Seven Exes Are Eight Too Many

by Heather Wardell

  I'd been right to break up with all these guys. Most of them, anyhow. How could I work with them to survive when I hadn't even been able to date them successfully?

  "Yes, you will." Peter ran a hand over his already perfect black hair, took a deep breath, and went on. "When I'm finished with Madeleine-Cora, you--"

  "Peter, could you call me MC?" I gave him the sweetest smile I could manage. "Madeleine-Cora takes way too long."

  My parents, who'd been told they were expecting a boy, had fought for two solid weeks over my name, unable to decide which of their mothers to honor. In the end, they'd hyphenated and everyone had called me MC. When my mother and brother died, my dad had tried to relabel me Cora as a gift to his devastated mother-in-law, but I'd already been MC for six years at that point and the change didn't stick. I hardly ever heard my full name, and being called MC would at least be one piece of familiar comfort.

  "MC is fine off-camera. On camera, you're 'the Princess'. These men are 'the Princess's Court', and any one man is a 'Courtier', not a 'Prince'."

  A slightly stunned silence hung in the air. Somehow he'd managed to make the capital letters clear as he spoke. How tired would I be of the word 'Princess' by the show's end?

  I didn't want a prince, or Prince, anyhow: I wanted a man. A man who knew me intimately but still respected my need for privacy. A man like I'd thought I'd had in Kent.

  "If MC was a guy and we were her ex-girlfriends, what would you call us?"

  "She'd be the Prince, Aaron, and you'd be her Ladies-in-Waiting." Peter surprised me by answering since he'd dismissed every earlier question with a curt, "That doesn't matter."

  Whispering ensued in the back seats, but Peter talked over it. "As I was saying, the Princess will come with me after we land, and the Courtiers will build the shelter and dig the latrine. Once Mad-- MC and I are finished, I will speak privately to each Courtier then leave you for the evening. The first official game event is tomorrow morning."

  Dig the...

  Dean said, "So, no cameras tonight?"

  "You wish," Peter said. "The cameras have been on you since the beginning."

  "Not in the limo, right? There wasn't anyone else there," I said.

  "They were hidden," he said, in a tone suggesting he'd located a village's misplaced idiot.

  Marvelous.

  I shut my eyes, longing to disappear. I couldn't do anything I'd planned. What could I do?

  Win a million dollars.

  That I could do. I didn't know how, but I would make it happen. With a million dollars, I could do great things for Craig's poor little son Colin, and for my dad and my friends, too. Picturing a vibrant sunset over a still lake as I always did when stressed, I dragged myself back to some semblance of calmness and opened my eyes.

  All right. New goal. Win the money. Whatever it took. I started to ask what it might take, but Aaron got there first.

  "Peter, how does the million work? How do I win it?"

  You don't, Aaron. I do.

  "You'll find out soon enough," Peter said. "Remember, though, the game is on already."

  Game on. How was that fair, when we didn't know the rules? They could change at any time and I probably wouldn't even realize I'd made a mistake until it was all over.

  Well, look at that. This would be exactly like dating after all.

  Chapter Two

  When I staggered from the plane after its rough landing, the air attacked me. Humid, smelling faintly like the reptile enclosure at the zoo, and unbelievably hot even this late in the day. How brutal would it be at noon?

  Three men pulled our luggage from the plane and dropped it on the dirt road that had served as the runway, then the plane took off, sending up an enormous dust cloud. Once I could see again I found my suitcase, only to have it snatched away from me.

  "Sorry, Princess," the production assistant said, with no sarcasm in her voice at my 'royal' status, "but I need to go through this."

  When I reached for the suitcase, she held it away and shot a 'help me' glance at Peter. "I won't make a mess or anything, but you might have some things you can't have."

  I grabbed the suitcase's dangling pull strap. "Like what? Everything was on the list." I hated having anyone go through my stuff, didn't even like taking clothes to the dry cleaners.

  Peter took over. "That was for 'Find Your Prince'. Some of that stuff isn't allowed here."

  "Let me go through it," I said, not relinquishing the suitcase even though the girl had begun tugging at it. "Give me the list and I'll find anything that's not allowed."

  "That's not how it works." Peter gestured to my exes who'd apparently given up their luggage without even the hint of a fight. "Some of it's a judgment call, so we have to check in case there's anything inappropriate."

  "Like what?" I said again.

  "Lighter, knife, that sort of thing."

  I took a breath to say I hadn't brought anything like that then a thought struck me. "My clothes are no good for this place. I brought nicer stuff, dressy stuff." Another, bigger, thought smacked me hard. "I don't even have a proper bathing suit."

  Peter raised his eyebrows. "You didn't bring a suit?"

  "I did," I said, picturing the sexy but utterly impractical bikini I'd bought, at Liv's insistence, for lounging around the hotel pool.

  "Then there's no problem. Give her the suitcase. Now."

  His voice brooked no argument, but I held on for another second before giving in. She scuttled off with my bag. Too late, I thought of tripping her. If Peter felt triumph over his victory, he hid it well. "Come on, I need you over here."

  I considered refusing, but what good would it do without the two hundred and fifty thousand dollar 'get off the show free' card? So I followed him to the guys standing in the scant shade of a cluster of dead-looking trees.

  "Wait here," Peter said. The expressions, ranging from cold to ferocious, on my exes' faces made me bite back a cry of "Take me with you!" as he walked away.

  Greg, who looked both cold and ferocious, said, "I still can't believe you did this to us."

  "I so didn't." I scanned the others, making sure they all heard and understood me. "I listed you so you wouldn't be here, not so you would. Do you honestly think this is what I wanted?"

  Another plane, probably full of staff, came in for its own rough landing, its roaring engines keeping the guys from responding. Good thing. I'd have to live with them after all.

  Did I have to? Was there any way out besides paying a good five years' salary? What if I sat down and refused to play? You can drag a poor sucker to reality television but you can't make her participate.

  No, but when the show aired I'd be mocked for my lack of effort, and they might make me stay even if I did nothing. And doing nothing wasn't my style.

  I eyed my exes as the plane door opened enough to let Peter duck inside. I could beat them. True, they knew way too much about me, but I knew stuff about them too. I didn't need to quit. I needed to fight. And fight hard.

  Peter emerged with a woman with short white-blonde hair and icy blue eyes. She looked vaguely familiar. "Princess, Courtiers, this is Kayla. Our first Lady-in-Waiting." Her name seemed familiar too. The back of my mind flipped through old memories trying to figure it out, while the front realized this plane wasn't carrying crew members after all.

  Kayla stood beside the plane as instructed, and a tall woman with stunning red ringlets appeared in the plane's doorway. Dean drew in his breath sharply, Peter said, "Summer", and annoyance hit me at the realization I might be watching my exes drool over these women for three weeks. Summer looked at me and grinned, and I smiled back despite my confusion and irritation. I couldn't help it; her whole face lit up when she smiled. There was no resisting her.

  "Lily... Tara... Jody... Ashley... and finally, Faith."

  When all seven women stood in a row beside the plane, Peter looked at me in silence. Aaron's question on the plane came back to me; would one of my guys be the prince for these women? Oh, p
lease, let it be Phillip.

  No such luck, though. Peter turned back to the plane. "Prince, come on out."

  Prince? My prince?

  He appeared, blinking in the sunlight, and my heart gave one tremendous beat that sent sick dizziness through me.

  Tall, not so dark, and painfully handsome to me. His short brown hair tousled, the sleeves of his travel-rumpled white shirt rolled up to show well-muscled forearms, black suit pants setting off his lean body to perfection, and a green tie, a tie I'd given him, matching eyes I could drown in. And had, on many occasions. Kent. The man I'd nearly married. The worst possible ex.

  I stared at him, struggling to hide my feelings, and watched his expression move from careful friendliness to shocked recognition to a cool reserve that hurt to see.

  Peter, smiling as though presiding over a happy family reunion, said, "While we processed the Prince's application form for 'Find Your Princess', we recognized the Princess's name on his list of former partners. So we thought, why not have you both here, competing with each other?"

  Why not, indeed. Where to start? And Kent had applied for 'Find Your Princess'? He was about as likely a reality show candidate as me. Maybe he'd been drunk when he'd applied too.

  Phillip, behind me, said, "Is there anyone you haven't dated?" in an undertone I was supposed to overhear. I ignored him, ignored Greg's chuckle too. Kent's eyes had found mine and I couldn't look away.

  We hadn't been engaged, but we'd been talking about it and we'd both known we'd get there sooner or later, and probably sooner. His easy-going and open nature had smoothed the worst rough edges of my reserve, and my drive to succeed in my computer programming career had prompted him to greater heights, literally, as he'd moved from general contracting to being a specialist in condominium construction, in high demand for the fanciest new developments in Portland. We'd been good for each other.

  But the first time I'd truly needed him our relationship had fallen apart. I'd never expected to see him again. And I would never have dreamed it would hurt so much.

  "Anything to say, Prince? Princess?"

  I looked away from Kent with an effort and turned to Peter. I had nothing. Neither did Kent, apparently. But Peter did. After quickly introducing my exes, he said, "As you probably know, folks, our network also does another reality show. Anyone familiar with 'Stranded!'?"

  Aaron's mouth fell open. "You're not serious."

  "Absolutely. In fact, two of our players thought they'd be on 'Stranded!'. Right?"

  Michael nodded, and so did Ashley.

  Both Aaron and Michael had loved 'Stranded!' and tried to make me watch it, but the adventures of a group of grubby starving fools had held little appeal. They held even less now.

  "For anyone who doesn't know the show, " Peter said, "'Stranded!' pits two teams against each other, testing their survival ability on an island. For this combination show, we've taken a bit from both worlds. Prince, Princess, you each have your Court of seven exes and your own island to live on, and you'll be competing against each other daily. Every Court member you lose could cost you the game, so plan your strategies carefully. It's the Prince's Court against the Princess's Court for a million dollars."

  Peter didn't give us a chance to digest this. "Prince, this is our assistant producer Ray. He'll be interviewing you before you head to your island. Princess, you're with me."

  Kent and Ray shook hands and moved off, neither giving me so much as a backward glance. Peter led me to a tree about a hundred feet from the plane and we settled onto folding chairs in its sparse shade as my exes were herded from the landing area. Kent's exes left in the opposite direction, and I realized why Kayla looked familiar: she'd been in Kent's high school yearbook, his first girlfriend.

  All too soon, only Peter and I remained.

  "We thought it would be easier for you if you weren't on camera, so don't worry about that. I have a few questions for you, and we'll use your answers later in the show. Okay?"

  "Fine," I said, since I didn't see an alternative.

  A few questions? Time blurred as I sat squirming under his interrogation, but the sun hung low in the sky when he finished with me. He asked me about each ex, including Kent: how we'd got together, why we'd broken up, the highs and lows of our relationships, what I had thought of them, what I thought they had thought of me.

  Rather than doing all of the questions about one ex and then moving on to the next, he jumped back and forth between them. He grinned while he asked some serious questions, and asked some silly ones with an expression like someone had kicked his puppy, and the strain of keeping everything straight in my head while trying not to give away too many details, especially about Kent, was overwhelming.

  He didn't give me time to think, instead firing questions at me until the back of my brain throbbed like it had taken a beating. By the end, I couldn't remember even a tenth of what he'd asked, and less of what I'd said. I hoped I hadn't revealed anything too embarrassing.

  "Two more, MC." He gave me a smile obviously meant to relax me, which might have worked if it had reached his eyes. "Who do you think would most want to get back together with you, and which one would you most want to date again?"

  "None."

  "Which question are you answering?"

  "Both."

  Peter didn't speak. I tried to hold out but the silence got to me. "Nobody wanted to sit near me on the plane and we didn't exactly get along in the limo. I don't think Kent was thrilled to see me either. They all seem to have moved on, and I have too."

  "Not even one of them appeals to you enough to make you want him back?"

  I shook my head. "They're all in my past."

  Peter's eyebrow flickered upward. "Not any more."

  *****

  When Peter and I arrived, and I saw the surprisingly decent-looking but still terrifyingly rustic shelter the guys had built, the enormity of it hit me again. Twenty-one days on this island. Sleeping in that. With them. I pushed my shoulders back, took a deep breath, and kept my face blank as a camera man captured my reaction.

  Peter cleared his throat. "Courtiers, I'll speak to you now, starting with..." He checked his clipboard and said, "Aaron." Aaron followed Peter into the jungle, winking at me as he passed.

  Trying to ignore the cameras, I kicked off my high-heeled sandals and studied my new residence. The shelter, with a roof of leaves bigger than my head and a raised floor of logs with bamboo strips between them, would barely hold all eight of us but still took up nearly half the open space in the clearing. A half-finished circle of boulders surrounded a mound of twigs and larger chunks of wood in front of the shelter, and only a few feet of sand separated us from the jungle on three sides and the ocean on the fourth.

  A tiny place for so many people, even if we were all good friends.

  Turning around, I bumped into Greg carrying another boulder to the circle. "Sorry," I said, jumping out of his way. He staggered on, not bothering to respond.

  No, not good friends.

  Aaron, already finished with his interview and standing in the shallow water with Michael, lunged for something, making me jump. "Got it," he said, hands still in the water, and Michael said, "Nice one."

  I headed toward the shore. "What did you get?" I called to Aaron.

  He held up a struggling fish, maybe three inches long.

  "You caught it with your hands?" Impressive.

  "Four so far." Michael gestured to something floating beside him. I stepped into the water, placing my bare feet carefully on the slippery rocks, and realized they'd tied a t-shirt's sleeves and waist shut, forming a bag. A wriggly bag.

  Aaron stuffed his catch into the neck hole then twisted the shirt closed and grinned. "Welcome home, baby. Want a hug?" He waved his fishy hands at me.

  "I'll pass, thanks." I retreated to shore. "You've caught four fish?"

  "Much as I'd love to take the credit, I can't lie to you. I only caught that one, and I think I was lucky. The rest were all Michael."
<
br />   I tried to smile at Michael, but he didn't see. "That's amazing."

  "When they told me I'd be on 'Stranded!', I figured I'd better learn to fish without a pole," he said, eyes on the water.

  "It's a good thing he's here. I love the show but I don't have this guy's skills. He'll get us all the fish we can eat." Aaron winked again and returned to his labors.

  I didn't even like fish.

  Phillip and Greg, working together, hauled over the largest boulder yet and dropped it into place in the circle with a thud. Phillip elbowed Greg, jerked his head in my direction, and muttered something, then they both laughed and headed back into the jungle. Dean passed me, turning his head away as if afraid I carried some dread disease, and I realized I needed support.

  Dean obviously wasn't on my side. Greg and Phillip were even less so. Michael wouldn't look at me and Aaron only wanted to flirt with me. Jim was off in the jungle somewhere, and he'd always preferred his guy friends to me anyhow so he'd probably be the same here.

  My eyes fell on Sam, who sat in the rock circle banging two small stones together over the pile of wood. I'd been lucky to have such a good guy as my first boyfriend. He'd been far better than I'd deserved. Had he forgiven me? Only one way to find out.

  I took a deep breath and forced myself to walk to the boulders. When I knelt in the sand beside him, he gave me a shy smile and said, "How're you holding up?"

  He had more reason to hate me than all the rest put together, but he didn't seem to, and relief flooded me. "I'll be okay. You?" Before he could answer, I added, "You look fabulous."

  He shrugged and looked down, his cheeks reddening. "Well, I'm a bodybuilding trainer, so I stay in shape."

  "I can see that." The understatement of the century. Did he have any body fat at all? A pudgy armpit, maybe? I doubted it. He was pure muscle, the beanpole I'd dated nowhere to be seen. Sadly, though, he still had the same straggly blond ponytail. "What are you trying to do?"