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“Well, I’m very sorry, Mike,” said Odelia. “But you’re not going to win anything by going after me. Not one cent, I’m afraid.”

“And like I said, that’s perfectly fine with me. I’m not here to cash in. Besides, I don’t want to lose the respect of my girl. She’ll be watching this and so will her family, and mine. Do you want a refill?” He leaned over to grab the bottle, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, two furry fiends came flying, and attached themselves to Mike. One furry fiend jumped on top of his head, while the other hit his chest like a cannonball.

Uttering a loud scream, Mike toppled over and fell to the floor.

“Max! Dooley!” Odelia cried, springing to her feet. “Get off him!”

“But he’s trying to kiss you!” Max yelled, seated on the unfortunate seducer’s chest.

“He wasn’t. Now get off!”

They did as they were told, and Odelia helped Mike to his feet. He looked more startled than hurt, though his nose was bleeding where apparently Dooley had bitten him.

“What was that?!” he yelped.

“My cats. They must have thought you were trying to, um… Well, they’re very protective.”

“They’re crazy!” he squealed, checking his chest for puncture marks. “Crazy cats!”

And with these words, he walked off, a little unsteadily.

“I’m sorry!” she yelled after him, but he was mumbling to himself under his breath.

“We thought he was moving in for a kiss,” Max explained.

She sat down and arched an eyebrow in her cat’s direction. “I guess I should praise myself lucky that you never took a dislike to Chase. You might have killed him.”

“We would never attack Chase,” said Dooley earnestly. “We like Chase. Chase is great.”

In spite of the ruinous ending to her evening, she smiled.“Your intentions were good, but next time please don’t attack my dates.”

“There will be others?” asked Max, startled.

“After this? Probably not.”

Members of the production team came running now. They must have seen everything on their monitors. In the distance she could see Mike receiving first aid, and Kimmy was by her side, fussing over her and asking if she was all right.

“Did you get all of that on tape?” asked Odelia.

Kimmy grinned.“Oh, yeah. I have a feeling your cats are going to be pretty famous after this.”

“You hear that, guys?” asked Odelia. “You’re going to be famous. They’ll turn you into memes.”

Dooley’s eyes went wide. “But I don’t want to be turned into memes! I want to live!”

Chapter 29

Over on Koh Phangan, the men’s island, things weren’t progressing quite as Harriet had anticipated. She’d hoped to get a lot of screen time, and had positioned herself in the picture as much as felinely possible.

While the men were frolicking in the pool with the seductresses, she’d stuck close to the cameramen, but they’d roundly ignored her attempts to strut her stuff. One had even had the gall to kick in her direction and utter the one cry cats hate more than anything: ‘Shoo!’

Wounded to the core of her immortal soul, she’d retreated to her lodgings, which were also Chase’s lodgings, and Brutus’s, the latter telling her not to take these things personally, as cameramen will be cameramen and apparently this one was as anti-cat as they came.

During the campfire, she’d positioned herself on Chase’s lap, and had remained there throughout, until Chase had become all agog at the sight of Odelia sitting on the beach in her bikini chatting with a hunk in trunks and Harriet had been flung from his lap when he’d started gesticulating wildly.

And during Chase’s dinner date with Donna, she’d managed to walk into the picture a couple of times, until one of the producers had bodily grabbed her and deposited her elsewhere.

“The gall of these people!” she cried. “To manhandle me. Me!”

“Yeah, that wasn’t nice,” Brutus agreed.

They were back in Chase’s room, where they’d returned after this most recent and infuriating incident.

“I’m going to tell Chase to write a strongly worded email to the producer that this kind of thing can’t go on. This island is full of cat haters and something must be done.”

“At least they can’t cut you from the frame, sweet puss. Or else they’ll have to cut Chase, too, and they’re not going to do that.”

“They can edit me out. These people can do anything. Edit me in or out as they see fit. Just like Stalin.”

“Stalin?”

“He used to edit people out of his pictures all the time. At least that’s what Dooley told me.” She frowned darkly. “If this keeps up I’m going to be deleted from history completely. As if I was never even here!”

“I’m sure it won’t come to that,” said Brutus soothingly.

“I wouldn’t be too sure. These people are capable of anything, even feline deletion!”

Just then, Gran and Scarlett both came bursting into the room.

“Harriet, Brutus!” whispered Gran, as if afraid she might be overheard. “How did Chase’s date go?”

“Yeah, how did it go?” Scarlett echoed.

“They kicked me out,” said Harriet. “Can you believe it? There I was, strutting my stuff for all I’m worth, and some minion came and grabbed me and told me in no uncertain terms to get lost.”