Page 51 of Sensuous

I see Alex give me a tiny smile from across the room and wish he could be here with me right now. He knows I didn’t do anything wrong with that dish. Maybe if he could say something I wouldn’t feel like everyone is looking at me like I’m some villain.

For the next hour, every contestant remains at their station, all of us silent after what we saw. I know it’s probably just a guilty conscience, but with every passing minute, I feel like everyone, including Maria, is blaming me, like I intentionally did something terrible to the chicken bourguignon.

I hear Maria’s phone go off, and it’s Shane calling from the hospital. She puts it on speaker so we can all hear how Murphy is doing. “They’re pumping his stomach right now. The ER doctor says he’s sure he’s been poisoned. He could smell it on Murph’s mouth as soon as he walked in to examine him.”

Every eye turns to look at me in judgment, and all I can do is shake my head. Poisoned? That’s impossible. I made that dish exactly as the recipe said to. Nothing in that should have made him sick.

“Okay, thanks, Shane. I’ll take care of things here. Tell Murphy we’re all worried about him and can’t wait until he’s better and back with us.”

Maria immediately makes a beeline to where I stand horrified at the news we’ve all just heard. Gone is her usual kind expression she has with me, replaced by a look of pure anger. She thinks I did this to Murphy. Why?

“Kat, we can handle a lot of things on this show, as you well know. We love drama and conflict, but poisoning a contestant is beyond the pale. You’re going to have to go.”

I fight back tears as the room seems to close in on me. “What? You can’t think this is my fault, Maria. I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t! Just like I wouldn’t steal someone’s knives, I would never poison anyone. There was nothing wrong with that dish when I finished making it yesterday. Alex can attest to that.”

She looks over at him and he nods. “Maria, she made it perfectly. Trust me. Nothing in that was poisonous. Whatever got into that wasn’t from Kat. I was standing right next to her the whole time.”

But none of what he says convinces her.

“Security told me there was someone here last night after we all left to go home. I didn’t learn about it until I showed up this morning. I didn’t think anything of it, but now it all makes sense. You thought your dish was going to be eaten by Alex, didn’t you, Kat?”

Tears well in my eyes as I try to answer her. “I…I didn’t know who would eat it. But I wouldn’t poison anyone, including Alex. I swear!”

All around me people mumble, and it’s all I can do to hold back my tears as I feel like I’m being indicted without any proof. I turn to look at Alex for help because all he has to do is tell Maria I couldn’t have snuck in here last night since I was with him all night.

But he says nothing.

“You’re off this show, Kat. You need to leave now,” Maria says, her voice ice cold.

Shocked, I look over at Alex for help, but he simply winces. How could he do this to me? Did last night mean nothing to him?

I guess not since he can have anyone he wants. What’s one woman and her problems when there’s a world full of us and a million-dollar prize?

As tears begin to roll down my cheeks, security walks toward my station to escort me out of the building. I run out of the studio and down the hallway to the exit doors. I don’t stop until I’m outside in the warm sunny day that’s the complete opposite of what’s happened to my life today.

Humiliated and unfairly accused, I’ve been expelled from the reality show. I won’t have a chance to win that prize money or buy my own restaurant. All I get is to return to the job I hate and try to explain how I would never hurt anyone, much less poison someone, even for a million bucks.

Sobbing so hard my chest hurts, I don’t hear Alex come up behind me until he taps me on the shoulder. I spin around to see him looking at me with pure pity in his eyes.

Fuck, I hate pity.

“Why didn’t you tell her there’s no way I could have been here last night? You’re my alibi, and you stood there and said not a single fucking word. Why?”

“We can’t fraternize. It’s in our contracts. You know that. If I said anything, then both of us would have been thrown off the show.”

The way he says that like it’s a completely logical answer to my desperately sad question makes me hate him all over again. “So it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, and you’re going to make sure you get yours? Nice. Talk about making a girl regret sleeping with you.”

“I’ll talk to Maria and Shane and tell them there’s no way you would have put anything into that dish. She said they’re sendingit off to a lab to find out exactly what Murphy ingested, so when they find out, they’ll know it wouldn’t have been you.”

My emotions unspool inside me, and my tears begin to come harder now so I can barely see him. Pushing my hands against his chest, I snap, “I hate you, Alex March! I never want to see you and your selfish bullshit ever again!”

Before he can say another word, I throw open my car door, slamming it closed a second later. Nothing he could possibly say to me now is anything I want to listen to. Alex March is exactly the person I thought he was from the very beginning.

I was a fool to think any differently.

After wiping the tears from my eyes, I floor it out of the parking spot and drive away, glancing in the rear-view mirror only once to see him standing there looking as sad as I feel. He’ll be fine. There’s a planet full of women left for him to charm.

He’ll get over me by day’s end. If it takes that long.

As for me, I won’t be over him so quickly because even though I keep telling myself I hate him, the truth is I don’t. And that’s the part that hurts the most.

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