“I thought she was my friend, so I confided in her. A lot. Even some stuff about my past that I didn’t want to be aired all over TV,” I ended up saying. “She was going to try and use that against us. And…uh…she also managed to get a sex tape of us from Ben. Remember how he gave her access to all the cameras and stuff?”
The last part was technically true. Isobel didn’t need to know exactly why a sex tape of me and Dec couldn’t get out, though.
She nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. God, she was a bitch,” she said. She let out a deep breath. “Well, at any rate, I’m glad she’s gone. If she succeeded in getting rid of you two, she would’ve come after me and Mark next. So I guess in helping you, I helped myself a bit as well.” She stuck her tongue out at me, and I smiled.
“So what changed?” I asked, wrinkling my forehead. “What made you decide to be nice and help us, even though we’re technically all rivals on this show?”
She gave me a shy smile; something that was probably very rare for her. I didn’t think I’d ever seen her look shy, and I probably never would again. “You’ll think this is lame,” she finally said.
“Try me.”
“Mark,” she said simply. “When I walked down the aisle all those weeks ago and saw this skinny nerd with glasses standing there, my first thought was ‘hell no’. But then I actually got to know him, and…well, we’re perfect for each other. I know it sounds silly, but being with him these last couple of months has really changed me. I still want to win the prize money, of course, but I’m so happy with everything now. Happy with him. I just don’t have it in me to scheme or be mean to anyone anymore. If we win, I want it to be for real, not because I screwed other people over like Shayla tried to.”
“That’s great,” I said with a genuine smile. I was happy for her. “It’s not silly at all.”
She nodded slowly. “Thanks. So yeah, I decided to drop the bitch act and start being nicer to everyone. Everyone who deserved it, anyway.”
“I’m glad you deemed me worthy of that.”
She gave me a playful elbow. “Of course you are. You’re too young and sweet to not be one of the deserving ones. I can see why Dec is so obsessed with you.”
I smiled and looked out over the ocean view visible just beyond the garden, and then I turned to look at her again. “Can I ask you something else?”
“Sure. Shoot.”
“Earlier you said you didn’t just want to win the prize money. You said you needed to win. Why is that?”
She sighed and looked at her lap. “Only Mark knows about this,” she began. “I could’ve brought it up in all the interviews we’ve done on the show so far, but I hate the idea of playing on people’s guilt. If I win, I want it to be because people love us as a couple and choose us. Not because they felt pressured to.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” I said hurriedly, sensing that I was close to striking a nerve. “I was just curious, that’s all.”
“No, it’s fine. It’s nice having someone else to talk about it with, to be honest,” she admitted. “It’s my mom. She’s the reason I need the prize money.”
“Is she sick?” I asked, my eyes widening.
“Sort of. She has early-onset dementia. So she’s okay physically, but mentally…not so much. There’s this really great facility in upstate New York, not far from my home. I want to take her there to be properly taken care of, but it’s super expensive. So I was going to use the prize money for that.”
I put my hand on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” I said softly. “That’s awful. I know what it’s like to lose a parent. I mean, you haven’t physically lost your mom, but—”
“But I’ve still lost her.” Isobel finished my sentence before letting out a heavy sigh. “That’s exactly it. She barely even remembers me. It’s awful. But there are some days where she is lucid. Those are the days I live for. I’m hoping this place can help her have more of those days.”
A tear dripped onto her cheek, and she quickly wiped it away, obviously not wanting me to see it. My heart went out to her. No wonder she put up such a tough front. It was a hard shell to hide the soft vulnerability inside. I should’ve noticed sooner, but I’d been too selfish and focused on the fact that she used to come across as so abrupt and rude, and so I’d never even considered how hard her life might be and how much she might be struggling. I should’ve taken more time to realize how everyone I met was fighting some sort of battle in their own life, and that I wasn’t always a perfectly polite angel myself.
“I’m glad you felt like you could tell me,” I said, making a silent vow to myself.
Dec’s sister needed about six hundred thousand for her treatment, if I remembered correctly, but the Wed At First Sight prize was a million dollars. That meant if we won, we would have four hundred thousand left over when all was said and done. I still desperately wanted to win for Dec’s (and Amelia’s) sake, but I wanted to help Isobel too. So if and when we won, I was going to give her some of the prize money. I knew Dec would agree with me when I told him why. He was a wonderful man, and he would want to help out Isobel’s family the same way we were helping his own family.
The thought made me realize how much I missed having a real family to call my own. Dad and Callum were gone, along with all my grandparents. I didn’t have any other close relatives aside from Mom, and well…we all knew what she was like. She had her good moments occasionally, but in the end, she was the sort of woman who would use a sickly young girl to net herself a hot young trophy husband. It didn’t matter how you tried to spin it—it really didn’t look good for her. She was practically holding Dec hostage in a fake marriage so that he could get enough money to treat his sister; money that would’ve belonged to his family in the first place if my father hadn’t screwed them out of their businesses years ago.
Yeah, Mom was not the greatest person in the world, that was for sure.
I wanted a proper family again. A real family, where everyone was healthy and supportive. Kind. Loving. Happy. My hand fluttered down to rest on my stomach, and I couldn’t help but smile. If those blood tests from earlier came back positive for pregnancy…maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. Sure, I was young, but that just meant I’d bounce back quicker. And Dec would be there to help me through it, I was sure of that.
So no, it really wouldn’t be so bad if I was pregnant at all…
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Olivia
The results were in.
I waited with bated breath in Dr. Donnelly’s little office on the first floor. He’d called our room ten minutes ago to tell me to come in if I was free, and I’d hightailed it down here immediately.
Dec was hanging out with Mark (they wanted to try some sort of fishing with some locals while we had a free day from filming), so he hadn’t heard the call and thus had nothing to worry about. I hadn’t told him about my concerns yet. I figured I should wait till I had the official results, otherwise I might get him excited or freaked out about something that turned out to be nothing more than a stomach bug.
“So your results just arrived,” Dr. Donnelly said, pushing his glasses farther up his nose as he frowned at the computer screen in front of him. “You aren’t pregnant, Olivia.”
I widened my eyes. “I’m not?”
“No. Definitely not.”
I had to admit, I felt a pang of loss at that, even though there’d never been a baby to begin with. I knew then and there that once this was all over and Dec’s sham marriage to Mom was annulled, I wanted to start a family with him as soon as possible. “Oh,” I said softly. “So it’s just stress? Or a bug?”
He shook his head. “No. That’s part of the reason I wanted you to come in immediately. This is all very strange.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Strange?”
He shifted in his seat. “Do you use hand sanitizer, Olivia? More specifically, do you use a lot of hand sanitizer?”
“No.” I frowned.
“The tests showed an abnormally h
igh level of something in your system called triclosan. It’s an antibacterial agent. Common hand sanitizer ingredient. Usually harmless, but it can occasionally cause hormonal changes. Regarding estrogen modulation, specifically.”
“Er… What are you saying, exactly?”
“You had such a high level of triclosan in your system that it caused you to have hormonal symptoms which mimicked pregnancy. Nausea, tiredness, breast tenderness. A missed period.”
“Why would it be so high? Like I said, I don’t even use hand sanitizer.”
Dr. Donnelly frowned and leaned forward. “I really don’t know. I’ve never seen or heard of anything like this. Honestly, I’m quite sure that for such a high concentration to be found in your blood, you’d have to actually ingest the stuff. Not just put it on your skin.”
“Like…it could happen if I drank a bottle of hand sanitizer?” I said, wrinkling my forehead.
“Not a whole bottle. But yes, it’s almost as if you’ve accidentally dropped some in your food or drink. I cannot think of another way for so much triclosan to get into your system.”
My mind immediately flashed to Andrew. He’d already tried to make me sick once before, when I wouldn’t help him out with his stupid plan, so who was to say he wouldn’t do it again?
I gritted my teeth for a moment, then took a deep breath. “Could someone have dropped a bit of hand sanitizer in my food a few times? A small enough amount to mask the taste, but still large enough to eventually build it up in my system to make me sick like this?”
“It’s possible, yes. But Olivia, there’s no reason someone would do that. At least none I can think of.”
“They could’ve done it to make me sick. Maybe to make me leave the show.”
He shook his head. “If someone was actively trying to make you sick enough to make you leave the show, I doubt they’d use something like this. Like I said, this stuff is mostly harmless. Even with a high concentration, as it is in your case, the worst it can do is cause hormonal shifts, leading to the nausea and other symptoms you’ve experienced. It could never make you seriously ill, let alone be life-threatening. I’d say this is purely accidental. Are you sure you don’t use any sort of hand sanitizer?”
I let out an exasperated sigh. “Yes, I’m sure.”
Dr. Donnelly cast a suspicious gaze on me. I could tell he didn’t believe me, and he probably thought I was crazy for thinking someone might try to make me sick. But it’d happened to me before, so it could easily happen again. “Do you really think someone might be out to harm you?” he asked, disbelief still flashing in his eyes.
I shrugged. “Well, one of the contestants put laxatives or something similar in my food when we went on that yacht thing several weeks back. There are some real assholes on this show.”
His eyebrows shot up. “My god. Really?”
“Yep. I was vomiting and having diarrhea for two straight days. I know the guy did it because he damn well told me.”
Dr. Donnelly shook his head in disbelief, but at least this time, the disbelief wasn’t aimed at me. “That’s disgusting. It’s unbelievable what some people will do to win a show like this,” he said. “But look, as I said, triclosan isn’t deadly. If this isn’t accidental, which I’m sure it is, then whoever has been feeding it to you didn’t want to kill you. They just wanted to make you sick, but it’ll be out of your system within a few days or so. No long-term damage.”
“And if it isn’t accidental?”
“Obviously if someone has been trying to make you sick, then we need to do something about it. But we need to be sure before we can report it. So I’ll need you to come back in a week for more tests. If it’s still in your system in a high concentration, then we can be certain that you’re being purposefully exposed to it. That’s when we can report it and try to find out who’s behind it.”
I nodded. “Sounds fair.”
“I’m sure it’s accidental. I really hope it is,” he said. He reached over and patted my shoulder. “I’ll see you in a week. Make sure you don’t go near any hand sanitizer just in case, all right?”
I gave him a grateful smile. “I’ll try. Thank you.”
I left the doctor’s office deep in thought. It had to be Andrew behind this. Asshole. He must’ve wanted revenge for what happened all those weeks ago on the cruise ship, when Dec went and ‘spoke’ to him. I still had no idea what exactly went down between them, but obviously Andrew didn’t like it, and he’d finally built up the courage to go after me for sending Dec after him.
I didn’t want to wait till next week to confront him. I wanted to get this done right now. Frowning, I doubled my pace and headed upstairs to the second floor, where I knew he shared a room with his fake wife, Yvonne.
I rapped on the door a few times, but there was no answer. Frustrated, I shifted from one foot to the other. I suddenly needed to pee, but I didn’t want to leave until I got hold of Andrew and told him I was onto him.
“Liv? What are you doing?”
I turned at the sound of a familiar feminine voice, and I smiled as I saw Isobel heading toward me. “Hey. I was just looking for Andrew.”
She frowned as she drew closer and stopped. “Andrew? Don’t you remember? He and Yvonne got voted out two weeks ago. They aren’t here anymore.”
I cocked my head to the side in confusion, and then it all came back to me. Crap, how could I forget? They had been voted out a few weeks ago, after the viewers clearly decided they were done with Yvonne’s bitchy attitude and Andrew’s arrogant assholery and let them know that in the online polls. So there was no way Andrew could be the one slipping drops of hand sanitizer in my food. That meant… Shit, that meant someone else was trying to make me sick.
But who? And why?
“Livvy, are you okay?” Isobel asked. “You’ve gone all pale again. Just like you were the other day in the garden.”
I shrank back, suddenly afraid of her. Of everyone. When it came down to it, I couldn’t truly trust a single person on this island apart from Dec. I didn’t want to suspect Isobel of doing anything untoward, especially after we’d become so close so quickly after our conversation a few days ago, but I had no choice. Like Dr. Donnelly said, some people would do anything to win a show like this, and I’d already seen firsthand evidence of that with Shayla and her antics. For all I knew, Isobel—or any of the other remaining contestants—could be secretly out to sabotage everyone else. Just like Shayla.
I forced a smile. “I’m fine,” I said. “I just really need to pee. I’ll catch you at dinner later?”
“Oh. Sure, see you then.”
I took off down the hall towards the stairwell, desperate to get back to my room so I could hide from everyone for a while. I could feel Isobel’s eyes on my back, and when I reached the stairs, I briefly glanced back over my shoulder. She was still standing there looking at me, her face twisted with confusion. Or was it suspicion?
I didn’t wait around to get a closer look. I quickly fled to my room and locked the door. Dec wasn’t back from his little fishing expedition with Mark, so I was all alone. With shaky legs, I stepped into the bathroom to pee, and upon removing my panties, I groaned. My late period had finally decided to arrive. Figures.
I balled up some toilet paper and stuffed it in my panties to stem the flow until I could grab a tampon, and then I crouched down and opened the bathroom cabinet. I rummaged around, frowning. Where were the damn things? They were nowhere to be seen.
I wondered if I might’ve accidentally put them on Dec’s side of the cabinet, so I leaned over and looked there. My heart began to thud painfully fast in my chest as I pushed some things at the back aside in my search for the tampon box. Sitting behind some shaving cream and aftershave was a bottle of hand sanitizer. Wait, no…two bottles of hand sanitizer. It wasn’t on my side, and I’d certainly never brought any into the room.
It was definitely Dec’s.
With trembling hands, I grabbed one of the bottles and turned it around so that I
could check the ingredients label. Maybe this was just a coincidence; maybe this was another sort of sanitizer that didn’t even contain the chemical that was so abundant in my system right now. But even as I thought it, my eyes confirmed otherwise as they skimmed over the ingredients list.
Contains triclosan.
Chapter Thirty
Dec
“Honey, I’m home!”
I grinned at my silly joke as I stepped inside the resort room I shared with Liv for as long as we were on the show, but my face soon drooped into a frown as I looked around. All the curtains were shut, blocking out the sun, and there were no lamps on to make up for the lack of light. Liv was sitting at the little table on the far side of the room in silence.
“Baby girl, why are you sitting around in the dark?” I asked, crossing the room.
“My head hurts,” she said.
“Oh, shit. Taken some painkillers?”
“Not yet.”
Her answers were so brief, so stiff. She was obviously in some sort of mood. I sat down at the table across from her, and my frown deepened as I saw two large bottles of hand sanitizer in front of her. “What’s going on, Liv?”
“I haven’t been feeling well lately,” she replied, evading the question. ”So I wanted to run something by you.”
“Uh…sure. Shoot.”
She stood up, looking down at me with a shrewd expression. “Something occurred to me today. Something I should’ve thought of sooner. You must really hate my family, right?”
“Why?”
“My dad screwed your family over in business. Took most of your money. Left you in a position where none of you could afford your sister’s expensive life-saving treatment. And then my mom tracked you down a few years later and offered to help your family as a sort of ‘fuck you’ to dad now that he’s dead, seeing as she couldn’t stand him when he was alive and probably wanted to make him roll over in his grave.”
“That’s pretty much exactly what she said when she approached me, yes.”
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