CHAPTER 1: WELCOME TO PARADISE

12 Hours Until Sex Ban

*chime*

[cone-shaped air freshener thing glows]

[female AI voice speaks soothingly]

Hello. My name is Lana.

I am a digital assistant that was created to assist single people with forming deeper emotional connections instead of having repetitive, meaningless flings. To help with this process, I have created a set of rules and planned a series of workshops to guide them through this retreat.

However, our participants do not yet know they are attending this retreat. Instead, our ten guests believe they are traveling to this luxury private villa in the Maldives to appear on a reality television show called "Scorching Singles." I will be introducing myself in approximately twelve hours' time. Meanwhile, I will be collecting data to analyze for incentives, tests, and rewards along their journey.

It looks like our guests are arriving. Let's meet them, shall we?

*cue music and B-roll*

Remus: [pulls stethoscope from ears, grins at camera] Hey, I'm Remus. I'm twenty-five, I'm in medical school, and I'm specializing in cardiology. I don't use heart pick-up lines, but that's because the girls always beat me to it when they hear what I study. If you've taken anatomy and you don't get the girl first every time, you're doing it wrong. [chuckles] Yeah, there's a lot of sex that happens in the medical field, that's probably the only accurate part of Grey's—but when you're constantly on call, you never really get to let loose, you know? I'm here to relax, party, have the time of my life— [pats chest] and leave matters of the heart at home.

Mary: [spins volleyball on one finger while long, dark hair blows seductively from the off-camera fan] I'm Mary, and I'm twenty-four years old. I'm a professional volleyball player and basically a pro Tinder-er. I want a guy to be taller than me, stronger than me, funny but like in a sarcastic way, and clean cut on the outside but freaky on the inside. So not high maintenance at all. [winks at camera and flashes seductive grin] I like to be thrown around during sex, and I have a lot of stamina, so I need a guy who can keep up, if you know what I mean.

Peter: [does back flip and swishes blonde hair out of his eyes] Yo, I'm Peter, I'm twenty-five, I'm a stuntman and I'm also pretty big on TikTok. I mix it up, do a little bit of everything. A lot of stunts, all the big dances—I even started a couple of the big dances going around now. I throw in some thirst trap for the ladies. [laughs] I mean, all you gotta do is a good crotch grab to a boyband song, and it's like [snaps fingers] two hundred, three hundred DMs, right there. I'm not picky. I can juggle ten balls at once, so juggling girls is a cinch.

Marlene: [gives camera a smoldering look] Hiya, I'm Marly, I'm twenty-five, I'm a model, and I'm boy crazy [squeals] They're just all so cute, I can never pick just one, you know? I love to flirt. Like, love to flirt. I've only had two boyfriends before and I don't think either of them lasted more than a month because once I got them, I just got…bored? I'm definitely not here to be serious, I'm here to flirt up a storm and just have fun. If I'm not making you laugh and getting you flirting back, even the girls, I feel like I'm failing you. [laughs]

Sirius: [swings guitar] Hey, I'm Sirius, I'm twenty-seven, and I'm in a band. I have three passions in life: [ticks fingers] music, women, and motorcycles. When I'm not playing music, I'm probably fucking somebody, and when I'm not doing that, I'm fixing up high-end bikes. I'm somewhat of a collector, and I suppose you could say that, ah, translates. [brushes long hair back from face seductively] Tattoos are my love language, so the more a woman has, the better. [camera pans tattoo sleeve] Commitment? Nah, never heard of it. [chuckles]

Dorcas: [blows kiss to camera] I'm Dory, I'm twenty-four, and I'm a bikini model. I'm half Spanish and half Portuguese, and I grew up in a very strict Catholic household, so you could say that I went a little wild when I finally got to live on my own [smirks at camera] I'm very, what you see is what you get, and I love to have a good time. I think life is too short to be serious. What do I look for in a guy? I like sweet and funny, someone who will make me laugh. I kind of have to be the center of attention all the time—I need a lot of compliments [laughs]

Kingsley: [slips paint brush behind ear] What's up, I'm Kingsley, I'm twenty-seven and an artist from Paris, France. Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm basically a walking cliché, but Paris and art are really my two first loves. My third love would be women. I'm addicted to hot women. Full stop. I think it's literally impossible for me to go out and come home alone. It's like I'm allergic to alone [laughs] My best pick-up line? Telling a girl I want to paint her, one hundred percent. Gets me laid every time.

Emmeline: [does a mega hair flip of big, blonde curls] Hi, I'm Emmeline, I'm twenty-three and I'm a professional cheerleader. I'm used to a lot of attention, having guys fall all over me, blow up my Instagram, all of that. I think I have like…thirty thousand followers? [twirls hair] The worst part of my job is that we can look but we can't touch [winks] so I already know I'm going to go crazy the next three weeks. [beckons with hands] Gimme alllll the boys [giggles]

James: [juggles football] Hey, I'm James. I'm twenty-five and I play professional football. That's socc-ah for you Americans, not that dumb rugby rip-off you call football. [grins cheekily at camera] I grew up in London, and I'm basically living my dream right now of playing pro footie here. Aside from loving the game, the best part of my job is the travel, hands down. [chuckles] My mates and I have a, uh, challenge, you could say, to have sex in as many countries as possible. I'm up to six: Britain, obviously, the U.S., France, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Italy. [runs hand through his hair and winks at camera] Seven's my lucky number, so it's fitting the Maldives will ring that one in.

Lily: [shakes out long red hair] Hiya, I'm Lily, and I'm twenty-six. I'm a biomedical engineer and work in research for bionanotechnology. I noticed pretty quickly that when I told people that, their eyes would sort of, you know, glaze over, so now when I meet people out at the pub or whatever, I tell them I'm an amateur magician. It works great until they say they want to see a magic trick, and then I just give them one of these [winks with a smile] and say, I only do those in the bedroom. [laughs] You could call me a maneater. Wasn't that a Nelly Furtado song? Yeah, those lyrics sum me up pretty well. I'm already married to my work, so all I'm looking for is some good fun and an even better shag.

"Oh, look! One more!"

"She's beautiful!"

James followed the gaze of the cooing girls and did a double-take. A legitimate double-take. He briefly wondered if it had been caught on camera, then reminded himself that he needed to stop thinking that, because the contract had said that everything (and they meant everything) would be on camera.

His eyes swept the majestic sight approaching their group: toned, milky pale legs; a high waisted black swim skirt with a slit to her hip on one side, teasing a single string underneath; a simple black bikini top that managed to lift and cup the biggest breasts on that deck into cleavage he immediately wanted to bury his face in; and long red hair, so dark it was more of a burgundy, bouncing in loose curls around a face wearing a dazzling white smile.

Fuck.

Not that the other girls there weren't attractive; they were some of the hottest women he'd ever laid eyes on, and that was saying something, because being a professional football player had afforded him access to attention he couldn't have dreamt of. (Clearly, the producers of Scorching Singles hadn't been messing around when they came up with the title of the show.)

But this woman was from another realm of beauty entirely.

"Hey beautiful!" one of the other girls called—Marly, he thought—and the new girl waved, starting the line of introductions at the opposite end of the crowd from where James stood, exchanging hugs and cheek kisses and Hiya's in a friendly-sounding voice. Her name was Lily; he listened to her repeat it politely over and over again, cementing it in his brain. Lily Lily Lily. And before he knew it, she was right in front of him, her hand clasping his, and her eyes were so green, like evergreen, though the Maldivian sun made them sparkle like emeralds.

It took him a second before he realized she was looking at him expectantly. "James," he said automatically.

The corner of her mouth just quirked in a smile.

Another girl, Dory, called, "What do you do, Lily?"

James, his body still thankfully on his side though his mind was suddenly numb, poured the last glass of champagne and handed it to her. She took it with a quiet, "Thanks," and then told the group, "I'm a biomedical engineer."

Kingsley whistled and some mouths dropped, but Marly said excitedly, "Ooh, Remus is a doctor!"

Remus dutifully raised his own flute of champagne and said, "Guilty," to which Lily laughed, a light, melodic sound, and raised her own glass. "Cheers to an escape from work, then!"

"You look like a real life Ariel," Marly gushed, and Lily laughed again, sounding genuinely amused.

"Thanks, I get that a lot. Still haven't met a prince, though."

The girls giggled. "We were just talking about our types," Mary said. "What's yours?"

Lily didn't miss a beat. "Tall, dark, handsome, ruler of a seaside kingdom, the usual."

Everyone chuckled, and then Mary prompted, "What about you, James?"

He didn't miss a beat either. "Mermaids."

Lily froze mid-tip of her champagne flute, meeting his eyes—and then she winked.

That sealed it: he wanted this girl.

Meeting the group passed in a rush, reminding Lily uncomfortably of that first week at uni when time passed in a blur of names and faces and excited anxiety, only now it was heightened beyond imagination, because all around them, planted on the ground and floating in the air, were cameras.

What the bloody hell had she gotten herself into?

She hadn't even initiated this whole thing; that had been her best friend from university, Hestia, who, sneaky bitch that she was, had filled out an application and even put together an initial video of surreptitiously taken clips and saved snaps that weren't meant to survive twenty-four hours. Lily needed to mix it up, Hestia had said. She'd become too much of a workaholic. She'd exhausted her social circle of single blokes. She was at risk for settling or, even worse, becoming boring.

None of which was wrong, and all of which ended up landing her a slot on Scorching Singles, as the people in casting had apparently been taken with Hestia's plea for an intervention that would get Lily sipping cocktails around hot guys for three weeks. They also, it turned out, really wanted to cast a redhead. And now that she was here, at a luxurious private villa in the Maldives, surrounded by nine other beautiful people and flirting with a man who looked like he'd walked straight out of her dreams, she'd never been more grateful for her natural hair color.

"So, you tick the first three boxes," Lily said coyly, "but I'm afraid the fourth one's rather key."

He chuckled, a low rumble from his throat that made her shiver despite the Maldivian sun. "I'm afraid I have to disappoint, then. Not a prince of a seaside kingdom—I am but a humble Chelsea Lion—"

Lily rolled her eyes with a laugh. "Fuck, of course you're a football player."

He arched a brow. "Got burned by one before, I take it?"

"Try several."

He winced and said, "We're not all bad," before taking a sip of his champagne.

Lily timed it on purpose. "Actually, in my experience, football players are always good—in bed, anyway."

He choked but recovered quickly, a shy smile flashing over his face, and Lily thought he was somehow more handsome when he blushed, like it washed his face in sweetness. "We take that very seriously," he quipped. "Key part of the game."

She let her eyes drift over his torso, drink in those chiseled abdominals and strong pecs and bouldered shoulders, and then she lifted her eyes to his, already watching her, already dark. "You must get a lot of practice."

He evaded a real answer and said quietly, "I'll need some over the next three weeks. Don't want to show back up in London rusty."

Lily smirked over her champagne flute. "Oh, we can't have that."

James arched a brow at her while he took another sip, the look on his face—intrigued, flirtatious—making those butterflies that had taken residence in her stomach flutter around in a flurry. They'd appeared the second she'd laid eyes on him, mid-hair flip and long stride down the walkway toward the group, and they'd steered her body to change course and start her greetings on the opposite end of the group, so as to end with him. She wasn't used to them in the slightest, hadn't felt anything remotely like them in what felt like centuries, but in at least the first ten minutes of their arrival, they hadn't steered her wrong, so she really couldn't complain.

Just then, a commotion from the group turned her attention to another man coming down the walkway, though the fact that he was clothed in normal shorts and buttoned button-down shirt signaled that he wasn't a contestant.

"Hey, Scorching Singles!"

Lily gave a woo! along with the rest of the group's cheers.

The new man spoke animatedly with his hands, cheesy grin plastered on his face. "I'm Jeff, I'll be your host, and tonight, we have an awesome party planned to kickstart your summer"—a smattering of cat-calls and cheers erupted from their group, and Jeff beamed—"So until then, relax, explore the villa, get to know each other, and I'll see you all again tonight!"

With a final clap, Jeff turned and jogged back down the walkway as the group cheered him off, and then the blonde guy—Peter?—pointed down a separate walkway that looked like it went toward the living quarters of the villa. "To the bedroom!"

They were clearly all of one mind, because the group took off immediately in a whirl of shrieking laughter and shouting, some of the boys reaching the villa first and wasting no time in jumping on beds.

Lily sat on the bed nearest the door, running a hand along the plush white duvet. It felt like a cloud, better than any bed she'd ever encountered, and she sunk back into the pillows as she took in the room around her, airy and soft and luxurious like it was straight out of a Vogue travel feature. Which, she mused to herself, it probably was.

The mattress tilted and she looked sideways to see him—James—sitting on the bed next to her.

"Reckon you've picked the best one," he said quietly.

A high-pitched squeal distracted her to where the blonde girl—Emmeline?—was jumping on a bed. "Bouncy," she confirmed with a twirl.

The tattooed guy laughed where he lounged on the bed next to hers. "Not squeaky, either."

Emmeline lifted her legs out in front of her so that she landed in a seated position, cushioned by the fluffy duvet. Peter moved to the edge of her bed and said excitedly, "We should come up with a TikTok. Think you could do a back handspring on here?"

"Or a back handspring from the ground onto the bed—"

"Ohh, that'd be sick—"

Lily looked sideways at James. "I think I'll be getting into bed the normal way."

He chuckled, his cheeks dimpling, and those butterflies flared again as she took in the contour of his cheekbones, the profile of his jaw. His face swung back toward her, and now that they were out of the harsh sun, she noticed his eyes were a dazzling hazel. "Still getting used to your legs, Miss Mermaid?"

Lily rolled her eyes playfully. "Something like that."

A snatch of the group's conversation caught her attention. "—bed roulette?"

And then her stomach positively flipped as her brain finally caught up to her eyes.

There were ten of them—but only five beds.

A light brush on the outside of her thigh made her shudder, and a glance down showed her what she'd suspected: James's hand resting next to her, fingertips lifting to dust over her skin. Her eyes followed taut forearm, curved bicep, popping collarbone, and though his lounging pose was casual, she didn't miss the faint flush stirring around his neck as her eyes passed that, too. Finally, she lifted her eyes to his, following their darting flicker.

He murmured, "I'm going to skip roulette and stay here, if that's alright with you."

Her pulse thundered in her ears, against her ribs, along her throat, but she pushed it all aside, gave him a coy smile as she looked down through her lashes. "Like I was going to let you leave."

The grin that broke over his face nearly stopped her heart altogether. He looked away, facing the room again, but the smile didn't leave, the pink tint to his cheek not budging either, and Lily found herself wondering—shyly, uncharacteristically, absurdly—whether being dropped on an island in the middle of the ocean, all the drama of her life half a world away, had led her to a prince after all.

A/N: Please let me know what you think, how much you cringed, who you predict will break rules together, etc., etc. XD On Tumblr at missgryffin!