I shuffled through a list of things I had to do in the next couple of days and ignored the tone from my smart phone telling me I had another email. It was only a message from a dating website my gran had signed me up for. Women knew I had money after a little online research and were only interested in me for my bank account. Gran meant well, but all those women sending me naked pictures, offering to do anything for me, didn’t turn me on. Besides, I knew they really wanted my wallet, not me.

“Jake, are you down there, my boy?” I heard Gran at the top of the stairs and walked up to see what she needed.

“What’s up, Gran?” I pushed my dark brown hair out of my eyes and peered at her. The long length of my hair irritated her, and she sometimes walked around trying to cut it with a pair of scissors without me noticing. I’d been keeping it tied up in a protective bun since I’d moved back in with her, but hadn’t bothered with it today. The tight buns always gave me a headache. Maybe it was time to cut it.

“It’s so nice to be able to see those green eyes without all of that hair in the way. Why don’t you let me cut a little off, Jake?” Gran turned away, waving her hand at me to follow.

“I might one day but not today. What may I help you with?” I grinned at her as she turned around and gave me a speculative look.

“You sassing me, boy?” She watched me and my grin deepened.

“Would I do that, Gran?” I blinked my eyes innocently.

“Of course, you would! Listen, I got some news in the mail today. Have a seat.” She indicated a chair at the table next to the large window in the kitchen. The top of the walnut table was covered in papers, bottles of herbal supplements, and a small television she used to watch her game shows on. Gran wasn’t one for technology, and now that she was older she didn’t move around the house as much as she used to.

The table had always been her favorite place, even when I was a child. She’d taken me in after my parents died in a house fire, and I owed her the world. I’d moved back in with her recently, the need for privacy tantamount after I’d made my first billion dollars from my tech company and people started crawling out of the woodwork begging for money.

I’d been raised by a woman who loved the simple life. When she wouldn’t move in with me to a gated house with a security guard, I thought the safest place to be was at her house. That was a great idea until she decided to sign me up to a dating website. How she’d even managed to get on the website, I had no idea, but she’d managed it. The woman didn’t even own an analog cellphone! At least she hadn’t listed my address or my alias. She’d used my real name, Jackson, and that’s why they all thought I was still living in Charlotte, looking for a soul mate. In my business dealings, I used my full name, but in my everyday life, I went by Jake, which is what she tended to call me.

“Now, Jake, I know you may not like this, but, well...” Her words trailed off and she looked out of the window at the house next door for a moment. “Well, you need a woman, son! Or a man, but you need a partner! I guess there’s no better way to say this than to just come out with it. I’ve signed you up for a television dating show. This is the paperwork.”

I rocked back in my chair. The movement of my large, powerful frame made the chair creak ominously. I quickly moved back, leaning my elbows on the table. “You’ve done what now, Gran?”

“Here, look at this. And take your elbows off the table, it’s rude!” She batted at my arms with her frail hands and I did as I was told. She’d never told me why it was considered rude to put your elbows on the table but she always said it was.

I pulled what looked like a thick report over to my side of the table and looked at it with dread. “What have you done now, Gran?”

“Oh, you’re going to die a lonely old man at the rate you’re going, down in that basement, Jake. I thought you could use a little excitement and I might have finagled you into a dating game show.” She was looking at me from the side of her blue eyes, her lips twitching in absolute joy.

I took a deep breath and reminded myself that Gran loved me and that I loved her. She hadn’t done this to hurt me, and though I really wanted to be angry I couldn’t refuse her. She’d raised me, after all.

“It’s that new one, where they have three men and one’s rich, and nobody else knows but the three men and the show, which one is the rich one. You’ve hidden your status so people won’t realize it’s you, if you play your cards right. They think you’re perfect for the show.” She finally looked at me, her expression revealing her enjoyment at the thought of the game.

“You know this isn’t my idea of fun, right, Gran?” I put the folder back on the table, wishing it would just go away.

So I’d made an absolute fortune with my tech company, that didn’t mean I needed a wife, or even a woman for that matter, did it? I wanted to focus on the projects I had lined up, especially the one that would see teachers providing education to children in remote parts of the world through the use of solar-powered devices made from discarded tablets and phones. People threw away goldmines and didn’t even know it.

“Gran, I just...” I paused as she looked at me with that look only a grandmother can give you, expectations of great things tinged with a slight disappointment that her world was about to cave in as reality dropped a bomb on her. “I don’t know if I have time for this, Gran.”

“Oh, boy, come on. You’re down there in that basement all day long, fiddling with your toys, you have the time!” She smacked the tabletop for emphasis and I winced.

Those “toys” were my phone, tablet, and computer, from which I ran an empire without so much as ever stepping foot into an office. It wasn’t that I was a recluse, I just hated wasting resources, resources that could be saved by not commuting and by holding meetings over the Internet or through video calls.

Forcing air out through my lips I looked at Gran. She looked so hopeful, so pleased with herself, that I just couldn’t say no. I didn’t want to spend weeks being groped by a bevy of beautiful women that only wanted me because they thought I had a lot of money. Gran wanted it though so…

“Alright, fine, as long as I can keep working I’ll do it.” I didn’t even realize I’d talked myself into the whole thing, Gran hadn’t said a word.

“Great! You just need to contact this lady here at this email address and they’ll get everything sorted. Oh, and read the contract.” Gran patted the table this time, as if to apologize for the slap earlier, and went to put some coffee on. I had a feeling I’d need it.

* * *

“Thirty seconds people.” A man with a pair of headphones on and a beard that would do Merlin proud walked past, holding up three fingers to the men gathered in the foyer of the rented mansion.

A few weeks after Gran had hoodwinked me into agreeing to this farce, I was stood under blazing lights in a tuxedo that was way too tight around my pectoral muscles, trying to hold a bland expression on my face. The papers had all been signed, I’d flown out to the island on a helicopter with the other men, and the three of us were now standing at the bottom of some schoolgirl’s fantasy of a staircase, awaiting the entry of the female contestants.

The room went silent as Skip Norton, the congenial host of the show, came in through a doorway and started to speak. Wearing a white tux of his own with his black hair slicked back and blue eyes shining, the host walked around the room with cameras following, his 100-watt smile turned up to a million, almost blinding us.

“Tonight, we’re coming to you live from Fountainhead Island, a tiny island off the coast of South Carolina and let me tell you, folks, it is truly paradise. Here at Fountainhead House we’re about to meet our contestants, three handsome devils and twelve of the most beautiful ladies this great nation has to offer. Three of those ladies will find their Prince Charming here at Fountainhead Island and one lucky lady is going to win it all, a chance to marry a billionaire. Let’s meet our eligible bachelors. Can you pick out which one it is?”

Skip walked to our side of the room and turned his smile up even more as he approached the third man in our small group.

“Tell us a little about yourself, sir, but not too much.” Skip pointed a wink at the camera before he turned back to the man I knew to be Trent.

We’d all spent time together over the last few days, working on our strategy for keeping our true pasts behind us. We weren’t supposed to reveal anything about our jobs, that was all down to the show to reveal at the end, but we could talk about our pasts, family history, and things like that. I felt my palms go sweaty as Skip talked with Trent, and I kept glancing at the staircase waiting for the ladies to come down. Was my fair lady in the group of women I could hear giggling upstairs earlier in the day?

“I’m Trent, I’m twenty-six years old, and I couldn’t be more pleased to be here tonight, Skip.” Trent gave the camera a gleam of his own, and I knew the ladies would be falling all over him. He looked a bit like one of the British princes that were always being splashed across tabloid magazines.

It was hard not to roll my eyes as the man carried off his tux expertly and looked every bit the part of a billionaire, right down to the incredible smile he gave the cameras. Ladies were going to eat him in TV land.

“And what about you, sir?” Skip moved along, another wink at the ready.

“I’m David, twenty-five, and ready to get this party started, Skip! Bring on the ladies!” David gave a whoop and a fist pump, a move that could work both ways. The ladies and viewers would either be instantly turned off by such common behavior, or they’d accept it as the typical shenanigans of the very rich.

Skip gave David an odd look, one that said, ‘take it down a notch’, and moved along to me.

“You’re awfully quiet down here, young man. Speak up or we’ll forget you’re down here.” Another gleam at the cameras and Skip turned back to me.

I knew all of these men were performing for the camera and decided my best strategy was to just be myself. Skip would go back to the sour drunkard he was, David would put his nose right back into a book as soon the cameras went off, and Trent, well, I wasn’t exactly sure why Trent was here. I was fairly certain he batted for the other team.

“Hi, Skip, I’m Jake and I can’t wait to see what the night has in store for all of us as we meet our lovely ladies.” I gave what I knew to be a genuine smile and kept my eyes off the cameras. We’d been warned not to look at them a thousand times since we’d arrived.

I still wasn’t used to it all, but I’d give it a shot. Gran was counting on me to not only play along and help to build the mystery, but the show had me in chains about the whole thing too. Play by their rules or I’d be screwed over a barrel.

“There you have it, folks, three gorgeous men, one a plumber, one a teacher, and the other is, well, one of the richest men on the planet. Can you decide which that is yet? For now, let’s meet our ladies, shall we?” Skip gave the cameras another gleaming smile, something I knew to be quite fake because the man seemed to hate life in general.

The music that had been tinkling through the room now increased in tempo, a sweeping orchestral sound, and the first lady appeared.

“Wow!” I heard David whisper beside me. I knew he’d be pushing his glasses up his nose right now if the producers hadn’t forced him to wear contacts. His hand still came up, a sign of just how strong the habit was.

A lithe blonde came to the top of the grand staircase, a wide landing at the top. She paused there, her sapphire blue ball gown shimmering around her.

I glanced over at Trent and wasn’t surprised to see just how bored he looked. Not his type then.

“Hi there, I’m Samantha, I’m twenty-two years old, a bartender, and I love to travel the world.” Her smile could have rivaled Skip’s for wattage but there just wasn’t anything in it, another similarity to Skip.

Another woman, a redhead in an emerald ball gown took her place as the first lady descended the step.

“I’m Kelly, twenty-one, a physical therapy student, and I love to write poetry.” Ah, an Irish lass then. A girl after my own heart. Her blue eyes gleamed as she started her own descent and I smiled up at her, liking her self-assured stare as she glanced over Trent, David, and me.

“Hey y’all, I’m Abby, twenty-six, and I love sky-diving.” A brunette with a copper gown took Kelly’s place and waved as she came down. A true southern belle.

I forgot the first three and the remaining eight as the woman of my dreams stepped onto the landing. Another redhead with light blue eyes, decked out in a golden ballgown. She took my breath away.

“Hi, uh, I’m Laney, I’m twenty-four, and I love, well, life in general. It’s great, isn’t it?” She gave a nervous smile, her eyes darting around until they met mine.

I saw her lips part in a silent “oh” and felt much the same way. She’s the one, has to be. No doubt about it.

The ladies were all settling down on couches spread around the room, their nervous shifting creating a swishing sound as their gowns brushed against the couches.

I didn’t know who any of the other girls were, or what they loved in life, because Laney had my full attention.