Within a single afternoon, the Perfect Match cast stirs up a perfect storm of drama. Melinda and Harry’s he said, she said kissing scandal throws the villa and his relationship with Jess into chaos, but the finale comes through with the receipts: Unseen footage shows the Too Hot to Handle alums canoodling purposefully out of the watchful eyes of the cameras.

For Melinda, coming between one of the season’s strongest couples was never part of the plan. But while others may be afraid to kiss and tell, she’s clear about her side of the story.

Walking into the boys’ day with the rest of the single women, Melinda says she was “mentally checked out [as far as] trying to pursue anybody,” — she hadn’t been clicking with any of the men romantically. “I didn’t like anyone there and I wasn’t interested in trying to persuade anyone to match with me,” she tells Tudum, noting that the bulk of the available men appeared on Dated & Related, which she previously hosted. "I was a big shark coming into a pond of goldfish." 

But all afternoon, she remembers catching vibes from Harry. “He was flirting with me throughout that whole day,” Melinda claims. “He was making comments to me that no one [could hear] like, ‘Oh, you think we'll have some cute babies together?’ ” Based on a previous conversation, Melinda was also under the impression that Harry’s relationship with Jess wasn’t exactly serious. “He said something about her living far away and how he’s just here to have a great time. He kind of brushed it off,” Melinda recalls. “I was just interested in knowing how everything was going in the house … and the way he said it was as if he didn’t care.”

So, when Harry offered to carry her to the bathroom, Melinda accepted. “I was not about to walk all the way off camera on the rocks,” she says. In the footage shown in the finale, the two walk together with Melinda’s legs wrapped around Harry’s waist, as he carries her off-camera within plain view of other cast members. Later, she is heard whispering to him, “Go ahead, no one’s looking.” Then, Harry tells Chris that he “did something bad,” but when asked about it, he refuses to explain on camera. According to Melinda, nothing happened between the two until they headed back to the party. “He’s carrying me and it’s very awkward. I have no connection with Harry at all. We never really hung out together besides when Too Hot to Handle came out. This was my second interaction with him in person,” she explains. “He just leans in and kisses me. I do kiss him back. Then he kisses me again and continues to walk back to the open area and puts me down. We go our separate ways and I’m like, ‘Holy shit, did that just happen?’ ”

As whispers about their dalliance began swirling around the villa, Harry jumped into denial mode. “Harry starts going around telling people that [the kiss] never happened, Melinda says. “He’s looking at me dead in my eye saying that I’m a liar and that nothing ever happened. I’ve never had someone sit in my face and lie to me like that. What do I gain from lying?”

Addressing the drama on his podcast Boyfriend Material, Harry, who declined to speak with Tudum, said he now takes full responsibility for his behavior. “I fucked up entirely. I went and ruined this whole situation,” he said. “There’s no hard feelings between me and Melinda. Anytime I’ve seen her, everything’s been good. I have no animosity towards her.”

As for why he denied that anything physical happened between them, Harry said in the podcast that he was “absolutely sauced” heading into the day. “I wasn’t in a very good head space going into it. There’s no excuses for my actions whatsoever,” he said. “I forgot the fact that there’s someone who cares about me and there’s someone that is kind of counting on me to be a good human in this situation.”

Returning to the villa, Melinda knew that she was “basically walking into a war zone,” as Jess and the other women were waiting to hear about the day. But she wasn’t alone in her desire to address what went down. “Every girl there had something to tell, so we all agreed to come collectively and sit the other girls down,” she says. But as soon as the conversation kicked off, it was clear to Melinda that she and Jess weren’t going to see eye to eye. “She’s looking at me and goes, ‘OK, so apparently you kissed Harry?" Melinda says. “Her demeanor was snobby, so I’m automatically on the defensive because she’s talking to me as if I’m her child. I'm trying to explain what happened with your guy who you seem so blind to his actions. You thought that you were different, boo-boo, but you weren’t.”

Ultimately, Jess came to realize that Melinda was indeed telling the truth. “I’m like, ‘Jess, how would I know certain information about you?’ Harry told me things about you that you didn’t even tell me.” The two were later able to speak on-on-one and come to an understanding. “We definitely got to a better place,” Melinda says. “I also personally DM’d her a few months ago to also apologize again for the situation.” When it comes to Harry, though, Melinda is still looking for closure. “I want a nice sit-down. I want him to look me in the face and apologize to me,” she says. “That’s what I want.”

Since then, life has continued to surprise Melinda. “I didn’t find my perfect match in the house, but I found him outside the house and everything is going so well,” she reveals. “I’ve never had a guy that cared so much about my happiness.” While her Perfect Match journey didn’t end up like she’d expected, the road — however rocky — led to an even more promising destination.