Page 68 of My Cruel Billionaire

“I probably wouldn’t have minded. I mean, it’s not like the owner is going to kick us out for not meeting the dress code, now is it?”

He laughed. “No, we have an in with the owner.”

“How’s karate class going?” I asked Damon, but he was coloring with his crayons and didn’t look up.

“Fine,” he said in reply.

“He’s about to get his, ah…tangerine belt? Orange? One of those citrus colors,” Michael said.

“Yellow belt, Daddy,” Damon said without looking up, with a veneer of exasperation as if his father should have known better.

I liked being at the restaurant with the three of them. It made me feel cozy and warm. It was like we were a real family. We came a long, long way to be here together. Me, my son, and my son’s father. All together at last.

Damon looked up at his father suddenly.

“Is it time, Daddy?”

“No, not yet, we haven’t even tried the first course yet.”

I cocked an eyebrow over the menu I held spread out in my hands. “Time for what?”

“Time for dessert,” Michael said, smiling at Damon. “Isn’t that right buddy?”

Damon looked confused. “Huh?”

Then his eyes widened.

“Oh, yeah, that’s right. We’re not up to nothing or trying to trick you, Mommy.”

I stifled a laugh and gave Michael a look. To his credit, he appeared totally innocent.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into the kid,” Michael said with a shrug.

“Bull…” I looked over at Damon. “Baloney. You’ve got a twinkle in your eye. You’re up to something, I can tell.”

I started to worry that he’d gotten my birthday wrong or something. Or maybe there was a prank at work. One of those clip-show things, maybe.

Perhaps in an attempt to distract my already suspicious mind, Michael started in on another subject.

“So how was work, dear?”

“Oh work was fine. Tough, but fine.” I shook my head as I recalled a particularly long and difficult phone call with a vendor. “Evan keeps handing more and more of the day-to-day operations over to me so he can spend more time with the charity, not to mention his family.”

“Well, that’s because he knows you can handle it. There’s nothing wrong with you being late for dinner because of work for a change. I do it all the time."

“Not really, Michael. You do a great job of being there for all of us.”

Our food arrived at last. I had shrimp primavera for my main course, while Damon had mac and cheese and Michael stuck to type and ordered chicken parm. The food was excellent as always, but the longer the dinner went on the more suspicious and giggly my son and his father became.

The dessert course came out and I wondered if perhaps I was being paranoid. Maybe they were just giggly because they were having a good time, and not because they were up to something.

Just as I was admonishing myself silently, the string quartet changed to something lively. I thought it was Orpheus in the Underworld, but I wasn’t sure. Damon’s eyes grew wide as dinner plates.

He dove into his pocket and fished around frantically.

“No, Damon,” Michael said. “This isn’t the right song, not yet!”

It was like the immovable object meeting the irresistible force, and the irresistible force won out. Damon was too far gone in his task to stop now. With a cry of triumph, he dragged out a small black box from his pocket and slapped it on the tabletop so hard the glasses rattled.

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