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“Welcome, ladies!” Clint said, a toothy grin on his face. “Let me introduce you to your host: Francine Richter!”

Gasps of excited anticipation escaped four throats, even Odelia’s. Francine Richter, the famous show host, looked absolutely gorgeous. She was pushing fifty, but didn’t look a day over thirty-five. Not a hair of her platinum coiffure was out of place, her slender frame clad in a bright yellow dress was stunning, and her famous features were arranged in an appropriately welcoming smile.

“Hello, ladies,” she said in that deep voice instantly recognizable to viewers around the country. “So how are you feeling today? Are you excited to be part of Passion Island?”

“You bet!” Jackie cried, and the other three women all concurred, though in slightly less exuberant tones, due to being awestruck by the presence of network royalty.

And as Clint melted into the background, Francine expertly took control of the interview. For a couple of minutes she chatted easily and brightly with the four contestants, eliciting a few sound bites about their background and motivation to be on the show, and then it was time for the moment they’d all been waiting for: the introduction of the seducers.

Odelia swallowed. She wasn’t there for the show, really, but she still couldn’t help but be swept up in the excitement of the moment. She’d never been on TV before, and certainly never on a popular reality show.

Then, as music blasted from the speakers, lights flashed, and the smoke machine worked overtime, six men came strutting onto the dance floor and performed an exhilarating dance routine. They looked like the lineup of a Chippendales show, or that movie with Channing Tatum: steely-eyed looks, chiseled faces, granite jaw lines, gleaming rock-hard pecs, and bulging muscles, these men took their fitness routines seriously!

“Oh, my,” Joanna said next to Odelia, as a gasp escaped Tina, and Jackie screamed her head off with excitement.

Chapter 19

“Max?”

“Mh?”

“Why are those men so shiny?”

“Oil,” I said curtly. I would have said more, but just like everyone present I was transfixed by the strange spectacle of six grown men gyrating not twenty feet from where I was sitting, dressed like Tarzan and throwing glances that can only be described as lascivious at the four young ladies for whom this spectacle was clearly intended.

“Oil?”

“Oil.”

“But why, Max? Why are they dressed in oil and not much else?”

“I think their costume—or lack thereof—is designed to impress, Dooley.” And judging from the rapturous expressions on the faces of their audience it was clear their very particular dress code had hit its mark. Even Odelia looked as if she’d bitten down on a delicious piece of yummy chocolate and the taste had exploded across her palate.

“Why is Odelia’s mouth hanging open, Max?” Dooley continued his barrage of tough questions.

His powers of observation were excellent, though. In fact he was probably understating things, as our human’s jaw was practically on the floor now.

“She’s probably hot,” I said. It was pretty hot out, even though the sun was setting.

“I don’t think Chase is going to like this,” said Dooley. “I don’t think he’s going to like it that she’s looking at those men like that.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “She’s probably surprised, that’s all.” After all, it isn’t every day that all of a sudden, and quite out of the blue, six grown men of the Adonis type are suddenly performing a routine that’s usually reserved for the kind of clubs I’m sure Odelia doesn’t lend her patronage. “Besides,” I added. “It’s not as if Chase can see her. He’s on a completely different island, with no way of knowing what his fianc?e is up to.”

Then my eyes shifted to the row of cameras filming every single moment of the sordid little scene and I gulped a little. Oops.

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One island over, Chase Kingsley was not having a good time. If he’d hoped going undercover in the belly of the Passion Island beast would give him a wealth of clues as to the dark underpinnings of the reality show, and lead him to unmask the evil conspiracy at its heart, that hope had yet to be borne out.

So far all he’d done was chat with three rather obnoxious young men, whose only intention apparently was to have fun with as many women as possible before tying the knot with their ones and only, and watch those same men down copious amounts of alcohol to ‘get in the mood.’

He hoped Odelia was having better luck, because as far as he was concerned this operation so far was a bust.

He was seated at the bar, waiting for the moment of the big reveal—the introduction of the six seductresses, whose unenviable task it was to break up four happy couples.

It all sounded pretty immoral as far as Chase was concerned, and his low opinion of the show’s producer, Clint Bunda, was hitting new lows as he listened to the boasts and brags of his three co-contestants.