Most Eligible

Chapter One

First impressions are everything. Screw up and you won’t get a second.

—Shacking Up: The Definitive, Unauthorized Guide to Winning Love Shack

I’m the last one out of the limos, the twentieth woman Roland will meet tonight.

It’s a challenge to hoist myself up in my sequined fishtail dress. The other nineteen champagne-buzzed women made it look so easy, squaring their shoulders and winking back as if to say, See you on the other side.

My seat belt snags, and the driver, a balding man who seems bored of inept women, has to yank it out of the socket for me. Then my legs can’t part wide enough to exit the vehicle without assistance. Curse this ridiculous dress. The way it makes my ass look can’t possibly be worth this much trouble.

With the driver’s help, I finally totter onto my heels and take a deep breath. If getting out of a limo was the hardest part of tonight, I’m in good shape. But I know it’ll just get worse from here.

Around me, Love Shack producers swarm like gnats, already shadowing my every move.

The handheld cameras in the limo were invasive, but nothing compared to the fifteen or so shoved into my face now like I’m a starlet on the Oscars red carpet.

I’d na?vely thought I would get a few minutes to collect myself, maybe even meet Roland before our first interaction is filmed for the masses.

But in the brief second when the cameras stop rolling, a makeup brush is thrust in my face and phantom hands reach around my chest to adjust my body microphone.

Then someone shouts “Action!” and everything whirls back into motion.

Like magic, the sea of cameras parts, giving me a direct line of sight up the driveway to Roland Marchetti.

Behind him, the infamous Love Shack mansion spreads like hot butter along the Malibu coast, backlit by a cotton candy sunset.

At this hour, the surf is quiet, the distant waves barely audible over the whirring of cameras and constant buzzing of nerves in my head.

The ocean smell sneaks up my nose like bath salts, but far from jolting me awake, it calms me down.

It’s familiar, even if everything else, from the body mics to the miles of electrical cords, isn’t.

On cue, I take my first step toward Roland. I know how this goes; they drilled it into our heads for the entire fifteen-minute drive from our holding rooms at the Best Malibu Motel. Up the driveway, stop and smile, meet your husband.

Easy.

What they failed to mention was the sheer quantity of open flames.

Candles line every inch of the gravel driveway, and I shuffle forward, uncomfortably aware of just how flammable I am.

From the bottom of my dress, it’s a quick trip north to my head, which, at the moment, is more hairspray than hair.

You’d think that after an entire can and no luck getting my flyaways to stay down, I would have given up, but no.

It was on to a second can, as if I were trying to become a bombshell in more ways than one.

“And stop,” a producer says, a second too late. My chest bumps into the camera in front of me, giving future viewers an Only Fans–level angle on my tightly squeezed chest. I stumble back and get ahold of myself, plastering on a smile that I hope doesn’t say Enjoy the view!

I’ve almost reached Roland when a producer signals for us to wait.

For a few seconds, we stand facing each other in a silent limbo.

Behind his manufactured smile, Roland looks tired, though I can’t blame him.

Meeting twenty prospective wives in one evening is no easy feat.

And it’s not like the promo video would have shown him in anything less than prime condition.

On my computer screen, Roland lunged across a tennis court, sipped dark beer, hugged his mother, grilled.

“And he could be yours!” the promo shrieked, like he was the newest Dyson vacuum.

The final shot was Roland winking, a dark smolder in his gray eyes.

The same smolder he turns on me now as a producer gives us the go-ahead.

I shoot a furtive glance at the cameras and hold out my hand to him.

“Hi, I’m Georgia.” A simple introduction: not as bold as the woman who did seminude cartwheels up the driveway or the yodeler I could hear from three limos back, but hopefully memorable all the same.

“Hi,” he echoes. My heart softens at his shy little grin. He seems as nervous as I am, but for different reasons.

“You look stunning.” His gaze travels down my turquoise sequins and snags briefly on my chest. I shift uncomfortably and pull my smile tighter. This is what you signed up for, I remind myself. This is what you expected.

“You’re tall,” he says, then, “Shit, I don’t know why I said that. You know how tall you are, and anyway…”

I laugh, even though the comment prickles.

If I had a dollar for every time someone’s commented on my height, well, I certainly wouldn’t have taken this job.

“It’s okay—I am tall. But you’re definitely taller.

” Even in my heels, my eyes are just level with his lips.

“I’m sure that helps when you’re on the court.

But I’ve got to say, you look a little different tonight than you usually do on TV. ”

He smiles broadly and steps back so I can get a fuller look at him.

“Oh yeah? Different how?” He holds out his arms and does a little spin.

I smirk, pretending to think about his question. “Well, usually you’re wearing a bit less, there’s a racket in your hand, cheering fans in the stands. But that movie-star smile is about the same.”

He grins. “I think the biggest difference is the beautiful woman in front of me.” The response is so perfect I couldn’t have planned it. But I know the microphones catch it—he probably has one hidden in the folds of his navy tie. The words aren’t just for me.

“I’ll see you inside, Georgia Peach,” he says. My chest swells with pride at the nickname.

“You’re not the first man to call me that,” I tell him. Then I bite my tongue. Why the hell did I say that? Everything I planned on saying—everything I carefully prepared—is oozing from my brain under the hot TV lights.

“But maybe the last?” He quirks up an eyebrow.

Relief washes through me. It’s not so much him as the fact that his words sound like they’ve been plucked from a blockbuster romance script. But this is Love Shack, after all. Millions of viewers don’t tune in for tepid conversations about the weather. They tune in for true love.

Too bad that’s not why I’m here.