Gage

There are a lot of ways to find out that your best friend’s a total dick.

My way’s landed me in a makeup chair, preparing to have twenty-five women paraded in front of me on national television.

Sounds great, right?

Oh, did I mention that I’m supposed to marry one of them?

“Tell me you found a way out of it,” I growl into the phone.

Diana taps her finger against the back of my hand, our shorthand developed over the years for Switch your phone to the other ear.

Without missing a beat, I move the phone to my right ear, and Diana begins dabbing some beige goop beneath my left eye.

She makes a tsking noise that I know means she’s irritated by darker-than-usual under-eye circles. She’ll just have to deal. She’d have bags under her eyes too if her life was about to turn into a damned circus.

“I’ve been over it a thousand times,” my agent says over the phone. “The contract’s ironclad.”

I lift a hand to rub my forehead, but Diana bats it away so I don’t ruin her handiwork. I settle for clenching my fist and wishing I were somewhere else—somewhere other than an uncomfortable chair in CBC’s Los Angeles studio, preparing to become the star of a new reality TV show’s debut season.

It’s a dubious honor, to say the least. I’m no stranger to being on camera, but this is different. This isn’t stepping into the shoes of a fictional character; this is me as myself.

Or the version of myself everyone wants to see.

Here’s the shit I got myself into: I lost a bet. Three months ago I was in Vegas with my “best friend,” and yes, I’m air-quoting that shit. I was having a hell of a run at the tables—couldn’t lose.

Things were going great until Wes Carver, the Pitt to my Clooney, whatever, decided that a shit-ton of money didn’t make for an interesting enough wager. And because I’ve never been good at turning down a challenge, I agreed.

Wes put his Tesla on the line. My idea. Me? I’d gambled with my damned dignity—if I lost, I’d agree to sign the contract for Jilted. His idea.

I fucking lost.

And don’t tell me not to be a diva, because I haven’t even told you what Jilted is. Think The Bachelor, but so much worse, at least for me.

I’m playing the part of not just any old bachelor but the Runaway Groom—someone with a reputation for leaving women at the altar.

Yes, technically I qualify. But I have my reasons, none of which I look forward to having to explain on national television.

That’s not even the worst part of the show. In The Bachelor, the poor guy has until the end of the show to decide if he’s going to propose to one of the women he met. But Jilted doesn’t end in a maybe proposal.

It ends in a maybe wedding.

Yes, you read that right. Four weeks from now, I’m expected to slip a ring on some woman’s finger. But not an engagement ring. A wedding ring.

Just kill me.

“Told you not to sign it,” Dan says. I can hear him smacking his ever-present gum.

My fist clenches tighter, because he’s right and it’s annoying. I lost that fucking bet, but instead of letting common sense take over, my pride kicked in hard.

Wes, gloating, had expected me to back out. Don’t worry about it, Barrett. Commitment’s not your thing, it’s cool.

It’s not cool. And it pisses me off that the guy who I thought knew me as well as anyone doesn’t get it. Playing the part of the charming but worthless playboy for the public is one thing. Having the people in my real life believe it—well, that sucks.

“Think of it like a free vacation with a bunch of hot girls,” my agent says, his words punctuated with the sound of a car horn. Probably his.

I bite my tongue before I say I don’t need a free vacation—nor am I wanting for female company when I’m in the mood.

A woman with ink-black hair who’s wearing black stilettos and a black dress marches toward me, iPad in hand. “Gage, we’re ready for you.”

Shit. She’s one of the producers of the show and I’ve already forgotten her name.

“Raven,” she says with a small smile, reading my blank expression.

Raven. Right. I wonder if the all-black attire is a deliberate nod to the name, or a side effect of being from New York.

“I need another minute,” Diana says, opening a compact and coming at me with a brush.

I gently grab her wrist. “What the hell is that?”

“Powder.”

“No. You know the deal. Bare minimum of makeup.”

She gives an impatient huff. “And usually that’s fine, with your freaking Greek-god skin. Today, though, you look like hell.”

Raven’s gaze rakes over me in an impartial inspection, apparently not impressed that I was voted Sexiest Man Alive last year. And the year before that.

“He’s good enough,” Raven says. “I need him for sound check.”

Diana nods, but not before she sneaks in a quick swipe of powder over my cheekbones.

Raven crooks a finger at me and saunters away, clearly expecting me to follow.

I jerk out the bib-like thing that prevents the makeup from getting on my white dress shirt. “I gotta go,” I say to Dan.

I’m talking to silence. He’s already hung up.

“What’s with you today?” Diana asks, putting her tools back in her kit. “You look like shit. You’re in a shitty mood.”

“You talk to your girlfriend with that mouth?” I say with a smile, trying to lighten the atmosphere as an apology for taking my shitty mood out on her.

“Yes, and Christina likes it,” Diana says with a wink as she clicks the case shut.

She reaches out and touches a hand to my arm, her blue eyes going slightly soft, a stark contrast to the three piercings in each eyebrow and the thick line of black around her eyes. “What’s going on, for real? You that pissed about the show?”

I rub a hand over the back of my neck as I stand. “Sure. Yeah.”

A lie. I mean, yeah, the fact that I’m about to speed-date twenty-five women sucks. But it’s that combined with the message from my brother four days ago.

I’m an uncle.

Jesus.

They didn’t even tell me Layla was pregnant, but she gave birth to a healthy baby girl. Clara.

I knew the name even before my brother told me. Layla’s always loved the name, always said that it would be the name of her first daughter.

The daughter I thought would also be mine.

“Barrett!”

I glance over my shoulder and see Raven giving me an impatient, get the hell over here look.

“I like her,” Diana says, patting my shoulder. “She doesn’t coddle the talent.”

“Shut up,” I mutter. Then I kiss her cheek to soften the blow. “See you tomorrow?”

“Definitely. Try to get some sleep. I’m a good makeup artist, but not a friggin’ magician. If those circles under your eyes get any darker…”

I lift a hand to acknowledge her protest as I make my way toward scowling Raven and the rest of the crew.

A quick scan shows that the female contestants are still being kept somewhere else. There’s been a lot of talk about the “surprise factor”—they want my first sight of these women to be captured on camera. As though I’m going to lock eyes with one and just fall all over myself. Because that’s what grown men who are trained actors do—wear their fucking heart on their sleeve.

Today’s the preliminary elimination round. It works like this. I sit here in a fancy Beverly Hills hotel lobby, sipping a drink, while they parade a shit-ton of hot, semi-sane women in front of me.

There are twenty-five in total, but only twenty of them will be going with me to Maui on Friday, when the real show kicks off.

The worst part—which is saying something, considering this whole thing’s a nightmare—is that I don’t even get to choose which twenty. The preliminary round is the “viewer participation round.” The show will air tonight, and over the next three days, the viewers get to vote on which five get eliminated.

Yes, you read that right. A bunch of women sitting on their couch with chardonnay and reduced-fat Oreos get input on my future wife.

I’m told I get a veto, but considering I can spend only two minutes with each woman, I don’t know that it even matters. How the hell am I supposed to know in two minutes which woman might be “the one”?

“You ready for this?” Raven asks.

I give her a look, and she surprises me by giving me a smile of commiseration. “It’ll be better than you think.”

I think of my brother and Layla and their new baby, and I shrug.

Maybe she’s right.

It sure as hell can’t be worse than my life as it is now.