Chapter 20
Rhian watched as Brooke continued to glare at Jayden while she spoke to the group, handing out the day’s tasks and sending the first two pairs off to their high-overnight camps. She went over the use of the emergency sat phones as she handed them out to Lonnie and Hunter and Liv and Sky. She also handed out assignments, from kitchen cleanup to crevasse training, were handed out, and the group quickly scattered. Jayden came over and squatted in front of her, gently putting her hand on Rhian’s knee.
“Is this all right?” she asked quietly so no one else would hear.
Rhian nodded, charmed that Jayden still felt the need to check the limits of their new “relationship”, despite Rhian having given her the go-ahead the night before. After all, she was doing this for Rhian’s benefit, and all she seemed to be getting in return were glares from a certain someone. “I’m sorry she’s being difficult.”
Jayden chuckled. “Just wait till she’s had to climb out of a crevasse on her own. She won’t have the energy left to blink at me, never mind give me dirty looks like that.” She sniggered. “Speaking of crevasse training, I want you to join us for this one. I plan to make all the crew who will be out on the ice complete this training too. Next to avalanches, crevasses are the most dangerous part of being out on the glacier. Anyone out here is at risk, especially as the weather warms and the ice begins to melt. These huge moulins—”
“What’s a moulin?”
“It’s a glacier mill. Meltwater rushes through a tunnel or a crevasse and through the glacier. Sometimes they find their way to the lakes or the sea, and other times they don’t seem to go anywhere. They must run into a space inside the glacier and refreeze or find some other escape route. No one really knows, because no one’s gone into one and come out again—not alive, anyway.”
“Sweetheart, you need to work on your gentle delivery of bad news.”
Jayden laughed and ran her hand a little further up Rhian’s thigh. “Is that so, babe?” She squeezed her leg gently, then stood. Rhian’s gaze followed her, and she held her hand over her eyes to block the sun as it created a halo around Jayden’s mane of dirty-blond curls. “We’re leaving in twenty minutes, and you’ll need to pack your gear. Luiji’s in this group, so don’t keep us waiting.”
“Yes, boss,” she joked. “Anything else, boss?”
“Not right now.” She offered her hand and tugged Rhian to her feet. “I’m sure I can think of something later.”
“For God’s sake, get a room.” Brooke’s voice shocked Rhian. She hadn’t realised she was nearby, but clearly Jayden had and had played their little ruse to the hilt for her benefit.
Rhian swallowed the pang of disappointment that Jayden’s actions had been for the crowd and not for her. But she knew that. She knew it was all for the benefit of the others. She just wished it wasn’t. She wished so much it wasn’t a game that she allowed herself to forget, just for a minute, that Jayden wasn’t really hers. So much so that she didn’t even have time to try to rein in the impulse to stand on her tiptoes and press her lips to Jayden’s.
She didn’t expect Jayden to respond to her tentative kiss. But she did, with arms wrapped tight about her waist as Jayden’s lips parted against her own. Rhian moaned, slid her hand into Jayden’s hair, and opened her mouth beneath the gentle pressure of Jayden’s lips. The skim of hands up her back felt like they were burning through the layers of her clothes until Jayden eased away from her, trailed a finger down her cheek, and gave her a smile that Rhian had never seen before, one that spoke to her.
She swallowed and tried to breathe. “I should go get ready.”
Jayden just nodded and let go of her. “Fifteen minutes.”
“You said twenty.”
“That was five minutes ago. Chop, chop, you’re wasting time.” She jogged away, leaving Rhian dizzy and staring after her.
“You led me on.”
The harsh, guttural quality of the words were like ice down her back. “Excuse me?” She turned to see Brooke still staring at her.
“You heard me.”
“I did, and at the risk of repeating myself, excuse me? I did nothing to invite your frankly creepy innuendo and stalker-like advances, Brooke. I’d go so far as to say you’d decided what you were going to try to do before you even met me. I tried to be subtle. But you didn’t take the hint. I’m not interested, and I’m not available to you. How much clearer do you need me to be?”
“You weren’t so clear when your girl wasn’t around.”
“Yes, I was. Like I said, you can’t take the hint.” Arguing would have no further benefit. All they were doing was drawing a crowd, so she turned on her heel and went to grab her gear. Behind her, Brooke was still shouting to anyone who would listen how Rhian had teased her and led her on.
“That’s bullshit.” Oskar had apparently finally decided to speak his mind. “She didn’t lead you on. She was trying to get away from you the first night at the conclave, and you got yourself too drunk to notice. Last night, she was clearly uncomfortable when you sat next to her trying to feel her up in front of her girlfriend. Talk about tacky.”
“You didn’t see her when you went to wash dishes like a little manservant.”
“No, I didn’t. But I heard Mellissa tell you to clean up after yourself and send you packing to your own room. Like the lady said, you just can’t seem to get the message.”
His voice dropped when Rhian stooped into the tent to grab her bag, but it was still loud enough for her, as well as everyone in the camp to hear.
“You’re forgetting, Brooke, that I was in the car with you on the way from the airport to El Chaltén. I heard every detail of your little plan to seduce her to book yourself a one-way ticket to the final.”
Rhian crawled out of the tent in time to see him look Brooke up and down.
“And I thought only men were supposed to be sexual predators. I’ve got three sisters. If I heard a guy talk about one of them the way you talked about Rhian, they’d still be picking their teeth up off the floor.” He spun away, and his gaze caught Rhian’s. She mouthed “Thank you” to him. He nodded and disappeared into his own tent.
The crowd dissipated until only Brooke stood in the middle of the encampment. Her face was beet red with rage, or embarrassment. Rhian didn’t know. And quite frankly, she didn’t care. Instead, she tried to figure out what she was going to do about getting another climber in to take her place. Rhian could see only two options for her: quit or brazen it out.
“She won’t quit,” Jayden said, appearing heretofore unnoticed beside the tent.
“How do you know?”
“She wants to win too bad.”
“God, can you imagine having to hand the prize to her?”
“That won’t happen.”
“I repeat myself: how do you know?”
“Audiences are going to hate her. The second she’s in the bottom two of a challenge, she’ll be gone.”
“You don’t think the young guys will vote to keep her in because she’s gorgeous?”
“Even a pretty face looks ugly when you see the warts on the soul.”
Rhian tore her gaze from Brooke, still standing in the middle of the camp, and stared up at Jayden. “Very poetic, sweetheart.”
“Very true.” She crouched down and whispered softly, “you don’t have to call me sweetheart when no one else is around.”
Rhian couldn’t stop staring at her lips. Those soft, beautiful lips. So much so that she didn’t notice that Jayden was striding away from her until she was already gone.
“But I want to,” she whispered to her retreating back. She closed her eyes, and the image of her sketch floated before them before it morphed into Jayden’s smile after their kiss.
“I’m fucked. I am so fucked.”