“I can’t believe you entered my name into this competition without my permission.”
I give my baby sister, Tiffany, the best angry glare I can manage even though I know it won’t change anything. Soon, the phone will ring, and someone will say, Congratulations, Miss Daniela Simmons! You are the winner of the Prince Charming Dating Game—or whatever name this reality show is called—and we’re flying you to Prince Charming’s island resort right now. Are you ready to meet the love of your life and experience true love’s kiss?
Okay, maybe not exactly in those words but close enough. But I already know what I’m going to say. No, thank you. I did not enter the contest. My sister forged my name on the entry, and she’s only 16-years-old so that entry is null and void because the rules say she has to be eighteen. Can you please call the runner-up? I’m sure she’d love to take my place.
Then they’d have no choice but to call the runner-up and give her the prize I’d apparently won, courtesy of my baby sister who thought it would be an excellent idea to throw my name into the hat as a Wild Card for the reality TV dating show, Paired in Paradise.
Wild Card, indeed! Who enters these things? I don’t even watch TV!
“Come on, Dani, you’d be perfect for this. Consider it my birthday present. I mean, you just turned 23, and you deserve a vacation,” Tiffany says, giving me the best sad puppy dog eyes she can muster. She’s not sorry at all, though I can’t help but laugh at her effort—or lack of it—to really be sorry. But that’s my baby sister for you—only sixteen and forced to be an adult too soon, keeping an eye out for Mom and me when she should be out partying with her friends.
I just don’t understand what would make her think that I’d fit in with ten gorgeous women competing for the affections of rugged adventurer and billionaire Tyler Drake. Only 28, he owns an outdoor gear and clothing company that’s now worth billions of dollars, hence the word billionaire that always precedes his name. He started the business from his mother’s garage and doesn’t outsource the manufacturing to other countries at all. Everything is made in the US, which probably explains why everything is so expensive. All this Tiffany tells me just before we watch the host, Les Wiltern, press some button on some program on live TV, whose one job was to pick one number out of 38,000 entries.
How the randomizer software managed to find the one woman out of 38,000 who had no desire to snag herself a billionaire while on some island resort paradise, I have no idea. I was doing fine on my own, thank you very much, but somehow, Tiffany doesn’t get that.
I do know that she’s yet to forget how Brad Jameson dumped me on my birthday last year, overhearing him say that he just couldn’t imagine a future with me being the way I was—like it was my fault.
“I know you’re angry I forged your name, but listen to me, Dani,” Tiffany is saying. “You can do this, and you’ll be amazing out there. You can show them—“
“Show them what, exactly?” I try my best to hide my annoyance, but Tiffany looks back at me with such unabashed naiveté that I scale my feelings down. She means well, at least.
“Show them that people like you are just as fun as everyone else, that the only difference between you and everybody else is—“
“Tiff, I’m not about to become some poster girl on national television for—“
“It’s cable TV.”
“Alright, I’m not about to be some poster girl on some cable TV show for…gosh, for what? To show the world that people like me are actually normal, but in a different kind of way?”
“Exactly! But think about it! It’s a resort island, and they have everything! You could kayak, scuba dive, even go parasailing—you know, those parachute things where you sit down and a speed boat pulls you across the water! The list is endless! And it’s only going to be for three weeks. I wish I could go with you, but I’m underage,” she says, pouting. “Besides, I can’t leave Mom, and I’ve got school.”
“And I don’t have work? I teach, for crying out loud, which means I need to be at school instead of some island competing for some guy’s affections. Wanna bet, I’d be the first one they’d send home, and if that’s the case, then I’m better off not wasting anyone’s time.”
“Haven’t you always wanted to parasail? Scuba dive? Work on a real tan on a real beach? Who knows? Even swim with dolphins?” Tiffany asks me as I lift an eyebrow. Swimming with dolphins sounds nice. One day, I know she’ll be an excellent salesperson. She could probably sell ice to Eskimos.
“And then there’s all that sun and surf right there in Saint Lucia!” She continues. “None of this Seattle rain every single day. Come on, Dani. Besides, have you seen him?”
“Seen who?”
“Oh. My. God. Tyler Drake, that’s who!” Tiffany exclaims. She taps on her phone furiously before showing me a picture of a man wearing jeans and a white shirt that show off broad shoulders and well-defined set of pecs. He’s got dark blue eyes framed by thick dark lashes, an aquiline nose, and a kind mouth. He’s—gosh, I hate to say it—gorgeous. And seeing him flanked by ten beautiful women, I bet he already knows it.
“Forget it, Tiff,” I say, taking one last look at the eye-candy on the screen before handing her the phone. “You expect me to compete with those women? Have you seen them?”
“You’ll be competing with six by the time you get there,” she says, switching off her phone and slipping it into her jeans.
“That’s still six women. What if they don’t like me?”
“So? It’s not them you need to charm; it’s him,” she says. “But look at it this way. Even if you decide not to charm him, at least go to have fun? It’s been five years since you’ve been on a vacation, three years since…” Tiffany’s voice fades, and she sighs. “The only reason I entered your name was that I figured, if by chance they picked you, you’d get to do all the things you’ve always wanted to do without worrying about the cost!”
“I can spend my vacation here just fine.”
“Look at us, Dani,” she says, sighing. “We’re always trying to save money for some vacation only to have another bill arrive for yet another test for Mom, another treatment that could help her. And before you know it, whatever money we’ve saved is gone.”
“It’s alright, Tiff. Really. There’s always next time,” I say, remembering the vacation to Hawaii that I had saved a year for only to use the money to pay off another medical bill to cover Mom’s cancer treatments. I love my job teaching third grade, but even I have to admit that my salary doesn’t go far when there are someone else’s medical bills to take care of besides my own.
At least, Mom is currently in remission which means that the only things we have to deal with are the medical copayments coming due. She’s still too weak to hold down a real job though she’s started an online business selling books we’ve been finding at estate sales. It’s not much, but it keeps her busy.
Even now, Mom is asleep in her room, exhausted after a morning of inputting new books into her online store. It doesn’t help that she feels like she’s become such a burden, even though she isn’t. It’s not her fault that Dad left us ten years ago, leaving the country to avoid having to pay any child support.
“Come on, Dani, please reconsider,” Tiffany says. “This is a once in a lifetime chance, and who knows? Tyler Drake just might like you!”
“Ha! And have to deal with a lifetime of this?” I wave my arms down my body just as the home phone rings and Tiffany squeals with excitement, hopping around the kitchen.
“It’s them! It’s them!” She exclaims as I reach for the receiver, but she picks it up first. She takes a deep breath, forcing herself to act calm and says hello in the deepest voice she can manage. Her eyes grow wide as she listens to whoever is on the other line and stares at me.
“What is it?” I ask, feeling her excitement wash over me. I shouldn’t be feeling this way, but Tiffany’s enthusiasm has always been contagious.
“Oh my gosh, it’s even better than I imagined,” she says in an excited whisper as she hands me the phone. “It’s Tyler Drake himself. And he wants to talk to you!”
“Congratulations, Miss Simmons. You just won the Wild Card slot, and I can’t wait to meet you.”
As Tyler Drake speaks, Tiffany is silently screaming in front of me, and I don’t blame her. He sounds absolutely dreamy over the phone. The deep baritone voice that made my stomach do flip flops the moment he said my name, he could totally read me the phone book from cover to cover, and I’d be riveted the entire time. Apparently, the voice matches the hot body and the handsome face, though it only makes him too perfect.
I take a deep breath, remembering that speech I’d just made up. “Thank you, but unfortunately, I have to—“
“Les tells me that someone will call you about the specifics of the contest—oh, wait,” he pauses when he realizes that I was saying something at the same time. “I’m sorry. You have to do what?”
Tiffany clasps her hands together, praying that I’d say yes. I feel bad for being such a mean sister, but I don’t want to be on some reality show fighting over a man.
Behind Tiffany, I see a teaser for Paired in Paradise, and it begins with a gorgeous island as seen from above, maybe from a helicopter. The island is Saint Lucia, and the resort is called the Aida, with parts of the resort set on a mountain top overlooking the ocean and two volcanic rock formations called the Pitons.
“Hello, are you still there?”
“Yes, yes I am,” I stammer, looking up to see Tiffany’s face blocking the TV screen as she starts jumping excitedly in front of me.
“I’m sorry I interrupted you earlier,” Tyler says. “You were saying?”
“Call me Daniela,” I say as Tiffany covers her mouth with her hand, her expression hopeful. How can I say no to that face? “I can’t wait to meet you soon, Mr. Drake.”
“Please call me Tyler,” he says, and I can almost imagine him smiling on the other end of the line. “And I can’t wait to meet you, too, Daniela.”