The Contestant. Stephanie Doyle

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СКАЧАТЬ was, Talia had named her backside. The others who had been nearby when she made this declaration had chuckled. It wasn’t completely a joke. She had a pretty firm butt.

      Sam, Marlie and Gus were on the second boat with Tommy. Another slim young gun with a lot of attitude and eyes that instantly made Talia think of a snake. He’d carried a blue backpack with him wherever he went on the yacht, claiming he wanted to be prepared in case the host planned a surprise drop-off. Since for most of the trip they were at least a hundred miles from any inkling of land, Talia thought that idea unlikely.

      She suspected he had something in that backpack he didn’t want anyone to know about, so he refused to let it out of his sight. Considering they were about to take part on a survival show, that probably meant he’d stocked food.

      Not that Evan seemed to care a whole lot about the rules. His hosting duties didn’t seem to extend that far. Also a late addition to the show, he obviously was struggling to learn all the nuances of the game himself, as he’d been useless at answering any of the questions from the group.

      Tommy didn’t worry her though. Cheaters rarely did. No, if there was one person in this group she needed to be worried about beating, it was the man sitting across from her.

      Reuben Serrano was strong, with lean muscles along his body that didn’t bulge but were defined well enough to suggest significant strength. He carried a little thickness in his middle, although she suspected that he’d packed on some of those pounds for the game. Not that the extra weight made him look fat or soft. Just more substantial.

      From the beginning, he’d worn a stone-faced expression giving everyone around him the impression that he was someone who would fight dirty should the occasion call for it. And then there were the eight thousand other silent signals he’d sent out that said don’t get close and you won’t get hurt.

      Except with her.

      Getting close was all he seemed to want to do with her. Each night at dinner, he sat next to her. Each time the group gathered, he was at her side. Even if they were all sitting by the poolside or watching a movie or having a drink at the bar, it was a good bet where she was, he wasn’t far behind.

      Added to that was the way he watched her…. It wasn’t sexual so much as it was predatory. Either he had guessed that she was his biggest competition and was plotting how to eliminate her or he was planning on knocking her over the head and dragging her off to the nearest cave to ravish her as soon as they got to the island.

      Given that hint of primitiveness she detected in him, she couldn’t help but wonder what type of woman in this millennium could handle dating such a caveman. Not that she knew if he even had a girlfriend, or a wife for that matter. He’d said nothing about his past, his job, where he came from or who he was. He talked only about the game and about winning.

      Actually, it wasn’t a bad strategy. Talia had decided early to take her cue from him. She’d never been a social butterfly—although she imagined she could give Reuben lessons on congeniality—but she knew it was smarter to play a little quieter than she normally would have. The less sharing on a game like this, with a group like this, the better. With each story that the others told, there was always a weakness to be found and possibly exploited.

      To her surprise, Evan hadn’t said anything about her past Olympic experience. Maybe he was waiting for the most dramatic moment, maybe he forgot or maybe he didn’t know. He’d barely managed everyone’s names when they had first come onboard. And since no one had mentioned anything about it, she’d said nothing about it, either. Nor had she told anybody about her life growing up on a boat or her experience with fishing.

      Her father had gotten her into this because he needed the money. It was important that she not lose sight of that. If she was going to put herself, her face, her whole life in the spotlight again, then it was damn well going to pay off. To the tune of one million dollars.

      “Joe, the camera seemed to be slipping a bit toward the end of that. Are you sure you still had me in the frame?”

      Joe, the veteran of the two cameramen, gave his boss a dirty look.

      “How long have I been doing this?” It was clearly a rhetorical question.

      “Fine. Whatever. Just checking,” Evan said and waved him off.

      Talia tugged a bit at the constraints of her life jacket. She hadn’t been forced to wear one since she’d learned how to swim shortly after her fourth birthday. For someone as comfortable in the water as out of it, she felt ridiculous wearing the bulky equipment. That and it rubbed against her shoulders that had been left bare by the bikini top.

      Nancy, however, who was sitting next to her on the bench, in a T-shirt and baggy shorts that did everything they could to conceal her chubby body, was hugging the orange preserver close to her chest.

      “Do you think we’re going to have to swim?”

      Talia considered the question. They were going to be stranded on an island surrounded by water for an unknown amount of time. It was a pretty good bet they were going to have to swim. But she knew that what Nancy was truly worrying about was the swim to the island. Talia tried to smile reassuringly. “Probably not too far. You can swim though, right?”

      “Oh, definitely,” Nancy answered. “I’ve been taking lessons at my local Y for months now. Just to get ready for this.”

      Months. Talia smiled, but didn’t say anything and thought about the likelihood of Nancy being able to swim more than a mile to shore. Often Talia had been called upon to watch over casual sport fishermen, who liked to drink hard under a hot sun only to want a relaxing swim after a day of fishing. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d had to pull one of those guys from the water or at least hold their heads up until her father could come to the rescue. So she was reasonably sure she could get Nancy to shore, but then she glanced at Iris, the grandmother, and considered the odds of getting both of them to safely to the island.

      “What about you, Iris? You a swimmer?”

      The older woman gave an affirmative nod. “All my life. One mile a day. Don’t you worry about me. I’ll get there in one piece.”

      Talia sighed inwardly with relief. Until she realized Reuben’s intense focus was directed at her. She raised her eyes and met his stare, a silent dare for him to speak up.

      “Hey, Pollyanna, the game is called Ultimate Endurance not Love Thy Neighbor.”

      “So you’re saying we shouldn’t count on you for help. I hope I’m not hurting your feelings when I tell you I had already reached that conclusion. No wait. I take that back. I know I’m not hurting your feelings.”

      His lips twitched. “All I’m saying is that it’s not a team sport. Every man…and woman…is on his own.”

      There it was again. Something in his expression, the way he seemed to single her out, had the hair rising on the back of her neck. It was ridiculous. He was wearing dark sunglasses over his eyes; she didn’t really know that he was looking at her. But she swore that she could feel the heat of his gaze through his shades. This guy was dangerous. She just wasn’t sure in how many ways.

      “I can take care of myself,” Nancy proclaimed, apparently sensing that she was the weak link. She was right.

      Talia reached out to pat her hand gently and caught Reuben’s smirk. It didn’t matter. The future was looming in the shape СКАЧАТЬ