Chapter Thirty-Six
Olivia
The next half-hour or so was filled with too much pandemonium for me to really even register that my Mom was gone, let alone register the full horror of what she’d done. I couldn’t even cry. I was too numb.
I guess I needed time to process. A lot of time.
For the last day or so, a tiny part of me had hoped Dec and I were wrong, and that there was an innocent explanation for everything we’d found. That spark of hope was deadened the minute I saw how Mom reacted to everything we accused her of, though. All she cared about was herself and money. She fucking killed my little brother, and she was going after me next. It was beyond horrifying.
Callum deserved more than that; he deserved a chance at life. Instead he only made it to fifteen before having his existence ripped away by a coldblooded, money-hungry bitch. His own mother. It wasn’t fair. Things like this just shouldn’t happen, and as long as I was around, I was going to try and make sure they never did again.
I vowed to make every moment of my own life count on Callum’s behalf from now on. It was all I really could do. It was a truly bittersweet feeling, knowing he could rest easy now that Mom was caught, but also knowing it still wouldn’t bring him back. Nothing would. So all I could do was live well from now on, try to make him proud wherever he was now.
“I knew her son died a few years back. Had no idea he was murdered,” a senior producer remarked from somewhere near Dec and me. We were still in Mom’s office, and several show employees had joined us to find out what was going on after seeing Mom being dragged kicking and screaming out of the resort. None of us were quite sure what was going to happen next.
“No one did,” Dec replied, hands balling into fists by his side.
The senior producer looked down at his cell phone, which had just chirped. “Shit…” he said softly.
“What is it?” another asked.
The first one looked over at us again before returning his attention to the other one. “I hate to bring this up after what just happened, but we have another problem. Juan and Emily.”
“What about them?” Dec asked. Juan and Emily were one of the other couples remaining on the show (Isobel and Mark were the third).
The producer sighed. “As if we didn’t already have enough shit going on, Juan’s online fans have just gone apeshit. Turns out Juan already has a girlfriend back home, who just discovered the show and saw him on it. She just had a baby, too. His baby. So the fans—well, ex-fans—are going crazy and demanding we have him thrown off the show.”
“But we can’t just throw anyone off. And it’s still five days until we have another elimination episode. Five more days of challenges and activities,” said another crew member. “And then another week until the grand finale.”
The first one spoke up again, scratching his head. “I don’t even know if we have five more days on this damn island, let alone two more weeks. When the network heads get word that Ellen was arrested and detained for fucking murder, we’re gonna get the ax right away.”
“If we get canceled, we don’t get the fucking bonus pay! I need that for my—”
Dec held his hands up. “Hey!” he said to get their attention. The employees looked at him, surprised into silence. “Look, you’re right. The show is probably gonna get canceled after Ellen’s arrest. But you’ve all worked so damn hard this season. You don’t deserve to have your bonuses cut due to a cancellation, just because Ellen turned out to be an evil fucking bitch.”
“What are you saying?” the senior producer asked, brows furrowing.
I looked at him curiously myself, wondering what he was up to.
Dec smiled grimly. “I’m saying the show must go on.”
***
“I can’t believe you had them organize all of this,” I whispered, gesturing around us as the camera operators adjusted lights and boom mics. We were all standing on the sandy island beach, close to the water, and the sunlight was beginning to fade over the ocean behind us as evening began to set in. Lit bamboo torches lined the demarcated area around the six remaining contestants, lending a romantic touch to the scene, and just beyond us was a large arch, strewn with pretty flowers and creeping greenery.
Dec squeezed my hand. “Well, Emily and Juan aren’t gonna win the vote after that baby mama scandal, so really, it’s just between us and Isobel and Mark. If the show gets canceled, no one wins anything. And Isobel and Mark deserve a chance at that prize.”
“That’s true,” I said softly, my cheeks glowing with warmth and admiration as I looked up at him. We didn’t need to win ourselves anymore. Now that Mom had been arrested and would inevitably be charged, all control of her assets would pass to me via the family lawyer. That meant I could ensure that Dec’s family still received enough money for Amelia’s medical bills, and we no longer had to worry about trying to win the million dollar show prize.
But like Dec said…Isobel and Mark still deserved a shot at that grand prize. Right now, they needed it way more than we did. And so Dec had floated the idea of pushing up the schedule and creating one final live episode to air online before the network canceled everything and sent us all home. If a grand finale was filmed and streamed online for all the fans to see, the network couldn’t refuse to pay out the prize, because the fans would revolt against the network if they tried that.
Word about the surprise finale had been sent out to fans via a heavy Twitter, Facebook and Instagram campaign over the last few hours, and from what the techs had just told us, over two million people were currently on the Wed At First Sight website, waiting to see what would happen.
“Welcome to our live surprise finale!” Chase Adler said into the main camera as everything began to kick off. “Due to some unforeseen weather conditions here on the islands, we were forced to move the show schedule up, but we’re going to have plenty of extra bonus content and amazing competitions for you online to make up for the missing episodes. Anyway, without further ado….let’s see who we have left!”
The cameras panned to the three remaining couples.
“We have Liv and Dec, who have proved to us that age is no barrier when it comes to love. Isobel and Mark, who’ve proved that opposites really do attract. And Emily and Juan, who’ve proved that—”
“Proved that most men are dirty fucking liars!” Emily shrieked, cutting in. “You fucking asshole!”
She slapped Juan in the face, then dashed off camera, sobbing. I suppressed a smile. It wouldn’t be reality TV without a good slap in at least one of the episodes.
Chase didn’t miss a beat. “Well, it looks like Emily and Juan won’t be continuing in their journey any longer. Is that right, Juan?”
Juan mumbled shamefacedly. “We’ve decided not to continue our relationship.”
“What a shame,” Chase said, still smiling that toothy white grin of his. Someone really needed to give him a damn Crest Strips sponsorship deal. “Well, we still have two couples remaining. Voting has just opened in the online polls, and you’ve got forty minutes to pick a winner! Juan and Emily are still an option on the poll, but…well…” He swept his fake-tanned hand around him. “We’ve already seen how that marriage has worked out. So start voting while we show you these flashbacks of Isobel and Mark’s journey together over these last few months, along with Liv and Dec’s!”
The cameras moved off us, and I breathed a sigh of relief, glad my face wasn’t plastered live all over the internet at this exact moment. Right now, some previously-unaired footage from the last couple of months that the producers had quickly spliced together earlier was being shown, and we were no longer live.
The show makeup artists and hairdressers touched all of us up while we waited for filming to begin again, and when the cameras finally started rolling, Chase stood directly in between us and Mark and Isobel.
“Our results are starting to come in, and it looks like Dec and Liv are pulling ahead in the polls!” he said. Isobel’s face fell. “With only five minutes left to vote, it looks like we may have already found this season’s winning couple. I dare say we—”
“Hold on!” Dec stepped forward, cutting Chase off.
“Do you have something to say, Dec?” Chase asked smoothly, ever the professional host.
“Yes. I do. Liv and I….we have something to admit about our time here on the show. Something which might make you all change your minds about us.”
He stopped to clear his throat, and the producers went wild behind the cameras, waving their hands at him with bulging eyes to shut him up. I knew what they were thinking. If he admitted we weren’t ‘real’ contestants at the start, then the show’s reputation would immediately take a massive nosedive, and people would likely protest and boycott the entire network for weeks, possibly leaving all the Wed At First Sight workers unable to find more work on other shows.
Dec continued. “Let’s just say we didn’t come on this show for the right reasons. We deceived a lot of you for the cameras. Faked a lot of it. We only pretended to like each other for quite some time.”
I gave him a wry smile as he talked. That was all true.
He went on. “We ended up growing close, for sure, and now we’re very much in love. But Isobel and Mark…they were a team from the very start. They deserve this far more than us. Vote for them.”
I grabbed Dec’s hand and squeezed hard. He hadn’t thrown everyone under the bus by admitting that we never really belonged on the show in the first place, but he’d still managed to convey the point that we’d ‘deceived’ the viewers in a sense. And we had. From the very beginning, I was at Dec’s throat, until several weeks in when I finally realized what a good man he truly was. But as for Isobel and Mark—like Dec said, they’d been a team from the very start, and nothing they ever presented to the cameras was fake.
It was a good compromise, one that worked out for the best for everyone involved.
“Well, you heard the man,” Chase said, picking up where Dec left off. “There’s still five minutes left to click on the polls, so hurry up and get those votes in! Make your opinion count on which of our married couples deserves the grand prize to begin their life together!”
Isobel flashed Dec and me a grateful smile, and I nodded back at her. We didn’t even need to stand here for another five minutes to know who would win after Dec’s little speech, and hell, even if we somehow still won by the skin of our teeth, Dec had made it pretty damn clear that we wouldn’t be keeping the prize as we knew we didn’t really deserve it. That money was for Isobel and Mark, and by proxy, Isobel’s ailing mother.
“I have one more question for you two before the results come in,” Chase said, turning to me and Dec again. “You say you faked liking each other at the start, but you’ve truly grown close now. After all is said and done and the two of you go home…will you be continuing in your relationship? Maybe renewing those vows you took here all those weeks ago?”
Dec looked down at me and winked theatrically. “Hell, yeah.”