Adventure to Love

by Ramos, Bethany

  Table of Contents

  ADVENTURE TO LOVE

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Epilogue

  ADVENTURE TO LOVE

  BETHANY RAMOS

  SOUL MATE PUBLISHING

  New York

  ADVENTURE TO LOVE

  Copyright©2013

  BETHANY RAMOS

  Cover Design by Rae Monet, Inc.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the priority written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

  Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Published in the United States of America by

  Soul Mate Publishing

  P.O. Box 24

  Macedon, New York, 14502

  ISBN-13: 978-1-61935-209-4

  www.SoulMatePublishing.com

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  This book is for my son, Elliott,

  who spent his time in utero

  while I was writing this book.

  He was and always will be a special part

  of my life’s journey!

  Acknowledgements

  I want to thank my husband, Mark, for always supporting my writing career every step of the way. In fact, it was his idea that I started working at home as a freelance writer in the first place, so he deserves all the credit! I want to thank my family and friends for always supporting my writing and taking the time to read each of my novels. Every person who has read my books gets a personal thank you from me!

  I also want to thank Soul Mate Publishing for giving me the opportunity to publish this book. All of their time, effort, and help truly mean so much to me.

  Lastly, I have to thank every single reality TV star from the past decade, who have fed my guilty pleasure/addiction and inspired the premise for this book!

  Chapter 1

  Harper

  Harper sat sandwiched between what appeared to be two identical women. No, she wasn’t seeing double. She just happened to be at a casting call in West Hollywood where the typical women that fit the bill were blond, blue-eyed, and impressively tanned. Whether all of the above were real or fake was still to be determined.

  Not like Harper was one to talk. Her long, honey blond hair came from a little friend called Clairol. But that was only a temporary fix until she could get back on her feet again and continue seeing her colorist, Avondre. He was known for making magic out of what was once mousy, drab-brown hair.

  Her blue eyes really were her natural color. Only they happened to be enhanced just a smidge with nonprescription color contacts that she’d picked up at a gas station near her month-to-month rental apartment in the cheapest neighborhood she could find in Manhattan Beach.

  And, yes, she was tan just like the rest of them. She spent every single afternoon lying at the beach. Not out of luxury but out of necessity. It seemed that the air-conditioner in her tiny, pre-furnished studio apartment was nothing more than a puff of lukewarm air that blew at random. Normally at 7 PM at night when the apartment had already cooled down after the sun had set.

  So afternoons in her tiny shoebox of an apartment were unbearable, to say the least.

  One of the she-clones to the right of Harper elbowed her in the ribs to get her attention. A little too hard, in her opinion. Harper looked up with a wide-eyed expression on her face that she had perfected after years of playing the victim to family, friends, and especially men in her life.

  “Yes?”

  The Glamazon hissed out of the side of her mouth, barely turning her head to acknowledge Harper’s existence. “Um, I’m pretty sure they’re calling your name.”

  She tapped one perfectly manicured fingernail on the clipboard that sat in Harper’s lap. It held her lengthy application and background check, which were required to even be considered for the show in the first place. And at the top of the application, clear as day, read her name: ‘Harper Berry.’

  Harper was suddenly all ears. A petite production assistant who was attractive in an edgy/emo kind of way scanned the room with a bored expression on her face. “This is the final call for Ms. Berry. Does anyone know if there is a Harper Berry here for casting?”

  She didn’t want to seem too eager. Even though this was the moment she had waited four hours and thirty-five minutes for, not counting the insane traffic gridlock that had cost her fifty-five extra minutes on the way to the studio.

  She stood up slowly. She smoothed her Size Three Genetic skinny jeans in charcoal gray and plastered a cheery, professional smile across her face that would have made her the perfect spokesperson for a toothpaste ad. “Here! I’m right here.”

  She took three short steps across the lobby and held out her hand to the disinterested production assistant. In one swift motion, she pumped the malnourished assistant’s hand up and down and covered the ‘F’ on the Fucci knockoff label on her handbag with the other.

  That was a move she did so often that it had become second nature. Any time she came across someone she needed to impress—whether it was an executive in the industry, an older, wealthy gentleman who wanted to wine her and dine her, or even a catty Kim Kardashian look-alike bitch that she bumped into on the boardwalk—Harper automatically hid the label on her faux-designer handbag so that it only read ‘ucci.’

  As far as she could tell, ‘ucci’ translated the same in any language.

  She followed the PA down a long corridor. She fixed her eyes on the back of what appeared to be an asymmetrical, nouveau Flock of Seagulls hairstyle. Was the 80’s comeback really that popular?

  When she got enough money to visit Avondre again for another set of extensions, she’d have to ask him if this whole shaved, short hairstyle inspired by Rihanna was really something she should consider, or if she should just stick to the twenty-four inch honey-blond extensions a la Jessica Simpson.

  That dilemma gave her something to ponder for the long walk down the corridor, until she found herself in front of a large room with wall-to-wall glass windows. The inside was swallowed up by a long, white conference table with two chairs at either end. At the north end of the table sat a man whom she assumed was the director of the show. He was tall with an irritated
expression on his face.

  The man looked up when she entered the room and smiled. Or rather, grimaced in his interpretation of a smile. His grimace made her grimace since his teeth looked like a train wreck. She thought that Jewel was the only celebrity fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to pull off the snaggletooth look. Hadn’t this guy ever heard of a dentist?

  Before she could get over her initial shock at the producer’s unsightly grill, he introduced himself. “Shane J.”

  Hmm, just a single letter as a last name, Harper mused. I kind of like it. It’s so . . . late 90s throwback. But it seems to work.

  Harper always had a keen ear out for the best names in the industry. Of course, Harper wasn’t her real name. She wished. Anything was better than Adelaide Baker, a name that Harper had laid to rest as soon as she’d graduated from high school and got her butt out of the dusty cow town of Beeville, Texas, eight years ago.

  For the first few years after she had arrived in LA, she was Monica Mathers. There was something about the double ‘M’ that made her new name seem sexy, alluring, and unique. That was, until some stupid bartender pointed out that she sounded more like a porn star than an up-and-coming actress. Jackass. At least she wasn’t serving celebrities drinks night after night.

  After that, she dabbled with a few Hollywood classics, like Kim (Kardashian), Cameron (Diaz), and Jennifer (Aniston, Lopez, Garner). Until too many people confused her with the hundreds of other Kims and Jennifers that populated Hollywood on the lookout for their big break.

  No, she needed something distinct. A name that no one else had so that she would truly stand out. Well, almost no one. She picked up her name from the latest Beckham baby when she read in a tabloid that the baby was named after some literary figure that she vaguely remembered from high school.

  The last name, Berry, was scooped up from none other than Ms. Halle Berry, who had a face and a body to die for. If people subconsciously associated her with Halle and her major sex appeal, all the better.

  “Harper Berry.” Harper smiled maniacally. She held out her hand for Shane J to shake, but he didn’t seem to see it. Or acknowledge it. After a few seconds of awkward silence, she took the only other seat available at the south end of the conference table, at least twelve feet opposite from Shane J at the other end of the table.

  Maybe this was some kind of intimidation tactic that producers were using now for casting calls. But it seemed a little too Addams Family to sit at the farthest point possible at a long table built for ten people. Just saying.

  Without any other niceties, Shane J launched right into the casting call interview. She was getting used to this treatment from producers. It was LA, after all.

  “Harper, it says from your previous screening that you’ve appeared in a few music videos. Can you tell me more about that?”

  Her “previous screening” consisted of nothing more than a five-minute meet-and-greet in a tiny photo booth at the mall. She’d been plucked from Anthropologie, where she was secretly shopping in the clearance section, and asked if she would be interested in testing for a new reality show that was set to air on ABC next fall, Adventure to Love.

  Harper still wasn’t exactly sure what the premise of the show was. But if it had ‘love’ in the title, then she was all for it. Sure, she wanted her big break in Hollywood, just like everyone else. She dreamed of becoming a leading lady cast opposite such heartthrobs as Pitt, Affleck, and even Gyllenhaal—now that he was into more girl-on-guy roles.

  But she wasn’t stupid. She knew that it was literally a one in a million shot to make it big in Hollywood. She also knew that it was much easier to get cast in a reality show and play yourself up as some type of character, whether it was the good girl, the glam girl, or the villain.

  If you happened to win the show and find love—awesome. And if you didn’t, you would still get some serious press for your stint on reality TV—meaning commercials, small parts in movies, and even your own clothing line, if you played your cards right.

  Becoming a reality star was much more feasible. And if everything went according to plan, Adventure to Love would be her ticket to the big time so that she could finally get a Hollywood agent to take her calls.

  She snapped herself back to reality. Shane J stared back at her, waiting for an answer. What was it that he had asked again? Oh, right. Music videos. “Yes . . .” Should she call him Mr. J? Or just Shane? Better stick with the full name just to be safe. “Shane J. I had small roles in music videos for Maroon 5, Flo Rida, and the Latin sensation Jerry Rivera.”

  And by small roles, she meant small. But Shane J didn’t have to know that, did he? So what if she’d been paid $50 for eight hours of work just to walk across the backdrop of Maroon 5’s latest video set at the beach for a total of five seconds? It still counted. She was still paid for the gig. And it was still a role that she could put on her résumé.

  Shane J nodded. He pulled his lips back in another grimace and bared his fang-like teeth. He tapped his pencil rapidly against the conference table, deep in thought. After what felt like an eternity, Shane J finally spoke. “Okay, you’re in.”

  She wasn’t sure she had heard him correctly. She shot back, “Excuse me? I made the cut?”

  Shane J nodded almost imperceptibly. “Yeah, you made it. You’ll do. You’ve got the look. Are you free for the next four weeks?”

  Was she? If by “free” he meant did she plan to spend the next four weeks pounding down the door of every agent in Hollywood followed by night after night at Hollywood hotspots rubbing elbows with potential movie execs in the hopes of finally getting a job? Then, yes, her schedule was wide open.

  But if she’d learned one thing in the strange world of LaLa Land, it was to never look excited or enthusiastic in the least. About anything. And that was becoming easier and easier the more Botox that she splurged on with the rent money that her parents continued to send her each month. God bless them.

  She took several seconds to respond. She pretended to contemplate the offer and whether she had any possible room in her “busy schedule” to squeeze in a stint on reality TV. She broke into a slow, modest smile. “Yes, I think that will work.”

  With that, Shane J was off like a shot. He rattled off a long list of terms, conditions, and stipulations that were all part of signing the lengthy contract that appeared to be thicker than an encyclopedia. Harper caught a few words like “no violence,” “undisclosed location,” “twelve women,” and “dating competition.”

  At the word “competition,” she perked up. There was nothing like a friendly competition to get your blood pumping, especially if you were going to be graded on looks instead of personality, as was the case with any reality TV dating show.

  She felt confidence surge through her as she sat up a little straighter in her chair. If there was one thing she was good at, it was dating. How else would she have survived in Hollywood for the past eight years without a real job if it weren’t for her parents sending a few hundred dollars each month for rent and for the “special gifts” from the string of wealthy men she dated?

  She didn’t like to go into too much detail about her dating history. To the naked eye, people might confuse what she did with prostitution. It was the whole dating someone in order to get gifts, lavish meals, and luxurious vacations thing that threw people off. But she never accepted a date from someone that she wasn’t at least mildly attracted to.

  And she figured that any good boyfriend would be paying for her dinner and giving her gifts anyway. So why not choose to date someone with a little more money who could treat her better than the average Hollywood Joe that worked as a bit actor in the daytime and moonlighted as a bartender at night? It made sense to her.

  Shane J had come to the end of his long monologue. He tossed a pen in her general direction and slid a two-inch thick contract down the length of the table.
“Sign and initial each page, and you’re good to go. Did you have any questions for me?” he added, almost as an afterthought.

  “When do I leave?”

  Chapter 2

  When Shane J said, “leave immediately,” he meant leave immediately. Harper was on a red-eye at LAX bright and early the next morning, not twelve hours after she was given the go-ahead to join the cast of Adventure to Love.

  Granted, she still had to figure out what the adventure was all about. But if she was one thing, it was adaptive. She was like a chameleon. Or a panther. Or some other fairly perceptive animal that was able to stealthily assess a situation and pounce on the prize.

  She still didn’t know what the prize was going to be. But she could guess it was a man that twelve women would be fighting over, if she had learned anything from watching episode after episode of The Bachelor for the past decade. The thought of competing with marginally attractive women for the attention of a wealthy, successful leading man sent a shiver of anticipation up her spine.

  But she couldn’t get too excited just yet. She still had more than ten hours to go before reaching the undisclosed destination that she was being flown to first class. First class! Yes, it was the first time that she had flown first class, and she was taking complete advantage of it.

  No one had ever told her that you were allowed to drink for free on first class international flights. She had three empty vodka bottles lined up neatly on her tray table in front of her.

  The gentleman sitting to her left kept shooting dirty looks in her general direction, probably because she was having so much fun drinking, flipping through magazines, and humming happily to herself. She was going to be on TV!