Romancing Miss Right (3 page)

“I’m never going to find the love of my life
staying cooped up in Murphysboro, Ohio and keeping my heart in a
box. Laurie already married the one eligible guy in a fifty mile
radius. I don’t have the chance to meet men at work because I work
from home and the few times I do go to industry conferences, they
are almost entirely populated by women. Working in a female
dominated industry is awesome, but it doesn’t put me in the path of
very many eligible men. And these Suitors are handpicked to be
incredible. I’m not saying I’m going find the love of my life
tonight—but my odds are a hell of a lot better here than they are
back home.”

At least those were all the rationalizations
she gave herself when she was standing in front of the camera
gushing about
opening her heart
and
trusting the
process
. She’d never really been emotionally invested the first
time around.

Jack was a great guy—certainly qualifying for
the appellate Mr. Perfect, or Dr. Perfect in his case—but while
they’d gotten along wonderfully, something had always been a little
off between them romantically. Then she’d seen him with his long
time best friend and live-in nanny Lou and the scales had fallen
from her eyes. The fool was in love with a girl who wasn’t even
among his Suitorettes and he didn’t even know it. Thank God he’d
figured it out before he’d proposed to the wrong person.

Marcy only hoped she didn’t make the same
mistake—getting so wrapped up in following the producers'
instructions and making the show a success that she stopped
listening to her own heart and missed what was right in front of
her face.

She didn’t think she was that girl. She had
too fierce a thread of cynicism at her core to be swept away by the
contrived romance of it all. She needed to trust her instincts,
trust that she would know Mr. Right when he appeared—even if it was
hard for her to buy the idea that a reality dating show really
could lead to happily ever after.

It could certainly lead to sales.

She knew her part, knew all the lines to say
to make America believe the love story—hell, she was a romance
writer. She’d written half of those lines. But it was different
now. Playing the heroine. Much less comfortable than sitting at
home in her pajamas with her fingers on her keyboard. Everyone was
watching and she had to give them a show.

Her stomach knotted and she was glad she
hadn’t eaten much today. She didn’t think she would have been able
to keep much of anything down.

Dinah lifted the untouched Mimosa from the
pedestal table at her side and took a sip. “Look on the bright
side—they’re all going to be hotter than crap. Thirty insanely hot
men chasing after you? Where do I sign up?”

“You won’t hear me complaining.”

Dinah’s gaze veered back toward the open
balcony. “You aren’t even a little curious?”

Frankly, she was dying. She just wanted it to
be tonight so she could meet them already, but she pasted a blasé
smile on her face. “I’ll meet them soon enough.”

“I guess,” Dinah grumbled, clearly
disappointed by her unwillingness to climb the wall for a sneak
preview. “And I guess even if they’re all douche bags, you still
get a fancy new wardrobe.”

“And a wider readership.”

“Exactly.” Dinah raised her glass in a
mocking toast. “To Miss Right, may she have her socks romanced
right off. All the way to the bank.”

Nerves coiled in Marcy’s stomach as she
lifted an imaginary glass and pantomimed chiming it against
Dinah’s. “To true love, hot men, and reality television.”

Or two of the three.

Chapter Three

“Are you ready for the
adventure of a lifetime, Marcy?”

Marcy hooked her arm through Josh Pendleton’s
and strolled with the host along the path that would lead them to
the Suitors’ Mansion. “Actually I was thinking that you and I could
run away together. What do you think? You’re a good looking guy.
We’d make a cute couple.”

Josh shot her a look that was equal parts
amused, confused, and horrified. “I can never tell if you’re
serious or not.”

“I could be. What do you say? Wanna blow this
joint and run away to Vegas?”

It was entirely too tempting to run. Not
because Josh was handsome—which he was, though he was also rumored
to be hot and heavy with a supermodel, so Marcy wasn’t holding out
much hope for a romantic future with him. No, it was tempting to
flee because she was scared out of her ever-loving mind about what
she was about to put herself through for the next eight weeks.
Scared she wouldn’t find love. Scared that she would. Scared that
America would grow to hate her as they sometimes did the second
time someone came on the show. Scared that they would all see what
a fraud she was, peddling true love for a living when she wasn’t
sure she believed in it herself.

So fucking scared.

So she did what she always did when she was
petrified. She cracked jokes. She smiled pretty. And she pretended
everything was hunky dory when all she really wanted was to
run.

Sadly, Josh wasn’t taking her proposal
seriously. “You realize ninety percent of the reason I got this job
was because my wife and I are a shining example of matrimonial
bliss, don’t you?” he asked conversationally before redirecting the
conversation back to her journey with the poise of a pro. “In the
next few minutes, you could be meeting your own future husband. How
are you feeling? Nervous? Excited?”

Is nauseated an option?
“Eager,” she
lied brightly. “I can’t wait to get started.”
Run. Run away
now
.

“Right this way. The adventure of a lifetime
is about to begin.”

Save me
.

#

Being Miss Right was not entirely full of
awesomeness.

Blisters, yes. Awesomeness? Not so much.

On the plus side, her initial panic had
abated. On the not so plus side? Everything else.

The tape securing the mic pack to the small
of her back itched, a constant irritation, and scratching was
absolutely out of the question thanks to the decades it had taken
the wardrobe people to be satisfied that the little box was
sufficiently hidden in the pleats of her gown.

Her cheeks ached from smiling, a knot of pain
was growing between her shoulder blades from holding them so tense,
and she was already starting to lose her voice—and the
introductions were only half over.

Marcy picked her way across the flagstone
patio on the way to meet Suitor Number Sixteen. Her feet hurt like
a bitch and the designer heels rubbed, but unlike when she’d been
just one of a bevy of Suitorettes, tonight she couldn’t just wait
her turn and then escape out to the side terrace to claim a chair
and avail herself of the open bar until Mister Perfect was done
with the marathon introductions. No, this time it was her
marathon.

Thirty handsome guys all dying to meet her.
Thirty guys set up at various locations around the mansion, each
one designed to show off their unique talents and help Marcy keep
them straight.

When Marcy had been a Suitorette, the
producers had put her in the library, surrounded by stacks of her
books. Katya, the swimsuit model, had been, predictably, lounging
by the pool—though in an evening gown, of course. One of the other
girls had baked cookies, Marcy seemed to remember, though she
couldn’t recall who. Whatever your gimmick was, that was your
chance to show it off. Like a cross between speed-dating and the
Miss America talent competition.

So far tonight Marcy had heard a Shakespeare
professor recite Romeo’s soliloquy while she stood on a balcony—and
tried to ignore the comparison to a fourteen-year-old brat who knew
infatuation and obsession more than love. She’d been roped in the
garden by a cowboy who pulled a lariat from beneath his tuxedo
jacket and flicked it around her, bragging that he’d caught himself
a good one—Marcy tried to ignore the comparison to a heifer.

She’d sipped wines in the cellar with a man
who oozed upper-class upbringing and gazed at the stars in the
gazebo with an amateur astrologer who told her he’d done their
charts and they were destined to be together. And then there was
the Latin lover who had somehow claimed one of the premium
fireplace locales, who had kissed both her cheeks and cooed to her
in Spanish—while Marcy tried to ignore the scent of alcohol that
wafted from him even though he hadn’t even made it up to the open
bar yet.

Good television
. The promo spots
practically edited themselves.

She kept her smile determinedly in place,
well aware that America would be swooning—and tried to ignore the
little voice in the back of her head that whispered there must be
something wrong with her because she wasn’t feeling the urge to
fall into any of these undeniably sculpted arms.

They were hot. There was no denying that as
they flashed their matinee idol smiles and displayed their chiseled
features, but instead of feeling like a kid in a candy store, like
she’d expected, she found herself wondering in the cynical recesses
of her mind if they would all be the kind of asshole who always had
girls fall into his lap without any effort at all and therefore
resented having to work for love and had never learned to treat one
right.

It all felt so rehearsed. So forced.

She would enter whatever set-up they’d been
given—library, balcony, gazebo—and the men would stand, if they
weren’t already on their feet. They would introduce
themselves—those who weren’t so nervous they forgot their own
names—and the camera crews would zoom in to capture The Moment They
First Saw One Another for endless replay during highlight reels
throughout the season.

Then the guys would launch into their
pre-rehearsed attempts to woo Miss Right. Sixty seconds was all
they got and then the producers waved them off and Marcy excused
herself. Off to meet another cliché of masculine hotness.

Periodically the producers would usher her to
the nearest confessional booth to record her first impressions of
each guy—which meant she got to sit for five minutes and stealthily
sneak off her shoes, thank God Almighty. Then it was back to the
grind.

How long had she been doing this? One hour?
Two? None of the show’s participants were allowed to wear watches
during filming—the producers said watching the clock kept them from
being engaged in the moment—but Marcy figured it was more so they
wouldn’t know how long the hours were and wouldn’t realize they
were supposed to be exhausted.

The producers guided her outside again. She
could dimly hear manly shouts from the upper terrace as more and
more of the Suitors she’d already met gathered there, but she still
had fifteen guys to meet before she could join them.

Suitor Number Sixteen waited at one of the
many love seat set-ups with a cute little mailbox with her name on
it set up beside him. Postal worker, maybe? He hadn’t seen her
yet—she was still in the shadows and the lights were all hot on him
as he waited.

Blond. Athletic. Classically good looking—as
all the Suitors were, but there was something about him that seemed
more real somehow.

He adjusted his tie, the gesture more nervous
than cocky, and she felt a rush of sympathy.

She remembered how excited she’d been to meet
Mister Perfect, how nervous. She’d stood up so fast when he walked
in the room that she’d tripped over her own hem and fallen over an
end table—too far away to fall gracefully into Jack’s arms. She’d
risen laughing and luckily, Jack had smiled too. The fall hadn’t
been intentional, but show bloggers were still praising the tactic.
Jack had helped her up and she’d become an instant favorite. The
screenshot of her face as she realized she was going down had been
a popular internet meme for weeks.

She really didn’t want to think about the
captions that were going to be spawned by being roped like a steer
on national television.

“Whenever you’re ready, hon,” the segment
producer closest to her murmured softly.

Marcy reached for her best smile and stepped
forward into the light.

Sixteen launched to his feet and smiled, a
sweet
aw shucks
sort of smile when he saw her. He met her
eyes and the look he gave her wasn’t quite shy—thank God, because
you couldn’t be shy and survive reality TV—but more earnest.

Wholesome.

Damn. Marcy nearly cringed. The show was
going to eat him alive.

“Marcy, it’s so nice to finally meet you. I’m
Daniel.”

She mentally filed away his use of her
name—either he was a student of the show or he was a producer
favorite and they’d told him who she was. “It’s a pleasure to meet
you, Daniel.”

He thrust out a hand when she approached and
she took it, expecting an awkward handshake, but Daniel surprised
her by lifting it to his lips to kiss the back. He didn’t seem like
the uber-suave type who usually went for the hand kiss.

“I’ve been counting the seconds until I could
meet you. It feels like I’ve been waiting my whole life to meet you
and now I know the wait was worth it.”

And I bet you came up with that line just
now, without any coaching from friends and family before you
came.
Though if he had been a student of the show, he would
know the waiting-a-lifetime line had been used three times before,
with varying degrees of success.

“I hope the rest of your time here doesn’t
disappoint,” she said, meaning the words wholeheartedly. Poor sweet
Daniel. She almost felt like she ought to protect the openness in
his eyes from the show. Those eyes were the kind of blue that
should have only been achievable with contacts, but she had a
feeling they were all Aw Shucks Daniel. “The experience can be a
lot to take in.”

“It’s all a little more than I’m used to,” he
admitted, grinning with endearing self-deprecation. “I almost never
wear a suit. Not much call for it as a third grade teacher.”