a total nuclear meltdown.
“I’m sorry I did this. I never should’ve applied. I think maybe I’m having some sort of quarter-life crisis or something. I’ve just turned twenty-nine… which would mean I’m planning to live to be almost one-hundred and twenty. Maybe it’s a third-life crisis. Is that a thing?”
“Not sure,” Will says. “But the math sounds solid.”
He’s the voice of reason to my hysterical nut job.
“…I’m under a tremendous amount of pressure to find a husband before I turn thirty. Only all the men I know are complete wankers and I could never be attracted to any of them. They want to set me up with the future Earl of Wimberly, and do you know what his nickname is? Hal, as in halitosis! Yeah, imagine kissing that until death do us part. No, thank you.”
“Oh my God,” I whisper, my stomach churning. “Why couldn’t they have cut that out? Why did I have to say that?”
“Then I drank too much champagne at your sister’s stupid wedding. Who has a champagne fountain? I mean really! How irresponsible can you be?! After my third glass, I met you and I thought, ‘Yes!’”
I look up at Will. “No, not like that. I don’t want to marry you. God, no. You’re a total BEEP. I wanted your life for a while. The way you were bragging about it, you made it sound so free and easy and wonderful—all lies, by the way—but I thought to myself, ‘If I could just be him, even for a few short days, it would all be okay.’”
“Oh, wow, they’re showing the entire thing. Every last stupid word. The bastards.” I consider shutting it off, but I can’t bring myself to do it. For one thing, the remote is all the way over on the far side of the coffee table and my entire body is frozen with shock and guilt and humiliation. For another, I probably should know exactly what kind of trouble I’m going to be in tomorrow morning. Am I still yelling? Yes, yes, I am. “Shut up, you idiot,” I tell myself.
“…Yeah, no garlic! And I’m not allowed to wear heels taller than two inches or miniskirts. In fact, I can’t even wear anything that cuts off above the knee, as if my bare knees are so scandalous. I’ve had to dress like I’m some woman in late menopause since I was… wel … born, I guess. And honestly, that makes it really hard to attract a man.”
I step closer to him and put my hands on his upper arms. “You know when I got to wear those shorts earlier? That is probably the most free I’ve felt in my entire life. But then you said I had to change, and it was over, like that.” I snap my fingers in his face. “And now, here we are. I’m in my baggy, ugly communist-chic outfit, and I’m going to get us both killed. I am, Will. We are going to die out here. Possibly today, maybe tomorrow, but most certainly before the end of the week. I’m not going to see my niece and nephew grow up. I mean, they’re so cute and cuddly, and they adore their Auntie Arabella”.
“Oh, God. Could this possibly get any worse?” I ask, suddenly feeling sick. I give Dexter my bowl of crisps to finish. “It’s like I blocked all of this horribly embarrassing stuff out of my mind as soon as it was over, but now, it’s right out in the open for the world to see.”
I burst into uncontrollable sobs until tears are pouring down my cheeks. The camera angle tilts down and now Will’s GoPro is filming the top of my head and back. You can see his arms are wrapped around me and hear him shushing me.
“And I’ve had to use the loo for hours now and I’m afraid to ask how that even works because I hate you so much and I just know it’s going to be horrifyingly embarrassing and likely you’ll have to stand guard while I squat somewhere only to end up wiping my arse with some sort of plant that will cause a horrible rash!” I sob into his shirt. “An itchy, painful rash. And I’m not allowed to scratch anything, let alone my bottom. It’s going to be excruciating!”
“Oh, wow,” Will says. “When you fall apart, you really go for it.”
Yes. Yes, I do. And now I’m doing it for the entire world to see…
“I’m not allowed to fall apart!” I wail.
“Okay, Arabella,” he says. “Let’s deal with one problem at a time. Using the loo is pretty simple, really. I’ll find some moss for you, then dig a little hole near a log—one without bullet ants—then I’ll walk away to give you some privacy. You do what you need to do, then you cover the hole and we don’t ever have to talk about it again.”
I nod and sniffle. “That sounds dreadful.”
“It’s not all bad. Once we’ve dealt with that, I’ll set up the camp and feed you. I promise, you’ll feel a thousand times better once we do those things, okay?”
I sniff again and nod. “Okay.”
Wiping my cheeks, I stare at the ground. “Sorry. I don’t normally fall apart like that.”
“Can I tell you something?” he asks.
I nod and dab daintily at my eyes.
“The first night is always the worst. I promise. And it really will get better from here.”
“Not if we die.”
“We’re not going to die. I won’t let that happen.”
“Shit,” I whisper, watching as Will places both hands on my shoulders. “I didn’t think it was possible, but episode one was actually far less awful than this.”
Dylan’s face fills the screen again. “What a man, what a man, what a mighty good man,” she says. “Look at how he calmed her down just there. He should be called the Princess Whisperer. Stay tuned to see the incredible meal he whips up and to hear Will’s own shocking revelation of his first time out in the woods.”
Will appears onscreen again. “I cried the first time I spent the night out in the wilderness.”
“Oh for God’s sake,” I mutter. “He was only seven years old at the time. Dylan is such a C
-word.”
Twenty minutes later, I watch as we eat some fish and yams, and then Will checks my feet for infection and makes a salve for my sore ankles. I sigh wistfully, remembering the feeling of his strong hands on me as he took care of me. “Why can’t my family be watching this bit? They’d totally love him. I’m pretty sure that was the moment I fell for him,” I tell Dexter, who is snoring away now, having gone into a crisp coma.
Will looks into the camera. “You can see the consistency of the salve is a nice thick liquid so it’ll glide on smoothly. We’ll let it cool for a while before I apply it, but in the interest of allowing my co-host some privacy, I shall now bid you good night and turn off the cameras until morning so the batteries can charge up while we charge our own batteries.” The video feed shuts off, there’s a click, then audio recording picks up Will’s voice. “That was cheesy.”
“Just a bit. There. Much better.”
“Yes, we’re alone now.”
“Children behave, that’s what they’ll say when we’re together,” I say.
“Wait a minute. He said he shut the camera off,” I mutter, my heart pounding a little in my chest. A minute later, I can hear myself belting out a Tiffany song completely off-key. I let out a gasp. “Dear God, no.”
I grab my phone and dial Dylan’s number, tapping my foot on the carpet while I wait for her to pick up. I get her voicemail and hang up, then call one of the VP’s of Unscripted at ABN, Kira Taylor. No answer.
In the background, I can hear myself admitting to having yucky feet. “Why is this being filmed?”
I dial Will’s number, knowing it’s useless. I wait until the beep and leave a message, “Hey, babe, listen. Slight problem with the show. I guess you forgot to shut the audio off because I just heard us singing ‘I Think We’re Alone Now,’ which happened after you said you were shutting the camera off. Call me,” I say, trying to sound breezy.
“I’m not ready to sleep just yet. I want to stare at this until I know I’ll never forget it.”
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” he asks. “People go their whole lives without seeing the earth and the sky for what they really are. They just stay stuck in their boxes from the moment they are born until they die.”
“I’ve spent my entire life in a box. A very grand, luxurious, safe box,” I say.
“Is that why you came, Arabella? Because you can’t stand being confined anymore?”
“I needed to get out. I felt like… I might…”
“Die if you didn’t?”
“I know it sounds horribly ungrateful. For someone like me to feel any sort of discontentment when my life is one of incredible privilege.”
“Not to me, it doesn’t. To me, your life sounds really sad.”
“I don’t know if it’s sad,” I say. “But it comes with a list of dos and don’ts that could fill up that whole night sky.”
“How did you convince them to let you do this?”
“I didn’t. I approached Kira Taylor in private, then I had to sneak out of the palace without my security following me.”
“Are you serious?”
“My grandmother plays poker once a month with the guys who work in the garage. One of them was into her for a lot of money, so I was able to offer him a nice wad of cash to hide me in the boot of his car and take me straight to the airport.”
“Okay, can I just say how impressed I am?”
“You may,” I say in a regal tone.
Oh no, why the regal tone again? People are going to think I’m serious.
Dylan comes back on. “You may,” she says, imitating me. “Must be nice to have handsome men offer to wash your feet. Clearly, based on her tone, she’s grown to expect that kind of service. Anyway, that’s it for our show tonight. Stay tuned as Nigel Woods and Hannah Gable, of Will’s Wild Fangirls fame, join me on the couch to dissect tonight’s episode. And there is a lot to talk about!”
Text to Will: Call me please. Issue with the editing or something. I need to talk to you now.
I stand and start pacing the room, then walk over to the bar and pour myself a glass of red wine. “He wouldn’t have secretly filmed me, right Dex?”
I down the drink and pace some more, my mind racing. I’m about to help myself to another drink when the door opens. Arthur and Tessa walk in, her in a lovely black gown and him in a tux.
Arthur looks at my drink. “You do know you’re babysitting the future queen?”
Tessa glares at him. “And her brother.”
I ignore the exchange and launch into an incoherent explanation of what happened, right from the start of the episode to Will taking such good care of me to our horrible singing. The words spill out non-stop and I don’t even take a breath until after I ask, “It must have been an accident, right? I mean, if he did secretly video me, he really should have told me by now, shouldn’t he have?”
In the background, Nigel Wood is saying, “And is it me, or did that conversation sound a lot like Arabella was trying to get Will to feel sorry for her? I mean, the whole bit about living in a luxury box? Come on, people!”
Tessa hurries to the television and shuts it off.
Arthur, who poured himself a scotch while I was yammering on, sighs. “He obviously did it on purpose. He’s clearly using you to get ahead.”
“You don’t know that, Arthur,” Tessa says.
“Sure I do. He left her to deal with the fallout from the show,” he says. “And do you really think it’s a coincidence that he’s gone at the exact moment she’s discovering he secretly recorded her every word?”
I chew on my thumbnail. “I mean, it could have been a mistake, right? Maybe he just did it the one time and didn’t even know he did?”
Arthur rolls his eyes. “Give me a break. You don’t think he knows how to work a G0Pro?”
“No,” Tessa says, shaking her head. “You’re wrong. He invited Arabella to meet him in Thailand. If she were there, he’d have to face her in person.”
“But I wouldn’t be watching,” I say, my heart pounding in my ears.
“What?” she asks.
“I’d be out climbing right now and I’d have missed the entire episode.”
“But other people you know would fill you in on it,” Tessa says. “My mum, for example. She’s definitely glued to her telly right now.”
Arthur walks over and puts his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Arabella, but it’s too convenient. He leaves the audio on, gets you to admit to hating your life, makes you sound like a total idiot, and makes himself sound like the ultimate boyfriend material. I know you have strong feelings for him, but it’s time you put your guard up before you get hurt. He’s not to be trusted.”
“Arthur!” Tessa starts, but the look on my face stops her.
“He may be right,” I say, forcing out the words, even though I hate myself for thinking them. “I mean, it all seemed so real, but it’s true. He did leave, didn’t he?”
Tears prick my eyes, but I blink them back inside.
“Oh, sweetie,” Tessa says, rushing over to me.
I hold up one hand, not wanting to fall apart in front of my brother. “Thanks, but I’m fine. I’ll go back to my place so I can try to get a hold of Will.”
“Good. Give him a piece of your mind,” Arthur says. “And then hand him over to me. I’ll go up one side and down the other. He’s going to wish he never met you.”
“Or,” Tessa says, giving Arthur an urgent look, “You calmly ask him if he knows how this may have happened. You need to leave room for the possibility that this isn’t his fault.”
“Do I?” I ask, turning toward the door.
“No,” Arthur says at the same time Tessa says, “Yes.”
When the door shuts behind me, I close my eyes and let out a long breath. The shitstorm I’ve unleashed is going to be unbearable and it looks like I’ll have to face it alone.
16
Impatient Directors, Starving Supermodels, and Phone Calls You Never Want to Get…
Will
“Okay, Will, stop there and go back down,” Giorgio, the director, calls into the megaphone. “We’re going to need you to do that again so we can get the drone to circle counter-clockwise this time.”
Seriously? I just had to redo the entire climb so the drone could go clockwise, and to be honest, I’m getting more than a little annoyed at this point. It’s about a thousand degrees out, I’ve been up and down this cliff-face more times than I can count on both hands (mainly because my fingers are cramping up too badly to use them for counting), and I’m thirsty as hell. Oh, and Giorgio insisted I climb without a shirt which is inadvisable for several reasons including, but not limited to, scraping the bejeezus out of your skin and/or risk of sunburn. The worst bit is that, directly under me, the calm, crystal blue sea beckons me with the promise of refreshment, only I can’t let go and jump in on account of all the recording equipment strapped to me. “The whole thing or just the last twenty feet?” I ask, glad that I’m mic’d up so I don’t have to shout.
“Un secondo,” he says.
Sure. No problem. I’ll just hang out here against this cliff in the blistering sun while you review the footage.
I glance down at Lara and Kenneth, who seem totally oblivious to what’s going on. They came along for the fun on the first ascent, then spent an hour or so canoodling in the water and are now sipping cold drinks under the pop-up tent for the crew. And I know, I’m getting paid for this, and I am grateful—really, I am. But I’m also tired and worried because of how I left things with Arabella. Even though she’s been supportive of me taking this opportunity, I’m pretty sure Kenneth and I are stretching her patience with this second stop on our globe-hopping commercial shoot. And I have a niggling feeling that the longer I’m gone, the worse it’ll be for our relationship. The truth is, I let her down, even if I did do it for the right reasons. And that’s the very last thing I ever wanted to do.
Finally, Giorgio makes a decision. “Come down halfway and we’ll see if we can do it from there in one shot. And can you do it faster this time?”
Royally Wild (Crazy Royal Love Romantic Comedy Book 2) Page 13
