“It’s like a dream come true. Or a fairy tale! That’s it. I feel like Cinderella getting ready for the ball. Or the heroine in one of my books about to meet her hero for the first time.” Marcy beamed and twirled, the skirt of her designer gown flaring out around her legs.
“Cut!” The segment producer, Linus, stepped forward through the small cluster of camera and sound people, grinning with patronizing approval. “Got it.” He caught both of her hands, giving them a squeeze. “That was perfect, sweetie. You’re a natural.”
“Do you need me to model any more of the outfits?” She’d been playing dress-up for nearly two hours—twirling and primping and laughing for the camera in the Miss Right wardrobe, furnished this year by the most recent winner of Project Runway in a cross promotional stunt. Thank God the winner knew how to make a girl look good rather than like a piece of abstract art.
“No, we’re all set.” Behind Linus, the camera and sound people were already packing up their cables while the hair, make-up and wardrobe people hovered behind, waiting for him to be done with her so they could descend. “You have about an hour before you need to be back in wardrobe for tonight. Miranda will arrive just before sunset to shoot the intro exteriors, then you’ll have your official anticipation interview with our own Josh Pendleton. After that it’s inside the mansion to meet your Suitors! Get some rest—you probably remember how grueling the first night is, but tonight will be five times worse because it’s all about you this time. You won’t get a moment’s break with all the men vying for your attention.”
Marcy grinned. “Poor me, exhausted because there are too many men fighting for me.”
Linus laughed, flashing the gap between his front teeth. She was never sure if he really thought she was clever or just thought it was his job to make her feel entertaining. “Take a nap if you can. You won’t have another chance for eight weeks.”
As soon as Linus turned away, her dressers swarmed around her, stripping off the couture gown with brisk efficiency. Marcy had never been a squeamish person, but the show had divested her of what modesty she had. A year ago she might have flinched at being in a crowded room, bared down to her strapless bra, underwear and heels, but thankfully one of her sisters owned a gym with her husband back in Murphysboro and she’d designed a punishing training schedule to hone Marcy down to her most sexy self for the show.
The dressers—sisters named Claudia and Eunice Yu—handed her a light-weight button up blouse and a pair of shorts. Apparently with civilian clothes she was allowed to dress herself. The hair and make-up geniuses cautioned her to sleep carefully and not destroy all their good work, and then, with a mass exodus, the hive of people who made her into Miss Right left her alone in the spacious guest bedroom that now housed her extensive Miss Right wardrobe.
Marcy stepped out of the heels that she knew she was going to hate by hour two tonight and wriggled her toes in the plush carpet for a moment before tugging on the shorts and the blouse.
“Cinderella?” the dry voice floated from the open balcony door. “Really?”
Marcy turned as her youngest sister Dinah pushed back the gauzy curtains and strolled into the room. “You’re here to squee with me over the clothes, not mock the process.”
“I squeed for the cameras, right on cue.”
“You did, thank you. How long have you been hiding on the balcony?”
“I wasn’t hiding. I was trying to sneak a peek at the man-flesh buffet next door through the hedges.” Dinah flopped gracelessly onto the overstuffed white chair the set people had brought in so the room would look complete. “You really should have a word with the landscape people about trimming back some of the roughage. You can’t see a thing.”
“I’m not supposed to be able to see a thing. Ruin the surprise and all that.”
“Screw surprises. I want a view. What’s the point of having the Suitors’ Mansion and the Miss Right Mansion next door to one another if you can’t watch the muscles rippling by the pool from your bedroom window?”
“I believe the original point was convenience, but these days it seems to be more so the Suitorettes can be caught on camera trying to sneak over the wall and into Mister Perfect’s bed during the flip seasons.”
Dinah grimaced. “Like that awful Michele.”
“She wasn’t the only one. She was just the only one the producers decided to use in the final cut of the show.”
Dinah sat up sharply. “You’re kidding. How many? Did they ever actually get as far as his bed? Did you ever sneak over for a little illicit nookie?”
Marcy sank down to sit on the squishy carpet and began massaging her already aching feet. Tonight was not going to be fun for her arches. “Five that I know of. None successfully. And no. I played by the rules. Didn’t want to spoil the process.”
Her sister rolled her eyes. “The process. I can’t believe you call it that. You already talk like one of them.”
“If we call it a show, it makes the audience think it might be fake. It’s always the process, the experience, the journey.”
“God forbid anyone thinks it’s fake,” Dinah drawled.
Marcy narrowed her eyes at her little sister. “Be supportive or get out, brat. I have enough to deal with tonight without wasting my last hour of peace having another argument with my family about why you all think I’m an idiot for doing this.”
“We don’t all think you’re an idiot. That’s just Daddy.”
She winced. “Not helping, Di.”
“He’ll come around. You know how protective he is. He hated you going on the show the first time. You didn’t see him but he was a nervous wreck the whole time you were gone, worrying about you getting hurt on national television. He felt like you got away with a close shave because you didn’t fall in love with Jack and get your heart broken. And then you signed up to do it all over again.”
“It’s different this time. I’m in control. I get to pick. It’s virtually impossible for me to get hurt. And the exposure is a thousand times more intense than when I was one of thirty Suitorettes. The sales bump I got from going on Marrying Mister Perfect was fantastic, but this is going to make me a household name, Di. If my next book isn’t a New York Times bestseller after this, I might as well give up writing because I’m never going to get there.”
“So it’s all for the publicity?” Dinah asked dubiously.
“Not entirely. I do have all the power, and statistically Romancing Miss Right is four times more likely to end in a successful relationship than Marrying Mister Perfect is. Just goes to show it pays to have a woman in charge.”
“Or that men can be led around by their dicks for eight weeks before realizing they’re dating the Wicked Bitch of the West on national television.”
“That too.” Marcy looked around, taking in the glamorous trappings of life as Miss Right. “I’m not going to be taken in by it, Di. I have a level head on my shoulders, don’t I? I’m going to make good decisions and pick a nice guy with homegrown Midwestern values who wants to start a family.”
A guy just like her dad, even if he was threatening never to speak to her again because she was making a spectacle of herself on national television for the second time in two years.
“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.