Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Epilogue
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Les arbres tardifs sont ceux qui portent les meilleurs fruits.
The trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.
—Molière
Chapter One
The long-running and much-celebrated director of the reality show Celebrity Ballroom, Wes Duncan, poked his head around the dressing room door. “Plum, fifteen until showtime. How are you feeling? Pumped?”
I opened my mouth to answer (not exactly sure how to respond), but thankfully I didn’t have to since Wes barreled on anyway. “Tonight, I need you to be bouncy, bubbly, effervescent—the girl America fell in love with on EVERLYday. Ready to give them that thousand-watt smile?”
No, I was not, in fact, ready. Far from it. My hair was still up in curlers while my stomach was tied up in knots. I could not, would not, vomit on live TV. If I’d somehow managed not to toss my cookies when I ate goat eyeballs as a contestant on Guts or Glory Extreme Edition, then there was absolutely no way I was letting a little two-step take me down. I focused on inhaling deeply and slowly through my nose and exhaling through my overlined and well-glossed lips.
Farrah Littman, the showrunner, squeezed past Wes, who was still lingering in the doorway, and gave a soft knock.
“Hey, girl,” she called from behind her clipboard. “You look sensational. For tonight, I need you to really lean in to that sex appeal. We’re planning on a lot of great close-up shots of you and Viktor, so it’d be good if you could pretend to actually like him.”
“I do actually like him.”
She looked up from her papers. “You do? Hmm . . . well, then let’s make sure it’s oozing out of you, okay? I want to see sensuality, passion, fire . . . like a deep carnal desire for one another . . .”
