All in the Game

by Barbara Boswell

  So shouldn’t she join the others and indulge herself in this belated, all-expenses-paid spring break? Instead Shannen sank listlessly onto a cushioned lounge chair.

  She was bored. Bored! What was the matter with her? Who could be bored in a free tropical paradise?

  She could. She was.

  All she could think about was Ty. Instead of enjoying the indoor-outdoor pool with its water slide and tunnel maze, she was sitting here daydreaming about him. She pictured his dark eyes, alternately cool and intense, depending on his mood. Of the passion glittering in them as he looked into her eyes while poised to enter her.

  Her pulse began to race, and she tried to banish the provocative images from her mind. But how could she succeed when her body still bore the traces of last night’s passionate lovemaking? She was hypersensitive in certain intimate places, tender and achy in others.

  And she was all too certain that only Tynan’s touch could soothe her—by arousing and satisfying her all over again. And again.

  Her whole body flushed. Shannen snatched a drink menu from the table and began to fan herself with it. If merely thinking of him had this effect on her, how would she react to his presence?

  And when, exactly, would that be? Would he come to her room tonight? And if he did, what then? He would expect to go to bed with her, and heaven help her, she badly wanted that, too. But after that…

  He would head back to the island to film the contestants and she would spend another endless day like this one. Wanting him while wondering what, apart from their sexual chemistry, she meant to him. Waiting for him to say things he may never say.

  “Hey, there, you! I’m not sure which one you are, but I remember you said you didn’t like to be called ‘Twin.’”

  Shannen looked up at the sound of the friendly enough voice. She tried not to groan at the sight of Lucy, one of the girls who’d been in her tribe from the beginning of the game, until her recent rejection from the island.

  According to Cortnee, Lucy was also one of the girls who’d slept with Jed in hopes of winning his alliance.

  “It’s Shannen,” she supplied her name, hoping she sounded friendly enough. But not feeling very friendly at all.

  “Mind if I sit down?” Lucy dropped into the chair beside Shannen’s without waiting for an answer. She was carrying a blue drink in a huge glass shaped like a hurricane lamp. Her words were slurred, her movements awkward, no doubt from the effects of that neutron-blue liquid.

  “I want you to know I don’t hold it against you for voting me off,” Lucy announced.

  “Thanks,” murmured Shannen. “I guess we all have to go sometime—except for the winner, of course.”

  “The winner,” repeated Lucy. “Wonder who that’s gonna be?”

  “I don’t know. I wish it would be my sister.”

  “Oh, yeah, the other twin.” Lucy took a long gulp of her drink. “Hey, are you the one Jed’s been messing around with?” She looked confused. “Or is it that other one?”

  “It’s neither of us,” Shannen said coldly. “We heard he’d been messing around with you and Keri.”

  “Among others, as we found out. Our boy Jed is a real player.” Lucy smirked.

  Shannen stared at her, nonplussed. “You don’t mind that you’ve been, uh, played?”

  “Why should guys have all the fun? We girls can, too, you know. Being here is like a vacation fling, we may as well enjoy ourselves.” Lucy followed a hiccup with a giggle. “It’s all in the game, you know?”

  No, it was worse than “the game” of Victorious, Shannen mused bleakly. Lucy was describing a game of men and women sleeping together, using each other and openly not caring about the lack of…well, caring.

  As if that weren’t bad enough, it sounded like the perfidious Jed was not only boasting about his conquests, he was making them up and including Lauren in his tally. The gossip about her twin and Jed just had to be unfounded. Surely the only game Lauren was playing was Victorious.

  Listening to Lucy’s breezy assessment of the casual bed hopping sent Shannen’s anxiety level soaring higher. She’d hopped into bed with Ty last night—twice!—without a single word of commitment, before or afterward, from either of them. As if it were nothing more than a vacation fling.

  Maybe that’s all it was for Ty? He wanted her, sure. But Jed wanted Lucy and Keri, and they weren’t even pretending it went any deeper than that. Shannen thought of what she felt for Ty both before and after making love with him, of the words she’d wanted to say but hadn’t. She had muzzled herself, and deep in her heart had believed that Ty was doing and feeling the same.

  What if he wasn’t? She flinched at that heartbreaking possibility.

  “I came to ask you to have dinner and go to the Parrot Room with the gang tonight.” Lucy’s voice broke into Shannen’s troubled reverie.

  “Thanks, but I think I’ll—” Shannen paused, trying to come up with an excuse that at least sounded viable. “I’m still tired, and I’ll just eat in my room and go to bed early,” she added lamely.

  “Oh, come with us, you’ll have fun,” urged Lucy. “We all feel sorry for you, sitting here by yourself looking so glum. We know how much you miss your twin.”

  Shannen stiffened. “You feel sorry for me?”

  “It’s so sad! You and your sister are like together all the time for your whole life, and now you’re here and she’s over there and you—”

  “We’re not Siamese twins, we can exist apart from each other,” Shannen interjected, stung.

  The idea of the group feeling sorry for her because she and Lauren had been apart for less than twenty-four hours offended her greatly.

  Part of her wanted to blurt out that she was sitting here by herself looking so glum because she didn’t know if the man she loved was in love with her or simply in lust.

  Being Shannen, she would never make such a heartfelt confession.

  “I’ll hang out with the gang tonight,” she said instead. “Thanks for including me.”

  Ty glanced at his watch for perhaps the tenth time in the past half hour. It must not be working; perhaps the sand and/or salt air had taken its toll.

  But a check with Heidi confirmed his watch was up-to-the-second correct, and Ty faced facts. Time had not slowed to a halt, but his tolerance for his job had.

  He did not want to be here; he wanted to be with Shannen. In her room in the hotel making love or sitting on the balcony with her chatting while they ate. Just being with her, doing anything at all, was preferable to being apart from her, especially after last night.

  Instead he was here, trapped in a time warp of tedium, filming the Final Four contestants, Lauren, Cortnee, Konrad and Rico. Each one was posed, sitting or standing in a different setting while reciting a soliloquy about his or her feelings on making it this far in the game.

  “Clark Garrett and the network can kiss their dreams of a Victorious franchise goodbye after broadcasting the banal blatherings of the Final Four,” Ty muttered as Rico droned on. “This isn’t merely dull, it’s coma inducing.”

  “Maybe editing will help?” Heidi offered hopefully. “Why doesn’t Clark or Bobby have them do something besides sit around and talk?”

  “Cortnee’s not even wearing her bikini,” lamented Reggie. “And it’s a shame the evil twin isn’t the one who’s still here. Wouldn’t she have snarled at having to do these inane monologues! That would’ve been fun to see. Instead, we have the bland twin, who just simpers.”

  Ty thought how much Shannen would hate to hear aspersions cast against Lauren, who in reality wasn’t bland at all. Just as Shannen was no evil twin. So much for reality shows being real.

  But he agreed with Reggie on one point. Shannen’s fire would’ve definitely livened up the glacial pace of the soliloquies. Shannen could never be boring.

  He’d told her so last night, on the balcony.

  You’re incapable of boring me, Shannen. He was glad he’d at least said that, because there was much more he h
ad kept from her. Things she deserved to hear, like his feelings for her. Things she ought to know, like his true financial status.

  Last night she’d told him candidly that she preferred him without wealth. Without his “money issues,” as she’d phrased it. Well, thanks to wise investing, he had more money now than when they had first met.

  He could undoubtedly write a check covering what her family needed from his personal bank account. The diner repairs, the grandmother’s house and the older sister’s fledgling lawn business might seem insurmountably high to the Cullens, but not to him. He wouldn’t even have to tap into his money-market funds or touch his major liquid assets for such a minor sum.

  Suppose he were to offer to do it? He could make it an outright gift or a loan with no interest and no deadline to pay it back. Such a sum wouldn’t even make a dent in his portfolio.

  Ty tried to imagine Shannen’s reaction if he were to make such an offer. And found that he couldn’t.

  Would she be delirious with joy, and then proceed to show him just how happy she was with him and his money? Or would she be angry at him for lying to her—and then make him work mightily to convince her to accept his generosity?

  Shannen had said having money made him paranoid about being valued for himself. She certainly had a point there, Ty conceded. And when the notorious Howe scandals had hit, one after the other, he’d bailed on the name.

  Had that been a mistake, a step into the world of denial instead of the smart self-defensive move he’d considered it to be? Until this minute he’d never even thought to question it.

  Yet it helped immensely that Shannen already knew him as a Howe and didn’t judge him as one. He’d kept his distance from everyone in his new life, not trusting anyone to accept him for who and what he really was.

  Now he was playing his Trust No One game with Shannen herself by not being truthful about his “money issues.”

  Bobby arrived to announce another immunity contest. “You might be familiar with this one.” He beamed at the camera.

  Four wooden beams were being placed upright in the water—one for each of the contestants to stand on. It was an endurance test, and the last one left standing won immunity from being voted off the island.

  “Familiar with it?” Ty muttered. “This stunt was a staple of the earliest game shows, and it was tired even back then. Not to mention about as interesting as watching paint dry.”

  “No, watching paint dry is way more interesting,” Heidi countered snidely.

  “These kids are young and strong. It’ll be hours before one of them feels the need to move a limb.” Reggie groaned. “They’ll time-lapse the footage for the show, but we’re stuck filming in real time.”

  “What am I doing here?” Ty asked himself. “I’m thirty-four years old. Why am I living in a bug-ridden camp with kids years younger than me, filming wannabe celebs who will do anything for a buck?”

  “I hear you.” Reggie was sympathetic. “Hang in there, friend. Better gigs are on the horizon—they have to be.”

  Ty was disconcerted to realize he’d spoken his thoughts aloud. Truly a sign of how agitated he really was. He angled his camera to zoom in on a close-up of Konrad, who looked completely relaxed standing on the pole in the ocean.

  He was a lawyer, Ty admonished himself, though silently this time. He should be practicing law, not holding a camera on a contestant in a game show. It was the first time he’d questioned his choice of a new career since leaving behind the world of Howe.

  All lawyers didn’t have to be corrupt and unethical like his father and uncle, just as all accountants weren’t scheming thieves like his brother. He could choose to put his law degree and his talents toward a good cause.

  With his personal fortune, he wouldn’t have to take on cases for the money they would bring, which meant eliminating the criminal element and concentrating on those truly in need of legal assistance.

  He could open his own practice or work for a nonprofit legal aid organization. He could buy a house and settle down instead of traipsing from efficiency apartments and rented rooms while chasing camerawork on random shows.

  It seemed like an appealing alternative to what he was doing now. Why hadn’t he thought of this before?

  Ty fixed his camera on Lauren and wished she were Shannen, puzzling over why people had such a difficult time telling the sisters apart. Shannen was unique, remarkable, unmistakably herself.

  What was she doing right now? he wondered. Was she looking forward to seeing him tonight? He allowed himself to anticipate their reunion, his mind blissfully detached from the Final Four as his camera rolled on.

  Six hours of standing out in the sun on the post finally reduced Cortnee to tears. All four contestants had consistently refused Bobby’s serpent-in-the-garden-like temptations to quit the contest and be rewarded with food and drink.

  Ty didn’t admire their stamina so much as question their sanity. He began to feel guilty filming them, as if he were aiding and abetting torture. They weren’t even allowed a sip of water unless they abandoned their stance, thus forfeiting a chance to win the contest.

  For six endless hours, none of them would yield. If one of the contestants were to drop dead, he could help the bereaved kin file a wrongful death suit, Ty decided, not entirely facetiously. And he wouldn’t charge a penny for it.

  Lauren and Cortnee continued to wilt before the camera lens, and Rico looked increasingly uncomfortable. Only Konrad was stoic, his demeanor unchanged from when he first climbed atop the post.

  “I can’t do this anymore!” Cortnee cried at last. “If I get down, can I have some water and that avocado salad you offered me a while ago, Bobby?”

  “You certainly can!” Bobby assured her unctuously. “Plus, I’ll throw in any kind of sandwich and dessert that you want, too. As much as you want of everything. Have I made you an offer you can’t refuse?”

  Sobbing, Cortnee jumped off and swam the short distance to the shore.

  The roar of a high-powered speedboat engine was a jarring invasion into the quiet of the waning afternoon. Ty stopped his camera even before the shouted order, “Cut!”

  All filming ceased.

  “Say, that’s one of the hotel’s boats!” exclaimed Bobby, rising from his shaded deck chair. “It must be Clark bringing the network suits over for a look-see. I guess they want to meet us.” He smoothed an imaginary wrinkle from his impeccably pressed shirt and ordered Heidi to bring him a mirror and comb.

  Everybody watched as Clark Garrett and two older men dressed untropically in business-casual wear disembarked from the boat, which had retractable wheels to drive it right onto the shore. The driver of the boat, a hotel employee, tied the boat to a stake, something of a primitive makeshift dock.

  “As if this day weren’t long enough,” growled Ty. “Now it’s going to be truly interminable.”

  There were groans of assent from the production assistants.

  A far worse thought struck Ty. If the network executives were here on the island to watch the filming, there would be no need to take the day’s footage to the hotel for them to view tonight. No reason to leave the crew camp for the resort. And no opportunity to see Shannen.

  If he couldn’t see Shannen tonight…

  Ty resisted the urge to quit on the spot. He could buy that stupid boat and take it to the hotel right now. Neither his father nor his brother would hesitate to make such a flamboyant scene. They would even suggest a cameraman record the drama. It was that horrific flash of insight that kept Ty from acting it out.

  And then…

  “Lauren!”

  Shannen? Ty was glad he’d put down his camera, because he probably would’ve dropped it at the sound of Shannen’s voice. He wasn’t delusional—it was really her!

  She’d come out of the boat’s cabin and stood on the small deck to wave at her sister, a few yards out in the water.

  “Shannen! I can’t believe it! You’re here!” Lauren cried from her post.

&
nbsp; Ty couldn’t have said it better himself.

  “These guys were nice enough to let me hitch a ride over with them.” Shannen grinned as she hopped off the boat onto the sand.

  She was wearing a blue paisley sundress, and it looked as clean and crisp as one of Bobby Dixon’s ensembles. Her hair swung loose around her shoulders and was ruffled by the breeze.

  At the sight of her, Ty’s blood grew hot. Every muscle in his body tightened as a surge of erotically charged memories flooded him. And then she removed her sunglasses, revealing eyes alert and shining with intelligence and—when she spotted him—something more.

  Warmth. Humor. Tenderness. Was it possible to see such things in someone’s gaze or was he projecting what he wanted, what he needed, to be there?

  Ty walked toward her. Everybody was milling around; the production assistants bringing food and water to Cortnee, the rest of the crew taking a break with snacks or cigarettes while Bobby, Clark Garrett and the network execs toured the area.

  Ty didn’t care if everybody on the island was watching as he came to stand by Shannen’s side. “You must know how glad I am to see you.”

  “Must I?” She shot him a quick smile before turning to look out at Lauren, Rico and Konrad standing on the posts. “How long have they been out there?”

  “Over six hours. Cortnee just gave it up. Poor kid.”

  They both glanced at Cortnee, who was draining a bottle of cold water. Adam was fanning her with a large palm frond.

  “Poor kid is right,” agreed Shannen. “And if she gets voted off today, she won’t even have the fun of living it up at the resort till the end of the game.”

  Ty wanted to take her hand and pull her into his arms. The hell with keeping secrets! There was no reason to pretend there was nothing between them, no reason for the pretense of a casual conversation between cameraman and ineligible contestant.

  But he resisted the urge and didn’t make his move. Shannen was standing beside him, not close enough for their shoulders to touch or their hands to brush. She was looking around at the Final Four, not up at him, sending clear non-verbal messages to keep up the pretense.