Wild Card

Chapter 1

Daniela

"I can't believe you entered my name into this competition without my permission."

I give my baby sister, Tiffany, the best angry glare I can manage even though I know it won't change anything. Soon, the phone will ring, and someone will say, Congratulations, Miss Daniela Simmons! You are the winner of the Prince Charming Dating Game—or whatever name this reality show is called—and we're flying you to Prince Charming's island resort right now. Are you ready to meet the love of your life and experience true love's kiss?

Okay, maybe not exactly in those words but close enough. But I already know what I'm going to say. No, thank you. I did not enter the contest. My sister forged my name on the entry, and she's only 16-years-old so that entry is null and void because the rules say she has to be eighteen. Can you please call the runner-up? I'm sure she'd love to take my place.

Then they'd have no choice but to call the runner-up and give her the prize I'd apparently won, courtesy of my baby sister who thought it would be an excellent idea to throw my name into the hat as a Wild Card for the reality TV dating show, Paired in Paradise.

Wild Card, indeed! Who enters these things? I don't even watch TV!

"Come on, Dani, you'd be perfect for this. Consider it my birthday present. I mean, you just turned 23, and you deserve a vacation," Tiffany says, giving me the best sad puppy dog eyes she can muster. She's not sorry at all, though I can't help but laugh at her effort—or lack of it—to really be sorry. But that's my baby sister for you—only sixteen and forced to be an adult too soon, keeping an eye out for Mom and me when she should be out partying with her friends.

I just don't understand what would make her think that I'd fit in with ten gorgeous women competing for the affections of rugged adventurer and billionaire Tyler Drake. Only 28, he owns an outdoor gear and clothing company that's now worth billions of dollars, hence the word billionaire that always precedes his name. He started the business from his mother's garage and doesn't outsource the manufacturing to other countries at all. Everything is made in the US, which probably explains why everything is so expensive. All this Tiffany tells me just before we watch the host, Les Wiltern, press some button on some program on live TV, whose one job was to pick one number out of 38,000 entries.

How the randomizer software managed to find the one woman out of 38,000 who had no desire to snag herself a billionaire while on some island resort paradise, I have no idea. I was doing fine on my own, thank you very much, but somehow, Tiffany doesn't get that.

I do know that she's yet to forget how Brad Jameson dumped me on my birthday last year, overhearing him say that he just couldn't imagine a future with me being the way I was—like it was my fault.

"I know you're angry I forged your name, but listen to me, Dani," Tiffany is saying. "You can do this, and you'll be amazing out there. You can show them—"

"Show them what, exactly?" I try my best to hide my annoyance, but Tiffany looks back at me with such unabashed naiveté that I scale my feelings down. She means well, at least.

"Show them that people like you are just as fun as everyone else, that the only difference between you and everybody else is—"

"Tiff, I'm not about to become some poster girl on national television for—"

"It's cable TV."

"Alright, I'm not about to be some poster girl on some cable TV show for...gosh, for what? To show the world that people like me are actually normal, but in a different kind of way?"

"Exactly! But think about it! It's a resort island, and they have everything! You could kayak, scuba dive, even go parasailing—you know, those parachute things where you sit down and a speed boat pulls you across the water! The list is endless! And it's only going to be for three weeks. I wish I could go with you, but I'm underage," she says, pouting. "Besides, I can't leave Mom, and I've got school."