“Please make yourself comfortable.” Kelly was glad she’d taken the time and spent the money to create an office she could be proud of. The white bookshelves were filled with her favorite cookbooks and cooking magazines. Pictures of award-winning moments dotted the shelves, chronicling her successes. “Can I get you a cup of coffee? A pastry?”

“No, thank you. This won’t take long. Basically, you’re signing a non-disclosure that says you won’t divulge your involvement with the show prior to the airing date, or without express permission from us.”

Kelly signed that.

“We’ll give you a signing bonus of five thousand dollars. Kind of a good-faith thing. I’ve got that check right here.” She pulled it out of her designer briefcase and slid it across the desk.

“Thank you.”

“I’ll send you this itinerary in an email too.” She flipped the page toward Kelly and started going over it with her. “We ask that you get yourself to the airport to keep the anonymity, but we’ll schedule and fund your flight to New York, where we shoot the series. A driver will meet you at the airport. Meals and accommodations during the process. The location where you’ll be staying will be undisclosed. You agree to keep it that way. You’ll also receive a stipend for as long as you remain in the competition. Once you’re eliminated, we’ll send you back home.”

“Okay. Sounds simple enough.”

“You’ll arrive in New York on the seventh of February. The first day, we’ll get you settled in. A production assistant will be assigned to you. She’ll be your lifeline to the outside world, make sure you make it to everything on time, and get you anything you need. The second day, we’ll be doing photo shoots, and some preliminary interviews and questionnaires to use during production and for promotion for when the show airs. We go to great lengths to keep the contestants apart to ensure this truly is a blind competition. You’ll have to adhere to the itinerary we set.”

“I’m fine with that.”

“No exceptions. If you break the rules, you’ll be eliminated and lose the stipend and owe us that five thousand dollars back.”

“I understand,” Kelly said. There was no way she was breaking any rules. There was too much at stake.

“You could be home as early as the eleventh, or as late as the eighteenth, but honestly we usually wrap the post-show interviews up in just a day or two. So I think you can count on being home by the seventeenth. I’ll need you to sign here agreeing to appear on our network’s talk show and we have the right to use any footage for advertising. It’s pretty standard.”