Love in Reality: A Contemporary Romance (The Blackjack Quartet) (15 page)

How should he respond to that? He’d felt the same thing watching her compete—that he didn’t want her to win. Unsettling to have concrete evidence that she was playing the game with him in mind.

When he didn’t say anything, she looked up, worried. “I shouldn’t have said that, hunh?”

“No,” he said hastily. “No, I feel the same way. I don’t want you to go home yet.”

“You mean, if Jim puts me on the hook?”

“Well, yeah,” he admitted.

“There’s still the Get Off The Hook competition,” she said.

“What if you don’t win that?” he asked softly.

She went back to playing with her shorts. “Then I have to go back to work at the Cork.”

“I don’t want you to leave,” he said.

She looked straight at him. “I can’t stay here in L.A.,” she told him. “Everyone back home would know I’d lost. I’d have to go back.” She put her feet back on the floor and leaned forward. Her expression pleaded for him to understand.

Rand’s head was spinning. His reaction to this woman seemed crazy. He didn’t know her yet. They’d been together a handful of times, they lived on opposite sides of the country, they’d not dated or met each other’s family, or even— Well, they’d kissed. He had to stop thinking about those kisses. Unfortunately, that caused him to remember the way her T-shirt had ridden up on her midriff that morning by the pool. Thinking about the kisses was safer, although not by much.

He took a deep breath. “Then it’s simple. Don’t get picked, and if you get picked, win the Get Off The Hook,” he told her in a firm voice.

She laughed. “Aye aye, sir!”

“So do you have a deal with—” Rand checked the cheat sheet “—Jim?” The guys in Editing would know from the tapes if Lissa had made a deal with anyone, but they wouldn’t necessarily tell him.

“You mean an alliance? No. I don’t want to be in an alliance yet.”

“Isn’t that risky?” he asked.

“Maybe. I’m not going to win the money, though, so I don’t need to play the game the same way.”

Rand frowned. She said that like she knew it as a fact. “Why aren’t you going to win the money?” he asked.

She shifted on the sofa, folding her legs up so her feet were propped on the edge of the sofa. She shrugged. “I don’t care enough. It’s not really why I’m here. And, well, can’t you see it would be better if I didn’t win?”

That floored him. “I hadn’t thought about it.”

She cocked her head to one side, challenging him to work it out for himself. “C’mon. Even if we never spoke after tonight, people know you like me. How would it look for you if I ended up winning?”

Rand was surprised she’d thought about that, and shocked he hadn’t. “You worry they’d take the money back?”

“Well, I know I won’t be winning it, so no. I just don’t want you to lose your job because of me.”

“I don’t love this job, Lissa. If I lost it, it wouldn’t be the end of the world,” he said. He couldn’t tell her he already planned to quit as soon as his screenplay was ready.

“But everyone would know. That wouldn’t make it any easier for you to find another job, would it?”

“Maybe not. It just isn’t that important to me.” He struggled for an acceptable explanation. “I’m not looking to make a career of reality television, you know.”

“No, I don’t know that.” She sounded annoyed. “C’mon, I don’t know that much about you. But I know a little bit about the world, and if I won this thing, someone would come forward and talk. You’d be labeled as a cheat, and if we ended up—you know, getting to know each other later—then they’d think you cheated to help me win. Winning the money might be nice, but not like that.”

He stared at her. What was it about her? She wasn’t the sort of traffic-stopping Hollywood starlet he saw around town—she looked real and so much prettier than the Botoxed Beauties. Her eyes were lovely, soft and smiling, and he wanted desperately to touch her again. How long was this game? Eight weeks? Even longer if she went back to Philadelphia this week, so she needed to survive elimination. She couldn’t win, but she mustn’t lose, either.

“Hey. Are you still there?” she asked. “It’s a little odd for me in here, you know. I can’t see you, remember? You could wander off and I’d never know.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said huskily. “On the contrary—I’m struggling not to rush in there.”

She looked around the room. He could tell when she spotted the handle-less door fitted into the wall. She considered it intently, which was very arousing to watch. He suspected they were thinking the same thing, with just a door keeping it from happening.

He adjusted his position on the stool.

Time to get this conversation back to safer territory. “And if it were a choice between getting to know you and keeping my job, I’d pick you too,” he said. “But it’s not. It’s just a TV show. And if you’re certain you can manage not to win,” he teased, “then I think I can manage not to get fired.”

“That sounds like a deal,” she smiled.

“There are a few problems I haven’t solved yet, though,” he said.

“Oh, yeah, like what?”

“Like how am I going to go eight more weeks without touching you again.”

Libby slipped out of the Journal Room only after she’d scanned the hall. Empty. She needed time alone while this bubbly carbonated feeling dissipated. She felt she was walking a couple of inches off the ground.

A quick glance showed Kai puttering in the kitchen and Jo sulking in the living room.

With luck, everyone else would be with Jim in the Shark Tank. Libby stopped in the blue bedroom—no sign of Greg—to change into the oversized T-shirt and boxers she wore to bed. She came out feigning a stifled yawn as she strolled into the kitchen. Jo glared at her, but Libby ignored Jo to focus on Kai.

“Hey, where have you been?” Kai asked. She poured boiling water into a mug. “Want some?”

“I’ll make it.” Libby joined her by the sink.

Kai played with the tag on her tea bag. “Everyone’s either up in the Shark Tank schmoozing with Jim or in the weight room.”

“I think I dozed off,” Libby said vaguely. “I guess I should go suck up to Jim, too, but I’m still annoyed that I lost.”

Kai glanced at her. Avoiding her gaze, Libby fussed with the special tap that dispensed boiling water. By the time Libby made her cup of tea, Kai was already talking about something else. Libby hung out with Kai until they finished their tea, then headed off to join the throng still lounging around the Shark Tank.

“Hey, Lissa!” Chris yelled as she walked into the Shark Tank, a huge rectangular bedroom on the second floor, furnished with oversized chairs, a king-sized bed and—luxury to top them all—its own bathroom.

“Hi,” Libby said, patting Chris on the shoulder as she passed him. “Nice digs, Jim.”

Jim was propped up against a mound of pillows. Diane looked distinctly uncomfortable trying to perch near him while keeping her feet on the floor. Sucking up already, Libby guessed.

Jim laughed. “It’s like a prison-supply warehouse exploded in here.”

Libby looked around. A symphony of gray made the room seem vaguely industrial, although the suede bedspread felt sybaritic enough.

“Hey, it’s all about the power,” she told Jim.

“I should have won,” Arielle said.

What had Rand called her? The Vixen? Oh, God, that was funny. Libby pinched her lips to keep from chortling.

“He got his pictures and stuff from home,” Susie said. “I’m homesick already and it’s not even been a week.”

“Oh, I know, me too,” Libby lied. She made a point of admiring Jim’s family photos, which were loaded as a slide show on a special projector. After she’d said all the right things praising his kids and grandkids, she left the others to their sucking up and headed back to her bedroom.

Their room was still empty. Greg must be in the gym. Libby tidied her stuff—a nice, soothing activity that wouldn’t interest the other Fish or look compelling on camera—but she was thinking about Rand. She felt like she’d just been asked to the prom by the guy she liked but hadn’t thought liked her.

She wished she could tell Lissa about Rand, about how he made her feel, about their conversations. She wished she could tell him about Lissa. It was such an odd situation she’d stumbled into. All those years of being the “sober, responsible twin” must have taken their toll because here she was, basically lying to everyone.

Rand was on that list. The chemistry between them made Libby quiver with joy. He wanted her. Her, Libb—

Libby froze, her hands still holding a bra that she’d been folding. He wanted Lissa. Not the real Lissa, of course, but not the real Libby either. He desired her, she was sure of that. Was that because she’d concocted this odd amalgam of Libby’s smarts and Lissa’s charm?

In real life, neither of them was the needy, sneaky type. Yet here she was, lying to stay on
The Fishbowl
so that she could talk to a smoky window for twenty minutes every night.

Hey, it was reality TV—everything was a lie. She placed the bra carefully in the drawer, and picked up the next piece of underwear.

She had just about finished when Arielle sauntered in. “The Vixen.” Libby managed not to laugh out loud.

“I’ve talked Jim into putting you on the hook,” Arielle announced with malicious glee. She lolled on Greg’s bed.

Libby didn’t mention the dirty jockstrap she happened to know was tangled in Greg’s sheets.

“You’re getting fished out.” Arielle glared at Libby, as though Libby failed to appreciate the gravity of her situation.

How would Lissa deal with this…?
“That’s funny. I already got him to say he’d pick you for the hook as well,” Libby said happily. “So I guess it’s going to be the two of us, hunh?”

Arielle was furious. “No, he’s not picking me. You and Jo. I got him to promise. He could see that you were a threat at the Shark Fight. I had no trouble convincing him that you needed to leave.”

Libby dipped her chin in mock sympathy. “Arielle, sweetie, if I’m a threat, you’re a threat. You made it nearly as far as I did in the competition. I told Jim that you’d deliberately thrown that last question just so you could talk him into picking me.” At Arielle’s shocked expression. “Oh, yes. You did. So I told him to go ahead and put both of us up, I’d win the Get Off The Hook, and then we could vote for you to be fished out.”

Libby enjoyed batting her eyelashes a little at Arielle’s dumbfounded expression. If Arielle were smarter, she would wonder when this alleged conversation could have taken place, but Arielle was hardly the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Of course, this ruse could backfire if Jim didn’t pick Arielle. Libby had a cover for that as well. And at least Arielle would have something to worry about overnight. As the redhead stormed out of the room, Libby gave her a happy wave and a bright smile. All for the sake of the cameras, of course.

In the gym the next morning, Libby had her chance to talk to Jim, who was also an early riser. She explained about Arielle’s visit, making it sound as though she’d blurted out her boast to Arielle by accident. Libby tried the tone Lissa had always used on Dad to get out of trouble—her
I’m mortified to admit this but
voice—which Lissa would pair up with a clever excuse.

“It was a dumb thing to say, Jim,” Libby said in Lissa’s shameless fashion. “But you know, I’m not so sure it’s that bad an idea.” She marveled at how easy it was to spin this to her advantage. No wonder Lissa had gotten away with murder when they were kids.

“Really?” Jim said. He was amused, sure, but Libby sensed he was intrigued too.

Libby continued her ploy to indict Arielle. “She’s a threat, Jim. I think maybe she did throw the Shark Fight. Why she thinks I’m a threat, I don’t know. I’m one of those Fish who’s put on the show just to go home early,” she admitted with a half-smile. Maybe Jim worried that he was early-round fodder as well—older players didn’t usually fare well on
The Fishbowl
.

“But if I pick the two of you, and you don’t win the Get Off The Hook, you might go home,” Jim argued.

Time for the twist. “Here’s what I think will happen. Either I’ll win it or Arielle will win it or she’ll get someone else to win and rescue her. Then you’ll put Jo on the empty hook. Everyone will vote to have Jo fished out. That way, you haven’t screwed Arielle or me, and no one really likes Jo. When Arielle says you double-crossed her, you explain that you had to put her up so that your explanation for why I was picked—namely that I was a threat—is credible. You see?” Libby smiled vaguely before jacking up the speed on her elliptical trainer.

Jim must have liked her strategy because he followed it. Cartoon Fish versions of Arielle and Libby got put on an actual fishhook, which was cast into an elaborate fishbowl with cartoons of the other Fish. One by one, the other Fish were pulled out of the fishbowl. They were safe and it was clear who was on the hook.

After his choices were revealed, Jim’s speech made it sound as though it wasn’t a personal decision at all, but just common sense. Libby tried to look shocked at his pick, but she probably just looked stupid.

When the Fish were allowed into the garden the next afternoon, Libby could tell from the layout that the Get Off The Hook challenge was going to be a race involving dexterity. The risk was that someone else would win and not get Arielle off the hook, but between Libby’s efforts to explain that all this was really Jim’s plan to get Jo out and Arielle’s increasingly desperate negotiations for people’s promises that if they won they’d save her, the only person who wasn’t playing along was Jo herself. Jo didn’t look like she was going to exert herself enough to win.

It worked just as Libby hoped. She almost won the Get Off The Hook, but it was Bryce the Jock who snagged it. He used it to save Arielle. Jim put Jo up instead, and Jo got fished out in the live vote. Sitting in the living room after the vote was announced and Jo left the ’Bowl, Arielle kept staring at Libby with a creepy intensity. No future friendship there. On the plus side, everyone else considered “Lissa” a real airhead for allowing Jim to put her up. Jim may have seen through her dumb bunny act, and she didn’t dare meet Kai’s eyes for fear they’d both crack up laughing, but everyone else ignored her.