Page 82 of Heart to Heart
“You don’t understand,” a young male voice pleaded.
“Oh, I understand perfectly, you pervert,” Felicity yelled.
We approached the staircase just as other members of the crew ran inside. On the steps, Felicity hovered over a cowering Carter, relishing her command of the high ground like a pint-sized Obi-Wan Kenobi but with far better makeup.
“What’s going on?” Keith, the executive producer, asked. He looked unsure whether to call the police or tell the cameras to start rolling.
“I caught him rifling through our things, stealing our underwear,” Felicity sneered.
“Joke’s on him, I don’t wear underwear,” Charlie proclaimed.
“If you go upstairs,” Felicity began, explaining to Keith and the small crowd that had formed, “you’ll see a trail of panties he dropped as he ran.”
“I think I saw a movie like that once,” I muttered to Bianca. “Some erotic re-telling of Hansel and Gretel. It was kind of hot.”
“What’s going on?” Tristan’s voice collectively caused us all whiplash when our heads whipped back to the front door to see him stepping inside with Jessica following behind him.
“What a shock. He was with her,” Taylor groaned. “You really want to say this whole thing hasn’t already been decided?”
Next to me, the ordinarily cool-as-a-cucumber Bianca balled her hands into fists at her sides.
“This future felon was stealing our underwear,” Felicity called down to Tristan with far more dramatic flair than her original proclamation.
“It’s not like that, I swear,” Carter countered, his voice shaking.
“Then what is it like?” Tristan asked, moving to stand next to Keith, who’d positioned himself at the bottom of the stairs to block Carter from taking off.
“I—I was told that it was part of the show. They were going to pull a prank on the contestants. You know, like the laxatives and the clothes that fell apart during the season premiere. It was just for fun for the show.”
“Just for fun?” Tristan fumed. “Was it fun making people sick? Was it fun watching them humiliate themselves? What about Avery? She could have been seriously injured.”
My face burned, thinking back to one of the most humiliating moments of my life, or maybe it was from the vitriol in Jessica’s eyes as she glared at me. With the way she was looking at me, I was surprised I hadn’t burst into flames.
“I didn’t think about that,” Carter stammered. “Although you must believe me, I was just doing what I was told. I never meant to hurt anyone. And the underwear, I wasn’t going to take them for me. They told me to take them and throw them in the pool.”
“Who’s they?” Tristan asked.
“It was Martel.”
Tristan looked at Keith. “Martel is, or should I say was, one of our new production assistants this season.
“But Martel wasn’t pulling the strings,” Carter added. “It was someone—a woman, I think. Her last name is Van Thorn.”
CHAPTER 47
TRISTAN
Fucking Wanda.
I sat in my trailer, still fuming even after I’d given myself some time to cool down. In my hand, the phone rang. I’d debated calling her, but there was no getting around it. Two people had lost their jobs tonight, and several women had been subjected to humiliating antics all for the sake of ratings.
“Do you have any idea what time it is?” Wanda answered, groggy.
“Time for you to explain why you’ve been paying assistants to sabotage the contestants.”
“I knew I couldn’t trust Martel to keep his mouth shut. Too much of a conscience on that one.”
“It wasn’t Martel, it was Carter. And they were both fired tonight because of you.”
