Page 70 of My Possessive Billionaire: Our Fake Marriage

A sharp rap at the door drew all of our attention. Ramone almost jumped right up out of his seat.

The door opened slightly and the face of a man wearing headphones appeared.

“Five minutes until they call you out, Mr. and Mrs. Jones.”

“Thank you,” I said to the producer. I couldn’t remember his name, though I’d heard it spoken a dozen times. He looked like every Hollywood producer of a television show. Short, balding but with frizzy hair on either side of his head. The tweed jacket he wore looked cheap and probably was, belying the fact he probably made as much money or more than Gordon Godfrey himself.

I turned to Kathy as she administered to my husband.

“Did you hear that, Kathy? You’re going to have to hurry.”

“Oh, I’m almost done with him, hon. Doesn’t he look so handsome?”

“Yes, he does,” I agreed, though it had nothing to do with her makeup. I didn’t mind seeing him without makeup. In fact, I liked seeing him when he didn’t wear anything at all… which was how I’d gotten pregnant in the first place.

“I can’t believe either of you aren’t nervous.” Ramone shook hishead, eyes filled with confusion. “If I were about to go out and be interviewed by THE Gordon Godfrey, I’d be pi…. that is, I might pee my pants.”

He looked anxiously at Stan, but my son didn’t seem to have heard. Stan knelt in front of a mahogany coffee table with lots of coffee rings stained into the wooden surface. He busily used a fistful of crayons to create a bunch of dots on a piece of paper. The rapid tattoo of his stippling filled the air with his childish joy.

Stan thrust his tongue out of the corner of his mouth as he hammered the crayons down. I used to worry about him breaking them, but that was the old me’s way of thinking. The old me who worked as a waitress and had to make everything last as long as possible.

My days of worrying about the price of crayons and their subsequent consumption were over. As were the days of my buying two-ply toilet paper and pulling it in half to make it last longer. Money wasn’t a problem any longer for us. Awareness of what was going on in the Amazon rain forest, now that was a problem.

I was glad that Jennifer and Marshall had decided to go ahead and let us be the public faces of the charity work. Evan was made for the spotlight, and our crazy love story had captured public attention in a way that it would be foolish not to capitalize upon.

Otherwise, Gordon Godfrey would not have invited us onto his show.

The producer stuck his head back in and motioned for us.

“Kathy, I love you, you’re the best, but that’s enough. I need them now! They need to be on point for the big introduction.”

I headed out into the hallway first. Evan had to don his blazer again, so he brought up the rear. We stood together while the producer barked orders into the microphone attached to his headset.

“We are less than thirty seconds to go time, people! We’ve got to make this work right the first time, we’re live for crying out loud! Doris, you better have the band ready to play the intro or I swear to God I’m billing my ulcer medicine directly to your Discover card. Why the Discover card? Because I know you never use it. Just get them on cue.”

I shot a smile at my husband. He reached out and took my hand, giving it a squeeze. It felt so good to have my husband at my side.

The producer led us to a large, peeling white circle on the backstage area. The red velvet curtains were a mere five or six feet from our location. I could imagine all of the people in the audience waiting to gawk at us on the other side. I was so used to public appearances at that point, though, that it didn’t give me any anxiety.

“Are you nervous, honey?” Evan asked.

“No, not really.”

“You just seemed like you were really deep in thought.”

“Oh, I was deep in thought.”

I gave him a cheerful smile. He waited, but I didn’t elaborate. I still liked to fuck with him from time to time.

“And what were you deep in thought about?”

“Are you sure you want to know?” I asked with a grin.

“I’m quite sure.”

“I was honestly thinking about where we’re going to eat after the show.”

“Oh.” Evan laughed. “I thought we would try Viviano’s.”

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