Chapter Seventeen
Olivia
“How’s my beautiful young wife feeling today?”
I sleepily opened one eye to see Dec standing over my bed with a breakfast tray. When I smelled the croissants, bacon, eggs and fried tomato, I sat bolt upright. After the last couple of days of sickness, I was finally feeling better, and my appetite had returned in full force.
“I feel way better now,” I said, reaching for one of the croissants.
Dec grinned. “Glad to hear. Hey, slow down. You’ll give yourself indigestion.”
I crammed the rest of the buttery croissant in my mouth. “Worth it,” I managed to get out through my chewing.
“You might not be saying that when you turn thirty and your metabolism slows down.”
I laughed. “You’re closer to forty than thirty, and you still look great.”
“That’s because I work out.” Dec jokingly flexed his biceps, then lifted up his shirt to show off his abs like he was in a bodybuilding competition.
I rolled my eyes. “Stop showing off.”
“You should be proud to have such a sexy fake husband.”
“Yes, and such a modest one, too,” I said, picking up a slice of bacon. “What’s the plan for today? Don’t tell me the producers are making us go scuba diving or something. I don’t feel like being eaten by a giant squid.”
“I don’t know, actually. They said we have to meet up on the middle deck at ten A.M., but that’s all.”
I finished my piece of bacon, then yawned and stretched. God, it felt so good to be better. Due to my sickness, I’d missed out on most of the mega-yacht group activities over the last two days. The producers made me attend the dinner party last night, just so the cameras could capture me being there, but that was all I’d done. I hadn’t been able to eat a bite, let alone laugh at the catfights that erupted. At least Andrew was leaving me alone, though. I wasn’t sure what Dec said to him the other night, but the guy literally shied away from me now. He didn’t have any cuts and bruises on him, so I knew Dec had abided by my wishes and not done anything to hurt him. He sure had affected him somehow, though.
“You can have the shower first,” Dec said, stealing the last piece of bacon from my tray.
I grumbled and left the tray to him while I got out of bed and headed for the bathroom. By five to ten, Dec and I were both ready to go, and we trudged out of our double room below decks and headed up to the middle deck of the yacht. All the other contestants were there already. The show host, Chase, was getting bronzer brushed over his cheekbones, and when the makeup girl was done, he shooed her away and waved to the main camera operator. “I’m ready,” he called out. “You guys all ready too?”
We all nodded and murmured ‘yes’, and after a senior producer called a few things out, filming began for the day.
“Welcome back to our special High Seas double episode!” Chase said, flashing his blindingly white grin at the camera. Any more whitening product and his teeth might actually glow in the dark. “We only have one more group activity on this amazing yacht, and that is—”
A horn suddenly blew, and the mega-yacht ground to a halt. I didn’t even know yachts could do that, although I guess this wasn’t exactly a regular yacht. It was about a hundred times the size of a regular one.
“Cut!” yelled a producer. I noticed the cameras kept rolling, though. Assholes. They’d capture anything if they thought it spelled ‘drama’.
“What’s going on?” Chase asked, looking annoyed. “I’ve already had my makeup done twice today, I’m not going to—”
He was cut off as the yacht suddenly and violently tipped to the left. It righted itself again, but that didn’t stop pandemonium from breaking out.
“Oh my god, we’re going to die!” shrieked Hayley. “It’s like Titanic!”
Dec put his arm around my shoulders, holding me tight. “What’s going on?” I asked. I knew it was probably just something small, but my pulse was beginning to race nonetheless. I didn’t like being out on the ocean like this, and the thought of something happening out here was literally one of my worst fears.
“I don’t know.” Dec frowned and glanced around. “I’m sure they’ll tell us in a minute. But don’t worry, Liv. Nothing will happen to you.”
“Could you go and ask the producers what happened?” I said, looking over at them. They were huddled in a corner talking to one of the yacht workers, who’d just come up to the middle deck.
Dec shook his head. “I don’t want to leave you alone right now.”
“I’ll be okay. Like you said, nothing will happen,” I said. My voice was a little shaky, but simply having Dec around reassured me enough to put on a brave face.
He squeezed my hand. “Okay. I’ll be back in a minute.”
He pushed his way through a gaggle of Snob Brigade members who were still babbling about the Apocalypse or whatever it was they thought was happening right now. Christ, I thought I was dramatic when it came to the ocean, but Hayley could probably win an Oscar for her performance right now.
Everything will be okay. Everything will be okay. I took deep breaths and repeated the mantra over and over in my head as I waited for Dec to return.
I was wrong, though. Before he could even reach them to ask what was happening, the yacht worker who’d come up to talk to the producers cleared his throat to silence everyone. “I’m going to need you all to stay as calm as possible,” he said. “There are enough inflatable rafts to get everyone off safely, and—”
Someone cut him off. “Get everyone off? Why?”
He hesitated, then spoke up again. “We’ve hit something,” he said. “We’re sinking.”