“Knock, knock,” said a singsongy voice at the door. Nancy, my longtime agent, joined us in the already way-too-crowded dressing room. “How are we feeeeelingggg?”

The tornado of prep spiraled to a gentle gust as Desi tucked a few more bobby pins into my hair, gave me a good-luck kiss on the cheek, and ducked out of the dressing room, followed closely by Gabby, leaving only me and Nancy behind. I relished the momentary silence before I answered. Examining my reflection in the brightly lit mirror, I stared down at the girl now looking back at me and took in a deep lungful of air, the room a little less stifling now that everyone’d cleared out.

Nancy scooted closer and raised her voice, snapping me out of my momentary daze. “I saw your family seated in the audience. That’ll be good for ratings.” She waggled her eyebrows up and down and smirked. “No Rhys, though?” She pouted out her bottom lip in disappointment.

No matter how many times I told Nancy that Rhys and I were broken up, she still seemed surprised when he wasn’t around, probably because he always had been. Rhys (back when he went by the name Brian Braunpheiffer) and I met as freshmen in high school. He was handsome but totally unaware of his good looks, funny, sweet, and best of all he was more into Dungeons & Dragons than TV and popularity. He didn’t even watch EVERLYday and was pretty unfazed by me and my famous family.

We were initially paired up as lab partners during our freshman chemistry class, where our friendship began to blossom amid the bubbling beakers and humming Bunsen burners in the dimly lit classroom. Rhys and I didn’t just share notes; we exchanged secrets, jokes, and our aspirations. In a world where everyone saw me on the screen, he was the only one genuinely interested in getting to know the real me. Our connection went beyond the spotlight, but eventually, it began to erode. Like everyone else in my life, he got entangled in the machinery of fame. He took on a recurring role on EVERLYday, portraying my loving boyfriend, rebranded as Rhys Braun from Brian Braunpheiffer, now a celebrity in his own right. That’s when things started to unravel, culminating in a highly publicized breakup last year, caught, of course, by none other than TMZ.

Nancy continued, “So I just got off the phone with the folks at Lululemon, and if you win, they’re prepared to do a full rollout of a Plum Everly athleisure wear line in the fall. Isn’t that fantastic?”

It would be fantastic, especially considering my current financial situation, which I think anyone could safely call dire. It seemed no matter how many reality shows I landed, between my agent, manager, publicist, and lawyer’s fees, I was still barely scraping by. “And if I don’t win?”

Nancy tilted her head and sighed. “If you don’t win, well, I’m not sure we can count on any of the endorsement deals coming through.”

“No pressure or anything,” I scoffed.

“Oh God, no! The last thing I wanted to do was come back here and stress you out. I was hoping to use this all as fuel to amp you up. But don’t worry about any of that now. Just focus on that paso doble.”

My head shot up. “How did you know we were doing a paso doble?”

Her overly fillered cheeks grew even tighter when she sassily pursed her lips. “Honey, after that disaster a few weeks ago, of course you and Viktor need to redeem yourselves.”

Dammit, is this corset growing tighter? I’m not even dancing yet!

I could barely inhale a full breath, and small spots started to float like gnats in the beams of the vanity lights.

“Five minutes till showtime, five minutes till showtime,” a voice bellowed over the stage’s intercom.

I squinted my eyes, willing them like hell to adjust, as I hoisted myself up out of the chair. Wiggling fiercely against the bone ribbing, I tried everything I could to loosen the corset before I put on my brave face and sucked it up like the trained seal I was.

“I should really get going. Viktor likes to give me a pep talk before we perform.”

“Well, darling, break a leg.” Nancy gave me a quick kiss on each sweat-moistened cheek and a squeeze on the shoulder.

“Viktor told me dancers don’t tell each other to ‘break a leg,’ it’s bad luck. Instead, they say merde.”

“Merde?” Her eyes darted back and forth as she tried to decipher the meaning. “I don’t know that expression.”

“It’s French. I think it roughly translates to the word shit.”

“Dancers wish each other shit before going out onstage?!” Nancy leaned in closer and wore the face of someone who was certain she’d grossly misheard something there.

“According to Viktor, back in the day, the patrons of the Paris Opera Ballet would arrive at the Palais Garnier in horse-drawn carriages. If there was a full house, there was sure to be a lot of horse manure in front of the theater. Saying merde became a way to tell your fellow dancers to have a good show for the packed audience.”

“Well, merde right backatcha, then. See you after the show.”

Chapter Two

I followed Nancy out of the dressing room, sauntering behind her with the swagger and confidence of a woman who wasn’t currently being stabbed to death by her own costume. At the sound of the show’s opening theme song echoing through the proscenium, Nancy hurried to join the rest of the studio audience, and I headed to the stage. Viktor was waiting for me in the reception area just off to the side of the cameras. He looked me up and down, nodding in enthusiastic approval, and gave me his usual greeting. “Moya vozlyublennaya.” My sweetheart, in Russian. “You warmed up?”

I nodded and looked down to my feet. “My flamenco taps are still a quarter second off the beat.”

Viktor grabbed me by the waist and pulled me closer, so we were eye to eye. He sucked in his core and straightened out his shoulders. “Plum, what have I told you about the paso doble? It is a sensual dance modeled after the drama of the Spanish bullfight,” he breathed. “It is a theatrical dance of role-play. Forget about your flamenco taps. Tonight, I am the matador, the Duke of Hastings, and you are Daphne, the seductive cape. As long as you stay right here,” he said, pointing at his face, “with me, right here, we will get through the dance. Merde?”

“Merde,” I repeated. Shit was right! Now I was supposed to be not only bouncy and seductive but also Daphne and the matador? No, wait. Was I the bull or the cape?! Merde, merde, merde!

The studio lights dimmed, but I could still make them all out, the beautiful Everly girls—all distinctly different yet undeniably sisters with their iconic beach-blonde tresses, year-round sun-kissed skin, and effortless no-makeup makeup looks—seated second row center, directly in view of all the cameras. Lemon, my oldest sister, was on the aisle, followed by Kiwi, Pear, and Peach. Having just turned twenty-eight, I was the youngest Everly by about three years, and the only child not currently employed by our family’s famous wellness-and-lifestyle brand. I wondered what kind of promotional placement Celebrity Ballroom had promised in order to get all my sisters to appear at the finale.

The sight of all of them perfectly coiffed and styled to the nines sent my heart into palpitations. I couldn’t remember the last time they all showed up for any of my gigs, although in fairness, nobody besides the cast and crew was ever allowed in the Star Spy House houses, and Celebrity Spelunking required way too many waivers. Whatever the reason, my mind was racing, and I momentarily lost focus on the paso doble, Viktor, and the enormous stakes of the night.

After what may have been a solid fifteen seconds of Viktor frantically waving in my direction, he finally caught my eye and motioned for me to hurry into place for the start of the performance. I shifted my corset and froze in position. Suddenly, the haunting first notes of the song soared out from the orchestra, and just like that, we were off and running.

Viktor, embodying his role as the imposing matador, puffed out his chest wide and wrenched his shoulders back. Stepping into the spotlight in the center of the dance floor, he extended his right foot out ahead of the rest of his body and then popped onto the balls of his feet to shuffle forward in a frantic eight-step. He repeated a series of cape-like moves, tiptoeing in a tight, counterclockwise circle and finishing off the last beats with a few seductive strides in my direction to close the gap between us.

In the final rotation, he was supposed to rip the Regency-era gown from my body, revealing the sexy outfit underneath, but the snap that should’ve burst wide open barely budged. Terror shot through my body like a bolt. There was no way I could do the entire paso doble in a heavy taffeta ball gown.

Running through my mind was Wes’s urging to be bouncy and effervescent, followed by Farrah’s instruction to be sexy and sultry. I waved my arms around like a circus clown to highlight the obvious wardrobe malfunction before planting a smoldering look of lusty seduction on my face and ripping the dress from my body, tugging and tearing at every button, every seam, until it started to shed like a second skin. I must have looked absolutely ridiculous.

The breath held in by the tight corset finally released as the costume hit the ground, and I was left posing in the sexy skintight unitard the same wine color the dress had been—doing my best to act like the blunder had been planned all along. However, Viktor didn’t sell the gaffe quite as well. He just stood there, horror-struck, his face twisting between panic and a somewhat futile attempt to stay in character, and waited for me to untangle my high heels from the discarded ball gown at my feet so I could rejoin the dance count. But it was too late, the damage was already done. We were so far off the beat, we couldn’t possibly catch up. Viktor did his best to guide me, at one point even counting the steps out loud, but it was no use. I was completely lost, and so was he.

After a brutal round of judging, we were ushered to the postdance interview where the show’s host, famed ballroom dancer Vanessa Fairview, was waiting for us.

“Viktor? Plum? What happened out there?” she asked, pushing the microphone into both our faces.

Viktor grunted something in Russian that I was grateful I couldn’t understand.

“We saw you struggling with the gown,” Vanessa said sympathetically. “What was going through your mind at that exact moment?”

What was going through my mind? I was thinking about all the endorsement and promotional deals guaranteed to the winner of Celebrity Ballroom going straight down the drain. I didn’t just want to win—I needed to win the title and all that came with it.

“What was going through my mind?” I repeated. She nodded like one of those bobblehead dolls sold at novelty stores. “I knew I needed to get the dress off if we were going to have even a fighting chance.”

“You and Viktor came into tonight as the front-runners. Now, it would take a miracle for you two to claim victory,” she said.

Was there a question somewhere in there? Vanessa pushed the microphone closer to me. Question or not, she expected some sort of a response.

Viktor put his arm around me and offered a reassuring squeeze. “Plum did her best. Right, moya vozlyublennaya?”

Hot tears sprang to my eyes. This wasn’t the first time I’d made a fool of myself on reality TV, but it was the first time I’d dragged someone else down with me.

Vanessa moistened her lips and asked her final question. “I couldn’t help but notice your sisters in the audience. How did it feel to have them all here cheering you on tonight?”

At the mention of my family, another wave of mortification almost pummeled me off balance, and my stomach sank again. Another humiliating reminder I didn’t inherit the Everly perfection gene. I forced a smile back on my face.

“Yes, it’s wonderful to have their support, always,” I answered.

Vanessa grinned and motioned to the cameraman that she got everything she needed and we could clear out. The grips were scurrying around us to reset the stage for the next pair of dancers. I glanced out into the audience to look for my sisters, but they were already gone.