Finding Mr. Right Now (2 page)

Prick.
“Sorry, Darryl, I can’t see it. Even if legal doesn’t kill it, the bachelorettes will hate it because it’ll mess up their hair. Remember the custard pie incident?” Throwing custard pies had been another of Darryl’s brainstorms. Two contestants had threatened to leave and the show had to furnish them with new hair extensions.

Harriet cleared her throat. “We’re agreed then. No bungee jumping, Darryl.”

Darryl’s eyes took on a mutinous gleam. “But—”

“I said no.” Harriet gave him a level look. “It’s dangerous, it won’t be cleared by legal, and the contestants will hate it.”

Darryl’s jaw firmed, but he subsided in his chair, glowering.

“Okay,” Harriet leaned forward again. “You need to come up with two more stunts by tomorrow. And make them serious this time. We need to wrap this up.”

Darryl gathered up his laptop and headed for the door, grinding his teeth. Paul pushed himself to his feet, moving after him. Maybe he could coax the asshole into a couple of hours of brainstorming before Darryl headed off for his weekly comedy club gig.

“Paul?”

Harriet’s eyebrow was raised. Always a bad sign.

“Yes?” He gave her a careful smile.

“Sit down for a minute.” She gestured toward the chair next to hers.

Paul slid into his seat, trying for nonchalance. He didn’t think he’d done anything that merited getting fired, but you could never tell. “What’s up?”

Harriet tapped her pencil lightly against the table. “I assume you’ve heard the news by now?”

The news.
He did a quick mental survey. What news? “I’ve heard a lot of news lately,” he hedged. “What are we talking about?”

Harriet grimaced. “
The
news. The new show.
Finding Mr. Right.
”

He blew out a breath. “Oh. Sure. Is it a go?”

She nodded. “Definitely. They’ve got their bachelorette, so now they’re signing up bachelors. That means we’ll need to get going on the stunts as soon as we wrap up
Miss Right
, hopefully by the end of the week.”

Terrific.
Paul wished profoundly that he could say no to writing
Finding Mr. Right
, but he didn’t have any other job locked in. Unless his script got picked up by El Capitan Productions. “So we’re both moving over from
Miss Right
to
Mr. Right
?”

Harriet shrugged. “You are. In fact, I’m going to have you take lead for the time being. I’ve got too much to do with
Miss Right
and
Take This Job
to get involved right now. The jury’s still out on Darryl.”

“He’s okay,” Paul said quickly. “Just a little combative.” No way was he doing
Finding Mr. Right
on his own.

“He’s a pain in the ass.” Harriet shook her head. “I’ll put up with him for the time being. I need somebody over at
Mr. Right
, though. Now. They’re getting set up with the sweetheart diva.”

Paul’s lips twitched, but he managed to keep from grinning. “They hired Ronnie Valero? What do you want me to do?”

“Liaise for now. They’ve got a deal pending with a resort. Most of the show’s going to be on location this time. Find out what kind of activities we’ll have available for stunts on the site and then let Darryl know.”

“Right. Tomorrow?”

Harriet shook her head. “Now. This afternoon. Artie and Glenn are ready to go, and Monica McKellar’s got the bachelors lined up. See if we’ve got anything interesting to work with.”

“Will do.”

Harriet pushed herself up, gathering her laptop and BlackBerry. “No bungee jumping. That’s my new motto. Absolutely no bungee jumping.”

“Right.” Paul watched her turn back toward her office before he headed for the hall himself, sighing. He’d have to find out where
Mr. Right
would be shooting, and he’d have to talk to Glenn Donovan and his crew, far from his favorite people.

He paused, remembering Ronnie Valero. Miss Sweetheart Diva. Tears were almost guaranteed. In fact, given his memories of working with Ronnie Valero, he was likely to shed a few of his own before the season was over.

Paul sighed again. Chances were he had a lot of sighing in his future. He gathered up his laptop and began the long trudge toward the other side of the warehouse-sized building that housed Fairstein Productions.

Chapter Two

“He’s gone?” Ronnie’s lower lip was trembling and her eyes were beginning to take on that baby seal look. “He’s really gone? Why? Why would he go? Was it me?”

Monica and Ronnie were seated in what passed for a break room, currently the least populated room in the building since nobody wanted to be around when Ronnie got the news about Pres Jackson.

She leaned forward, her fingers pressed to her lips, her forehead scrunched in anguish. “Why?”

Monica suspected the answer to that question could well have something to do with the idea of paying court to Ronnie for a couple of months, but even hinting at that possibility would cause a lot of grief. Correction: a lot
more
grief.

“I think he had someone back home, Ronnie,” she murmured. “Maybe he decided he just couldn’t give you the kind of attention you deserved.”

“Well, why did he try out for the show if he had someone else?” Ronnie nibbled on her lower lip. Her voice began to sound more angry than heartbroken. “Did they have a fight or something?”

“Maybe. He didn’t really explain the problem to anyone. But that seems like a good possibility, doesn’t it?” Monica gave her what she hoped was an encouraging smile. She was trying to slide out of Ronnie’s presence as smoothly as she could. Ideally within the next five minutes.

“But don’t you ask them about that when they apply for the show? I mean aren’t they supposed to tell you if they’ve got a girlfriend or something?”

Monica rubbed her eyes, wishing mightily that she had a Ghirardelli bar. Stress eating always seemed to pick up at the beginning of the season as well as the end. Sometimes the middle if the bachelor was a real asshole. “Well, yes, we do interview them. You were interviewed yourself for
Finding Miss Right
, remember?”

“So what happens now?” Ronnie’s lower lip was jutting out into a pout, but Monica didn’t mind that. Sulking was easier to deal with than tears.

“Now we’ll go back to the applications and the interviews that we did when we first called for contestants and see if we overlooked someone,” she said brightly. “I’m sure we’ll find somebody interesting, Ronnie. No problem. We had lots of applications.” Of course, many of those applications came from guys who seemed to spend a lot of time pumping iron and popping steroids, but surely they had a few who weren’t totally bonkers.

Monica glanced back toward the other side of the room. Sid was standing in the doorway. He narrowed his eyes, shaking his head slightly.

Crap.
“You just concentrate on your magazine interviews today,” she continued, pushing her lips into an even more insincere smile. “We’ll take care of everything. It’ll all work out just fine.”

Fortunately, one of the public relations people arrived at that moment to lead Ronnie back to her next interview, bringing the conversation to an end. Monica headed for Sid with a sinking heart. “So?”

“So nothing. Chuck Forrester is trying out for
Survivor
,
which means he’s not interested in us anymore. The other two who were acceptable are both ‘unavailable,’ meaning they probably had some major second thoughts, not that any of us blame them. Plus they may have had other offers by now. All the other guys were like Foley. Remember Foley?”

Monica rubbed her eyes again. “Oh yeah, I remember Foley. The muscles and the ’roid rage.
So
not what we’re looking for. What about the applications? Anybody we didn’t pull in?”

Sid shook his head. “We brought in everybody who was even minimally acceptable. Some of the other applicants had trouble spelling their own names.”

“We won’t be asking them to take a written exam,” she snapped, then shook her head. “Sorry, sorry. Not your fault. Who knew it would be so damned hard to find someone to take Ronnie off our hands?”

Sid shrugged. “Her parents, probably. My guess is they’ve probably been looking for a guy to do that for years.”

Monica fought back a grin. This was no laughing matter. “Maybe we can go with nine bachelors rather than ten.”

Glenn Donovan, the producer/director, peeked around the door, raising his eyebrows. “Did you tell her?”

Monica sighed. “Yes, Mr. Donovan, sir, I told her. She’s not happy.”

He glanced toward the hall where Ronnie had just disappeared. “Tears and sobbing unhappy or snarling unhappy?”

“More like snarling.”

Glenn’s expression relaxed. “So offer her a new outfit or something. Buy her some shoes. No problem.”

Monica closed her eyes for a moment. Glenn wasn’t exactly a monument to sensitivity. “We’ve also got problems finding a replacement. All the acceptable guys who were left have moved on to other stuff.”

He shrugged. “Put out another call.”

“Yes Glenn, we can do that.” She took a quick breath. “Of course, if we put out another call, the news might make it into the tabloids. People might wonder what’s wrong with Ronnie that she can’t attract ten guys.”

“Well, deal with it,” he snapped. “We start shooting in another week. Get somebody on board.” Along with his shaky sensitivity, Glenn also had definite problems with patience.

“Mr. Donovan?”

Monica half turned to see one of the writers standing in the hall. She sort of knew him in the way she sort of knew most of the people on the crew. His dark brown hair was a little long by corporate standards, brushing the tops of his ears. His eyes were the color of melted chocolate. He always looked very…yummy.
Yummy? Good grief, Monica, get a grip.

Glenn glanced at him. “Where’s Harriet? I told her to meet me here.”

The writer shrugged. “She sent me over. I’m supposed to get started on figuring out the stunts. Can somebody fill me in on the locations?”

Glenn checked his Rolex. “Talk to Monica. She’ll take care of it.”

Monica blinked. “Me? What about the, you know, crisis?”

“What about it? Sid can take care of that. You talk to what’s his name here.”

The writer looked like he was gritting his teeth. “Paul Dewitt.”

Paul.
Right. She should have remembered. Now at least she wouldn’t have to call him
Mr. Yummy
. “Okay, hang on. I’ll get you the promotional stuff the resort sent us.”

The writer, Paul, walked beside her as she headed for her cubicle. His shoulders seemed a little broad for a writer. She wondered vaguely if he worked out—beneath the fine knit of his sweater, she could see the outline of what looked like well-developed pecs.
What’s the matter with you? You’re acting like a sex-crazed teenager.

He raised an eyebrow. “What crisis?”

She grimaced. “We’re down by a bachelor. One of them took off without notice. Now we have to come up with a replacement.”

“That’s a crisis?”

“Sure it is.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Because these guys all seem sort of interchangeable. I mean you could just pick another one off the rack. Like the bachelorettes.”

Monica’s jaw tightened. She hated it when somebody dissed the show. Maybe especially when it was true since she hated to admit that. “You know they’re not interchangeable. You write the stunts.”

He shrugged. “Well, the stunts are always pretty generic. We usually don’t write for anyone in particular since they might be gone in a couple of weeks. I mean, other than the lead and one or two bachelorettes who look interesting.”

Her jaw stayed tight.
Yummy is as yummy does.
She grabbed a file folder from her desktop, handing it to him. “This is the information we’ve got on the resort. We’ll start off here in town as usual and then move there for the episodes when we get down to the final five or six bachelors.”

Paul’s forehead furrowed as he looked at the glossy brochure cover. “Where is it?”

“The resort? Colorado. A place called Elkhorn Run.”

His eyebrows went up again. “Colorado?”

“Yeah, it’s a ski resort. Except they’re trying to attract more tourists in the summer.”

He nodded. “I know. I’m from Colorado. I grew up northwest of Denver.”

“Oh.” She tried to think of some comment she could make about that. Maybe that explained the muscles she could see under the sweater. Maybe he spent a lot of time outdoors. “Well, so you’ll have a head start, I guess.”