My Hockey Ex Rigged the Dating Show?

~Kiara~

“I’m telling you, Red, there is an angry mob at the front desk, and they want your head on a stick!”

Mateo, my best friend, pushed the clinic door open with his foot. He held two iced coffees as he approached me.

He looked completely out of place in the quiet sports therapy clinic. He had a bright pink shirt that glowed against the white walls of the clinic.

“I was by the elevator a minute ago,” Mateo continued, “And this girl is out there screaming at anyone who will listen. She is calling you a crazy psycho and she is telling the receptionist that you cracked her boyfriend’s head open with an ultrasound wand during his massage session this morning.”

He took a dramatic breath as he leaned against a treatment table.

“But here is the best part. She says you’re lying. According to her, her boyfriend was just joking around, and you made up the whole molestation story to cover up the fact that you attacked him. She is even threatening to come back here and fight you herself.”

Mateo pointed at me, raising an eyebrow.

“So tell me the truth. Did you actually crack a guy’s skull this morning, or is she just completely insane?”

Mateo waited for my usual sarcastic response.

Normally, I would have said the guy deserved it for grabbing my hip while I was working on his hamstring.

But this time, I said nothing and he knew something was wrong almost immediately.

The gossip-loving drama queen disappeared, and my best friend took his place.

He set the coffees down and looked at me properly.

I was sitting on the edge of the treatment table.

My copper-red hair had fallen over my face, hiding my tear-stained cheeks.

My hands trembled around the paper I had been reading over and over until the words had started to blur.

FINAL NOTICE OF FORECLOSURE.

“Oh, honey,” Mateo said.

He stepped closer and gently took the paper from my hands.

His eyes moved across the bold letters.

“The bank actually did it? They are taking your dad’s clinic?”

“Five generations, Mateo,” I choked out. “We need two hundred and fifty thousand dollars by the end of the month, or these doors close forever.”

I didn’t know when all the tears started to rush again.

“My dad gave everything to this neighborhood. And now he is hiding in the back because he doesn’t know how to tell the staff they will be out of a job next week.”

Twelve employees would lose their jobs.

And most of our patients were local athletes and elderly residents who couldn’t afford private rehabilitation centers across town.

My great-grandfather had opened these doors nearly eighty years ago and every generation of my family had worked inside this building.

Now, it looks like I am about to be the generation that lost it.

Mateo stared at the notice for a long moment, then he looked up at me.

He looked like he had some dangerous plan in his eyes.

“Kiara. Look at me.”

I slowly rubbed off the tears on my face with the back of my hand as I sniffed.

“I have a plan. How far are you willing to go to save your dad?”

"Unless your plan involves finding a quarter of a million dollars, I don't want to hear it," I muttered.

"Oh, it involves way more money than that. Plus, you get to wear something other than medical scrubs for once," Mateo said.

The look on his face was the look that he had done something ridiculous or he was about to.

He pulled out his phone. "Have you seen the casting call for the new season of Love on the Rocks?"

I blinked at him. "The reality show? The one where girls fight over some rich guy in a tropical villa? Mateo, I am a physical therapist. I don't do television. Don’t be ridiculous.”

"Exactly! That is why they will love you!" Mateo gasped.

He slapped his own knee. "They are tired of fake influencers who only talk about salads. They want real drama. They want a beautiful, natural redheaded therapist with a no shit attitude. And guess what the grand prize is for the girl who wins?"

I took a slow sip of my coffee. My heart did a strange, nervous little jump. "How much?"

"Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, Kiara," Mateo whispered.

His voice became totally serious. "It is tax-free and cash in hand. Enough to pay off the bank and keep your dad from having a heart attack."

The room went quiet. I blinked, trying to adjust the words in my head.

Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It was the exact amount we needed.

"Mateo... even if I wanted to, the show will start filming next week in Hawaii. The auditions closed months ago."

Mateo grinned.

He had a wicked smile that made me instantly terrified.

"Baby, who do you think you are talking to? I spent the last three nights forging your signature. I made a great audition video of you doing yoga on the beach unaware. Then I used my connections with a producer I met on a dating app last summer. They loved you. In fact, it was as though they had been waiting all this while for you. You fly out in three days."

"You did what?!" I yelled. I nearly spilled my coffee all over my lap.

"Don't yell, it gives me wrinkles," Mateo said, waving his hand.

"Think about it, Kiara. You spend six weeks in a luxury mansion. Free food, free drinks, and all you have to do is smile at some rich guy. You pretend his jokes are funny, and you don't get voted off. Take it as a business trip. You go in, grab the check, save the clinic, and come home. Simple.”

I looked back down at the foreclosure notice.

If we could buy more time with an assurance that the debt would be paid…then we can save the clinic.

But…six weeks on a reality dating show sounded like a nightmare.

Six weeks of cameras following my every move. Six weeks of strangers judging everything I said, wore, and did. Six weeks of pretending to compete for the affection of a man I had never met while millions of people watched from their living rooms and laughed at my mistakes.

The thought alone made my stomach twist.

But then I looked back at the foreclosure notice sitting in my hands.

If I did nothing, this place would disappear.

The doors would close, the equipment would be sold off, and my father's life's work would be reduced to an empty building with a FOR SALE sign planted out front.

Everything my family had spent generations building would be gone, and I would have to stand there and watch it happen.

A lump rose in my throat at the thought.

Suddenly, six weeks on a reality dating show didn't feel like a sacrifice at all.

Losing my family's future would be.

I looked at Mateo. "Are you sure about the prize money?"

"On my expensive designer bag, darling. It’s guaranteed if you win. And let’s be real, no man with a pulse is going to send you home."

I sucked in a deep breath as I finally decided.

“Fine. Screw it. Sign me up. Let's go to Hawaii."