F@k you donovan lassar, p.1
F#@k You, Donovan Lassar, page 1
F#@k You, Donovan Lassar
All The Wrong Reasons Episode Five
KK Hendin
KK Hendin
Copyright © 2019 by KK Hendin
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review.
Trademarked names appear throughout this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, names are used in an editorial fashion, with no intention of infringement of the respective owner’s trademark.
The information in this book is distributed on an “as is” basis, without warranty. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this work, neither the author nor the publisher shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design: Canva
Image Copyright: Shutterstock
A Note On Content Warnings
For all content warnings for ALL THE WRONG REASONS, for the series as a whole, as well as a breakdown of content warnings for each episode, please visit my website at
www.kkhendin.com/content-warnings
ALL THE WRONG REASONS
Fated.
* * *
An award winning reality dating show, or, as the network likes to call it, The Real Last Chance For A Fairy Tale Ending.
* * *
You know how this works.
* * *
One Prince Charming is picked. He's inevitably handsome, shredded, has a vague enough sounding job to be legitimate, and the ability to lie really well to the cameras. He's looking for his One True Love, and obviously, the best way of finding that person (who always happens to be a white woman, between five foot three and five foot ten, wearing approximately a size zero to four, and preferably blonde) is to have a team of producers round up seventeen women who are all more or less interchangeable, move them into a castle, ply them with alcohol, turn cameras on, and broadcast it all on national television.
* * *
Add in a plethora of the most ridiculous dates the producers can possibly think of, too many feelings, real and fake, and an emotional proposal at the end, and you have the highest rated reality show in history.
* * *
Everyone is willing to play the game. Some walk in more willing than others, but in the end, they all believe in it. The show, the fairy tale, the happily ever after. Regardless of what's happened to previous 'winners' of the show.
* * *
It’s not like anyone’s ever been there for the right reasons. But never have the wrong reasons been so wrong.
* * *
F#@k You, Donovan Lassar
Magical scavenger hunts. Illegal sleepover parties.
* * *
Unsanctioned PDA (both public and private).
* * *
And, of course, some potentially ill-advised confrontations.
* * *
You know.
* * *
The usual.
Contents
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
Also by KK Hendin
About the Author
Chapter One
Dear Veronica
* * *
An advice column for the bewildered, the befuddled, and the people who should be breaking up with their significant other (you know who you are)
* * *
May 20**
* * *
Help, My Sister Is Joining A Reality TV Show.
Dear Veronica,
Let me start by saying that I love my sister. Really, I do. I would take a bullet for her, and if she asked me to hide a body for her, I wouldn’t ask any questions. She is my ride-or-die.
That being said.
I work in a very conservative company in an industry almost exclusively populated by old white men. There are fewer things they cherish more than their reputations, and the reputations of the people who work for them. I have been scrupulous about keeping a squeaky-clean reputation, and have my social media accounts under so many layers of security, even if they knew how to use Instagram, they wouldn’t be able to find me.
Which is all well and good, but my sister has just told us that she’s been accepted to be on a very well-known reality television show. One in which you compete for love.
Yes, the contestants only go by their first names on the show, but their last names are common knowledge. My last name is pretty unique, and people confuse my sister and I all the time.
This may be a great step forward for her in her career, but it might destroy mine. What am I supposed to do?
-Definitely Not Here For The Right Reasons
“Schedule says the date announcement isn’t until this evening,” Elijah whispered to CR the next afternoon at lunch. “And I’m pretty sure it’s going to be running around an hour or two later.”
“Yeah, I saw the schedule,” CR replied, filling up his cup with coffee.
“Go talk to Noah, okay?”
CR stopped. “El, what’s going on?”
“Nothing, everything’s fine.” Elijah wouldn’t meet his eyes, and CR couldn’t tell if it was because he was hiding something, or because he thought someone would notice them talking.
Outside of their little group, nobody knew who CR was acquainted with before walking onto the set of Fated. And he intended to keep it like that for as long as he needed to. Forever, preferably.
“Elijah.”
“I swear, Chris, really. Nothing’s happening. But Noah has a phone and can cover your ass for the next hour or so.” Elijah stole a glance at CR. “Stephanie’s just in a shitty mood and wants me to reorganize the entire prop room because she thinks someone’s been playing around in there and moving everything. Won’t accept that maybe she just doesn’t remember moving shit, or maybe there are other people in this castle besides her.” He blew out a frustrated breath. “I’m sorry. I’m just…stressed about everything.”
“You don’t have to apologize.” CR wished that maybe he had found a bigger cup to put his coffee in. Maybe one of those oversize vases he had seen in Cat’s office.
Which he should not be thinking about.
“Just let me know what happens, okay?” Elijah said, giving his coffee an extra stir. His voice dropped to just above inaudible. “Tell Mom I love her.”
“I will.” CR drummed his fingers on the table. “Everything will be fine, El.”
“Shouldn’t promise things you don’t have control over, Chris,” Elijah said.
“Doesn’t matter what happens,” CR replied. “We’re going to get through this. Through all of this.”
“Elijah!” Stephanie called.
“Duty calls.” Elijah picked up his coffee. “Be careful.”
“You too.”
Elijah winked and headed toward Stephanie and the prop room.
CR picked up his coffee and headed toward Noah and a cell phone to call his mom.
CR was about to call his mom when Belle walked into his room.
Fuck, he had been so wrapped up in worrying, he had forgotten to lock the door. “Can I help you?” he asked.
“Cell phone, huh?” Belle looked at it and at him. “I distinctly remember you signing something about not bringing any communication devices with you.”
CR didn’t say anything.
“And I also remember checking your luggage myself,” she continued. “So unless you hid that phone up your ass, you must have gotten it off someone else.” She held out a hand for the phone. “Hand it over and spill.”
CR laughed. “You think I’m a snitch?”
“I think you realize that you can use this as leverage,” Belle replied. “And don’t pretend you don’t know that. At least pretend you respect my intelligence.”
“Never said I didn’t respect your intelligence,” CR replied. “Your humanity is a different question.”
“Snippy this morning, huh?” Belle paused. “Who were you planning on calling?”
“Why does it matter to you?”
Belle stared at him. “I swear, for someone who I know isn’t stupid, sometimes you really deserve an Oscar for your performance as the world’s biggest idiot. Why do you think it matters to me, CR?”
“I’m getting pizza delivered,” CR deadpanned.
“Bullshit. There’s no pizza store on the island. At least give me a believable answer.” She paused. “If there’s a secret girlfriend I don’t know about, I swear to God, Christopher Robin Westing, I will destroy you.”
“Secret girlfriend?”
“Don’t give me that shit. I’ve dealt with it before,” Belle snapped. “If you have one, at least tell me so I can make sure she get s paid off before she goes to the tabloids with your story.” She rolled her eyes. “Richard’s girlfriend was expensive. I hope yours just has a student loan or something I can pay off.”
“I don’t have a secret girlfriend,” CR said, confused. “I’m calling my mom.”
“Not yet, you aren’t,” Belle said. “Not time for the phone call to the mother to tell her your feelings are conflicted.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You have far too many girls left to eliminate before you can make the parental phone call.” Belle glanced around the room. “And where’s the camera crew if you are calling her?”
“This isn’t for television.”
“It’s cute,” Belle said, “that you think you’re going to do something here that’s not for television, when you signed nearly seventy-five pages of a contract saying you would not do anything of the sort.”
“Except for in an emergency.”
“What kind of emergency is this?” Belle demanded. “A big storm doesn’t count as an emergency.”
“A personal family emergency.”
“Did someone die?”
“No.”
“Then it’s not an emergency.”
“You know,” CR mocked her words from earlier, “for someone who I know must have a heart somewhere, deep down underneath all the producer, you make a very good showing of pretending you’ve burned it at the stake before you started working here.”
“You can call your mother if you let me film it.”
“You can let me call my mother or you can say I can’t call my mother, and if you say I can’t, I’m going to call her anyway,” CR replied. “And I will take that lovely little tidbit of information you just gave me about Richard’s ex, and I’ll be the one who goes to the tabloids with the story.” He smiled, all teeth and no heart, because in order to beat a shark at their own game, you need to eat them. There was no negotiating. “I never signed an NDA about gossip I’ve heard about former contestants or leads, and I’m sure that Richard’s ex-girlfriend would be thrilled to tell me everything, given I’d be more than happy to split the payment with her. Unless,” he went on, watching Belle’s face, “she wouldn’t care because they’re back together after he ‘broke up’ with Lauren.”
Belle didn’t say anything.
“You’re not the only one who knows how to get people to do what you want them to do,” CR said. “I thought we already had this discussion.”
“Blackmail, huh?” Belle said. “Sinking to that now?”
CR laughed. “That’s funny, coming from you.” He leaned forward. “I said not to fuck with my family, Arabella Anderson. I meant it.” He smiled and held up the phone. “Now, if you’d excuse me, I have a phone call to make.”
With that, he walked out of the room.
“Albuquerque Oncology, this is Dr. Liu.”
“Hey, Oliver.”
“Chris,” his brother-in-law greeted him warmly. “How are you?”
“I’m fine,” he replied. “How are you?”
“Doing well,” Oliver Liu answered. “Lizzie wants to know when all of you are going to be back. She says you’re overdue for dinner and also for niece snuggles. Mostly she misses you and wants to tsk at you and make comments about how you aren’t sleeping enough.”
CR smiled. Elizabeth Liu had been mothering him since they met, when he was thirteen and a disaster, and she was nine and had more sass than any human being he had ever met. It didn’t matter that she was literally half his size, she had decided he needed a better mom than the one he had, and decided she was going to be it.
She hadn’t been wrong.
“I’m not sure when I’ll be back,” he answered, “But as soon as I am, I’ll come over for dinner. But only as a surprise.”
“You’re going to give my wife a heart attack one day.”
CR grinned. “She’ll be fine.”
“Oh, I know she will be,” Oliver replied. “It’s good for her to have someone other than me and the babies to worry about.”
“You would think five siblings and a mom and an entire family of in-laws would be enough for her.”
“Lizzie won’t be happy until she can worry about the entire civilized world.” Oliver laughed. “So. I assume this isn’t just a social call.”
“I wish it were.”
“I do too.” Oliver sighed. “Mom’s going to be annoyed when she finds out you called me.”
“Well, if she would tell me the truth the first time, I wouldn’t have to call you,” CR argued.
“You know, HIPAA is a thing.”
“Oliver.”
“Chris.”
“Dude, seriously.”
“Listen. You know I love Mom. She saved my life, and we both know that isn’t an exaggeration. And you know that Lizzie would walk through fire for you, and you’d walk through fire for her. And God knows that we would both do anything for Mom. But I don’t fuck around with HIPAA. Call her. She’ll tell you the truth.”
“How do I know she won’t actually just brush everything off? The same way she’s been doing this whole time?”
Oliver laughed. “You’re not the only one who knows how to guilt trip your mom.”
“What did you do?” CR asked.
“Can’t tell you. Only so many secret weapons I have, and I don’t want to give them up too soon. But she’ll tell you the truth. If she gives me express permission to share any medical information with you, you’ll be the first to know. Even if I have to send a carrier pigeon to wherever the fuck you guys are.”
“Thanks, man.”
“Anytime, Chris.”
“Send Lizzie and the girls my love.”
“Will do,” Oliver replied. “Tell Elijah that Caleb asked about him. But like, super casually, and if asked about it, would deny that there’s anything other than polite interest.”
“I swear, the two of them need to get out of junior high already,” CR groaned.
Oliver laughed. “I mean, yes, but also, it’s kind of fun to watch them suffer.”
“It was fun to watch you suffer too,” CR said. “Mr. I Was Madly In Love With My Wife For An Entire Decade Before Mentioning Anything Of The Sort To Her.”
“That’s Dr. I Was Madly In Love With My Wife to you,” Oliver replied. “And you shouldn’t talk. The entire world is about to watch you suffer.”
CR groaned. “Don’t remind me.”
“More fun this way.” Oliver laughed. “And, that’s my next patient. I’ll talk to you soon.”
Chapter Two
“Christopher Robin,” scolded his mother. “Aren’t you not supposed to have a phone on this thing?”
Goddamn, just the sound of her voice made him want to cry a little. “Mom, did you really think I was going to follow rules?”
“I guess that would have been too much to ask,” she replied. “What’s going on, sweetie?”
“I called to see how you were doing,” CR said.
“You were worrying, weren’t you?”
“We all are,” CR admitted.
Mom laughed. “Christopher Robin. Light of my life. Remember the part where I told you that you were going to go on this ridiculous show and you were going to find me a daughter-in-law?”
“Mom. Remember the part where you hid that you had cancer from me for eight months?”
“Well, because I knew you were going to turn over your whole life as soon as you found out.”
