Love in Reality: A Contemporary Romance (The Blackjack Quartet)

 
The Blackjack Quartet: Book 1
 
 
Love in Reality
 
A Contemporary Romance
 
by
 
Magdalen Braden

Copyright © 2012, Magdalen Braden. All Rights Reserved.
Published by Harmony Road Press
www.harmonyroad.com
Version created Fri Dec 14 16:27:28 2012
ISBN-10: 098490977X
ISBN-13: 978-0-9849097-7-3
Cover by Laura Morrigan
http://www.lauramorrigan.com/
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to harmonyroad.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. All characters appearing in this story are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

The author welcomes comments:
[email protected]
www.magdalenbraden.com

Contents

• About This Story
  
• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• Chapter Eight
  
• Chapter Nine
  
• Chapter Ten
  
• Chapter Eleven
  
• Chapter Twelve
  
• Chapter Thirteen
  
• Chapter Fourteen
  
• Chapter Fifteen
  
• Chapter Sixteen
  
• Chapter Seventeen
  
• Chapter Eighteen
  
• Chapter Nineteen
  
• Chapter Twenty
  
• Chapter Twenty-One
  
• Chapter Twenty-Two
  
• Chapter Twenty-Three
  
• Chapter Twenty-Four
  
• Chapter Twenty-Five
  
• Chapter Twenty-Six
  
• Author’s Acknowledgements
  

TV producer Rand Jennings solves two problems—his boss-from-hell, Marcy, and his overachieving dad—when he sees a way to mess with Marcy’s reality TV show,
The Fishbowl
. It’ll drive Marcy crazy if he selects genuinely talented “Fish” who’ll treat the game as more than trash-talking in skimpy swimwear. At the end of the season, Rand will have written a winning screenplay he’ll pitch as “
The Devil Wears Prada
gets
Gaslight
ed.”

He casts his first ringer, a confident bartender from South Philadelphia, not realizing that Lissa-the-bartender is actually her twin, Libby-the-law-student. When Libby’s summer law job evaporates in the bad economy, and a certain cute producer kisses her, she agrees to spend the summer locked in a stage set decorated like a fish tank.

As their relationship deepens despite the show, Libby’s lies and Rand’s deceptions threaten any chance they have to be a real couple. Set against the humorous backdrop of a tasteless reality TV show,
Love in Reality
(Book 1 of Magdalen Braden’s Blackjack Quartet) is the sexy story of how falling in love forces Rand and Libby to be honest with themselves and each other.

www.BlackjackQuartet.com

Rand Jennings enjoyed killing his boss, Marcy Edelstein.

He enjoyed it so much, he sometimes killed her twice in a single meeting.

They weren’t hurried affairs, either. Sure, he once capped her twice in the back of the head, Mafia-execution-style, before walking away. Usually, though, he took his time, pairing up cinematic murders with Marcy’s too-thin, too-caffeinated, too-Botoxed body. In fact, he’d researched whether he could kill her with Botox. Unfortunately, as apt as that would be, it took too much of the toxin to be practical.

So Rand settled for the classics. He shot her and let her fall into a Hollywood Hills swimming pool (
Sunset Boulevard
). He stabbed her in the shower (
Psycho
)—an awkward, blindly-slashing affair as he really didn’t want to see her naked. He dipped her in gold paint so her skin smothered (
Goldfinger
). During one of Marcy’s particularly nasty harangues, Rand slipped up behind her and garroted her with her own Hermès scarf (
The Godfather
, modified).

“Jesus, people, wake up!” Marcy screeched. “I need better ideas. Opposites attract this year, so we have to cast interesting people—of course no fatties—who the audience will understand in a very specific way.”

Rand leaned sideways toward Debbie and whispered, “How about Narcissistic Actor as a type?”

“They’d all qualify,” she muttered.

Marcy glared at them. “You two are like third-graders passing notes. Grow up!
The Fishbowl
isn’t going to produce itself. I’ve come up with the grand theme. The least you can do is help me amplify my vision.”

“C’mon, Marcy, it’s reality TV,” Rand said. “Let’s not lose sight of the fundamentals. Good-looking people in bathing suits jump around during the day and backstab at night while trying to win a million dollars. It’s not hard to figure out the themes. Greed and competition. This isn’t
Hamlet
.”

Marcy’s head stilled, the conference room lights deepening the shadows of her angular features. “Hamlet,” she said slowly. “The Lost Boy? No. I don’t think so. Too depressing. Could we do other Shakespearean characters? Puck versus Lear? Romeo versus Juliet? Othello versus Iago?”

Debbie piped up, “How about Lady Macbeth? Instead of fishing out the competition, she could just stab them all in their sleep.”

For a moment, it looked like Marcy might go for the heightened drama and increased conflict. Then her face hardened into scorn. “That’s ridiculous. Legal would never allow us to cast a homicidal maniac.”

“I guess it
would
drive up our insurance premiums,” Rand said as he mentally duct-taped Marcy to her chair, poured honey over her thousand-dollar hair weave and put her in a box with fire ants.

* * *

Ah, those were the days, when this season of
The Fishbowl
was still limited to Marcy’s hen-scratching on a whiteboard. Now Rand was crisscrossing the country, looking for her elusive types among the young, sexy and bird-brained people who’d applied to be on the show.

His cab was speeding away from the Philadelphia airport when text messages from Marcy started to make Rand’s phone ping. One called him an “utter waste of time” and then claimed that his work was essential. The next berated him for his uselessness but commanded him to call her immediately and give her an update on his search.

One made Rand laugh.

Why do I even put up with this shit? You couldn’t cast this show, let alone produce it, if I didn’t hold your hand the entire time. Nepotism will only get you so far, dickwad, so don’t think you can trade on your father’s fame for the whole of your career. Now get me a Ditz. I want tape on my desk today!!

Rand checked his watch. Nearly seven. He’d managed to fly from Des Moines a day early by doubling up cities. True, he hadn’t found a Sophisticate among the money-grubbers and fame-whores who applied to be on reality TV, nor a Codger who would look good in a Speedo. Meanwhile, his fellow producer Debbie had a Vixen and a Band Geek already in the can.

The cab pulled up to a South Philly bar and Rand got out. An icy wind helped him slam the cab’s door.

He turned, taking in the bar’s windows, bright with neon. Not the worst place to be on a chilly March night. Inside, The County Cork was warm and redolent of fresh beer over a clean scent. Standard layout—horseshoe bar in the center, tables and booths around the perimeter. The few patrons were clustered close to the bar as though huddled together for warmth and community. It looked like the type of local bar where they really did know your name.

He wanted to enjoy the atmosphere—nothing in L.A. came close to this East Coast feeling of a longtime neighborhood bar running on habit and old friendships—but the lunacy of his job for
The Fishbowl
made it difficult to relax. His current assignment to find a zany “Fish” felt impossible—like a scavenger hunt for the only Orson-Welles-autographed
War of the Worlds
script when everyone knows Spielberg already owns it.

Rand hung up his coat and leaned down to use an antique pub mirror to fix his windblown hair. He needed a haircut. Oh, well. Time to get to work. Five minutes—or less—would tell him if he’d found the Ditz Marcy wanted for the show this summer.

Rand scanned the room for his target, spotting the bartender pulling one of the fancy wood-handled beer taps. Long brown hair, cute figure in jeans and a close-fitting top, nice smile. She passed the bikini test at least. Rand settled on a seat at one end of the bar and listened to her talking with an old guy a few feet away.

“Hey, Lissa,” the white-haired man said. “What’s the difference between a catfish and a lawyer?”

She didn’t look away from the tap. “I don’t know, what?” She had a nice voice, not squeaky or nasal at all. Second hurdle cleared.

“One’s a scum-sucking, bottom-feeding scavenger, the other’s just a fish.”

She laughed. “That joke never gets old, does it? Okay, I’ve got one for you. When you see a lawyer on a bicycle, why don’t you run him over?” She pulled another beer.

The old guy shook his head.

“It might be your bicycle.”

Rand smiled. He hadn’t heard that one. He texted it to his college roommate, who was always up for a good lawyer joke.

“Hi. What can I get for you?” the bartender asked him. He looked up. She had beautiful eyes and an interesting nose. She’d look good on TV. But did she fit Marcy’s idea for the Ditz? Rand suspected he knew the answer. She’d think the bartender too cool and confident, and Rand would get another screaming text on the subject. Marcy was like that old TV ad:
She hates everything
.

“What microbrews do you have on tap?” he asked.

She smiled at him, which made her eyes light up. “Not many. But we have quite a few bottle-conditioned beers, and some seasonal brews. What kind of beer are you looking for—IPA, black-and-tan, Belgian, a stout?”

“I like a hoppy pale ale,” Rand said.

“I’ve got just the thing. Aprihop. Local brewery, they only brew it in the spring.”

“Sounds good.” Unfortunately, while the beer sounded good, the candidate didn’t. He needed someone flighty and a bit scatterbrained. She was very attractive but too knowledgeable and competent. On to number five…

He was chuckling at Phil’s response to the lawyer joke—
Please. What self-respecting attorney rides a bicycle, stolen or otherwise?
—when he got another long tirade from Marcy. Rand read it and thought seriously about throwing the phone against the wall.

“Hey, the beer’s not that bad,” the bartender joked as she set the bottle and a chilled glass in front of him. She poured it perfectly, allowing just the right amount of head to form.

Rand took a sip. “No, the beer’s great. It’s my boss. I’m here on business and she’s sent me half a dozen messages in the past hour, yelling at me for not being in the office.”

She tipped her head, letting her hair slip over her shoulder. “It’s like they want us to fail and they’re not happy until we do,” she said.

Rand sat up straight and pointed a finger at her. “Exactly. That’s just what she’s like, Mar—” Even though the bartender wouldn’t be on the show, Rand stopped himself. “It’s like we’re in some slow-motion duel. My boss won’t fire me and I never quite get around to quitting.”

The bartender nodded, her eyes sympathetic.

That was all the encouragement Rand needed. Isn’t that what bartenders are for, letting you unburden yourself? “I wouldn’t care if it were just me, but she’s so nasty. My officemate, Debbie, has a teenage son, Tony. Good kid, you know? Last year, he broke his arm in gym class, but our boss wouldn’t let Debbie leave to go to the hospital to be with him. Threatened to fire her if she went.”

Lisa—was that her name?—let her jaw drop. “But that’s against the law, isn’t it? The Family and Medical Leave Act, I think.”

Cheered by her vehemence, Rand nodded. “Exactly. I had to threaten to call my fath—well, someone my boss looks up to—before she’d let Debbie go. And it wasn’t like there was actual work to be done, just some routine stuff that I could cover.”

“Wait—you mean your boss, a woman, actually told a female member of her staff that she couldn’t go to the hospital when her son broke his arm because…because why, precisely?”

Rand slapped his hand on the counter. “That’s just it. I don’t know why my boss does the things she does. Like the time she needed to trim the budget for her uh, department, and her solution was to fire the most experienced guy there so she could hire someone cheaper. You know, get rid of the one person who actually knows how everything works?”