Page 42 of Insta Bride
I’d chosen Elena.
Elena had chosen Seb.
“Well,” JP drew out the word as if it was a sentence, “I can reveal the final card, written in Seb’s hand, is Sami.”
Sami jumped up, squealed, ran into Seb’s arms and I could just imagine them riding on horseback along the beach.
“It seems Elena and Kye have a little bit of work to do, maybe a conversation or two to be had,” JP joked.
I had to be a man about this. Ignoring the stares, I walked over Elena who’d collapsed into one of the sun chairs and knelt between her legs.
“Babe?”
She looked up at me, eyes glazed over with the start of welled tears. I had seconds to get her out of here before she became the story, not my embarrassment.
“Let’s go for a walk away from the cameras, yeah?”
“The cameras are everywhere.” Her bottom lip trembled, and I got it. She’d just been rejected on national TV by a guy who seemed a better fit for her. Hell, I knew Seb and Sami weren’t gonna last on the outside. He’d told me she was looking for a sugar daddy and he hadn’t felt the need to tell her all his money was tied up in his business.
Something that would never bother Elena but would be the death knell for Sami.
“Go to the bathroom,” I whispered, my hand accidentally covering her microphone. “Take the time you need to pull yourself together and we’ll go for a walk.”
She gave a half-hearted nod, and I stroked her cheek until she looked at me. “Elena, go to the bathroom and when you come out, I’ll be there for you, okay?”
“What are you going to do?”
Did she mean, what would I do about what she’d written?
“I’m gonna have a chat to Seb.” Like the stupid asshole I was, I walked Elena to the bathrooms, making sure that none of the bitches had a chance to gloat. Staci followed and before I left, I nodded towards Elena, “Can you look after her while I’m gone?”
“What are you going to do?” Staci’s concern seemed genuine, but misplaced.
“I’m going to talk to Seb, find out whether he’d have written Sami if he knew he had a choice.”
“You’d let her go?”
“I don’t want to let her go, but she didn’t fucking choose me.”
Okay, perhaps I had more than a little anger. But I needed to chill and act like an adult. No point in everyone being with the wrong person.
Staci rubbed my arm and shook her head. “Elena knows what she wants, she also knows what she wants to want.”
“That doesn’t even make any sense.” But I appreciated Staci for trying.
“It does. Think about it.”
I tried to find Seb, but apparently Sami had dragged him back to their villa for some one-on-one alone time.
Staci was no longer standing guard at the bathroom door, and I burst in to find Elena sitting on the floor, knees pulled to her chest. Not crying but staring vacantly at the door.
“What are you doing here?”
I knew the cameras weren’t allowed in the bathrooms. I also knew it was the only time we could turn off or remove our microphones.
“Babe, Seb and Sami have gone back to their villa.”
“I don’t care.”