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PROLOGUE
He is fighting. He is fighting for his life—but so is she. She is neck-deep in the water; there is salt in her eyes, water in her lungs, and she is gasping, choking, unable to breathe.
His body is hard and muscled and stronger than she had ever imagined possible, thrashing like a pinned beast beneath the water.
And as she struggles against him, she knows two things, knows them to be piercingly, desperately true—one: it is him or her, and if she lets go, she will be the one drowning under the waves.
And two: to kill someone this way, you have to want them to die with every ounce of your being.
The question is: Does she? Does she want him to die?
PART ONE THE CALM
02/15—02:13 a.m.
Hello. Hello?
CHAPTER 1
“I CANNOT, REPEAT cannot, go to a desert island,” I said. I didn’t look up at Nico, who was hovering behind my chair. Instead, I continued to stare at the computer screen, trying to make sense of the spreadsheet in front of me. One thing was for sure: the data definitely didn’t show the kind of correlation Professor Bianchi had been hoping for when he hired me. This was my third attempt, and I could no longer ignore the sinking feeling in my stomach. Something was very wrong.
“But Lyla, I’m telling you, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime. Reality TV. Reality TV.”
“It could be the opportunity of the millennium, Nic. I can’t go with you. How am I going to get the time off?” Was there a pattern I wasn’t seeing? Maybe if I tried adding in the previous results? “But don’t let me hold you back; you go. I’ll cheer you on from here.”
“Were you not listening?” Nico asked, the pleading in his voice now tinged with a touch of testiness. “I can’t go on my own. It’s a couple’s TV show. Lyla, I don’t ask for much, but Ari thinks this is make-or-break for my career. I won’t get a chance like this again. You know how long I’ve been banging my head against the wall, auditioning for God knows what— This could be it. This could be my big break.”
I pulled up the spreadsheet of the last batch of samples, clicked to plot the data again, and as the graph filled out, Nico exploded.
“Lyla! For fuck’s sake, are you even listening to me? This is the turning point of my career and you can’t turn off your laptop for thirty seconds?”
I took a deep breath. My mother’s voice sounded in my ear: Get your head out of your phone, Lyla….
I saved the file and swung my chair round to face my boyfriend.
“I’m sorry. You’re right. I wasn’t listening. Tell me about it properly.”
“It’s a new reality show. Not much of a prize, because it’s being done on a shoestring budget for a brand-new streaming channel, but it’s going to be their flagship launch original, and if it takes off the exposure could be through the roof. And Ari knows the producer, Baz. They went to uni together. Ari says he can get me in through the back door. Us, I mean.”
“And, sorry, what’s the concept?”
“Five couples on a desert island. Elimination format, counting down over ten weeks. I’m not sure where, Ari was saying something about Indonesia? It’s kind of Love Island meets Survivor—you have to stay coupled up to stay in. Sun, sand, sea… come on, Lil! It’s just what we both need. A proper holiday.”
“But it’s not a holiday, is it? And how long did you say this would take? Ten weeks? Starting when?”
Nico shrugged.
“No idea, but it sounded like they’re in a hurry. Ari was asking about my calendar over the next couple of months. I told him there was nothing I couldn’t move.”
I sighed.
“I’m really sorry, Nico, maybe your calendar is empty, but mine isn’t. There’s no way I can just bugger off for the remainder of my contract, you know I can’t. Professor Bianchi would sack me, and then how would we pay the rent?”
Not with Nico’s meager snippets of income as an aspiring actor and part-time barista, was the unspoken coda, though I didn’t say it. But Nico was shaking his head.
“But Lyla, that’s the point. If I got this, it’d be real exposure. I could be a household name by the end of the series, we’d be talking TV roles, film, ads—you name it. It’d be proper money—regular money. House-buying money. I could take some of the pressure off you. Come on, Lil, think about it. Please?”
He pushed my laptop out of the way and moved to sit on the desk in front of me, holding out his arms, and I leaned into his embrace, resting my forehead on his chest, feeling the familiar mix of exasperation and love.
