My Ex Bought the Dating Show

"That's your husband!" "That's your wife!" My childhood best friend and I both pointed at once at the oldmoney prince and the oldmoney queen who had just stepped onto the island.

The popcorn in our hands went everywhere. One second earlier, we had been coasting happily through a dating show. One second later, we were so scared we turned around to quit.

The producer: "The penalty is ten times your fee." Anderson and I looked at each other. Well. Somebody had set us up. Chapter 1 Anderson Darrow. My childhood best friend.

We'd been playing together since we were in diapers, and the grownups all said our two families were evenly matched, that one of us had the brains and the other had the face.

Freshman year. A clip of the two of us from orientation week blew up, purely for our faces. Overnight, the offers from the shortdrama apps came pouring in.

So we decided to go into the entertainment business, agreed to pretend we didn't know each other, and promised to meet again at the top.

But we shot for the moon, bombed a string of bigbudget star vehicles, and landed nowhere near the stars, exactly where we'd started, still Dlist.

The internet piled on too, calling us flowers with no scent. That was bad enough. Then came New Year's Eve. The fireworks went up by the armful.

Even with our faces turned up to the sky, our tears came down by the armful too. Because we had both just been dumped. Yesterday, in fact.

We'd both blown things up with our sponsors. Anderson's nose was red with cold. "I swear!

I am never being that woman's dog again!" I wiped my snot and my tears off on his absurdly expensive down jacket. "I'm done with him this time, for real.

I'm never 'signing' with him again!" And then. We got completely wasted. In honor of two first loves that had died before they went anywhere. And we agreed on one thing.

This industry really is a dye vat. One step in and your whole body comes out stained black and blue. I was still stewing in it.

Anderson asked me, "Lockhart… what's he actually like?" Lockhart was my exsponsor. A man of few words in public. An animal in private.

Current CEO of Meridian Group, family money going back generations, handsome enough to kill a person with his face.

Back then I'd done a few short dramas that went nowhere, and my bookings were falling off a cliff. My agency told me to go work an investor's private party.

I set my sights on Lockhart. If I had to be kept, picking a gorgeous one was a straightup win, wasn't it?

But everything about him was cold and hard, and the word around the business was that he was a knife wrapped in velvet.

I came armed with every ounce of strength and every move I had for seducing a man. Who knew that the second I stood in front of him, his presence would scare me blank.

I didn't even have the strength to hook one delicate little finger under a bra strap. My legs went so weak I started to fall. But Lockhart caught me around the waist.

My face went red. The moment I had my feet back, I took three steps away from him. I laughed weakly. "Thank you, Mr.

Lockhart." Lockhart's face didn't move, but there was something in his eyes that looked like flirting. I ran. Clearly the gift for seducing men was not one I had.

But the next day my agent called to tell me I'd hit the jackpot. Lockhart wanted to take me to dinner. I asked, "Why?" My agent said, "He said your moves are something else." Huh?

I hadn't used a single move! Anyway. Total accident, and that was how Lockhart and I ended up tangled together.

I looked at my childhood best friend and his eager face. "Come on, tell me.

What's he like?" I tugged at the corner of my mouth. "Handsome, smart, rich, generous…" Anderson couldn't take any more. "Doesn't he have a single flaw?" I pressed my lips together.

It took real effort to come up with one. "He doesn't know when to stop. Does that count?" Chapter 2 Almost at the same moment.

My childhood best friend and I both went red around the eyes. After a while I said, a little lost, "What about Garnet? What's she like?" Garnet Rathbone.

Heir to Wyndham Enterprises. Eldest daughter of an oldmoney family, with a standing that made her the oldmoney queen. The truth was, when Anderson first got into the business.

Plenty of rich wives sent invitations his way. He acted better than I did, but his luck was worse.

After one of his short dramas did modestly well, he turned down a bigname producer's castingcouch offer at the wrap party. When she touched his abs, he finally couldn't take it.

He shoved her off, and his tone was not friendly. "Ma'am, that costs extra! And you're old enough to be my mother!" He nearly got blacklisted for it.

After that, his bookings were even more brutal than mine. The two of us dug in. In summer we bundled into thick coats and held bowls of scalding soup.

In winter we wore tank tops and played corpses in ponds. We were determined to make something of ourselves. The turning point was that party.

The agency had told me to go work the room, and I brought Anderson along like a refugee so he could eat and drink for free. That was the day I met Lockhart.

When I came hurrying back, I saw Rathbone tucking a business card into the waistband of Anderson's suit pants. Rathbone stood out. Ivy League, beautiful and brilliant both.

I looked at Anderson's red ears, and the embarrassed way he scratched his head.

When he came back I asked him, "Are you about to fall from grace?" Anderson scoffed. "As if." I got up to get a little cake, found one good enough to share with him, and then couldn't find him anywhere.

I texted him. "Where'd you go?" He wrote back, "Stomachache. Took a car home." I was confused. Since when did he have that problem?

I ate a bite of cake and squeezed my eyes shut in satisfaction. When I looked up, Lockhart was watching me, something amused in his eyes.

Without thinking, I licked the smear of cream off the corner of my mouth. He made an impatient sound, turned, and walked away. I had no idea what that was about. The next day.

I looked at Anderson, who seemed relaxed all over. "Did you sign with Garnet?" In this business, we don't call it dating. We call it signing. Anderson puffed up like a cat. "As if!

Your boy's not that kind of guy!" I pointed at the hickey showing above his collar and said nothing.

He pressed his lips together. "Don't tell my parents." I patted his shoulder. "It's fine. I get it. You just really wanted to get ahead." Back in the present.

Anderson had gone quiet. I kept at him anyway. "Come on. What's Garnet like?" Anderson said miserably, "Beautiful, kind, decisive, ruthless when she needs to be.

She and Lockhart went to the same school, they were debate rivals, they've known each other since they were kids, and her family hasn't been poor since her mother's mother's mother." "No flaws?" "No bad habits." We both fell silent.

The first thing you feel when you fall in love with someone is how small you are.

I spoke first. "So going by that, they do sound perfect for each other." Anderson made a sound of agreement. "The two of them making a good life together matters more than anything." Yes.

Lockhart and me. Anderson and Rathbone. The reason we ended. Because Lockhart and Rathbone were getting married to merge the families. They were the ones meant for each other.

Anderson and I were both third parties. The really shameful part was that when we found out, the two of us had been covering for each other for ages.

When Rathbone went to Lockhart's place, Anderson would tell me to hide in the closet. Chapter 3 When Lockhart went to Rathbone's office, I'd tell Anderson to hide under the desk.

And so. Thanks to our careful engineering, neither Rathbone nor Lockhart ever found out that the other one was keeping a smalltime actor.

We went on lying to ourselves right up until they were about to marry, which was also when our contracts were about to expire.

Yesterday I asked Anderson, "Are you renewing?" Anderson said, "No. You?" "If you're not, I'm not." So yesterday, the contract ran out.

Lockhart and I tangled ourselves half to death all night. He asked me, "Is there anything you want?" I was gathering up my torn stockings. I said, gracious as anything, "Please.

Strangers don't talk like that…" Back at the beginning, when Lockhart and I signed the contract, he'd laid it out. "Ms. Mercer, I'll give you everything you want.

Except love, of course. When the contract ends, if you don't want to renew, we'll see each other again as perfectly polite strangers." Thinking about it.

We both turned away and wiped away our little pearls of tears. "It's pathetic. It really is." My heart was ash. "Let's quit the business.

I want to leave this sad place." Anderson was in the second I called it. "Done!" Both of us had degrees from good schools. Our actual professional knowledge was frighteningly solid.

We said it and we did it, each of us going back to our own room to call a lawyer. I was in the middle of starting the termination process when my agent sent me a gig.

A live dating show. All about keeping it real. "Theodora, they've penciled you in for this dating show. You don't need an angle this time.

Your main job is to be a beautiful piece of scenery. Or you could go against type, do bad girl or something.

Better for the public to think you've lost it than to think you're washed. Understand?" Please. Why should I have to put on a show? Yeah, no. This girl was done.

So my tone got even colder. "Kendra, I'm sorry. I'm planning to leave the business." I went on drafting my indictment of everything unfair that had been done to me.

How the agency once sent me to work a party, which was how I ran into the man who broke my poor little heart.

Or how Kendra once killed every job I had because of Lockhart, so I'd be free to go fawn over him. I wrote five hundred words in that chat box.

And then, right before I hit send, Kendra's message dropped into view with perfect timing. "Five hundred thousand." Unbelievable.

I deleted the whole thing with one keystroke, then replied coolly, "It's not about the money." "Five hundred thousand an episode." …Hm. "Off the clock I do smoke AND drink, you know!" Once I had happily taken the gig.

I opened my bedroom door and the first thing I saw was Anderson, who had come over to hang out. The instant our eyes met, we both looked guiltily away, then carefully back.

I heard the peanut gallery suck in a breath. Our mothers' eyes lit up. They grabbed each other, breathless. "Is it finally happening? My favorite trope!

Childhood friends to lovers!" Mrs. Darrow took my mom's hand. "How much should we budget for the wedding?

We're going to be family!" They were about two minutes from jumping straight from the wedding budget to making Ellison a groomsman. Anderson hit the brakes. "Stop!

Tedi and I just have something big to talk about. About work." That doused the parents' excitement instantly.

Anderson put an arm around my shoulders and steered me out to the balcony, all charm. "Did you terminate yet?" Now that he mentioned it, I felt even guiltier.

I started picking at my fingers and couldn't get a sentence out. Chapter 4 How was I supposed to explain that not only had I not terminated, I'd taken a huge gig behind his back?

One look at my face and Anderson's spine straightened right up. "Did you do something behind my back?" My volume shot up. "No!" Anderson's reaction was bigger. "You absolutely did!

This is exactly how you acted when you were going behind my back to hang out with Ellison!" Ellison and I were in the same class in elementary school, and once we got close I brought him in to play with Anderson.

The two boys liked the same things and both had good faces, and the three of us naturally became best friends. But one time the two of them had a fight.

I was caught in the middle with nowhere to stand. At home I soothed Anderson. "Honestly, I don't think Ellison's a good guy either. He's stingy and selfish.

I'm not playing with him anymore." Anderson was so pleased he brought me out every snack in the house.

At school I comforted Ellison. "Setting everything else aside, is Anderson really completely blameless here?" Ellison patted my shoulder smugly, and after school he took me on a tour of everything worth eating in town, his treat.

That month I gained a solid ten pounds. It all came out one sunny afternoon. Ellison took me out for oysters. Anderson gave me a big slice of cheesecake.

That night I was throwing up from both ends. Ellison and Anderson compared notes in the hospital room and realized I'd been a double agent the whole time.

Ellison asked me, face like thunder, "I'm stingy? And selfish?" Anderson laughed in outrage. "It was all my fault?" I avoided both their eyes and picked at my fingers, scared.

Finally I said weakly, "That was all ChatGPT's analysis…" Ellison and Anderson: ………… Then the two of them went right back to buddybuddy and gave me the silent treatment for three full hours.

Now that it was all being dragged up again. I went scorched earth. "Fine!

You're right, I haven't terminated, because I still have one more… brand event." I still wasn't going to mention the dating show.

Getting over it that fast would make me look like trash. Anderson nodded like it all made sense. "Actually, uh, same. I've got a guest spot I have to shoot." Ah. That explained it.

Three days later we packed, said goodbye at the airport. And I arrived at the island.

I picked a card one of the male guests had drawn and got ready to go off into the sunset with him.

I was in low heels and a red backless dress, nothing like the girl next door I used to be. I'd thought it through, honestly.

To forget a love that's gotten into your bones, you either use time or you use somebody new.

And if I actually found the real thing on this show, I'd be walking away with the check and the guy. The production had us talk on the phone first. The guy spoke first. "Hi.

I'm the guy who's about to take you on a date." The voice on the other end was low, like it had bubbles in it, nice and awful at the same time, a voice I didn't know and did.

I fought down the urge to roll my eyes. And answered in a sugary baby voice, "Hi. I'll be waiting for you down at the water." Then I bit my lip, bashful and completely fake.

The other end went quiet for a second. Then answered, just as greasy, "All right. Wait right there for your boy." I stood at the water admiring the view.

Behind me, suddenly, "Hey!" I raised my lashes theatrically, ready to turn with a devastating smile, and saw who it was. The corner of my mouth twitched.

Anderson, in a full suit, looking like an actual human being. The cameras kept cutting between wide and close, like they were building the textbook datingshow first encounter