Page 30 of Ship Wrecked

“Peter—” Her short bark of laughter contained no humor. “Peter, we should talk before we meet with Ron. Besides, we wereoutsideall day, and I need a hot shower before we do anything else.”

His jaw ticked, and he didn’t move from his doorway. “Ramón said we had to call right away.”

“I am literally shaking with cold right now.” She spoke clearly, enunciating every syllable. “So are you. And we both know this meeting can wait twenty minutes.”

When he didn’t respond, didn’t budge or concede her point, something in her withered.

She closed her eyes for a moment, then nodded. “Fine, then. I won’t shower. But we still have to talk first.”

They entered his room, and she sat on his sofa and waited as he built the world’s speediest, most inadequate fire. When he offered her a towel, she dried off as best she could. Almost immediately, though, her wet hair resumed dripping down onto her quilted parka, and she gathered the sopping strands into a single rope with unsteady fingers.

He sighed and sat next to her. “Maria, let’s just—”

“You knew they were going to ask us to lose weight sooner or later, right?” Twisting the towel, she wrung out her hair and swiveled to face him. “I mean, why else choose two fat actors for characters stranded on a chilly, desolate, windswept island for years? The only fat actors, I’ll note, in the entire cast, even though our characters aren’t described as fat in the books. They wanted us fat for a purpose, and since we’re not Hansel and Gretel, it wasn’t serving us for dinner.”

Peter closed his eyes, the lines bracketing his mouth deepening moment by moment. “Of course I knew they’d want us to lose weight. I’m not an idiot.”

He’d understood from the beginning what would eventually beasked of them, then. So had she—but he’d had no way of knowing that. So why hadn’t he warned her? If not in LA, then later, when he’d gotten over his animosity toward her? Once they’d become friends?

“I can’t believe you didn’t—” She gave her head a violent shake, her hands trembling with cold. “Never mind. We don’t have time for that now. The important thing is this: When my agent and Filip looked over my contract the day we were cast, I had them check whether anything in the language would oblige us to lose weight if we were asked to do so. They said weight loss is not legally enforceable according to my contract. Probably not according to yours either, though they couldn’t know for sure without seeing it.”

His dark eyes blinked open, and he gazed expressionlessly at the fire.

Fine. If he didn’t want to speak, she had more to say anyway. “When Ron asks us to starve for the sake of drama, I’m going to refuse. I imagine he won’t be thrilled, but if they choose to fire me over the issue, fine. I’d rather that than the alternative.”

Slowly, he turned toward her. Brows drawn together, he was staring at her like she’d just announced her intention to eat nothing butsurströmming—fermented herring; a famously smelly Swedish delicacy with a truly disturbing texture—for the rest of her misguided life.

“That’s why you packed all those snacks,” he said. “To defy them if they tried to fuck with our food supply.”

She inclined her head. “Of course.”

When he didn’t say more, she set aside her towel, laid a hand on his forearm, and made her appeal.

“That day in the parking lot, you told me I was on my own. ButPeter, we’d have more power if we stood together on this issue,” she told him, gently shaking his arm. “If we both refused—”

“I’m not going torefusethe showrunners anything.” There was no indecision in his voice. No hesitancy. “I need this role, and I’m willing to make sacrifices to keep it.”

Astounded, she opened her mouth but found herself speechless.

He jerked his head toward his phone, mouth firm. “Can we call Ron now?”

She paused before speaking again. Finding the right words in English took longer than she’d prefer, but her point was too important to leave unclear.

“Peter. Listen to me.” She leaned in until his face was a mere handful of centimeters away from hers, because he needed to pay attention. “Don’t you understand the long-term effects of what they’re asking us to do? Haven’t you read about the contestants on those awful weight-loss TV shows and the irreversible harm they did to their bodies?”

The creases at the corners of his eyes deepened in a tiny, nearly imperceptible flinch, but otherwise, his face might have been carved on a Viking runestone.

“You should know, Peter. Youhaveto know what’ll happen.” Brows furrowed, she fought the urge to shake his arm again, this time much, much harder. “Your body will scream at you to eat more and get back to your original weight. You’ll be hungry all the time.All the time. And while you starve yourself, you’ll fuck up your metabolism, and it’ll never be the same.Never. Because your body will think you’re in a famine and slow everything way the fuck down, permanently.”

For those reasons and so many more, she’d resolved long ago to stay healthy and strong at her current size, rather than focusing onweight loss. Back home, she’d even given occasional talks about the issue. And if the role of Cassia raised her public profile and allowed her more of a platform, she would gladly take advantage and spread the word to as many people as possible.

Starting, apparently, with her sexy idiot of a castmate, Peter Reedton.

“If you lose weight too quickly, you can damage your internal organs, including your heart. If you don’t believe me, I’ll send you links to various articles written by trustworthy sources.” She squeezed his arm for emphasis. “You can’t switch bodies the same way you switch roles, Peter. If you do this, you’ll harm yourself for life, and no job is worth that. None.”

To his credit, he appeared to be listening. He even took a minute before replying.

Then he said simply, “I’m sorry, Maria, but I disagree. For smaller roles, I wouldn’t do it. For this one, though...”

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