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I refilled my glass and was shakily downing another gulp, when Camille came back out of the darkness. Presumably she’d finished escorting the raging Nico back to the ship.
“Right, gosh, well that was dramatic.” She gave a little laugh, but it was slightly nervous. I wondered how much experience she had on this type of show. “Are you okay, Lyla?”
I shook my head. I honestly wasn’t. This had blown everything out of the water. All my plans. All Nico’s dreams. No one was going to be offering him any fantasy boyfriend roles on the back of that performance. And it had also put me firmly on the map as far as the TV series went. I’d been hoping to slip in and out of the series before anyone much remembered me. There wasn’t much chance of that now, after that scene.
“Are you ready for your OTO? We’d love to get a few thoughts from you about Nico’s departure.”
“Oh God.” I put down my glass. “Seriously? Now? I think I’ve just been dumped, live on TV, or near enough. Could I not have a drink first?”
“Um…” Camille looked over her shoulder and one of the other producers beckoned her over. They had a whispered conference, and then Camille came back.
“Okay, sure. In fact, there’s one other bit of business we probably ought to do before we do the OTOs anyway, so let’s get that out of the way and you can have a moment to collect yourself, Lyla. And then we can do the one-to-one sessions while everyone eats. Does that sound okay? I think everyone needs some food.”
There were nods of assent from around the table, and someone muttered something about being fucking starving. I was fairly sure I wasn’t the only one with a sour champagne headache setting in.
“Okay, so the last bit of filming is the big reveal,” Camille was saying, and I saw some puzzled frowns, people shooting glances at their partners across the table. I didn’t have a partner anymore, so I didn’t have anyone to share my puzzlement with. But surely that had to be it. There couldn’t be any more big reveals—could there?
Camille was pulling out her script again, and standing just behind the camera she began to read.
“Making up and breaking up is all part of finding the one true love, the person you’re really meant to be with. For Lyla, it looks like that wasn’t Nico. But on Ever After Island, breaking up doesn’t mean you have to be alone. As the highest scorer, Lyla gets to spend the night in the Ever After Villa.”
I blinked, remembering the picture-perfect water villa perched on stilts over the turquoise sea. Okay, well, every cloud, I guessed, although it would have been more fun to be there with Nico, not recently single, and presumably about to depart from the show myself, unless I could make a strategic alliance with one of the other soon-to-be-singletons, which I didn’t particularly want to do.
“The twist?” Camille said, quizzically, and then answered her own question with dramatic emphasis. “She won’t be there alone. The Ever After Gods have compared the islanders’ secret answers, sprinkled on a little Perfect Couple magic, and the person whose answers most closely corresponded with Lyla’s was…”
I felt my eyes go wide. What. The. Fuck.
“Joel.”
There was a moment of utter silence. You could have heard a pine needle drop.
Then, “I’m sorry, what?”
It was Romi, her voice shrill with wine and shock.
“Joel,” Camille said, “you’ll be spending the night in the Ever After Villa with Lyla, to find out if the two of you are really the perfect match for each other. Romi, you’ll be spending the night alone at Island Dream. Everyone else, you’ll have one week to look deep into your hearts, to figure out if the person you’re coupled up with is really your perfect match—and if not, to seek out a new coupling in time for the first Ever After Ceremony this time next week.”
She closed the script, and then said, “And that’s when we’ll go to credits. I should say, you won’t necessarily have a week before the first Ever After Ceremony, the week refers to the viewer’s week, not yours. We’re playing the schedule by ear, but it’ll be at least a couple of days, as we have to get some of the other challenges out the way first.”
“Hang on,” Romi said icily. “You, what’s your name—”
“Camille,” Camille said without rancor.
“Camilla, yes, look, I’m sorry, but my boyfriend is not spending the night with some slag—” She turned to me. “No offense—”
“None taken,” I murmured, trying not to let the hysterical laugh that was threatening to erupt, bubble out.
“—in some shag-pad villa. That was all for the cameras, right?”
“I’m afraid not,” Camille said apologetically. “They do actually have to sleep there. I mean, obviously no one has to do anything they don’t want to—”
“I should fucking hope not!” Bayer growled into his beer.
“—but that’s the format. The winner of each task and their perfect match—and that’s decided by a different format each time—will spend the night together in the Ever After Villa, and after that, the two contestants can decide whether or not to return to their former partners or make a new couple.”
“Well, the format,” Romi spat, “can go fuck itself right in the hole.”
“Romi—” Joel said. He had stood up and was leaning across the table towards her. Romi rounded on him.
