“I know.” He straightened his posture and moved toward the door. With his back to me, his hand on the frame, he peered over his shoulder and locked his gaze on mine. “We talked about this last night, before anything happened. You’re leaving for college, and I just started my job. What happened between us doesn’t change any of that.” The way he said it made it sound like he expected me to give him excuses why we’d never work, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. I’d rather make something up as a reason why we would work instead of saying we couldn’t.
I had the hardest time reading between the lines. I heard the words, listened to his dismissive tone, and witnessed his expression, but something seemed off. However, I had no idea what it was. My head was too foggy and my stomach too weak to allow me to put more thought into it. Rather than argue or question him, I nodded, suddenly desperate to finish getting ready so I could head down to check out.
When I returned to the room, I was surprised to find it all cleaned up. Not a single liquor bottle remained on the floor, and all my clothes were folded neatly inside my suitcase. Holden had even set out an outfit for me to wear on the plane back home. Holding the towel against my chest, I glanced around, almost hoping he hadn’t left. But he had. I was all alone, just as I’d asked for. Yet for some reason, it created an ache in my chest, and the more the silence grew, the more I realized he wasn’t coming back.
Later at the airport, the ache expanded when I found out he’d switched flights and wouldn’t be heading back with us.
It nearly swallowed me whole when he didn’t show at Matthew and Christine’s housewarming party a few weeks later.
And when he came up with yet another excuse as to why he couldn’t attend my going-away party, the ache had turned into a massive black hole, right in the center of my chest where my heart used to beat. I’d missed the opportunity to decipher his reaction that day in Vegas, seconds before he walked out of my life forever. And over the years, it meant less and less to me. Eventually, I became a careless, heartless, walking train wreck.
I had no one but myself to blame.
Although every chance I could, I totally blamed Holden.
1
Janelle
Five years later
“Are you sure he’s your soul mate?”
I glanced across the room and found Connor talking to one of the other guys in the house. Appearance-wise, he was the furthest thing from my type I could get, but then again, I figured that was the whole point of this. I clearly had horrible taste in men, so it would make sense that my soul mate wouldn’t be anything like the guys I typically fell for.
Tilting my head and squinting my eyes at him, I thought back on the last eight weeks since we’d met and tried to analyze it from a different point of view. I knew I needed a man who would protect me, but not be an ass. One who wouldn’t argue with me, but at the same time, someone who wouldn’t be a doormat or put up with my crap. I needed a strong man—both physically and mentally. Thinking about these things while looking at Connor, I knew without a doubt that he was, in fact, my soul mate.
“Yes. Definitely.” I turned back to Carrie, who picked at her blueberry muffin across from me at the kitchen table, and then I asked her the same question. “How confident are you that Mike is your soul mate?”
A slow-forming grin overtook her face. “Very confident.”
I rolled my eyes, unable to hide my reaction.
Carrie and Mike had spent almost the entire eight weeks locked in a bedroom, getting to know each other between the sheets. I didn’t really blame them. After all, the island did have a sexy ambiance to it, and the people who’d put this completely absurd dating show together wanted as much spice, love, and drama as they could get to boost ratings.
But I had no desire to find a man who’d extend past a free vacation. Still, half the people in the house did come here to find true love—I was not one of them.
“How many couples do you think got it wrong?” I asked while looking around the room, taking note of everyone. I’d become friends with a few of the girls, gotten along great with most of the guys, but overall, no one here meant anything to me. I’d been burned enough times that I’d eventually learned to numb myself when it came to a relationship of any kind.
“Out of the ten couples, I think at least six of us got it right. I know at least two have it wrong.”
“Which ones?”
“Donna and Eric are so not soul mates,” Carrie answered with a flip of her hand. “Eric is the same kind of guy she normally dates. We even had a whole conversation about it in like week two. So I know they have it wrong, which means there’s at least one other couple incorrectly paired, as well. But none of that means anything to me, because I have Mike. And we’re gonna get paid.”
I’d previously told her I didn’t think Mike was there for her, but she’d made it clear she wasn’t open to listening, so I knew nothing I said now would change her outcome. We were less than an hour away from the big reveal. All our questions would be answered. It was a little late to change minds at this point in the game. We’d been given eight weeks to learn about the other people in the house and find our “soul mates,” or at least the ones deemed to be soul mates by the producers through some scientific method used to pair us up based on our likes and dislikes. Cue the eye roll. I wouldn’t be surprised if their super-scientific technique was nothing but an eeny-meeny-miny-mo, point-and-pick process. But I didn’t care, because I wasn’t here for love.
The entire process began six months ago when I received a letter in the mail, asking if I would be willing to audition for a reality dating show, of sorts. Normally, I would have tossed it straight into the trash, but the premise was entirely different—and the ten-thousand-dollar prize at the end really grabbed my attention.
The letter detailed a dating game, but unlike anything that had already been done. There would be no roses, no elimination ceremonies that dragged on and on. Instead, twenty people—ten guys and ten girls—would live in a lavish beach house on a privately owned tropical island together for eight weeks. No neighbors and no civilians around other than the production crew.
We had random dating opportunities, and we were all trapped in the house and forced to get to know one another, either by talking or hooking up. At the end of the experiment, we were to pair up with our “soul mates,” and if we chose correctly, we’d win the ten thousand dollars. If we chose wrong, we’d walk away with nothing.
I wanted that money more than anything, so I had made sure I played the game right—which meant no getting acquainted between the sheets for me. Now Connor, my “soul mate,” had his fair share of hookups, which probably should’ve bothered me, but it didn’t. I didn’t care to see him after this production anyway, so his recklessness was irrelevant to my finish line.