The confessional booth was colder than it looked on television.
Producers had designed it to look intimate—soft pink lighting, a velvet chair, a wall of flowers behind the contestant. But in reality, the air conditioning blasted hard enough to make Sasha's teeth chatter, and the camera lens inches from her face was the size of a cannon.
"Okay, Sasha," the producer said through a speaker. "This is just warm-up. Pretend you're talking to your best friend. Be real. Be messy. Give us you."
Right. The problem is, you don't want me. You want the caricature you hired.
Sasha smoothed her hair and forced a crooked smile.
"So," she began, "here I am. Sasha Leigh. Actress, alleged diva, career train wreck—pick your headline." She gave the camera a mock shrug. "They told me to come here and stir things up. Honestly? Can't get much worse than my IMDb page."
The producer snorted. "Perfect. Now… tell us what you think of the cast."
Sasha hesitated. She'd met only a few contestants so far—polite introductions, tight smiles, everyone pretending not to size each other up. She could play along.
"They're all… very attractive," she said diplomatically. "It's like stepping into a catalog. I almost feel bad about ruining their little love stories."
"Almost?" the producer pressed.
"Almost," she said, smirking, as if she hadn't just died a little inside.
Then the producer dropped the real bomb.
"And what about Ethan Hale?"
Her blood iced. The camera zoomed closer.
Sasha leaned back in the chair, stalling for time. "Ethan Hale," she repeated slowly, as though tasting the syllables. "Well. That's a name I didn't expect to hear again."
She forced a laugh. "We… dated. Years ago. It ended badly."
"Who ended it?"
The question was too sharp, too casual. She felt the trap springing beneath her feet.
"I did," she admitted, voice flat. "I ended it."
There was a pause on the other side of the glass. Then the producer purred, "And how do you feel about seeing him here?"
Sasha lifted her chin, plastering on a defiant smile for the cameras.
"Let's just say… if this show wanted drama, they just got it gift-wrapped."
Across the villa, Ethan was doing his own confessional.
He sat stiffly in the same velvet chair, arms crossed, jaw tight.
"Ethan," the producer said, "how does it feel, running into someone from your past?"
His gaze flickered to the camera lens, cool and steady. "Unexpected."
"Good unexpected or bad unexpected?"
He leaned forward slightly.
"Let's just say," he murmured, "some people can script a scene. But they can't script history."
By the time Sasha left the booth, her stomach was in knots.
She had agreed to be the pick-me girl. The troublemaker. The grenade. But she hadn't realized the explosion would detonate inside her chest first.
And tomorrow, filming would officially begin.
Tomorrow, she'd have to steal someone's date on camera—while pretending Ethan was just another stranger.