Buzz directed them where to sit. He picked out a single hardback chair for Bridget and placed her in it. “Sit up, chin out, boobs…oh. Never mind.”

Bridget tried not to take offense. She saw Brock leaning against a wall in the foyer and tried to get his attention. At least she thought it was Brock. It could have been a coat rack for all she knew.

“Okay, this is it,” the host announced. “Smile, ladies, and remember you are trying to win the heart of America’s daytime heartthrob, so dirty tricks, cat fighting, name calling and tears are all perfectly acceptable. Good luck.”

Bridget saw one of the cameramen circle the room bringing the hulking piece of equipment with him. She tried to brace herself for the impact of knowing that in less than five, four, three…seconds, the camera was going to be on her.

She turned her head and saw Richard standing just out of range of the camera with his two thumbs in the air. Or were they two fingers?

Don’t think, she told herself. If she began to think she might begin to realize that she was going to be on TV and that might cause her to panic.

Too late.

Breathe, she ordered herself. She was doing this for a reason. She was doing this to prove something to her family, to Richard…maybe even to herself. She could compete for a man’s affection with gifts like intelligence and humor and she wasn’t completely unworthy of a man’s attention. She would show Richard that she could make the cut and then maybe he would stop taking her for granted.

That’s right. It wasn’t about any hidden feelings she had for him. It certainly wasn’t because she wanted to make him jealous. That would be ridiculous. She only wanted him to see how wrong he was about her.

“Hey, can you pull back a little,” she heard Richard say to Buzz, who now had the camera focused on her. “I think she’s got something in her nose.”

She was an idiot.

“SO BROCK,” Chuck, the show’s host began, as most hosts do, with a fake smile and an even faker-sounding voice. “Tell us what you are looking for in a woman.”

Brock, who sat next to Chuck in the center of a half arc of fawning women, seemed to ponder the question. He rubbed his chin for a moment, turned to the camera that was focused on him and gazed directly into it, as if letting the viewing audience in on his thoughts before he said anything aloud.

“So many things, Chuck,” he responded. “I’m not looking for someone who is just hot. You know what I mean?”

“I do, Brock. I do.”

Not just hot. Suddenly, Bridget perked up a little. She had to admit she’d been feeling somewhat disenchanted after she’d spent time conversing with the other contestants during the first commercial break. Apparently they were all as equally determined as her to land Brock’s affections and at least make the first cut. Only the most pathetic would be getting the boot tonight, and she sensed that most of the women she talked to counted her as being on that list.

Their reasons for wanting to stay did vary. Some wanted to continue because they thought he was a babe. Some because they wanted to be the wife of Dr. Noah Vanderhorn, the legendary thoracic surgeon with a troubled past and a vulnerability for dangerous women, from the daytime television show The Many Days of Life. Most of them, however, wanted their own career in daytime television and starring with Brock Brickman, even if it was on a game show, seemed to be the best approach.

When Bridget suggested training as an actress, preparing a headshot and a résumé and going on auditions, they looked at her as if she was crazy. What did she know about anything? they asked. She wasn’t even showing cleavage.

Well, now she knew that Brock wanted more than just someone who was attractive.

Take that, girls!

“I want someone with a soul, too,” he confessed to Chuck. Soul. Bridget glanced around the room and decided that most of these women had foregone soul for silicon. It was beginning to look as though she had a shot at him after all. She smiled and tried to flutter her eyelashes, but Raquel had gone a little thick on the mascara and they ended up sticking a little.

“Of course, hot doesn’t hurt,” Brock added, then nudged the host’s elbow with his own as if sharing a private joke.

The women, who had been slumping progressively throughout his little speech, suddenly came to life again. Shoulders were thrown back, chins were lifted and hair was flicked. The blonde next to Bridget caught her square in the mouth with a chunk of hair. Bridget turned her head away and the hair was gone, but the taste of hairspray lingered. She tried not to make a horrible scrunch face as she attempted to lick the spray from her teeth.

Please don’t let the camera see me doing this.

“WHAT IS that one woman doing?” the Breathe Better Mouthwash executive asked, pointing to the screen.

Richard stood next to Dan or Don—he really needed to learn which one was which—off camera watching the show on a television monitor. He didn’t have an answer for the CEO because he really didn’t know what Bridget was doing. First, her eyes had started blinking furiously. Now, she was doing something with her face. For a moment, he feared she was having some kind of seizure. He never should have forced her to do this, he realized. Bridget simply wasn’t cut out for this kind of attention. If he hadn’t known that from his three years of working with her, he’d certainly learned it at her sister’s wedding.

Bridget liked to blend. She was the kind of person who was always there, but was never seen. The ultimate assistant: always on hand, but never underfoot. It wasn’t until after the wedding that he began to understand where that quality came from.

Four sisters. Each of them more stunning than the next. Each one of them knowing it, too. Bridget was the worst kind of Cinderella in a family like that, situated between the two older and two younger stars, with a mother who prized beauty and landing a prince above smarts and success.

And Bridget had too much pride even to ask for a fairy godmother.

“Can you make her stop doing that?” Don or Dan asked.

Richard took his eyes away from the monitor and moved back toward the living room, standing just behind Pete, one of the cameramen. At least Bridget seemed to have cleared up her facial tic and once again was focused intently on Brock.

In this particular group of women, she stood out simply because she was so unremarkable. A bubble of annoyance gurgled in his gut and he suddenly had an irrational desire to walk onto the set, grab her arm and get her the hell out of there.

He didn’t want anyone sitting at home watching this show to wonder what she was doing on TV with those other gorgeous women. He didn’t want anyone thinking that she was desperate. She wasn’t. She was doing him a favor. And in some ways, she was one of the most beautiful women he knew.

Not to mention the kind of guts it took to sit alongside a panel of women who looked like that. But the audience couldn’t see guts.

This was his fault. He’d made her do this and now he regretted it. And the worst part was yet to come. Brock still had to reject her on television in front of everyone. The reality of that was sinking in now that the moment was fast approaching. Suddenly anxious, Richard wondered if she would ever forgive him for this…and why it mattered so much to him if she didn’t.

“OKAY, let’s hear from the ladies,” Chuck decided, still oozing his unique charm. “Tell me what you’re looking for in a potential mate. Raquel.”

“I’m looking for someone just like Brick Brockman.”

“You mean Brock Brickman,” the host corrected her quickly.

“That’s right.” She smiled and pulled her shoulders together a bit more to enhance her cleavage. “Brick Brockman. He’s my ideal man.”

“Okay, moving right along. You, Jenna?”