A horn suddenly blew, and the mega-yacht ground to a halt. I didn’t even know yachts could do that, although I guess this wasn’t exactly a regular yacht. It was about a hundred times the size of a regular one.
“Cut!” yelled a producer. I noticed the cameras kept rolling, though. Assholes. They’d capture anything if they thought it spelled ‘drama’.
“What’s going on?” Chase asked, looking annoyed. “I’ve already had my makeup done twice today, I’m not going to—”
He was cut off as the yacht suddenly and violently tipped to the left. It righted itself again, but that didn’t stop pandemonium from breaking out.
“Oh my god, we’re going to die!” shrieked Hayley. “It’s like Titanic!”
Dec put his arm around my shoulders, holding me tight. “What’s going on?” I asked. I knew it was probably just something small, but my pulse was beginning to race nonetheless. I didn’t like being out on the ocean like this, and the thought of something happening out here was literally one of my worst fears.
“I don’t know.” Dec frowned and glanced around. “I’m sure they’ll tell us in a minute. But don’t worry, Liv. Nothing will happen to you.”
“Could you go and ask the producers what happened?” I said, looking over at them. They were huddled in a corner talking to one of the yacht workers, who’d just come up to the middle deck.
Dec shook his head. “I don’t want to leave you alone right now.”
“I’ll be okay. Like you said, nothing will happen,” I said. My voice was a little shaky, but simply having Dec around reassured me enough to put on a brave face.
He squeezed my hand. “Okay. I’ll be back in a minute.”
He pushed his way through a gaggle of Snob Brigade members who were still babbling about the Apocalypse or whatever it was they thought was happening right now. Christ, I thought I was dramatic when it came to the ocean, but Hayley could probably win an Oscar for her performance right now.
Everything will be okay. Everything will be okay. I took deep breaths and repeated the mantra over and over in my head as I waited for Dec to return.
I was wrong, though. Before he could even reach them to ask what was happening, the yacht worker who’d come up to talk to the producers cleared his throat to silence everyone. “I’m going to need you all to stay as calm as possible,” he said. “There are enough inflatable rafts to get everyone off safely, and—”
Someone cut him off. “Get everyone off? Why?”
He hesitated, then spoke up again. “We’ve hit something,” he said. “We’re sinking.”
Chapter Eighteen
Olivia
I was having a heart attack. I was sure of it. My chest felt tight, and I struggled to breathe as my throat constricted. We were sinking. Sinking. Right into the ocean, just like in my worst nightmares.
The yacht worker kept going. “So we need to get off the yacht in a calm, orderly fash—”
Before he could finish his sentence, pandemonium broke out again. So much for ‘calm and orderly’. With all the contestants shrieking and milling around, I couldn’t see Dec anywhere anymore.
“Dec!” I cried out. “Dec!”
He was by my side in an instant. “I’m here, Liv. Don’t worry. I’m gonna get you out of here safely, I promise. Not even a hair on your head is gonna get wet, okay?”
All four of my limbs felt frozen in place. I couldn’t move. I was petrified that if I did, the yacht would suddenly tip again, and we’d all be plunged into the icy depths of the sea.
“Come on.” Dec slid an arm around my waist, coaxing me to move. “There’s a tiny little island right near here. All we have to do is paddle the life rafts over to it and wait for the helicopters to come. They’ve already radioed the Starling Islands, so they’re on their way.”
Tears were building in the corners of my eyes. I let Dec lead me down below decks, where the rest of the yacht staff and show crew were helping out with all the inflatable life rafts. Someone handed us brightly-colored life vests as well. Dec helped me put mine on before sliding his own over his chest, and then he led me down to the end of the dive deck, where couples were departing in the small orange rafts.
“Here’s our raft,” Dec said, gesturing towards the bobbing inflatable in the water. It was held on a pole on the deck by a rope, and we were supposed to climb in before unfastening the rope.
I couldn’t take another step forward. One wrong move and I’d miss the raft, and I’d end up in the water. “I…I can’t.”
“Yes, you can, Liv.” Dec grabbed my hand and held it tightly to his chest. “I know you can. Where’s the strong Liv who yelled at me that first night we met, huh? The one who gave me a real piece of her mind and stormed away. That’s the Liv we need to see right now.”
I nodded, but my entire body was still shaking like a leaf. My stomach was doing flips, and the only thing holding me together was Dec’s hand on mine. His easy confidence calmed me, though, just a little. Enough to take a step forward, then crouch down as I slid myself into the raft.
“Easy,” Dec said, helping me all the way. “I’ll do all the paddling. You just sit there and try to breathe.”
I hadn’t even noticed the little paddles in the bottom of the raft. I wanted to help, but my limbs still felt heavy and useless as I sat back and did what Dec told me, trying to take deep breaths.
“Where is the island you told me about?” I asked as we bobbed farther and farther from the yacht.
“Not far. I just have to paddle around the yacht, then head south. You’ll see it in a sec.”
We moved around the other side of the yacht, and I breathed a sigh of relief as I saw the island in the distance. It was more of a sandbar with a few patches of trees, really, but it was still dry land.
“Um. Dec?” I said a moment later, looking down.
“Yeah?”
“How much water is supposed to get in this thing?”
Sea water was sloshing all over the bottom of the life raft now, and Dec frowned and began to paddle faster. “Don’t stress, baby girl.”
“This isn’t normal, is it? There’s something wrong with the raft.”
From the slight shake of his head, I knew I was right. He was just trying to make me feel better by denying the issue; trying to stop me from freaking out. I could see the truth in his eyes, though. The raft was getting heavier and heavier by the minute, and water was quickly seeping in.
The little island was only a few hundred yards away now. “We’re going to make it,” Dec said. “Just a little bit longer.”
Water was sloshing all throughout the raft now, and I was soaked up to my hips. “There’s a hole in the raft,” I said in a small voice. “First the yacht starts sinking, now this too.”
Dec didn’t deny it this time. He kept on paddling, droplets of water clinging to the strong muscles of his powerful arms as they moved back and forth. “You can swim, right, Liv?” he said quietly.
“Yes.”
“Good. We might have to swim the last few yards. But we’re nearly there. You’re gonna be fine. Okay?”
He looked right into my eyes, and for the first time since the yacht emergency began, I wasn’t afraid. I knew Dec would take care of me, just like he had so many times before. “Okay,” I replied.
He paddled until it was no longer feasible, and then he grabbed my hand and pulled me with him into the water. With all my clothes on, I immediately began to sink, but the life vest—and Dec’s strong grip—pulled me right back up above the waves only seconds later.
“Hold onto me and kick!” Dec called out to me. I clung to his back and did what he said. We reached the sandbar within minutes, and when the water was shallow enough for us to stand up and walk, Dec hoisted me into his arms and trudged toward the shore, holding me tight. As soon as we reached proper dry land, he gently lay me down on the sand and leaned over me. “You’re okay, Liv. See?”
“I know,” I whispered. “I…”
I was about t
o thank him when he cursed, cutting me off. “Son of a fucking bitch.”
“What?”
I turned my head to see what he was looking at. A lot of other couples had safely arrived on the small island (their rafts were hole-free) along with several Wed At First Sight crew members. Crew members who hadn’t even been on the yacht in the first place.
“Have those camera guys been sitting here waiting for us?” I asked. “Did they know we would all end up here?”
Before Dec could reply, I gazed out at the ocean. In the distance, I could see the mega-yacht still sitting out on the water. It wasn’t sinking. In fact, it was totally fine. Helicopters were circling overhead and dipping low, but they weren’t conducting rescues unless absolutely necessary. They were filming.
“The showrunners set this up,” Dec said grimly. “Those fucking assholes. They wanted to convince us all the boat was sinking, then watch how we all coped with the emergency. Absolutely fucking shameless.”
“We could’ve been hurt!” I said.
He shook his head. “No, they would’ve made sure no one was ever in any real danger. But Jesus Christ….I can’t fucking believe it.”
I looked up at him, and for a second, it didn’t even matter to me that the sinking emergency wasn’t real. The rescue was real. The way Dec had taken care of me in the water was real. The way he made me feel was real.
“Amazing work, guys!” A junior producer and two camera operators stepped toward us. I was still lying on the beach, and Dec was still crouched over me. “That rescue…wow! Now why don’t you give her a kiss, man? That’ll be the best shot of the week.”
Dec was right. The showrunners really were utterly shameless.
I was about to sit up and tell them to piss off when Dec’s mouth came down on mine, kissing me hard. After a stunned few seconds, I kissed him back, snaking my arms up around his neck to clutch him tightly. Dec’s hands wound under and around me, pulling me closer.
In this moment, it felt like our first kiss back in New York all over again. Raw. Primal. Perfect. When we finally broke away, the look in Dec’s eyes seemed to mirror the way I felt. This wasn’t just lust anymore. I was seriously falling for him.
Something told me he felt the same.
Chapter Nineteen
Dec
“Nine whole points.”
Ellen paused dramatically, using the few seconds of silence to feed some seeds to William, who was perched in his cage behind her desk.
“Do you know what that means?” Ellen went on, waving her hand at me.
“Er…no?”
“Five million more people than usual tuned in to watch the High Seas episode of the show last night,” she said. “We got over double our usual viewership.”
“Good for you,” I said stiffly.
“You sound annoyed.” She glanced at me as she slid her hand into William’s cage. Instead of eating the seeds off her hands, he pecked her instead. “Ow!”
“You and your showrunner buddies staged a fucking boat sinking, Ellen. People were terrified. Liv especially. She’s your daughter, so surely you know she’s afraid of the ocean?”
Ellen had the good grace to look slightly ashamed. “No. She’s never told me that.”
“Well, she is.”
“Freckle! Hello!” screeched William.
Ellen sighed and ran a hand through her hair before inspecting her face in a makeup compact mirror. “Look, Dec. Potential tragedy makes good TV. Good ratings. We need this season to do spectacularly after last season’s bust, and it is doing well now that we have all this drama.”
“As I said, good for you.”
She frowned. “No need for that attitude, Dec. Remember who pays your sister’s bills and keeps your family in the black. Wouldn’t want your sister out of that treatment program, would you?” I gritted my teeth, and she continued. “Anyway, that’s not why I called you into my office this morning.”
“Oh?” My heart began to thud painfully in my chest. We weren’t allowed access to internet or our cell phones while we were participating on the show, so I had no way of contacting my family. "Is Amelia okay?”
“She’s fine. Her treatment is going quite well, from what I hear. But I called you in here to talk about that little kiss on the beach.”
I assumed the ‘little kiss’ she was referring to was between me and Liv on that sandbar yesterday morning, after the dramatic ‘rescue’ the showrunners had put us through. I knew they only told us to kiss because it made for an amazing, romantic shot that the viewers would eat up, but I hadn’t been able to resist. I couldn’t keep my hands and mouth off Liv for a second longer.
Apparently that kiss was now being replayed across the States, and audiences had fallen even more in love with me and Liv as a couple.
“Viewers voted you two as having the best chemistry this week in the polls last night,” she said airily. “But Dec…it wasn’t real, was it?”
“What do you mean?”
“That kiss. I know my guys told you two to do it, but Christ, it looked real. And Liv is my daughter. She’s only nineteen, Dec!” She paused, then went on in a warning tone. “I know you and I aren’t actually ‘together’ in that sense, so you being with another woman wouldn’t exactly be cheating, per se. But that still doesn’t mean it’s okay for you to pursue my damn daughter when you’re twice her age. And once you and I go public with our marriage, I need you to at least appear to be loyal to me. You’re a trophy for a reason—for me to show off to everyone. Not for everyone to laugh at me behind my back and gossip about how my ‘husband’ is having affairs with other women.”
I hesitated. Of course the damn kiss yesterday was real. Real and fucking incredible. Liv meant the world to me right now. But so did my little sister, and if I went against anything Ellen demanded of me—and she’d made this damn clear—I’d lose the money she’d promised me to keep Amelia in her treatment program at the hospital. I needed that money. Moreover, Amelia needed that money if she was going to have a shot at living.
It was a deal with the devil, and that deal obviously came with a cost. It looked like that cost might be never having a real chance out in the open with Liv, at least not while I was embroiled within this sordid mess. We’d have to hide our budding relationship for a while, until I figured out what the fuck to do to sort this all out.
“Of course it wasn’t real,” I finally said with a feigned scoff, feeling sick at myself for even saying the words. “The junior producer guy told us to do it for the ratings, and I know how important your show is to you. So I did what they said. That’s all.”
Ellen almost looked satisfied by my lie. “So all the stuff between you and Liv…it’s all for the show? You have no feelings for each other?”
“No. Like you said, she’s half my age. We have no feelings for each other at all. It’s all for the show. I’m just trying to help you out, Ellen. You needed us to fill out the contestants, but you also needed good ratings. We’re giving you those ratings, aren’t we?”
I wanted to punch a hole in my own head after spewing all that bullshit. Maybe Liv was right about me in the first place. I was an asshole, willing to do anything it took for money, including lying about my own feelings. I kept telling myself I was different to all the other money-grubbers out there, because the cash was for my beloved sister’s medical bills, but right now I didn’t feel like I was any different to the other pricks at all. I felt empty, hollow.
Ellen nodded, looking wholly satisfied now. “You certainly are,” she said. “You and Liv are in the top four couples right now. Viewers have simply loved the chemistry between you two, and all the ‘rescues’. Even if it is fake.” She laughed harshly, then went on. “These shows thrive on drama, Dec. So keep giving us drama for the next few episodes. The right kind of drama. Got it, sweetie?”
I gritted my teeth, thanking god Liv wasn’t here to witness this bullshit. “Yeah. Got it.”
Chapter Twenty
Olivia
&nb
sp; I headed upstairs to Mom’s office, a spring in my step as I went. I was in such a good mood right now that it was as if nothing bad even happened yesterday. I’d almost entirely forgotten how terrified I was when the yacht began to ‘sink’, because Dec had kissed me.
He kissed me!
And it was good. So, so good…
When we got back to the resort and dried off afterwards, we hadn’t been able to see each other again for several hours because the producers wanted all the women to go to some bullshit filmed ‘counselling’ session to talk about the trauma of the yacht emergency, but the sheer memory of Dec’s lips on mine kept me going. I couldn’t even be mad at the shamelessness of the showrunners anymore, because their particular brand of shamelessness got me that perfect kiss.
By the time filming and dinner was done for the day, I was exhausted and climbed right into bed to fall asleep, and so I hadn’t had a chance to talk to Dec since the kiss. He wasn’t there when I woke up this morning, either, but I wasn’t worried. There was no way I misread the look in his eyes yesterday when we broke apart, lips still tingling. Just no way.
I paused outside Mom’s office door as I heard two distinct voices floating out. Three, if you counted the parrot. Dec was in there with my mother. Frowning, I listened in, even though I knew it was rude to eavesdrop on private conversations. Mom sounded a little mad, and I wanted to know why.
“She’s fine. I called you in here to talk about that little kiss on the beach. Viewers voted you two as having the best chemistry this week in the polls last night. But Dec…it wasn’t real, was it?” Mom was saying.
“What do you mean?” Dec asked.
“That kiss. I know my guys told you two to do it, but Christ, it looked real.” I couldn’t hear the rest of the things she said, but I knew what it entailed. I’d gleaned that much already. She was asking Dec if there was anything going on between the two of us.
Daddy's Fake Bride (A Fake Marriage Romance) Page 11
