Sweetheart Deal (25 page)

thirty-three

I was sent off
to bed with no idea what Anastasia planned to do, whether Frank had anything to do with whatever it was she planned to do, or what I was supposed to do.

When I awoke the next morning, Frank was nowhere in sight. Unsure what was going to happen beyond the fact that we were due to leave in a matter of hours, I set about getting the kids up and getting us packed to go home.

I zipped my suitcase, opened the safe, and had just removed my computer and the timeshare paperwork I planned to leave with Antonio or Beti in the vacation sales office on my way to the lobby, when the door to our suite squealed open.

A camera crew filed in.

“What's going on?” I asked, not at all sure I wanted to know the answer.

Stasia directed the crew to set up. “I spent the rest of the night researching, and you were absolutely right,” she said, trailing the crew into the living room. “We had an enormous and costly potential disaster on our hands.”

“Had?” I asked.

The next thing I knew, Frank, Anastasia, Elena, Enrique, Antonio, and, miraculously, Geo appeared in the doorway.

“You were released from the hospital?”

“I did a little
strong-arming
of my own.”

I wasn't sure if that was supposed to be funny, but everyone seemed to be smiling, if a little tightly. And then the man I recognized as the CEO of Hacienda de la Fortuna joined the group.

“What's going on?” I asked.

“You ready?” Anastasia asked the cameraman.

“Ready,” he said.

“Lighting?” she asked.

“We're good.”

“Everyone else ready?”

Everyone nodded but me.

Anastasia stepped out of the shot. “And action.”

“Evan Matthews needs to pay for what he did to me,” Geo said.

“And me,” Elena said, tears instantly spilling from her eyes and down her cheeks.

“He will,” the CEO said, “but we can't discount his message.”

“No, we can't,” Enrique said, nodding in agreement.

“What is going on?” I asked, quite certain that Anastasia would yell
cut
.

Instead, she gave me a thumbs up.

“We've been in meetings ever since we got word about Evan Matthews's motives for killing Alejandro,” the CEO said. “And I, for one, can't live with the idea that he was driven to murder by sales tactics we, unfortunately, were employing with far too much regularity.”

“Are you serious?”

Everyone nodded.

“From here on out, the Hacienda de la Fortuna is going to be the model of aboveboard sales tactics for the timeshare industry.”

“Really?” I asked.

“I never want to see another criticism leveled at our resort, particularly where vacation ownership is concerned,” the CEO said. “We are in the business of making dreams a reality, not causing people murderous nightmares.”

“Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Frugalicious,” Elena hugged us. “My husband's death will not be in vain.”

“Cut,” Anastasia said.

“Is that all you need?” the CEO asked with no trace of the warmth he'd shown a few seconds earlier.

“That's it,” Anastasia said.

“Okay then,” he said. And just like that, he was gone, along with Antonio, Enrique, and Elena.

“‘Okay then' is right,” I said to Anastasia, Frank, and Geo, who remained in the room. “What just happened here?”

“They're a tough group, but they're shrewd business people,” she said. “The bad publicity associated with their underhanded timeshare sales techniques would have destroyed them. As soon as I met with them and laid out the situation, they quickly agreed to the solution I thought up: we tell our story just like it happened, they come clean, at least for the foreseeable future, and rebrand themselves as a
no-haggle
timeshare outfit.”

“Like the new ‘modern' car dealers?”

“Very much like that. They get the
Family Frugalicious
stamp of approval as well as the increased traffic from people who want to come to their beautiful resort and are interested in vacation property, but are afraid of the
high-pressure
tactics,” she said. “And we get kudos for straightening their crooked ways.”

“And killer ratings,” Geo chimed in.

“They didn't seem as happy about their future prospects as you guys are.”

“I wouldn't necessarily say that,” Geo said, pointing out the window and down to the
semi-private
courtyard below our room.

Elena held Enrique's hand as they stood together beside the fountain.

“Apparently they've been in love since they were kids,” Anastasia said. “Until now they had to pretend otherwise because they could never be together.”

“That's so hard,” I said.

“Not all that much harder than pretending to actually be in love with someone you're not,” Anastasia said.

Frank and I made real eye contact in the first time in I didn't know how long. Neither of us said a word, even though everyone in the room likely knew what was going on with our marriage.

A big fat nothing.

Anastasia noticed our look and flashed her bright, white grin. “The good news is, I think we may have that worked out a solution for that too.”

“You have?” Frank said.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I figured things were rocky even before Eloise slipped and said something, so when test audiences started saying they want more about Maddie and her struggles in the aftermath of Frank's issues, we added the Alejandro element to spice things up.”

“I knew it had to be a setup! He was awful, Stasia.”

“But awfully charming when he needed to be.”

I felt my cheeks color.

“No one believed you'd truly fall for his smooth talk, but if you had, you know I'm always up for a totally killer B story.”

“As in my love life or lack thereof?”

“Not for long. Think of the ratings when we announce your split, and the newly single Mrs. Frugalicious starts dating! We'll do a whole episode on bargain dating websites, finding bargains to keep the cost of dating down. And bargain shopping together …”

“We may not be together,” Frank said, “but I, for one, hate that idea.”

“Oh?” I asked.

“I
really
hate that idea,” Frank said.

“Maybe so, Frank, but you know what I always say,” Anastasia said.

“I don't think I do,” he said.

“All's fair in love, war, and reality TV.”

Acknowledgments

Mrs. Frugalicious and her latest adventure would never be possible without the support of Terri Bischoff, Nicole Nugent, Beth Hanson, and the rest of the fantastic gang at Midnight Ink.

Thank you to Josh Getzler and Danielle Burby at HSG for the
all-around
agent brilliance.

A huge thank you to my friends, family, and fellow writer pals for all the encouragement and continuing support. Specifically: Ben Le Roy, Becky Stevens, Cary Cazzanigi, Keir Graff, Jess Lourey, Mark Stevens, Jennifer Kincheloe, Melisa Ford, Chris Jorgenson, Suzanne Proulx, the Joffe/Hull/Moskowitz clan, Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, and, of course, the Dog Park Gang.

Lastly, but mostly, to Brandon Hull—thank you for making everything seem (and then somehow be) possible.

About the Author

Linda Joffe Hull is a graduate of UCLA. She lives in Denver, Colorado, with her husband and children. Linda is a longtime member
of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and currently serves on the na
tional board of Mystery Writers of America. You can visit her online at LindaJoffeHull.com.