# MY PERFECT WIFE
### A Novel by Huddon S Lajah
---
# CHAPTER TEN
## The Competition Heats Up
---
**The Contestant Mansion — Thursday Morning**
The atmosphere in the mansion had shifted.
It was subtle—a recalibration of energy, a redistribution of alliances, a sharpening of competitive edges. Everyone had heard about Jawin's food market date. Everyone had seen the footage of her parents ambushing Mario at the vegetable stall. Everyone had witnessed her confrontation with Victoria in the main room.
And everyone had opinions.
"She's playing a game," Victoria declared to her inner circle during the morning briefing. "The 'authentic' girl routine. It's calculated to appeal to Mario's sense of isolation."
"It looked pretty real to me," one of her allies ventured.
Victoria's glare could have frozen lava.
"Of course it *looked* real. That's the point of a good performance. You don't see the strings because the performer is skilled enough to hide them." She straightened her already-perfect posture. "Jawin Mendez is not some random working-class girl who stumbled into this competition. She was sponsored by the Al-Rashid family. She replaced Salma Al-Rashid specifically. There's a story there, and I'm going to find it."
"What if there's no story?"
"There's always a story." Victoria's smile was sharp. "And stories can be weapons. We just need to find the right ammunition."
---
**The Second Wave of Dates — Thursday Afternoon**
Today's individual dates featured four new contestants: Penny Huang, Astrid (the astrology enthusiast), and two others whose names Jawin had learned but kept forgetting because they were essentially the same person in different outfits.
Penny was visibly terrified.
"I can't do this," she whispered to Jawin before departure. "I actually can't. I'm going to vomit. Or faint. Or vomit and *then* faint."
"You're not going to vomit."
"You don't know that."
"I know you've survived everything this competition has thrown at you so far. One date with a guy who already ranked you as a fiancée candidate? You've got this."
"He ranked me third! Out of pity!"
"He ranked you third out of potential. There's a difference." Jawin squeezed her hands. "Where is he taking you?"
"A concert hall. I'm supposed to play piano for him."
"That's literally your strength. You're a concert pianist."
"What if I forget how to play? What if my fingers stop working? What if I have a stroke mid-sonata?"
"Then you'll be the first person in history to have a piano-related medical emergency, and you'll be famous forever." Jawin grinned. "Relax. Be yourself. Show him what you can do."
"What if myself isn't enough?"
"Then he's an idiot, and you deserve better." Jawin's voice softened. "But I don't think he's an idiot. And I don't think you're not enough. I think you're exactly enough—you just don't believe it yet."
Penny took a shaky breath.
"Okay. Okay. I can do this."
"You absolutely can."
"I'm going to play Chopin. He likes Chopin, right? Everyone likes Chopin?"
"I have no idea who Chopin is, but I'm sure Mario will love it."
Penny laughed—a slightly hysterical laugh, but a laugh nonetheless.
"Thank you. For being my friend in this insane place."
"That's what disasters do. We stick together."
---
**Astrid's Date — A Cosmic Disaster**
While Penny headed to the concert hall, Astrid embarked on what she had been calling "a destined encounter written in the stars."
Mario had selected a botanical garden for their date.
Astrid had interpreted this as "a deliberate choice aligned with Venus's current position in the house of romance."
Mario had probably just liked the flowers.
"Your birth chart is fascinating," Astrid informed him within the first five minutes. "A Sagittarius sun with Scorpio rising? That explains so much about your emotional guardedness."
"I'm not emotionally guarded."
"That's exactly what a Scorpio rising would say." Astrid nodded sagely. "But I see beneath the surface, Mario. The stars reveal all."
"What do they reveal?"
"That you're searching for something profound. Something transcendent. Something that goes beyond material wealth and social status." Astrid placed a hand on his arm. "I can be that transcendence."
Mario's expression suggested he was searching for an exit.
"That's... very kind of you."
"It's not kindness. It's cosmic inevitability. Our moons are conjunct, Mario. Do you know what that means?"
"No."
"Neither do I, but it sounds significant."
The date lasted exactly ninety minutes.
Astrid later described it as "a profound spiritual connection hampered by Mario's Mercury retrograde."
Mario later described it as "exhausting."
---
**The Main Room — Late Afternoon**
The mansion buzzed with activity as contestants returned from their dates and others prepared for tomorrow's round.
Jawin sat in a corner, observing the chaos and taking mental notes.
Victoria's alliance was strategizing loudly enough that everyone could hear—a deliberate power move, establishing dominance through visibility.
Roxanne was rehearsing dramatic reactions for the camera crew, apparently planning her "emotional journey" arc.
Camille was analyzing date data in her leather journal, creating what appeared to be a statistical model for predicting elimination outcomes.
And the minor contestants—the ones without distinctive personalities or screen time—milled about anxiously, hoping not to be among the first eliminated.
"You're watching like a nature documentary again."
Jawin looked up.
Penny had returned, looking flushed but intact.
"You're alive!"
"I'm alive." Penny collapsed into the chair beside her. "I did it. I actually did it."
"Tell me everything."
"I played Chopin. The Ballade No. 1 in G minor. He sat in the front row and *listened*—actually listened, not just politely endured. And when I finished, he said—" Penny's voice cracked slightly. "He said it was the most beautiful thing he'd heard in years."
"Penny! That's amazing!"
"I almost cried. I definitely teared up. It was embarrassing."
"It was genuine."
"Same thing." Penny smiled—a real smile, the kind that transformed her whole face. "He asked me about why I chose that piece. And I told him—about my grandmother, who used to play it for me when I was little. About how it reminds me of her. About how music is my way of keeping her memory alive."
"And what did he say?"
"He said he wished he had something like that. Something that connected him to the people he'd lost." Penny's expression softened. "He's so *sad*, Jawin. Underneath everything. It's like there's this ocean of loneliness that he doesn't know how to navigate."
"I've noticed."
"Of course you have. You're the one teaching him to navigate it."
Jawin didn't know how to respond to that.
So she deflected.
"How's Victoria taking your success?"
Penny glanced across the room, where Victoria was holding court with barely concealed fury.
"She was waiting when I got back. Asked a lot of pointed questions about what Mario said, what we discussed, whether he mentioned anyone else." Penny shuddered. "She's terrifying."
"She's threatened."
"By me?"
"By everyone who connects with Mario in ways she doesn't understand. She thinks romance is a transaction—the right inputs producing the right outputs. When someone succeeds through genuine connection, it breaks her mental model."
Penny considered this.
"That's surprisingly insightful."
"I have moments."
"Usually you're just chaotic."
"The chaos contains multitudes."
---
**Victoria's War Room — Thursday Evening**
Victoria's alliance gathered in her room after dinner, ostensibly for "strategy planning" but actually for "Jawin-focused paranoia."
Present: Victoria (obviously), her three closest allies (whose names even the narrative had given up on), and a newcomer—Roxanne, who had decided that aligning with power was more useful than competing against it.
"She's winning," Victoria stated flatly. "Not officially—there are no official winners until the proposal—but she's winning the narrative. The internet loves her. The family dinner story is everywhere. #MendezFamily is trending higher than #PerfectWife."
"Maybe she's just likeable?" one ally suggested.
The room went cold.
"Likeable is manufactured," Victoria said slowly. "Likeable is a choice. No one is *accidentally* likeable in a competition with cameras on them twenty-four hours a day. Every moment of 'authenticity' is a calculated decision."
"What if she's actually—"
"She's NOT." Victoria's voice cracked slightly before she recovered. "She's not genuine. She can't be. People don't just... be themselves. Not in situations like this. There's always an angle."
Roxanne, who had been silent until now, spoke up.
"You sound scared."
Victoria's glare was venomous.
"Excuse me?"
"You sound scared. Of her. Of what she represents." Roxanne's dramatic training made her excellent at reading emotional subtext. "You're used to competing against people who play by your rules. People who calculate, who strategize, who understand that this is a game. Jawin doesn't play by those rules. She doesn't even acknowledge the game exists."
"Which makes her dangerous."
"Which makes her *unpredictable*. And unpredictable people terrify you because you can't control them."
The room went very quiet.
Victoria and Roxanne stared at each other—two predators assessing threat levels.
"If you have a point," Victoria said coldly, "make it."
"My point is this: you can't beat Jawin by playing the competition. You need to destroy the competition itself—or at least her place in it." Roxanne smiled, and it was not a friendly expression. "You said you're investigating her. What have you found?"
"The Al-Rashid connection. Salma was supposed to be here. Jawin replaced her."
"Why?"
"That's what I'm trying to determine."
"Then determine faster." Roxanne leaned forward. "Because right now, Jawin Mendez is getting a family dinner with the bachelor while the rest of us fight for scraps. If you want to win this competition, you need ammunition. And you need it before Sunday."
Victoria's expression shifted—calculating, reassessing, planning.
"I have people looking into Salma Al-Rashid. Her background, her connections, her recent activities."
"And?"
"And there are gaps. Inconsistencies. Things that don't add up." Victoria's smile returned, sharp and predatory. "Everyone has secrets. Jawin. Salma. Whoever orchestrated this substitution. I just need to find the right thread to pull."
"Then pull it."
"I intend to."
---
**The Kitchen — 11:00 PM**
Jawin couldn't sleep.
Again.
This was becoming a pattern—insomnia driving her to the kitchen, where she could stress-cook in peace and pretend her life wasn't spiraling in directions she hadn't anticipated.
Tonight's project: bread.
Not just any bread—her father's recipe, the one he'd perfected over thirty years in the restaurant. The one that required precise timing, exact temperatures, and approximately four hours of patience.
She was on hour two when footsteps approached.
*Please don't be Victoria. Please don't be Victoria.*
It wasn't Victoria.
It was Camille Fontaine, wearing pajamas and carrying her leather journal.
"You're up late," Camille observed.
"Stress baking. You?"
"Stress analyzing." Camille set her journal on the counter. "My date was this afternoon. Art museum. I thought it went well, but the data is... inconclusive."
"The data?"
"I've been tracking Mario's responses. Eye contact duration, conversational depth, physical proximity variations." Camille frowned at her notes. "But human behavior is frustratingly non-linear. Variables I expected to correlate aren't correlating."
"Maybe that's because people aren't data sets."
"Everything is a data set if you measure correctly."
Jawin kneaded her dough, considering this.
"Do you actually like him? Mario?"
Camille looked up, surprised by the question.
"Define 'like.'"
"Enjoy his company. Want to spend time with him. Find him interesting beyond his strategic value."
"I find him intellectually stimulating. Our conversations are engaging. I appreciate his analytical approach to problems." Camille paused. "But if you're asking whether I feel... *something*... in his presence, the answer is: I don't know. Emotions are not my area of expertise."
"That's surprisingly honest."
"I see no value in deception. It corrupts the data." Camille watched Jawin work the dough. "Can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"Why are you here? Really?"
Jawin's hands stilled.
"What do you mean?"
"I've been analyzing all the contestants. Their backgrounds, their motivations, their strategic positioning. Everyone has an angle—Victoria wants the merger, Roxanne wants the fame, Astrid wants... something cosmic, I assume. But you..."
"I don't have an angle?"
"You have the least obvious angle. Which is either brilliance or genuine authenticity, and I can't determine which." Camille's eyes were sharp. "You were sponsored by Salma Al-Rashid. You replaced her at the last minute. You have no financial resources, no social connections, no traditional qualifications for this competition. And yet you're the one Mario gravitates toward."
"Maybe he likes disasters."
"Maybe. Or maybe you're playing a longer game than anyone realizes." Camille leaned against the counter. "I'm not accusing you of anything. I'm just noting that the numbers don't add up."
"The numbers rarely add up when humans are involved."
"A frustrating truth."
They stood in silence for a moment.
"I'm here because I needed money," Jawin said finally. "For culinary school. Salma offered to pay if I took her place. That's the whole story."
"Is it?"
"Yes."
Camille studied her for a long moment.
"Interesting," she said. "I believe you."
"You do?"
"You're a terrible liar. If you were hiding something complex, your stress indicators would be different." Camille picked up her journal. "You're genuinely here by accident. Which makes your success even more remarkable."
"My success?"
"You're the frontrunner, Jawin. Whether you intended to be or not." Camille headed for the door. "Get some sleep. Tomorrow's dates are announced at breakfast, and I have a feeling you'll be on the list again."
She left.
Jawin stood alone in the kitchen, surrounded by bread dough and existential uncertainty.
*Frontrunner*.
She hadn't meant to become a frontrunner.
She'd meant to survive.
Somehow, those had become the same thing.
---
**Friday Morning — Date Announcements**
The announcement came at 8:00 AM, delivered by the same production assistant with the same dramatic pauses.
"Today's individual date selections: Contestant Seven—" (one of the forgettable ones) "—Contestant Twelve—" (another forgettable one) "—Contestant Eighteen—" (getting really hard to tell them apart) "—and Jawin Mendez."
Silence.
Then:
"AGAIN?"
That was Victoria, her composure finally cracking.
"She's had two dates in three days! There are twenty-four of us! The mathematics alone—"
"Date selections are at Mr. Castellan's discretion," the PA interrupted smoothly. "All complaints should be directed to the suggestion box in the main hall."
There was no suggestion box in the main hall.
Victoria's eye twitched.
Jawin tried to look invisible, which was difficult given that everyone was staring at her with varying degrees of hostility.
"Well," Penny murmured, leaning close, "at least we know he likes you."
"At least we know everyone *else* is going to kill me."
"Same thing?"
"Increasingly, yes."
---
**The Second Date — Friday Afternoon**
This time, Mario had planned something different.
The car took Jawin not to a market or a restaurant, but to a professional kitchen—the kind with stainless steel surfaces, industrial equipment, and the particular energy of a space where serious cooking happened.
"What is this place?" Jawin asked, stepping inside.
"The teaching kitchen at Le Cordon Bleu." Mario followed her in, looking slightly nervous. "I pulled some strings. We have it for three hours."
Jawin stared at him.
"You rented the Le Cordon Bleu kitchen. For a date."
"I didn't rent it exactly. I made a donation to their scholarship fund, and they agreed to let us use the space."
"That's... that's insane."
"You said you wanted to go to culinary school." Mario's voice was quiet. "I thought maybe you'd like to see what it's like."
Jawin couldn't speak.
She couldn't move.
She stood in the middle of a world-class culinary kitchen, surrounded by equipment she'd only dreamed of using, and felt tears prick at her eyes.
"Jawin?"
"I'm fine. I'm just—" She wiped her eyes. "This is the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me."
"We haven't done anything yet." Mario moved to the counter, where ingredients had been laid out. "I thought you could teach me something. Something real. Not just cookies at 3 AM, but actual cooking."
"What do you want to learn?"
"Anything. Everything." He smiled—that rare, genuine smile. "I want to understand why you love this so much."
Jawin took a breath.
Steadied herself.
And then she did what she'd been doing her whole life: she cooked.
---
**The Lesson**
They made *adobo*.
Not the fancy version—the real version, the one Jawin's grandmother had taught her father, who had taught her. Soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, bay leaves. Simple ingredients. Complex flavors.
"Why this dish?" Mario asked, watching her measure the soy sauce.
"Because it's home. Every Filipino family has their own recipe. My grandmother's is the best, obviously, but I'm biased." Jawin handed him a knife. "Here. You're cutting the garlic."
"How much garlic?"
"More than you think. There's never enough garlic."
Mario cut garlic. Badly.
"Your knife technique is terrible," Jawin observed.
"I've never used a knife before."
"For anything?"
"I have people who cut things for me."
"That's deeply sad." Jawin moved behind him, adjusting his grip. "Here. See how I'm holding it? Thumb on the side, fingers curled. You want control, not force."
"That's... actually helpful."
"I'm occasionally helpful."
They worked side by side—Mario fumbling through basics while Jawin guided him, their movements gradually syncing into something like partnership.
The *adobo* came together slowly. Browning the meat, building the sauce, adjusting the seasoning. Each step accompanied by stories: Jawin's grandmother's kitchen, her father's restaurant, the meals that had shaped her understanding of love.
"Food is communication," she said, stirring the pot. "Every choice says something. This much vinegar means my grandmother was in a particular mood. This much garlic means my father was feeling generous. You can read a person's life through their food."
"What does your food say about you?"
Jawin considered.
"That I'm stubborn. That I don't take shortcuts. That I believe good things are worth working for, even when the work is hard." She smiled. "And that I put too much garlic in everything, which my father says is a character flaw but I maintain is a feature."
Mario laughed.
"What will my food say about me?"
"So far? That you're a beginner. That you're willing to learn. That you care more about understanding than about getting it perfect." Jawin looked at him. "Those are good things."
"You think so?"
"I know so."
The *adobo* finished cooking.
They sat at a small table in the corner of the kitchen, eating from the same pot, sharing food and conversation like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"This is incredible," Mario said through a mouthful. "How did we make this? I can barely cut garlic."
"*You* made it. I supervised."
"The supervision was essential."
"The garlic cutting was also essential. Barely."
They both laughed.
And somewhere between the cooking and the eating and the laughter, something shifted again.
Something that felt like possibility.
---
**The Return — Friday Evening**
Jawin returned to the mansion glowing.
Not literally glowing—that would be weird—but radiating the particular energy of someone who had just experienced something wonderful.
Victoria noticed immediately.
"Another successful date?" she asked, her voice deceptively casual.
"It was nice."
"Nice. Interesting word choice." Victoria moved closer. "What did you do?"
"We cooked."
"Cooked."
"Made *adobo*. Filipino dish. My grandmother's recipe."
Victoria's expression flickered—confusion, calculation, reassessment.
"You... cooked together."
"He wanted to learn. So I taught him." Jawin shrugged. "It was nice."
"You keep saying 'nice.'"
"Because it was nice. What word would you prefer?"
"Romantic. Strategic. Advantageous." Victoria's voice sharpened. "But not 'nice.' 'Nice' is what you call an afternoon with a friend, not a date with a billionaire bachelor."
"Maybe that's the point."
"The point of what?"
"The point of why he likes me." Jawin met Victoria's gaze directly. "I'm not trying to impress him. I'm not strategizing or positioning or calculating. I'm just... spending time with someone I'm starting to care about."
"Care about."
"Yes."
"You *care* about Mario Castellan."
"Is that surprising?"
"It's naive." Victoria's smile was sharp. "People like Mario don't get 'cared about.' They get pursued. Captured. Leveraged. You're playing a game whether you acknowledge it or not—the only question is whether you're good enough at it to win."
"Maybe I'm not playing."
"Everyone's playing."
"Not everyone."
They stared at each other—two different worldviews in direct collision.
"Enjoy your delusions," Victoria said finally. "They won't last. Reality has a way of intruding."
She walked away.
Jawin watched her go, feeling the weight of the confrontation settle in her chest.
*Everyone's playing.*
Was Victoria right?
Was Jawin naive to believe that genuine connection could survive a competition designed for manipulation?
She didn't know.
But she was going to find out.
---
**The Elimination Approaches — Saturday Morning**
The elimination ceremony was scheduled for 7:00 PM.
The entire day was dedicated to "reflection and preparation"—which meant twenty-four women pacing anxiously, strategizing desperately, and generally falling apart in various photogenic ways.
Jawin found Penny in the library, hiding behind an architecture book again.
"How are you doing?"
"Terrified. You?"
"Same." Jawin sat down. "Do you know anything? About who's being eliminated?"
"Victoria's alliance says Astrid is definitely going. Her date was apparently a disaster—she spent the whole time reading Mario's palm and predicting their future children's astrological charts."
"That tracks."
"Also probably Contestant Twelve and Contestant Eighteen. They've barely had screen time. Production loves eliminating the wallflowers first."
"And the fourth?"
Penny hesitated.
"There are rumors it might be one of Victoria's allies. Punishment for the alliance being too obvious."
"That's... interesting."
"It's chaos." Penny closed her book. "Are you worried? About yourself?"
"I don't know. I'm 'uncategorized'—which either means I'm safe because Mario's interested, or I'm vulnerable because I don't fit his system."
"You have two dates this week. That's more than anyone else."
"I know. But dates don't guarantee safety." Jawin sighed. "I keep thinking about what Victoria said. About everyone playing a game."
"You're not playing a game."
"Maybe that's the problem."
Penny was quiet for a moment.
"Can I tell you something?"
"Always."
"When I first got here, I was ready to perform. To be what I thought Mario wanted. To play the game, as Victoria calls it." Penny's voice softened. "But then I met you. And I watched you just... be yourself. Not strategizing. Not performing. Just existing authentically in a space designed for inauthenticity."
"That sounds like an insult."
"It's not. It's an inspiration." Penny smiled. "You made me want to be authentic too. To show Mario who I really am, not who I thought he wanted. And it worked—my date was the best experience I've had in this competition. Not because I played a game, but because I played music."
"Penny..."
"You're changing things, Jawin. Whether you mean to or not. You're changing how people in this competition relate to each other. To Mario. To themselves." Penny squeezed her hand. "That's not naivety. That's power."
Jawin didn't know what to say.
So she squeezed Penny's hand back.
---
**The Elimination Ceremony — 7:00 PM**
The main hall had been transformed.
Rose petals lined the floor. Candles flickered in strategic arrangements. Dramatic lighting cast everyone in cinematic shadows. It was beautiful and theatrical and absolutely exhausting.
The twenty-four contestants stood in a semicircle, facing a stage where Mario waited with an expression that suggested he found this as uncomfortable as everyone else.
Don Castellan stood beside him, presiding over the ceremony like a corporate executioner.
"Ladies," Don Castellan began, "you've completed your first week of the competition. You've been evaluated on intellectual compatibility, social skills, emotional intelligence, and other criteria essential for a Castellan partnership."
*Partnership*, Jawin noted. Not marriage. Not love. *Partnership*.
"Tonight, four of you will be leaving. Your journey ends here." Don Castellan gestured to Mario. "My son will announce the results."
Mario stepped forward, tablet in hand.
"Thank you all for your time and effort this week. The decisions tonight were difficult, but necessary." He paused. "When I call your name, please step forward."
Silence.
"Astrid Chen."
Astrid moved forward, surprisingly calm. She'd apparently predicted this through some cosmic means.
"Contestant Twelve—Margaret Williams."
Margaret—*that* was her name—stepped forward, looking more relieved than disappointed.
"Contestant Eighteen—Lauren Park."
Lauren joined the line, already mentally planning her exit interviews.
One more.
The room held its breath.
Victoria's expression was confident.
Penny's was terrified.
Jawin's was—
"Contestant Six—Helena Torres."
The room exhaled.
Helena—one of Victoria's allies—moved forward, shock evident on her face.
Victoria's composure cracked for just a moment.
Then recovered.
But Jawin had seen it.
The fear.
The realization that Victoria's power wasn't absolute.
"Ladies," Don Castellan interjected, "thank you for your participation. Please gather your belongings. You'll be escorted off the property within the hour."
The eliminated contestants were led away.
The remaining twenty became the focus.
"Congratulations," Mario said, his voice carefully neutral. "You've made it through the first elimination. The competition continues. Work hard. Be genuine. Show me who you really are."
*Be genuine*.
He looked at Jawin when he said it.
Just for a moment.
Just long enough.
---
**After the Ceremony — 9:00 PM**
The mansion buzzed with post-elimination energy.
Some contestants celebrated. Others strategized. Others collapsed in relief.
Jawin found a quiet corner of the garden and called her family.
"MIJA!" Her father answered on the first ring. "We watched the ceremony! You survived!"
"I survived."
"Was there ever any doubt?"
"There was significant doubt, Papa."
"Nonsense. You're a Mendez. We're survivors." Eduardo's voice carried the particular warmth of unconditional paternal support. "Sunday is still happening? The dinner?"
"As far as I know."
"Good. Your mother has been cooking for three days. The *kare-kare* is achieving legendary status. The *caldereta* is reaching transcendent proportions."
"Papa, please don't overwhelm him."
"He's dating my daughter. He should be overwhelmed. That's the minimum requirement." Eduardo laughed. "How are you doing? Really?"
"I'm..." Jawin considered. "I'm confused. And scared. And somehow also hopeful. Does that make sense?"
"That makes perfect sense. That's what caring about someone feels like."
"I don't know if I'm supposed to care about him. This is a competition. There are rules."
"There are rules, and then there's life. Life doesn't follow rules." Eduardo's voice softened. "Your mother and I—we didn't have rules. We had feelings that didn't make sense and circumstances that should have stopped us and a million reasons why we shouldn't work. But we did work. Because we chose each other, not because it was logical, but because it was right."
"That's not very practical advice."
"Love isn't practical. It's messy and confusing and terrifying. And it's worth it." Eduardo paused. "Do you like this boy?"
"I think so. Yes."
"Does he like you?"
"I think so. Maybe."
"Then that's all that matters. The rest is details." Eduardo's voice brightened. "Now go celebrate your survival. Eat something. Rest. Sunday, we show this billionaire what real family looks like."
"I love you, Papa."
"I love you too, *mija*. Always."
The call ended.
Jawin sat in the garden, surrounded by darkness and roses and the lingering energy of a competition she was somehow winning.
*Love isn't practical. It's worth it.*
Maybe her father was right.
Maybe the whole point of this insane journey wasn't to win or survive or strategize.
Maybe the point was simply to find something real.
And maybe—impossibly, improbably—she was finding it.
---
**Sunday Approaches**
The remaining contestants dispersed into evening routines.
Victoria retreated to her room, probably to scheme.
Roxanne held court in the main room, performing emotions for whoever would watch.
Camille analyzed elimination data for patterns.
Penny played piano in the music room, finally at peace.
And Jawin sat in the garden, thinking about Sunday.
About her family.
About Mario.
About what happens when two worlds collide.
*Day five ends*, she thought. *Day six begins.*
*And then: the dinner that changes everything.*
---
**END OF CHAPTER TEN**