Chapter 1 #2
“Mhm.” Tessa crouched beside me, lowering her voice so the three dozen crew members bustling around the stage couldn’t hear.
This close, the exhaustion showed beneath her flawless makeup, the slight tremble in her hands that she was trying very hard to hide.
Tessa Reyes had been my best friend since freshman year of college, when she’d found me crying in the bathroom at a frat party and handed me a tampon, a mini bottle of vodka, and a business card for her therapist, in that order.
She’d held my hair back during bad breakups.
She’d talked me off ledges — literal and metaphorical.
She’d turned my viral tweet into a production deal through sheer force of will and a limitless network of television executives who owed her favors.
“Talk to me. What’s happening in that head of yours? ”
I stared out at the empty stage — at the ten pedestals arranged in a neat semicircle, at the cameras positioned to capture every angle of my impending emotional breakdown, at the giant screen behind me that would soon display my face to forty million people — and my throat closed around the truth.
“What if everyone was right?” The words came out smaller than I’d intended, fragile in a way I hated.
“My mom. My exes. All of them. What if I really am just… too much?” I laughed, but there was no humor in it.
“What if I created this whole show to prove a point that isn’t true, and now millions of people are going to watch me fail on live television? ”
Tessa was quiet for a beat. She didn’t rush to reassure me, which I appreciated — she’d never been the type to offer empty comfort.
She was the one who told me when my bangs looked bad sophomore year, when my business degree was a waste of my creative brain, when my ex-boyfriend was a walking red flag in a Patagonia vest. Her honesty was brutal sometimes, but it was honest, and right now that was what I needed.
“Listen to me.” She took both my hands in hers.
Her grip was firm, her gaze fierce. “You didn’t create this show because you’re too much.
You created it because you finally stopped accepting too little.
Every woman who watched that tweet go viral — every single one of the millions who shared it and commented and demanded this show exist — they saw themselves in you.
They saw their bad dates and their shitty exes and their mothers telling them they were asking for too much when really they were just asking for the bare minimum.
” She squeezed my hands, hard enough to bruise.
“You’re not too much, Sloane. They weren’t enough.
And tonight, you’re going to find someone who proves it. ”
I blinked back the tears that were threatening to ruin forty-five minutes of professional makeup application. The knot beneath my ribs unclenched, just slightly. “Since when did you become a motivational speaker?”
“Since my best friend decided to create a television empire and I had to figure out how to keep her from self-destructing on camera.” Tessa released my hands and straightened up, her producer mask sliding smoothly back into place.
“First entrance in sixty seconds. Places, everyone!” She glanced back at me, one eyebrow raised.
“You ready to meet your future husband?”
“God, don’t call them that. It makes this feel real.”
“It is real, babe.” She was already walking away, barking orders into her headset. “That’s the whole point.”
The first contestant through the doors was Julian Pierce.
He walked like he’d been engineered in a lab for this occasion — perfect posture, perfect smile, symmetrical bone structure that probably had its own Instagram filter.
His dark hair was artfully tousled, his custom suit was immaculately tailored, and when he bowed before my throne, the movement was so fluid that it looked rehearsed.
Which, knowing how these shows worked, it probably was.
“Your Majesty.” His voice was smooth, practiced, pitched to the millimeter. “Julian Pierce. I’m honored to be here.”
“Julian.” I tilted my head, studying him how I’d learned to study people over years of working in media — looking for the cracks beneath the polish, the real person hiding behind the performance. “Tell me a truth about yourself that isn’t on your application.”
His expression held. Not even a flicker. “I volunteer at a literacy program for underprivileged youth on weekends. I believe in giving back to the community.”
It was a good answer. It was the correct answer.
And the correctness itself made my skin prickle with unease, because talking to Julian was like talking to a chatbot that had been fed too much data on what women wanted to hear.
He was saying all the right things in the right order with the right warmth, and none of it felt remotely real.
Like someone had typed “perfect boyfriend” into an AI generator and this was what it had spit out.
“Lovely,” I said, matching his polish with a veneer of my own. “Welcome to the Games.”
Mason Rivera came next, and he promptly tripped over a cable three steps into the room.
“Oh God, I’m so sorry — that was — there was a thing.
And my foot, and—” He caught himself on one of the pedestals, nearly knocked it over, righted it with the desperate energy of a golden retriever who’d just crashed through a glass door, then turned to face me with a grin that was equal parts mortified and delighted.
“Hi! I’m Mason! I promise I’m not usually this much of a disaster.
” A beat. “Okay, that’s a lie, I’m exactly this much of a disaster all the time, but I thought I should try to make a good first impression before revealing my true nature. ”
I laughed. A real laugh, not the television laugh I’d been practicing. “Mason. Deep breath. You’re doing fine.”
“I really, really don’t think I am,” he admitted, still grinning, “but thank you for lying. That was very kind. You seem kind.” His whole face went wide, like he’d just realized what he’d said.
“Not that I’m surprised you’re kind! I just meant — you know what, I’m going to stop talking now before I make this worse. ”
“Probably wise.” I gestured toward his pedestal, and he practically fled toward it, radiating near-death-experience energy.
Instant friendzone, I decided. Absolutely zero romantic chemistry.
But I liked him, in a way I hadn’t liked anyone all evening.
Mason was real — unpolished, unpracticed — and in this room full of men who’d clearly memorized the manual on How to Win a Dating Show, that was a gift.
Derek Hoffman entered like he owned the building.
He prowled, each step measured and controlled, his dark eyes locked on mine with an intensity that made my stomach twist — as prey animals must feel when they realize they’re being hunted.
He was beautiful in a sharp, dangerous sort of way — the beautiful that came with warning labels and restraining orders and think pieces about toxic masculinity — and when he stopped before my throne, he bypassed the bow.
He flashed his teeth — quick, practiced, predatory.
“Derek Hoffman.” No Your Majesty. No practiced reverence. Just his name and that smile, the one that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’ve been looking forward to this.”
“Have you?” I kept my voice light, my expression pleasant, but a chill had settled behind my ribs.
I’d spent enough time around powerful men to recognize the ones who viewed women as conquests rather than people.
Derek Hoffman had that energy in spades.
“What is it you’ve been looking forward to, exactly? ”
“Meeting the woman who thinks she can teach men how to behave.” He widened his grin, but nothing behind it moved. “Should be… educational.”
Red flag, I thought, filing him away under “Potential Supervillain.” Red flag the size of Texas wrapped in a custom suit and expensive cologne.
“Welcome to the Games, Derek.” I bared my own teeth right back. “I hope you’re a fast learner.”
The remaining contestants blurred together — a parade of jawlines and rehearsed introductions, each man trying to distinguish himself from the last with varying degrees of success.
There was a tech entrepreneur who mentioned his startup three times in sixty seconds.
A former model who couldn’t stop checking his reflection in the nearest shiny surface.
A self-proclaimed “feminist ally” who called me “sweetheart” within the first minute of conversation and seemed confused when I didn’t respond warmly.
By the time we reached contestant number nine, my face hurt from smiling and my hope meter was hovering somewhere around empty.
And then the doors opened, and everything stopped.
He didn’t walk in so much as materialize — one moment the doorway was empty, the next he was there, filling the space with a presence that seemed to suck all the oxygen out of the room.
Tall, dark-haired, with a sharp-angled face that belonged on a statue or a wanted poster or the cover of a book you’d be embarrassed to read in public.
His suit was expensive but understated, charcoal gray with no tie, the top button of his shirt undone like he couldn’t be bothered with formality.
His eyes were the color of a winter storm — pale blue-gray, cold enough to burn.
He surveyed the room like he was cataloging exits. Neither nervous nor excited — just assessing. Taking stock of his surroundings like he’d already decided nothing here was worth his time.
His gaze landed on me like a physical impact — neither warm nor admiring but a sharper attention, an expression that looked past the crown and the couture and the carefully constructed Queen persona and saw…
what? I couldn’t tell. But whatever it was, it left me exposed in a way nobody else had managed all evening.