Page 32 of Hot SEAL, Under Pressure

“The SEAL and the civilian will be strapped together for the jump.”

“Oh.” Her and Stefan, strapped together. Great.

It was bad enough she was tied to him as his teammate but for this they’d be literally tied together.

His hard body, strapped to hers…

Shelly wrestled her attention back to the presentation. “Um, where was I?”

“Parachute challenge,” Jonas supplied.

“Yeah. So the loser will be determined by which team lands farthest from the marked X on the ground.”

“The LZ,” Jonas piped in again.

“Yes. The landing zone,” Shelly repeated, starting to like her assistant less and less the morehelpfulhe became.

“Sounds good.” Joanne nodded.

Moving on… She needed to wrap this thing up. She was shaking.

She didn’t know if that was from adrenaline and thoughts of all she needed to get done to make this show a reality starting the moment this meeting broke, or fear over all the things she’d signed up to do, most of which she couldn’t do and had no hope of doing.

Either way, her hand shook as she clicked to the next slide.

She took a deep breath and continued.

“Episode nine will feature challenge number seven, which is the culmination of the season, the timed obstacle course. The final two teams, head-to-head. It’ll focus on training on the course. The finalists can request that any of the previously disqualified teams return to help them train with the winner of the prior challenge getting first pick. The episode will end with the actual competition—the running of the course.”

“I love it. You’ll make sure two of the SEAL coaches coming back are Zach and Nick if they’ve been eliminated before then.”

So much for keeping therealin reality.

“Of course,” Shelly agreed with Joanne even though manipulating the contestants rubbed her the wrong way.

“And finally, episode ten is a celebration. All of the teams will return for a wrap party and a viewing of the highlights and bloopers from the season. And, the most important part, at the very end we announce the winner of the final challenge and the cash prize.”

“Excellent. Great job.” Joanne’s slow clap might be the biggest compliment the woman had ever given. Shelly was reveling in it when Joanne added, “One thing. Who do we have hosting?”

The question was like nails on a chalkboard. A needle scratching across a vinyl record. Unpleasant. Unexpected. And the one Shelly was unprepared for. The question she had no answer for.

They’d been too busy ironing out the challenges to even think about a list of possible hosts.

“We, uh, hadn’t settled on that yet. Do you have a suggestion?” she asked.

“Clay and Tasha,” Joanne declared with certainty.

Shelly opened her mouth to protest when Joanne held up one hand, palm forward, to silence her.

“I know Clay said they wouldn’t compete with her pregnant. But he didn’t say they wouldn’t host.”

That was technically true, although knowing Clay, Shelly didn’t think he cared about technicalities.

“Okay. I’ll ask,” she agreed since she was sure Joanne would be happy with nothing less.

Joanne had already stood but before she moved toward the door, she said, “Oh, and Shelly. Talk toheralone without Clay there. I think you’ll get a very different answer from Tasha.”

It was sneaky, but Shelly couldn’t deny, Joanne was right.

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