Jonathan Hart was currently posing for a photo shoot and hating every minute of it. He'd been contacted by Forbes Magazine a few weeks ago; an old acquaintance was the editor and was relentless when she wanted something. What Sharna currently wanted was for Jonathan to grace the cover of Forbes in their Most Eligible Bachelors edition. Jonathan thanked the stars that Sharna no longer wanted him romantically and found another man to pursue a year ago. While Jonathan was happy that she'd found love, he was exasperated that she now felt everyone needed to find what she had. Somehow that translated into him being offered up to the women of America in a magazine article. He shook his head and rolled his shoulders between the blinding light of the flashes. His stomach growled. The photographer, Eddie, was close enough to hear and yelled for everyone to take an hour for lunch. Jonathan grabbed a bottle of water, a premade salad, and walked out into the California sunshine. There was a grassy area just outside of the studio, so Jonathan kicked off his Italian leather loafers, draped his custom made suit jacket over the picnic bench, and sat down in the shade of a massive oak tree. The sounds of the city surrounded him, and he breathed in the air. Even with the smog it felt better than the stagnant air inside the studio. He was still trying to figure out how he let Sharna talk him into this craziness. He hated the spotlight. He knew he had to deal with it as the CEO of Hart Industries, but it was much easier talking to a boardroom as opposed to answering the probing questions of a reporter. Jonathan wanted to keep his personal life personal, but as one of the youngest CEOs on Forbes Fortune 500 list, it was hard to do. On the upside, he talked Sharna into having his photo shoot in LA, as well as the reveal party. Jonathan told her in no uncertain terms that he could not fly to New York, so she came to him. He smiled as he remembered their heated conversation.

"No, if you want me to participate, then you have to come here."

"Jonathan, you're being difficult."

"Did you expect me to be anything else? You've known me a long time, Sharna. Right now I have business that needs my attention, and I can't be all the way across the country, especially not for something as ridiculous as playing Bachelor Number One." He heard her overly dramatic, exasperated sigh and knew he'd won."

"Fine, we'll come to you. A few of the other bachelors are from California anyway. I can plan a party from the other side of the continent." He smiled and tried to stifle the smugness in his voice.

"I never had any doubt."

"You owe me for this, Jonathan."

"I'm sure I do."

Jonathan just shook his head, wondering what she might make him do as payback. He checked his watch, took a last bite of his salad, and tried to get his mind back in "model mode" for the last couple hours of this farce. He would be ecstatic when this whole ordeal was over, and that included the gala planned for Friday night where he and the other bachelors would be paraded around in front of the people Sharna deemed important enough to attend.

...

Jennifer Edwards was putting the finishing touches on her current story when her phone rang.

"Jennifer Edwards…Friday night?...Why is an investigative reporter covering this instead of the entertainment writers?...Really?...Hmmmm, now you've intrigued me…All right, I can be on a flight in a couple of hours…Yes, I'll make the arrangements."

She saved her story, sent it in an attachment to her editor, and looked up flights to LAX. After booking a red-eye, she called Andy and cancelled their date, again.

"Look, Andy, I'm really sorry, but when the boss says go, I go…..I know I've cancelled on you three times, and I'm sorry…True, maybe this isn't going to work out…You absolutely deserve someone who can spend as much time with you as you want…..Look, I need to get home and pack…..Take care of yourself."

Jennifer hung up the phone and wasn't sure exactly what she felt. She thought she should feel sad after ending a relationship, but she didn't. It wasn't like she and Andy had been together for long, only a couple of months, but still, it didn't seem right that she should feel relieved. "Maybe this is just the universe telling me I should continue to focus on work rather than relationships." She put it out of her mind, straightened her desk, and headed home to pack for LA.

She left La Guardia about 11:30 pm Wednesday night and landed at LAX about 1:45 am Thursday morning, headed straight to the hotel, and crashed. Time zone hopping always threw her system off. Jennifer slept until about 9:00 am – late for her – ordered coffee and fruit from room service, then got ready to research for the day. She really didn't have to be in California until tomorrow night for the Forbes party announcing their Most Eligible Bachelors of the year, but Jennifer Edwards never wrote a story without copious amounts of research. While there were several bachelors in this year's edition, Jonathan Hart was the one Jennifer was most interested in. Over the last couple of years, he landed in the news a few times. Having a meteoric rise to multi-millionaire status after coming out of an orphanage often causes a few eyebrows to raise and throws the media into a feeding frenzy. He was not one to seek fame though; Jennifer knew that much. He very rarely granted interviews, as in never, and when her boss told her that Hart was one of the bachelor choices this year, Jennifer was both intrigued and surprised that he agreed. It made sense that she was put on the story rather than another writer who only reported what people wore and ate at functions like this. By the time Jennifer headed out to buy herself a new dress, she knew everything there was to know about Jonathan Hart, which was startlingly little.