Lovers and Lunatics: Mars Adventure Romance Series (MARS), #2

By Jennifer Willis

When her boss orders her into space with her worst coworker, Hannah Cuthbertson wishes she could say no.

The young TV producer's job is on the line when she floats aboard a fledgling salvage ship to promote a new reality show. Even worse, she has to work one-on-one with the "Face of Space" himself—Gary Nelson, the perfectly groomed and professionally sculpted show host she abhors.

Gary is everything Hannah isn't—he's charming and cool and genuinely enthusiastic about space exploration, including their boss's latest ill-conceived show about salvaging valuable space junk. And Gary seems set on disrupting Hannah's plan to keep her head down, do her work, and then get her feet back on the ground so she can get off the reality show circuit once and for all.

But one dangerous and hair-raising coincidence after another proves this is no ordinary assignment. As frenemy space crews compete for the same treacherous payday, Hannah and Gary must put their differences aside to get to the bottom of an insidious conspiracy before they become the victims of a convenient accident far above the Earth's surface.

With their lives on the line and an undeniable heat escalating between them, Gary and Hannah are confronted with the unscripted reality that their professional friction belies a very real gravitational pull.

Could true love be lurking in low Earth orbit?

Lovers and Lunatics is the second book in the spicy sci-fi Mars Adventure Romance Series. If you like space adventure, shady intrigue, and getting frisky in microgravity, you'll love M.A.R.S. Start reading today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jennifer Willis
• Release date: Jun 27, 2017
• ISBN: 9798201506292

Book preview

1

Holy hell. Hannah Cuthbertson watched Canada’s most-prized athlete strut his way down the plastic tube corridor toward the Mars Ho Candidate Habitat airlock. It’s like directing celebrities down the Martian red carpet on prime time.

Which, when Hannah thought about it, was pretty much exactly what she was doing.

Tyler Park performed like the impeccably groomed trained monkey that Hannah supposed he was. He sauntered purposefully through the human habitrail with precisely the right amount of muscle flexing. His cadence accentuated his subtly oiled musculature and gave his thick hair just enough movement. Then, at the far end of the corridor, he paused expertly to look pensive and serious and significantly heroic. All in his corporate-branded underwear, all executed like a pro.

Just once more, and I promise it will be the last time. Hannah tried to keep the goofy grin off her face as Tyler turned and sauntered back toward her inside the temporary corridor that connected the isolation van with the biodome’s main airlock.

It was the second season of the infamous and wildly successful Mars Ho, the reality show that let viewers watch the behind-the-scenes process of choosing the next round of colonists to be sent to Mars. The first season had blown the doors off and beat the previous ratings champ—the oddly addictive Tricked Out Tool Shed.

Now, just six weeks after the first team of colonists blasted off from Earth to put down roots on Mars, another pool of candidates was entering the MHCH to compete for seats aboard Red Wing 2—despite mounting concerns about the program’s competency.

Hannah was pretty sure that ideal launch windows between Earth and Mars opened up only about every two years, so she wasn’t sure what the rush was on this second team, unless this group would take a longer route. When she’d tried to ask about it in a production meeting, she was promptly shut down by her superiors. Her job wasn’t to mind the science—which she didn’t understand anyway—but to work the cameras and the contestants. So she kept her head down and did what she was told.

Deep into her overtime shift, she was directing one last candidate through the corridor and into the dome. After that, she had the choice of logging a few hours in the production suite to go over the day’s footage or grabbing a few hours’ sleep on her cot at The Ranch and leaving the footage review for the morning.

Or was it morning already? She barely knew day from night anymore since she’d been working for DayLite Syndicate.

The horizontal seam of her blue isolation suit itched against her shoulder blades, and she tried in vain to readjust the material without breaking the seal. Any breach would void Tyler’s isolation and would scrub him out of the competition.

The long and lean Tyler Park had already walked the length of the plastic corridor four times, with multiple cameras filming his every muscle-rippling move. The higher-ups had ditched the idea of having the candidates enter the dome in full space suits or even their branded Mars Ho jumpsuits, like the previous round of candidates had done. This time, the colonist hopefuls strutted into their new, competitive home wearing nothing by their logo-laden underwear.

The underlying wisdom was readily apparent as one candidate after another stripped down to their skivvies. Every one of them was a truly magnificent human specimen.

The first Mars Ho season featured good-looking candidates with supposedly practical skills and life experience appropriate to building a new colony on another planet—in spite of international grumbling that the reality show format was a recipe for certain failure.

This new crop of Mars candidates, though, were veritable gods.

Three Olympic medalists—with three gold, seven silver, and four bronze medals among them. Two supermodels. A former child actor. One mixed martial arts champion. Two former NFL players—a Baltimore defensive lineman and an honest-to-goodness star quarterback from the Minnesota Vikings, sidelined permanently by too many ACL tears and a broken hip.

There were two Amazons from the WNBA who’d in the off-season started a portable solar energy business—the WNBA-MBAs, Hannah nicknamed them. A six-foot-five environmentalist who regularly swam the Arctic Sea to raise public awareness about climate change.

The most controversial candidate was a former porn actress, but even she had a resume any parent would be proud of—she quit the adult entertainment business as soon as she’d made enough money to fund her foundation to find a cure for the disabling Panopla virus that had put her sister in a wheelchair. Now, the actress and her scientists at Panopla Hope were on the shortlist for the Nobel.

Every one of the candidates was a college graduate, and fully two-thirds—including the adult film star—had advanced degrees. One of the fashion models had a Ph.D. in computer science, and the former child star was a practicing neurosurgeon. More than half had active memberships in Mensa and Triple Nine. And not a single one was over the age of thirty-five.

Tyler Park fit the mold without breaking a sweat. He stepped toward Hannah with a curious smirk, pivoted gracefully, and prepared to walk down the corridor again.

As she’d watched the day’s parade of beautiful bodies move from the isolation van and into the biodome, Hannah guessed the new candidates—twelve men and twelve women—averaged maybe 16-percent body fat.

Not exactly accurate representatives of the people of Earth.

If Hannah hadn’t had a job to do, she might well have punched a hole in the crinkling plastic tube—which looked more like a gerbil run than cutting-edge interplanetary exploration technology—and stormed off into the Arizona desert.

Guinea pigs, Hannah muttered under her breath as Tyler stepped away from her on his fifth go at the biodome entry runway.

Perfect Tyler turned toward her, the flawless features of his sun-kissed face contorting into a gorgeous frown. Sorry, what did you say?

Hannah shook her head, the hood of her isolation suit clunking along with her movement. Nothing. You’re doing fine. Just start over and walk toward the airlock, only this time keep going. Go ahead inside. Her voice sounded artificial through the small mic and speaker attached to her suit.

His liquid brown eyes crinkled as he flashed her an immaculate white smile. Perfect teeth, perfect hair, perfectly proportioned and toned body. This particular two-time Olympic decathlon medalist was the last Mars Ho candidate Hannah was in charge of shepherding through the process of entering the dome—while he was filmed from every angle. She was exhausted and had seen more than enough camera-ready skin, but she couldn’t quite keep herself from gawking, at least a little bit.

Tyler gave a tiny nod and turned his back to her. And he did have such a deliciously beautiful back. Hannah wondered how long it might take Mars Ho viewers to tire of seeing the same aesthetically magnificent bodies swaggering past the cameras, but then Celebrity Sweat Shop was still running strong after eight seasons.

Tyler took a breath—the muscles in his back rippling with the inhalation—then squared his broad shoulders, lifted his chin, and strode forward.

Hannah’s jaw loosened as he repeated his perfect performance of the previous corridor pass. She might have even uttered something like, uhhhhh, before she shut herself up. Tyler reached the airlock door, waited a beat, and then tugged on the lever to open the hatch, the lights catching every muscular movement. Tyler eased himself manfully through the opening and into the biodome that would once again serve as the reality show arena for the Mars Ho competition.

Okay, then, Hannah murmured to herself after the airlock hatch closed behind him. That’s that. Let the games begin.

By the time Hannah headed for the van, the production crew was already retracting the temporary corridor, with clicking thuds of the spinal hoops collapsing together behind her. She pulled off the flexible helmet of her isolation suit and took a deep breath. Everything around her smelled like new plastic.

Get me out of here, she murmured in the direction of the van’s driver, some green intern who looked perpetually confused and sleep-deprived. What was his name? Cooper? Connor? They all looked alike, right down to the befuddled frown on the kid’s face. She knew exactly how he felt. She’d been an intern once, an unpaid gofer on the set of Grade School Divas, catering to every juvenile, self-involved whim of a mischievous and entirely narcissistic pack of movie star daughters as they negotiated the third grade. At least the Mars Ho players were less likely to throw their juice boxes when they got a stain on their overpriced kicks. But she was too tired to muster sympathy for Connor, or Carter. Or maybe his name was Steve?

Just drive. Hannah needed to get back to the monitors at The Ranch and to spy on what the best, brightest, and most beautiful of humanity were getting up to inside the biodome.

Hannah had dumped her isolation suit in her locker in the hallway outside the main editing room at The Ranch—the onsite Mars Ho production facility the CEO had erected just about a kilometer away from the Mars Ho Candidate Habitat. Rufus Day wanted to be close to his candidates, even though they were already under 24-hour surveillance.

Hannah wasn’t sure The Ranch was actually close enough—she’d had to sprint across the desert from the production studio to the MHCH during the last competition to keep Mark Lauren and Lori Ridgway from cracking open their pressure suits and breaking their quarantine when they thought they were out of air. She wasn’t looking forward to the possibility of doing something similar with this second round of candidates.

Mark and Lori were on their way to Mars now. If they hadn’t been named finalists, Hannah was pretty sure her desert sprint would have cost her her job.

She slammed her locker shut with a satisfying, metallic clang, then stood staring into the dark, open space of the editing studio. Her bay was toward the back, one of seven dark gray desks with its own trio of black monitors and a black keyboard against the black floor, black walls, and black ceiling of scaffolding and suspended LEDs. There weren’t any windows.

The Ranch was a fully equipped studio, with attached efficiency apartments for employees and a cushy executive office and residence for Rufus Day himself. But while Day’s office featured a wall-to-wall single-pane window overlooking the Arizona desert—so that the CEO might enjoy a comfortable and unobstructed view of the landscape at any time of day or night—it always looked like deepest midnight inside the editing room.

Hannah leaned against the doorjamb and checked her watch. 6:30 p.m. It was the end of the first day of production, and she was already behind. She’d been on since early that morning and since she’d have to be back at work in another twelve hours anyway, she figured she might as well go ahead and review the latest footage. Try to get ahead, for once.

The Mars Ho candidates, at least, would get to sleep for a few hours before their first televised ordeal.

Hannah blew out a long, slow sigh, pushed away from the doorjamb, and turned her back on the editing studio. To get through the night, she was going to need an awful lot of coffee and instant noodles.

Her eyes were a little bleary as she rounded the corner toward the kitchen, but there was no mistaking the laugh that echoed down the hallway toward her.

Gary Nelson, Mars Ho’s plastic-perfect host. The Face of Space.

Hannah’s gait slowed as she felt an unpleasant churn in her stomach. Gary Nelson was the last person she wanted to encounter. She estimated the distance to the bathroom and thought about making a dive for cover until the coast was clear, but Nelson emerged from the kitchen before she could get away. He was chipper and bright-eyed as ever, his glistening, perfectly aligned teeth biting into a frosted doughnut while he winked and chuckled at someone outside of Hannah’s view.

She was half in, half out of the bathroom when he caught sight of her. He dipped his chin in cheery acknowledgment and chewed his doughnut as he strolled by, probably on his way to the camera studio. Tissues stuck out of his collar to protect his clothing from a heavy shellacking of stage make-up, and Hannah frowned at his costume—a silvery blue jumpsuit that looked like it had been pilfered from the Swizzle Network’s Buck Rogers reboot.

You caught me! Gary held a hand to his chest, feigning a heart attack as he laughed. You won’t tell, will you? He winked at her and chomped off a big hunk of doughnut.

Hannah stared at him blankly. The man was almost blindingly handsome, and it was nearly impossible not to fall under the spell of his smile. He was always affable and friendly, too, but there was an edge to it she couldn’t quite figure out. She had a hard time chumming it up with someone who was so impeccably polished all the time. Every inch of his good looks had been carefully crafted and paid for, and there was no telling what lurked beneath his glossy exterior.

When Hannah didn’t respond, Gary paused and looked down at his jumpsuit. Promotions, he said around a mouthful of chocolate glaze, then tilted his head toward the kitchen. Couple doughnuts left, if you hurry.

Hannah remained silent, unmoving.

Or are you watching your figure, too? Gary flashed his million-dollar smile and chuckled again. Hannah’s cheeks flushed. Was he mocking her?

She cringed at the sudden recall of last night’s sex dream about the Face of Space, then suddenly understood the real reason she wanted to push through the night at her editing desk. She didn’t want to have to confront her dream-world version of that chiseled face and body again, thrilling her with his touch while describing in detail every one of her own inadequacies.

He sounded much smarter in her dream than he did on camera, too, which just made her feel stupid in waking life. How could she feel anything—even basic lust—for such a vacuous character? He was one more pretentious poser, an empty shirt who looked pretty for the cameras. The care and feeding of the Face of Space was probably the biggest line item in the Mars Ho budget, and she didn’t know why he bothered to play at being accommodating and sincere.

And now there was the rumor of that awful recording, of Gary using choice language to describe what he wanted to do to the female contestants and to some of his co-workers, too. Hannah hadn’t heard it herself and she didn’t know anyone who had, but she disliked Gary enough to believe it was real.

Behind his back, everyone at DayLite hated Gary Nelson. If he knew it, he never let on.

Hannah smirked, which Gary seemed to accept as a genuine grin. He nodded back and sauntered down the hallway.

Olivia appeared in the kitchen doorway and held out a cup of fresh coffee. Her sallow face told the story of her own trying day.

Pulled by the heady aroma, Hannah hurried over and wrapped her weary fingers around the warm mug. My savior.

Olivia tried smoothing out the wrinkles of her rumpled sweater, then gave up and gestured in the direction of Gary’s departure. You hear they’re launching him?

Hannah shook her head and swallowed a gulp of hot coffee. It was black and bitter and woke her up like a slap to the face.

Yeah, the Face of Space is actually going to space. Olivia groaned.

Hannah laughed. He’ll be insufferable.

Olivia grinned, but a second later the corners of her mouth turned down. Norman got canned.

Hannah nearly choked on her coffee. When?

Around lunch. Olivia leaned back against the wall by the kitchen doorway. You were with the candidates. Didn’t want to bother you.

He’s gone already?

No severance, either, since his contract expired last month.

Hannah took another gulp of coffee and tried to swallow down the lump in her throat with it. Norman had been one of only two people left in the props department, and the third employee let go within the last ten days. She forced herself not to think about what creeping layoffs might mean for her own job security. Well, they’ve got to pay Gary’s rocket bill somehow.

Olivia’s laugh was hollow. She lifted her mug in an apathetic toast. Here’s to another all-nighter. May the DayLite gods have mercy on us poor, humble serfs.

Hannah clinked her mug against Olivia’s and drank down another mouthful of eye-wateringly strong coffee. Gary’s laugh came again from somewhere down the hallway. Hannah didn’t try to hide her grimace.

Hannah leaned back in her chair and watched eighteen video windows—six feeds on each of her three screens—running simultaneously at double-speed. She blinked her heavy, dry eyes and tried to will away her fatigue. Two associate field producers had been let go in the two weeks leading up to the second round of Mars Ho, and the five who were left had to pick up the slack.

She squinted at the video of empty corridors in the Mars Ho Candidate Habitat. Colonist hopefuls jostled in and out of the kitchen on the sped-up video and looked like superheroes working out in the fitness room. She slurped down lukewarm instant noodles and emptied her tall thermos of extra-strength coffee while flagging four different clips of candidates already getting physical with each other on their first night inside the dome. Rufus Day was going to love this.

Hannah’s mobile chirped at her. She frowned at the display, then gulped when she saw that the message had come directly from Rufus Day himself.

Why would the CEO be calling her into his office, especially after 9 o’clock on a Sunday night?

The sinking feeling in Hannah’s stomach told her there could be only one reason for such a summons. She gathered up her noodles, thermos, and the canvas jacket hanging over the back of her chair and headed toward her locker in the hallway.

Hey, Olivia? Hannah called out to the only other person in the editing suite. The other AFPs—Chris, Chrissy, and Mark—had drawn 18-hour daylight shifts for the coming week and were probably banking as much sleep as possible before dawn. Can you keep an eye on my feeds?

Olivia looked up from her own array of monitors, the flickering light throwing her soft features into shadow and making her look almost sinister. Sure. She stood and stretched her arms over her head with a loud yawn, then followed Hannah into the hallway. You got a hot date or something?

Hannah grabbed the few personal items she kept in her locker—mostly extra clothes that were in dire need of laundering—and shoved them into the old leather rucksack she carried as a purse. I’m pretty sure I’m about to get fired.

Hovering in the doorway, Olivia shrugged, unfazed. Olivia and Hannah were friends on and off the set, but it seemed barely a day went by at The Ranch that someone didn’t get the boot. During the first season of Mars Ho, someone less experienced and less expensive was typically brought in to fill the newly vacant position. But the production had lost five production assistants and one of three showrunners in the past month with no one coming in to cover the shortfall. Even Craft Services had been reduced to a wilted salad bar and paltry cold cuts station maintained by a pair of teenage interns who couldn’t legally work past 6 p.m.

Good luck, I guess. Olivia lifted a can of diet soda in mock salute. Let me know?

Hannah tapped her brow in reply. A few days earlier, they’d spent their one and only coffee break—twenty minutes out of an eighteen-hour shift—scarfing down leftover pizza and stale toaster pastries and speculating on whether it would be better to be snared in the current round of layoffs, or to keep their shitty contracts on what was supposed to be the world’s most-watched reality TV program. There hadn’t been a clear verdict.

It wasn’t a long walk between the production suite and Rufus Day’s executive office—just far enough for Hannah to slurp down the rest of her ramen. She passed a dozen empty offices downstairs before climbing to Rufus Day’s domain on the second floor. She dropped the empty noodle cup in a trash can by Rufus’s secretary’s desk, which was curiously unoccupied. Even late on a Sunday night, if Rufus was in the office, his support staff was generally nearby as well—and Kirk, the secretary, rarely left his post before Rufus departed the executive suite for his palatial apartment at The Ranch.

But Kirk’s computer was dark, and the overhead lights were off. Just beyond Kirk’s unmanned desk, Rufus’s door stood ajar and spilled light into the waiting area.

Hello? Hannah thought back on old episodes of Executive Exterminations, where each week some big boss was discovered brutally murdered in his office and the unlucky employee who found him was always the first suspect.

She shifted the weight of her bag on her shoulder. Mr. Day?

Hannah? From deep within the shady office, Rufus’s voice was surprisingly bright. Come on in, Hannah!

She dropped her bag on an upholstered chair near Kirk’s station, then stepped slowly inside to find Rufus sitting behind his massive mahogany desk with his back to the door.

The only light in the room came from a floor lamp in the lounge area of Rufus’s spacious office. Everything else, from the thick carpeting to the abstract art on the walls, was in deep shadow. Hannah watched his reflection in the wall-to-wall window behind his desk, his ghostly frown marring an otherwise breathtaking panorama of the Arizona desert at night.

She wondered if her boss, one of the remaining Mars Ho showrunners, knew that she’d been called in by the big man himself. Assuming her boss still had his own job.

Hannah stopped in the center of the room and stood facing the desk. When Rufus didn’t turn around, she forced a cough. Still no response.

So, all of the candidates got into the dome all right. No issues. She paused. Some of them are even getting a little randy on the first night. Some great footage, I think.

Good. That’s fine. Rufus spun his chair around to face her. He looked up at her for a long moment, seeming to study the features of her face and the set of her shoulders. Hannah made a deliberate effort not to squirm.

As a woman in the entertainment industry, even behind