Love Elimination (19 page)

Then she caught herself and skirted back a few steps. ‘Thanks for walking me.’ The moment called for more than a token ‘thanks for escorting me’ comment, but she didn’t know how to express how much she needed a proper connection to another human being without pulling down the barriers between them. Those barriers needed to stay in place. Already the cast, crew and now Kate believed that she was a serious contender in the show.

‘Anna, wait …’

‘I have to get back.’ Anna barely kept from tripping on her own feet in her bid to escape. ‘Goodnight!’

A loud rapping on the door woke Luke the next morning. Before he answered, the door opened and a stream of people rushed in. Luke barely had time to rub the sleep from his eyes before hair and make-up had set up in the middle of the room.

‘What the hell? Get out!’ He was about to walk out, when he spotted the lone camera in the doorway. ‘Turn that thing off. I’m in my undies, for Christ’s sake.’

‘You were supposed to meet me in the boardroom,’ Joe said. ‘We had 10 am on the schedule. I’ve been waiting for half an hour.’

To be honest, Luke
had
looked at the schedule. But he’d also seen the look on the other man’s face with Anna’s sister sitting next to him in the pub. He’d thought there’d be a pretty good chance the director would be too drunk, or distracted, to remember the early morning start. The idea was clearly too good to be true.

Luke groaned. ‘Why didn’t you just send someone to wake me?’

‘Everyone’s busy setting up for the elimination.’

‘When?’ He opened his eyes and blinked at the brightness of the room. One of the hair and make-up people flung open the final set of blinds and Luke flinched. Another pulled a rack of what looked like underwear through the door.

‘We’re filming in ten minutes. But first, who do you want to send home? Don’t say Yvette, Hadie or Jessica.’

‘Fine,’ he growled. ‘Tallulah.’

‘Good. And after you send her home, we’ll announce a trip to Hakuba.’

‘What?’ Luke stared at the other man. His muscles itched for the chance to get back on his snowboard. Filming
Love Elimination
was the longest he’d been away from the snow since he was sixteen.

‘We’re flying you all out this evening.’

He controlled a deep breath. ‘When were you going to tell me?’

‘This morning. Half an hour ago.’ Joe dropped a pile of papers on the coffee table. ‘Get ready. Film the segments. Do the eviction. We’ll have you back in your natural habitat soon enough.’

The snow. He’d be back on the slopes with a board under his feet. Even better, Anna would be there. The idea gave him the strength to throw back the covers.

‘Good. We need a few more sexy shots. Just some running up and down the beach. Emerging from the water. Shaving in the mirror.’

A crew member grabbed a pair of swim trunks and laid it over his underwear. Luke cringed and snatched the Speedos. He stalked into the bathroom and slammed the door behind him, ignoring the crew’s protests about ‘shower shots’ and leaving the door unlocked.

* * *

Anna looked like a baby duck trying out its feet for the first time. She’d lift one ski then the other, shake the snow from it and return it to the ground. Her heavily gloved hands fumbled with the ski poles. She’d have to be dressed in more layers than in the entire season of filming thus far. Luke grinned at the sight.

‘They’re so long and heavy. Can you believe how heavy they are, Hadie?’ Anna exclaimed, trying to walk towards Hadie. The skis refused to move with her legs.

With the ease of someone who spent half his waking hours on the ski fields—though usually he’d have a board, not skis—Luke glided towards the pair.

‘It’s easier to walk sideways. Like a crab,’ he told Anna, hiding a smile as she looked up at him with narrowed eyes. She searched his face before looking back down at her feet and following his advice. Her skis flew up into the air and landed easily. Or, at least, easier than before.

‘I
have
skied before. It was just so long ago. I was a kid,’ she said. Anna lifted her skis a few more times and pushed forwards, skidding the skis sideways to pull to a quick stop. She turned back with a triumphant smile that caused dimples to appear on her cheeks. Then she spun back to the small slope and began to ski. There would be no teaching Anna the basics, laughing as she stacked it over and over again. Luke would’ve been disappointed, except that she seemed to be the only woman in the cast who was upright and moving. Which meant he could potentially tackle some of the harder slopes. It was a built-in, legitimate excuse to favour her.

‘Where are you going?’ Luke called after her, reaching her side in two forceful steps.

‘Nowhere. I’m experimenting,’ she replied. Her skis hit his boots with the sharp edge as she manoeuvred herself around. ‘Oops, sorry! Out of the way!’

When she was finally facing downwards, Anna pumped her arms and pushed off using the poles. Her legs bent into the boots and she tucked her body into itself. As quickly as she built up speed, her ankles drifted outwards and the tip of her skis pointed together into the ‘pizza’ move he taught kids so they could stop.

With a turn just as awkward as the first, Anna moved back to face him. She trudged back up the hill, taking four times as long to cover the two or three metres than it did to slide down.

‘When was the last time you were on the snow?’ Luke asked. After a few runs she’d definitely be able to progress to harder slopes; if she was fast enough, perhaps they could get away from the cameras and have an honest, interesting conversation. Or maybe something more than a conversation.

He wondered what she tasted like. Although, if he was honest with himself, he didn’t think she’d kiss him, despite the obvious sparks between them and the way she’d reacted the night they’d been at the pub. Her walls were higher than anyone’s he’d ever known. They were higher, even, than the ones he’d built around himself at the height of his fame—when cameras were following him to put out the trash. Would they ever come down?

The producers had been whispering in her ear on the plane. Luke had seen it and wanted nothing more than to push them out of the aircraft—with parachutes, of course. But he could guess what it was about. She’d never shared anything personal. She hadn’t even answered now, when he’d asked about her last ski trip. The producers told him that if Anna’s personality or history was coming across to audiences, it was because of her friend at home, the one running her Twitter and Instagram accounts. That comment made him want to slap the producer who let it slip.

Anna spun around again and this time she stopped with a swift turn, her skis pushed close together, parallel to each other. It was a much more sophisticated technique. As awkward as she looked moving around on the skis, when she was actually skiing, some of those gangly movements became fluid. This latest move brought her thigh just inches from his and her hand not much further.

‘Okay, they’re ready for us!’ Joe interrupted, yelling into a loud speaker. ‘Everyone to the chairlift!’

Although they reached the chairlift at the same time, Anna was shuffled forwards to a chair with Jessica. Luke shot a scowl at the director, who had engineered him to stand next to Yvette. As soon as her bony arse hit the seat and their feet lifted into the air, her fake nails dug into his jacket. He had to peel her off his arm so he could pull down the safety bar. Once it was secured, she latched right back on like a leech. He hoped his frown was interpreted as a reaction to the cold, and not his frustration with the woman next to him. Even a hundred metres above the ground, the cameras were getting their close ups from the small lens attached to the chairlift.
Love Elimination
had gone all out to prevent any sort of private moment during the day.

The team had taken him through their plans the night before. Each of the contestants (and Luke) had been rigged up with microphones tucked into their scarves above many layers of clothes. There were about ten lone cameramen on skis with GoPros. Camera crews sat at the bottom of the slope, at the top, at each fork to another slope (in case someone went down the wrong one) and at several other checkpoints. He was under firm instructions not to run off without a camera, especially if he had one of the women in tow. Luke looked forward to finding out whether that would be possible. So long as it wasn’t with someone other than Anna. Or perhaps that’s why Joe had sent her up in a different seat. Smart man.

‘It’s so cold!’ Yvette chattered. Luke barely kept back a number of smart-arse replies. What did she expect? They were skiing. It was hardly going to be the warm beach weather she’d come to expect.

‘Pull your scarf up around your mouth.’ Again, he hoped his words were interpreted as useful and kind, rather than a subtle way of him getting her to shut up. Not that it wouldn’t help.

He pushed the safety bar up and prepared himself to jump off. ‘Get ready. Jump and point your skis in a downwards angle to match the slope when I say.’ He gave her instructions like he would one of his newbie snowboarders, back when he used to teach a few kids’ classes. ‘Okay, jump!’

She whimpered, but did as he said. A second later, Luke made his own leap and skidded past her so she couldn’t grab or fall into him. To her credit, she got all of the way down and out of the way of the coming skiers before she stacked it. But when he reached out a hand to drag her upright, her exaggeratedly sweet smile had him doubting the fall had been an accident.

In contrast, Anna and Hadie leaned back against a wooden beam that made up a fence a few metres from a steep drop. Snow covered Hadie’s clothes, and was embedded into the folds of her clothes however much she tried to brush it away. Droplets fell from her hair and blonde strands clung to her face. Far from being sympathetic, Anna was laughing harder than he’d ever seen. Tears escaped the corner of her eyes. The crinkles around her eyes changed her face in an entirely different way from when she frowned—and he’d been on the receiving end of a hefty amount of frowns.

Anna straightened as she saw him approaching, leaving Yvette to catch up. ‘You should have seen it. You’d be laughing too,’ she gasped.

‘Snow is cold!’ Hadie whined. ‘And hard. I thought it was supposed to be soft.’

‘Only in the movies.’ Luke couldn’t help smiling either. It was easy to imagine Hadie tumbling to the ground. In his head it played out like a slapstick routine in slow motion.

‘Lukey,’ a voice called behind him. Anna and Hadie hastily moved off towards the edge of the slope, extinguishing any doubt about who was approaching.

* * *

Luke gave Anna six runs of the green slope before he skidded to her side, sneaking into the chairlift line only three people from the front. Nobody complained thanks to the numerous cameras on them. It didn’t even seem to occur to them: curiosity won out over irritation. They were fascinated, peering over and around each other to catch a glimpse of whoever these people were. A few people had recognised Luke for his snowboarding. He usually moved around the slopes quite anonymously, until he hit the bars or cafés. But the entourage of cameras meant he was far from inconspicuous. It gave fans the certainty that it was, indeed, the famous Luke Westwood and the courage to ask for a selfie. There were also those who obviously didn’t have a clue about who he was, but were happy to snap a shot anyway. Anna seemed utterly bamboozled by the concept of posing for a photo with a stranger.

‘Feeling confident yet?’ he asked. Anna jumped. She had to turn around entirely to see him past the beanie pulled down over her ears and the wisps of hair flying across her face. She gave him a small smile. The temptation to get closer was almost too great to bear. Luke itched to lean in and push the hair from her face before kissing her. Would she kiss him back? There had definitely been a look of lust in her eyes when she’d seen him shirtless, just as he’d perved on her bikini body or her tight sports shorts.

‘Did you want to try a blue run with me?’ he continued when she still hadn’t replied. It hurt to hold back, to keep his lips from hers.

She stared at him. ‘Um … sure?’

She sounded anything but. Still, it was close enough. He couldn’t wait any longer to either step up the difficulty or try to ditch the cameras.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I won’t let you get into any trouble.’

He would be there to yell instructions if she forgot how to slow down or had a crisis of confidence. Usually with newbies it was the latter. Not that he dealt with many newbies these days. It was just a few classes here and there, in between training his elite snowboarders. He always enjoyed helping people discover his greatest passion for the first time. Plus they were usually people who had no idea who he was.

‘I’ll be fine,’ she said as they stepped onto the chairlift. They slid themselves onto the seat and swung into the air.

‘Do you feel like you’re back at home, after being in the tropics for so long?’ Anna teased, glancing at him from beneath her long, sexy eyelashes.

‘Would it surprise you if I said I hated the cold?’

‘Do you?’

‘No. I’m used to it.’

‘Are you frustrated to be going back to Queensland?’

‘I’ve actually really enjoyed it. The heat has been great: seeing the ocean, swimming every morning. It’s been quite a holiday.’

‘Mmm … me too. Not that I’ve done much swimming.’

‘What do you do when you’re not on dates with me?’

‘Mostly cook, read, use the gym or write new menus for my café.’

‘Do you get bored?’

‘Of course! I’m used to a busy working life and juggling every second. I am losing my sanity on this show. You must be the same?’

‘When was your last holiday?’ he asked, ignoring her question. He wanted to know more about her. He wanted to get at the secrets she held onto so tightly.

‘When I was thirteen.’

They reached the end of the chairlift and jumped off. When they made it clear of the slope, Luke took Anna’s hand. He let go a few seconds later, because it was not at all practical to ski while hand holding. They pushed through the snow towards the start of the slope, both hanging back from the edge when they reached it.