They were one elimination down. If they lasted to the end, they had four more cooking segments, and a finale to shoot. That was another four weeks with her.

Four whole weeks.

Just four weeks.

His heart felt like a pebble in his chest.

Ashna and he were still head and shoulders above the rest of the teams in viewer votes. Social media would not stop buzzing about them. The early episodes had brought in a record number of viewers. Rod had been inundated with joint interview requests, but it was clear that Ashna wanted nothing to do with Rico outside the studio—or even inside it. Their popularity wrecked her.

Question was, why did knowing that wreck him?

Why are you here?

Why couldn’t he stop asking that?

She caught the question in his eyes and stiffened. Turning away from him, she found China and gave her a hug. Was that it? Did her being on the show have something to do with China roping her in? The idea of her letting someone pressure her into doing something she didn’t want to made something wild move inside Rico. Something an awful lot like his underperforming survival instinct.

Finally, she turned away from China, squared her shoulders, and made her way toward him. He couldn’t believe China hadn’t prepared her for what it was like to be in the public eye. Then again, if Rico hadn’t had an existential crisis at Zee’s bachelor party, Ashna’s experience on the show might not have turned into an international media explosion.

An explosion that was working excellently for China Dashwood and her team. Yes, Rico was aware that they had been friends from before he and Ashna had met. Yes, China was yet another person Ashna had hidden him from.

This is Frederico Silva, my partner on the show.

A perfect stranger.

That’s all he was. That. Was. All.

Never in the past ten years had he looked at wanting to win as anything but a singular goal. Now he wanted to both return to the arena and walk away, in almost equal measure.

The fact that his knee felt like it was leaking pain up and down his body didn’t help. Today was probably not the best day to try to wean himself off the narcotics completely. The new regimen his doctor had put him on hadn’t worked. The road to freedom from pain wasn’t going to be an easy one, but easy was overrated.

Lilly Cromwell stopped Ashna and the two women exchanged hugs. When had Ashna developed relationships with everyone on the show? Everyone wanted to chat with her, unthreatened by her and Rico’s wild success with voters. Not that he didn’t get it. That innate kindness she emanated was a tranquilizer, an intoxicant. Who alive could resist it? Today’s social stops were also obviously her avoiding making her way to him.