Here for the Right Reasons by Jodi McAlister

Author:Jodi McAlister
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Australia
Published: 2022-07-06T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Night had well and truly fallen by the time a PA dropped me off in front of the Convent in a golf cart. I’d managed to get through telling Dylan about Heather without completely crumbling in front of the cameras, but then Murray had made me wait around for hours while they filmed a snap Necklace Ceremony. ‘You think you’re getting out of this without doing an interview?’ he said, when I protested. ‘Nice try, Cece.’

That had taken another painfully slow hour. ‘Good job today,’ Murray said when we wrapped up. ‘I thought that was going to take longer. You’re getting better at this.’

I was too scared to ask if that meant I’d done enough to get onto another show in the Romeo and Juliet universe. If he’d looked at me, said, ‘Hmm, no, we need more out of you before we can make that call,’ I knew I’d use it as an excuse not to rip the Band-Aid off with Dylan.

I paused on the Convent verandah for a moment and let my forehead thunk into the post.

I was going to do it. Next time I saw Dylan, I was going to do it. No more torturing myself with a fantasy I could never have.

‘Cece?’

I turned. Rani was illuminated in the doorway. ‘Could you come in here, please?’ she asked.

Oh God. Not once in my life had anything good ever happened after someone uttered the phrase ‘Could you come in here, please?’.

I dug my fingernails into my palm and followed her inside.

The other women were all in the living room, arrayed in a semicircle. In the centre was Heather, arms folded, standing directly in front of one of the shotgun mics. ‘You got me eliminated today, didn’t you?’ she said. ‘You bitch.’

Of course. I should have guessed.

‘You got yourself eliminated,’ I said, trying to keep my voice as calm and steady as possible. ‘I had nothing to do with it.’

‘They told me,’ Heather snarled. ‘About how you’re always whispering in his ear.’

‘We’re friends.’

One of the other women made a scoffing sound. I dug my fingernails into my palm even harder.

‘I know you were the one watching us all,’ Heather said. ‘What did you tell him about me?’

‘Just what I saw on the monitors,’ I said. ‘His decisions are his decisions.’

Heather stalked towards me. She was so close I could feel her breath against my face.

‘What,’ she said, ‘did you tell him?’

I met her gaze. ‘Just,’ I replied, ‘what you said.’

‘Which was what, exactly?’ Samantha asked. ‘Because it would have to be pretty terrible for him to just eliminate her out of the blue like that.’

All of them were glaring at me. Everything in me was screaming to back away. Six on one were terrible odds for a fight.

But sometimes you had to take them.

‘You really want me to tell them?’ I said to Heather. ‘Are you sure?’

‘You can tell them whatever you want,’ she said. ‘I have nothing to hide.’

‘Fine,’ I said, my fingernails digging so hard into my palm that one of them broke the skin.

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