Romancing Miss Right (2 page)

The third message was from his mom, reminding
him that he was supposed to come over for lunch before he left and
Craig shot her a quick text to confirm that he wouldn’t miss it
before tossing his phone, tablet, mug, and the limited contents of
his desk into his backpack. Hooking the bag over his shoulder and
grabbing his leather jacket, he strode past a life-sized poster of
himself smoldering over a pair of mirrored sunglasses while leaning
against his Harley with the words
Be Bad
splashed across his
ankles. He left the building without a backward glance.
Onward
and upward
.

He unlocked the storage compartment on his
bike and exchanged the backpack for his helmet, propping it against
the seat as he shrugged into his jacket.

“Craig!”

He spun back to face the front of the
building and groaned aloud as Marta at Midnight bounded toward him,
as eager as a puppy. “Marta. Hey. Did I forget to leave you the
keys to the liquor cabinet or something?”

Marta giggled a little too enthusiastically
for the lackluster joke. She had the kind of fierce, ever-present
smile that couldn’t quite conceal the rabid opportunism beneath.
She wanted the brass ring just as badly as he did. If she’d been
more naturally talented, he would have been worried for his job. As
it was, he was more worried she would lose half his audience and
he’d never get it back.

“I just wanted to wish you good luck,” she
exclaimed, beaming at him as if she wouldn’t crawl over his rotting
corpse for a permanent shot at the drive-time gig.

Gotta love showbiz. Everyone’s so
sincere.
“Thanks. You too.”

“You sure I can’t convince you to tell me
where you’re going?”

“Sorry. Confidentiality clauses. You know how
it is.” He shrugged, sweat beginning to slither down his spine
beneath his jacket. He needed the leathers for protection against
the wind—and road rash if he took a spill—but San Diego in
September was too damn hot to be wearing them if he was just
standing around in the sun talking to Marta at Midnight. “I should
hit the road.”

Her eyes gleamed feverishly at the hint that
he’d landed some gig that required confidentiality clauses, but she
didn’t argue as he straddled the bike.

“Take care of my baby.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” Marta saluted and watched
him affix his helmet and start the engine. She watched him drive
away, probably to convince herself that he really had left and
dropped the first big opportunity of her career right in her
lap.

If things went well, she could keep
drive-time radio. He was on to network television.

The drive to his mom’s house didn’t take
long. Her neighborhood was safe and relatively clean, but beyond
that offered nothing in the way of luxury. The houses were small
and close together, the tidy yards a testament to the fierce pride
of the owners rather than the dedication of expensive landscaping
services. Her two-bedroom hacienda-style cottage was two years past
needing a coat of paint, but the leaking roof had been a higher
priority when he’d gotten his last bonus check from the
station.

Craig parked his bike beside the Ford Focus
he’d bought her when he got his first job. He’d wanted it to be a
Mercedes—after raising him on her own, she deserved one—but radio
personalities weren’t paid like movie stars and the Focus had been
all he could afford. The front door opened as he was coming up the
walk.

“Eight weeks to confess all your sins?” his
mother called out archly as he approached, proving she’d caught the
end of his show.

“Just the major ones.” He grinned and bent to
fold her into a hug.

Most days Elaine Corrow looked closer to
forty than her actual fifty, but today she appeared faded and
tired. Given the fact that she worked nights at the local hospital
as a pharmacy tech and would normally be sleeping at this hour,
Craig tried not to read too much into her apparent exhaustion. If
the next few months went the way he hoped, he’d be able to pay for
her to quit her job and go lounge on a beach in Cabo until she
couldn’t even remember what a night shift felt like.

“Are you all packed?” she asked as she
stepped out of his arms, leading the way down the narrow hall to
the eat-in kitchen where all of his home-cooked favorites were
spread out in a gluttonous buffet.

“All set.” He grabbed a plate and began
piling meatloaf and lasagna and mousaka side by side. “They fly me
up to LA tonight and tomorrow we meet the girl.”

“Have they told you who she is yet?”

“Does it matter?” He handed her the plate and
began serving an even more heaping one for himself.

“I hope it’s Natalie. Or Ally. Anyone but
that Marcy. She seemed so… I don’t know. Cold or something.”

“Mom. It doesn’t matter who she is. I’m not
going on the show to fall in love.”

She settled across from him at the narrow
Ikea table. “I know, I know. It’s for your career, but if you were
to find someone special, think what a bonus that would be.”

“I’m not the guy who gets the girl, Mom. I’m
the bad boy America will love to hate. That’s what’s going to get
me national exposure. Falling in love isn’t going to turn me into
the next Carson Daly. The next Dick Clark. The next David Letterman
or Stephen Colbert. I’m not going to be a radio personality
forever. This show is the fast track to national exposure.”

“Even if it means toying with some poor
girl’s emotions to get there?”

“She knows what she’s signing up for. And if
she doesn’t then she’s a moron. I’ve studied these shows. I’m going
to be the one everyone is talking about—and that isn’t the guy that
gets the girl. But I’m not going to lie to her.” He laughed, brief
and abrupt. “That’s why I’m going to lose. Dating is all lies and
I’m not going to play their game.”

“How did I raise such a cynic?”

He shrugged. “Just lucky, I guess.”

“My son, the heartless wretch.”

“Your son, the
famous
heartless
wretch.”

Her lips pursed with disapproval, but there
was a smile lurking beneath. He’d been working for that smile for
as long as he could remember, trying to coax it out of her, and it
still felt like a victory every time. Soon, hopefully, the smile
wouldn’t be so slow to appear. She’d be lounging on a Mexican
beach, beaming at everyone who wandered by and bragging about her
wildly famous son. Soon.

Chapter Two

“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.