Turning It on (Red Hot Russians) (17 page)

Chapter Fifteen

Monday night, the cast was still buzzing over last week’s shocking events, which culminated with the arrival of local law enforcement. Crusher had been escorted away, and not seen since. Upon return to Resorte Siete Mares, the cast learned that “for everyone’s safety,” the wrestler had been eliminated and sent home. Team Hannah, now smaller by one, would have to carry on without him.

If losing every challenge since wasn’t bad enough, Hannah was also subjected to curious looks and furtive whispers from the others. It was like being a schoolkid whose dad turned out to be a drug lord or mob hit man. How long had she known? What did she think? What was she feeling? Cynthia Bishop gave Hannah the chance to express those emotions in a one-on-one interview, but except for one regrettable moment, Hannah kept her feelings to herself.

Still, as the Monday night viewing party approached, she felt an odd peace settle in. Once the show aired, a page would turn. This week marked the series halfway point. She had survived five weeks of hell, and after tonight, she could start counting the days until the end.

The show’s first half hour held few surprises. There were quick shots of Jack, Hannah, Chris and Tammy hiking with their flings. Tammy and the Aussie had zero on-camera chemistry, through Chris and Daphne the bartender seemed to have fun together. Jack’s hiking buddy, Kirstin, whined incessantly about the mud and insects. Fortunately, Hannah’s scenes were limited to the downhill dash with Byron to La Mina Falls, and the arrival of Gina and Vlad. From that point forward, the camera crew seemed interested only in shots of bikini-clad Gina, splashing in the pool. Though the cameramen might have gotten in trouble for not following her, and the audio team undoubtedly pissed that nothing from her lav mike proved usable, Hannah breathed a sigh of relief.

But she wasn’t out of the woods—make that rain forest—just yet. As the cast arrived back at the visitor’s center, there were frequent shots of Jack’s pinched, anxious face as he waited in vain for Robynne. How were they going to play this, Hannah wondered, as tension knotted between her shoulders. Then a piercing, female scream echoed out of the jungle. As ominous music played, Robynne ran from the trail, straight into Jack’s arms. While the cast surrounded them, appropriately shocked and horrified, Hannah remained at the edge of the crowd, silent and forgotten.

In a close-up, Robynne spoke into the camera, with Jack by her side. “From the day we arrived in Puerto Rico, Crusher’s wanted me...sexually. I told him dozens of times that I wasn’t interested, but he refused to accept it.”

Hearing Robynne’s blatant lie about being the object of a gay man’s sexual obsession wasn’t any easier tonight than it had been that day in El Yunque. Hannah crossed her arms and bit the inside of her bottom lip. She wondered what Byron Lord thought of this, but the pop star’s angular features showed only disgust. Crusher’s efforts to hide his orientation had evidently worked too well. Then the scene cut back to El Yunque, and the arrival of the police. On-screen, Robynne courageously lifted her face to display the tears that glistened on her scratched cheeks as Jack cradled her against his chest and stroked her hair. Watching the scene unfold before her triggered another painful realization. Jack rarely, if ever, held Hannah that way. “We’ll press charges,” said Jack, gazing into Robynne’s eyes. “He’ll never be able to hurt you again.”

Robynne sniffed prettily. “Oh Jack, no. Let’s just let it go. All I want is to forget.”

Just after the show cut to commercial, the women of Team Blue, with the exception of Cristal Glass, flocked to Robynne in a display of camera-friendly sisterhood. Hannah let loose a sigh and glanced at Crusher’s vacant chair. She missed the wrestler, and seeing his name dragged through the mud was awful. But at the same time, she was eager to do what Robynne planned to do. Forget.

The show resumed with an overhead shot of the bus pulling into the resort parking lot. The cast quietly disembarked, with Hannah at the rear of the line. She tensed and sat up straight in her chair.
Oh my God, they aren’t going to show
this,
are they?

It had been the one moment she let her guard down and she’d later felt thankful beyond measure that no one witnessed it.

Except someone did.

With cold sweat prickling her palms and underarms, she watched TV-screen Jack step from behind the bus, and grab TV-screen Hannah by the arm. “You were behind this! Don’t lie to me, Hannah. I saw it all over your face!”

A collective gasp rose in the room. Everyone turned to stare.

Hannah’s hands rose to her face and her breath grew shallow, as the terrible argument with Jack played on. Though the images were blurry and the audio was of poor quality, captions at the bottom of the screen made certain no one missed a thing.

“I think Robynne is lying through her teeth!”

“That’s right, Hannah. Blame the victim.”

Hannah shook her head, stunned.

She only doubted Robynne’s story because of what she knew about Crusher—not because she would ever disparage an assault victim. She wanted to scream it to every person in the room—every person watching at home—though who would believe her? She and Cristal had only wanted Crusher and Robynne to be gone long enough to subtly imply there might have been a bit of
consensual
bungle in the jungle. In hindsight, maybe it had been a dumb idea, but the show had proven so good at creating drama out of nothing that a playful little suggestion of something going on between the wrestler and hygienist didn’t seem too much to hope for. What they hadn’t counted on was that Robynne would turn the tables and end up playing them. As a camera hovered nearby, she buried her face in her hands.

When the horror ended and the lights came up, she spotted Eric at the back of the room. She hurried toward him, just as he slipped out the back door. She raced across the lobby and caught up to him at the elevators. “How could you film us secretly, and then edit what I said out of context? That wasn’t how the conversation went, and how did you even know about it? Our mikes were off. At least mine was. Did Jack secretly record us, and then help you create that pack of lies?”

Her old friend stared, stone-faced.

“Answer me, Eric! Did he?”

His shoulders dropped and then he replied, “Parabolic microphones.”

She blinked at his cryptic answer. “What?”

“Parabolic mikes. That’s what picked up your fight with Jack. We have them all over the resort, to act as backup to the lav mikes all of you wear. They have a range of about a hundred feet so sometimes they catch things on their own.”

“What about the film footage?”

“The parking lot security camera.” Eric sighed and rubbed his chin. “Even though we can’t be everywhere all the time, anything we do record, we have the right to use. You gave us that right.”

“I thought you’d use it truthfully, not twist what I said into something I never meant!”

“It’s called frankenbiting. It’s a perfectly legit editing technique in reality TV and Renegade Productions employs the best in the business. As for truth? Are you suggesting that fight between you and Jack never happened, or that he had no cause to be suspicious? It’s reality in the general sense, but we’re also telling a story. Remember how I told you not to take this seriously?”

“How can I not take it seriously? You’re destroying my life on national television!”

“And you’re making it very easy! You walk around as though you hate every minute of being on the show. No one is going to root for a character that’s pissed off all the time. For God’s sake, Hannah, would it kill you to smile?”

Smile? That was Eric’s answer to this nightmare?

Seething, Hannah stormed out of the hotel. She wanted only to get away—far away—from secret cameras, hidden microphones and from the disaster her life had become. Her feet kicked up sand as she stalked across the beach. She reached the water’s edge out of breath, and still so full of anger she thought she might burst. A piece of driftwood lay nearby, and she hurled it out into the surf as hard as she could. But the incoming tide brought it back, and as the thing washed up at her feet, she screamed in frustration, lashing out at nothing—and everything.

“Damn you! Damn you to fucking hell!”

The vastness of the dark Atlantic dwarfed her cry. She stood in the wet sand, her chest heaving, feeling small and powerless.

“Hannah?”

The soft voice caused her to jump. She turned to see Vlad standing behind her. The breeze whipped the sleeves of his plain white shirt, which was stark against the darkness. Had he heard her shouting like a maniac at a piece of driftwood? Of course he had. Her cheeks flamed, despite the cool night breeze. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to see that you were all right. Are you?”

“No. And don’t you
dare
tell me to smile,” she said, stabbing the air for emphasis.

“I wouldn’t think of it. That was pretty bad in there.”

His gentle tone was a cool, soothing balm to her rage. Her breathing began to slow. He took a step closer. Then one more. When he was an arm’s length away, he reached out and lightly touched her hand.

She drew in a soft gasp as the brush of his skin triggered a wave of emotion, which brought hot tears to her eyes. She blinked rapidly to keep them at bay, and blew out a breath to get herself under control. “The thing in the video about Robynne faking her attack...” She took another deep breath of salty air. “I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. They took out part of what I said—” Her voice wobbled again, and she fought to steady it.

“You don’t have to explain. I know what they do.” He took another step to close the distance, and wrapped her in his arms. He did know. And he understood, because they had done the same to him. Caught in his warm, strong embrace, she let herself be soothed by the roar of the waves and the steady beat of his heart. Her cheek rested against the thin, crisp linen of his shirt, which smelled like beaches and sunshine—a light summery fragrance mingled with the warm, rich scent of cocoa butter. She wrapped her arms around his trim waist, holding on as though she might drift away. Vlad stroked her hair in the same tender way Jack had stroked Robynne’s. “It’s all right, Hannah, it’s all right.”

Suddenly, her eyes opened wide as thoughts of the scenes she’d just watched awakened the paranoia lurking in the dark corners of her frazzled mind. She’d seen how everything caught on camera or audio could, and would, be used against her. Though it might be too dark for cameras out here, there could be microphones hidden nearby. What if Vlad was wearing one? After all, he’d come down here seeking her out. Oh my God, what if this was a setup! She stepped from his arms, and studied his white shirt, and black pants for telltale wires. She saw none, but wardrobe would make sure she didn’t.

Vlad looked a bit puzzled and tilted his head in the direction of The Smiling Shark, about a hundred yards across the beach. “Do you want to go have a drink?”

“No.” She took another step back, and fought to still her fidgety hands. “Take your shirt off, please.”

“Okaaay.” Vlad glanced warily over his shoulder, but did as she asked. He unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it on the sand.

Hannah swallowed at the sight of his broad shoulders and muscular body, her gaze drawn to the middle of his sleek, tan chest, where moments before, she had been so happy to rest her head. She had seen him shirtless before, but there was an unsettling intimacy about this moment. She mustn’t let that distract her from the business at hand. She snatched up the shirt and felt the breast pocket and collar for a tiny lav mike. There was none.

As Vlad watched, realization dawned on his face. “You’re afraid I’m miked, aren’t you?”

Her only response was to nod at his black linen trousers. “Now those.”

“Baring my heart wasn’t enough to convince you, so now I have to bare everything else,” he said, with a sigh. He tugged at the loose end of his belt, then popped open the top button of his pants. Under his breath, he sang something. “Calling Dr. Love” by Kiss.

“Is that your strip song?”

“One of them.” He swiveled his hips as he slid the pants down his muscular legs. He kicked off his shoes and stepped out of them. Hannah rummaged through the pockets, which turned out to be empty. She even inspected his woven leather sandals. Also clean.

Clad in nothing but his underwear, Vlad put his hands on his narrow hips and grinned. His white teeth gleamed in the moonlight. “Satisfied, or do you want to frisk me? Maybe I should take these off, too?” He snapped the elastic waistband of his boxer briefs and winked. “Don’t forget, I’m very comfortable with nudity.”

“I can see that,” she said with a groan, as she ran her hand through her windblown hair. “This show is turning me into a paranoid lunatic. Look what I made you do.”

He stepped over the pile of clothing and stood beside her, once again taking her hand. “It’s okay, Hannah. After what you went through tonight, I understand. You can trust me. I am not wearing a mike, and no one is going to jump out with TV cameras. No one even knows you and I are friends.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because if they did, we would already be a storyline. But we are not, so this is a safe place. Now, do you want me to take these off? I’m quite willing, if it will put your mind at ease.”

For the first time in hours, she felt a smile tug at the corner of her mouth. It was a tempting offer for sure. He was as fine on the outside as he was on the inside, with a beautiful body women paid to admire. But in this moment, he was only hers, and on impulse she wrapped her arms around him again, craving the sensation of his bare skin beneath her cheek, the thump of his heart. She wanted him, though she knew it was best left alone. The anguish caused her to cling even tighter to him for a final precious moment...before she let him go.

He stepped back, and gave a resigned smile. “Or maybe better we go to Smiling Shark and have that drink instead?”

She hesitated, considering the possibility of hidden microphones in the bar, but Vlad was right. If The Smiling Shark was miked, everyone would already know they’d been meeting there. And no one did. It was their sanctuary.