Chapter 12
Amanda
I stared in horror at the empty spot on my left ring finger. Shit, what had I done with it? Had I lost it?
The cocky reporter chewed his gum with a loud, snapping sound. He chewed with his mouth open, showing off the rotten remnants of his teeth. A tight white t-shirt framed a body that might have been attractive if not for the smarmy head attached to it.
Come on, think. Think! Before this awkward silence grows more suspicious than it already has.
My mind raced through dozens of possibilities, rejecting them all one after the other. Then it hit me, flashing through my brain like summer lightning. I knew where the ring was. I knew exactly where the ring was at.
The truth did not comfort me very much at all. In fact, the truth was a bit worse than I would have imagined. I almost wished that I had lost it, because that would make Evan less angry than the truth.
I remembered exactly where the wedding ring was. Sitting in its velvet case on top of the vanity back at the manor. It meant nothing to me and I just forgot to put it on. Simple as that.
I couldn’t think of anything to say, my tongue just tied itself in knots. I thought I was done for, but Evan came to the rescue .
“I’m afraid that’s my fault.” He put his arms around me from behind and pulled me in close to him. Oh, it felt so damn good for him to hold me. I hated the effect it had on me. Hated it and loved it. “She always takes it off in the bathtub, and then puts it back on after. Only this time, I joined her in the bath, and I guess her mind was on other things than the wedding ring.”
Oh, thank God. Or I should say thank Evan.
Relief flooded through me, but it was conditional. After all, Evan might pretend it was no big deal, but I could feel a certain tension in his body. His fingers dug into the pliant flesh of my shoulder a bit more deeply than they should have gone.
Evan hid it well, but he was furious. Furious at me for forgetting the ring. But he also remembered the show must go on.
I would deal with Evan later. For now, the reporter demanded my full attention.
I laughed as if slightly embarrassed and scandalized, and patted Evan’s arm.
“Oh, honey, please behave. No one wants to hear such lascivious details of our private life.”
For a long moment, I thought the reporter wasn’t buying our load of bullshit. His eyes narrowed to slits. His fervid gaze darted between us as his fingers curled around the black carapace of his intrusive camera. I could well imagine a soldier on a battlefield curling his finger around the trigger of a rifle, knowing that soon someone would be dead.
I swear that the next few seconds seemed to take a million years. I waited with bated breath to see what the reporter’s reaction would be. Would he buy our story? Or would he run back to his media entity and splash all over newspapers and the internet that we were a fake couple living a lie and trying to perpetuate it to the world?
Then I saw his expression soften. Cautious optimism took root in my breast .
The reporter laughed and snapped a picture of the moment.
“I can see you two are crazy in love. I forget my own wedding ring all the time, too. Drives my wife nuts.”
I breathed a sigh of relief, but I felt Evan stiffen up against me. I knew it wasn’t over. I knew I was going to hear more about this before the night was through.
We continued to mingle with the crowd. I met a lot of people I didn’t recognize, but felt like I should. These weren’t celebrities or professional athletes. They were captains of industry, movers and shakers of the financial world who probably had more power than the president.
All of them seemed both surprised and somehow thrilled that Evan was with me now. One of them in particular I remembered well. Geoffrey Slesoz, a major shipping magnate with a shaved head that made him look like a dime store Lex Luthor. If Lex Luthor were an insufferable little twit.
Geoff gushed and gushed over the two of us. It got to be a little bit embarrassing.
“I’ll tell you what, I never thought this guy would get hitched.” He slapped Evan on the arm, a bit hard and drunkenly. Evan flashed a scowl, but it was subtle. I doubt anyone else in the room noticed it but me.
“Why is that?” I asked, just to make conversation and because I was eager to make up for my early fuck up with the wedding ring.
“Well, where do I start?” He put an arm around Evan’s shoulders, which was kind of comical because of how hard he had to reach to do so. “I mean, there was the time that he got the entire backup dancer line from Chicago into his limo after the show—in their costumes. Or then there was the time that he made it with the Milliams sisters—at the same time after Wimbledon.”
“You’re such a kidder, Geoff,” Evan said, a bit stiffly .
“Ah, I can tell I’m wearing out my welcome here. Nice meeting you, my dear.”
He kissed my hand and took his leave. I turned back to Evan and cocked an eyebrow.
“Well, he seems to be buying the story.”
“He’s just super thrilled to see me get married.”
“He’s a good friend then.”
Evan snorted with great derision.
“Geoff? Hardly. I tolerate his presence. He’s only glad that I got married because he thinks it will distract me from my business and give him an advantage. Or did you not hear the way he tried to sow discord between us?”
“I heard,” I said with a chuckle. “It wasn’t that bad. I mean, the Milliams sisters are gorgeous, and I know I can’t compare to an entire chorus line of leggy showgirls.”
His face crumpled into a frown. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”
“Why not? It’s true.”
He opened his mouth to reply, but right about then we got dragged into a conversation with some cable news magnate. I had never seen him on television, but everyone else treated him like he was a big deal. All I knew was he kept looking at my breasts.
As the night wore on, I felt a mounting sense of dread. I knew that Evan was still mad about the wedding ring. Sooner or later, the party would be over, and then I would have to deal with the fallout.
I didn’t know why I was so worried. I supposed that I felt like I’d been a bad employee, and my boss was going to give me a dressing down. Then I thought of the other ways he could give me a dressing down, and it gave me all kinds of consternation .
At the end of the night, when most of the room had emptied out and the really hardcore people had gone on to the afterparty, Evan and I took our leave. We moved past a multitude of paparazzi, many of whom had remained outside for hours waiting for our return. We held hands, waving occasionally when someone called out to us, but trying to affect an air of weariness so that no one would be upset if we didn’t stop to chat.
The driver hastened to open the door to Evan’s sleek, black stretched limo. Evan put his hand on my back and didn’t exactly shove me in, but it was kind of a forceful push.
He climbed in after me and glared the moment the doors shut.
“What is your problem, Amanda?”
“What? Is this about the wedding ring?”
His nostrils flared as he continued to fume with anger.
“You’re damn right this is about the wedding ring. What were you thinking? What kind of loving wife leaves her wedding ring at home on the first big public outing as a married couple?”
I cocked an eyebrow at him.
“Slow your roll, Evan. You’re starting to sound more like a jealous husband than my employer.”
That took some of the wind out of his sails, but he was still full of plenty of bluster and hot air.
“Fine. Let’s look at it from that perspective, Amanda. Let’s look at it from the perspective of an employer and his employee.”
I didn’t like the tone of his voice. It took everything I had not to cringe away from him. He was seething mad about this, I realized. I really didn’t think it was that huge of a deal. The paparazzi certainly hadn’t thought it was all that big of a deal once we got past his attempt at a ‘gotcha’ moment.
“So, I hired you for one purpose, which was to pretend to be my wife. Correct? ”
“I don’t see why we have to go through this bullshit—”
“We’re doing this my way because I have the power and the money. I’m your boss, you’re my employee, remember? Now answer the question. I hired you to pretend to be my wife. Correct?”
I sighed.
“You know that I did—”
“Answer correct or incorrect only.”
I felt anger surge through me. I bristled like a line of pikemen on a medieval battlefield.
“Correct, sir .”
His eyes narrowed to slits. Evan’s face darkened as he continued his tirade.
“Not only did I hire you to be my pretend wife, but I also hired you to be my loving pretend wife. Correct?”
I hated him for making me play this stupid game. It made me feel like I was ten years old and in the principal’s office again. I sullenly glared back at him as I answered.
“Correct, sir .”
“A loving wife, which you are contractually obligated to portray, would not forget to wear her wedding ring. She would revere that wedding ring and the bond it represents, correct?”
Okay, so he technically had me there. I’d been remiss in my duties of portraying his loving wife.
“Correct, sir.” I dropped my gaze to my lap. “All right, I admit it. I screwed up. I dropped the ball—whatever analogy suits you best. All right? I messed up.”
“It’s about time I heard some accountability coming out of your mouth instead of some excuse or backtalk.”
My lips twitched a snarl, but I decided to let that one slide .
“Well, I really don’t see how it’s that big of a deal. Nobody else noticed all night.”
“It’s a big deal because you’re my wife, and you’re supposed to wear your wedding ring.” He seethed, jabbing a finger at me. “I told you specifically to make sure to wear your wedding ring. You’re mine. My wife is supposed to obey me.”
I gave him a long look.
“Again, sir , I am not your real fucking wife. I am your employee. So, you can stop treating me like a piece of property, because you don’t, in fact, own me.”
His eyes widened. For a second, crazy as it seemed, I thought that maybe he’d forgotten it was a fake marriage. I mean, he looked so confused. Then anger flooded into his gaze.
“Actually, Amanda, according to the contract you signed, I do own you. You can read the sections again where it says that I get to dictate where you go, what you do, and when you do it. So you are going to obey me, for the next year, if nothing else.”
“Obey you?” I sputtered. “You’re stifling me. Can’t you see that? I can’t fucking breathe, Evan. You never let me out of the manor without being glued to your side. You tell me I have to eat breakfast with you in the morning, so you can stare at your tablet or your phone or the latest financial reports as if I’m a piece of furniture, anyway.”
“That assessment isn’t very fair to me,” he said.
“Oh please, don’t even start with that. Everything about this is fair to you. You get what you want, while I have to donate a huge chunk of my life. I’ll do it for the rainforest, and for saving Mother Earth. But I don’t have to like being treated like a piece of garbage, or property for that matter.”
Some of the anger had drained away from his face. He looked confused but he also looked thoughtful. My words were getting through to him, or so I hoped. And since I was on a roll, I kept right on going .
“You keep forgetting something very important. No matter what this contract says, I’m not your slave. I’m your fake wife. Wife and slave are not, in point of fact, synonymous, Evan. You want me to obey because I’m playing your wife? Do you have any idea how fucked up that sounds?”
My voice rang in the confines of the limo. Evan stared at me for a long while, his eyes calculating but full of something else, too. An inscrutable light I couldn’t fathom for the life of me.
“Don’t you see that it’s better my way? You need to obey me, because when you don’t, things like this happen.”
He pointed at my ringless finger.
“Something always goes wrong when I’m not in direct command of the situation. Always.”
I hid my face in my hand for a bit, unable to face him. I was afraid I would say something I would really regret, one way or the other. At length, I looked up at him in annoyance.
“You know, we’ve been arguing about this halfway home, and it’s so stupid. It’s all over me forgetting to wear my wedding ring. Big deal. You heard the reporter. He forgets his ring all the time.”
“My wife should not forget to wear her ring,” he hissed through clenched teeth.
“You’re not just mad on a professional level, are you?” I said with a gasp. “I finally get it. I finally get why you just won’t let this go, why you have to keep harping on it.”
“Oh? Now you’re a psychiatrist as well as an event planner, are you? Adding to your fake wife resume?”
I sneered at him.
“Fine, if you don’t want to hear it, I’ll just sit here and be quiet like a good little submissive wife.
“No, I want to hear it.”
“Too late,” I said, looking out the window .
He grasped me by the shoulder and turned me firmly to face him.
“I said, I want to hear it.” His tone was cold, but his eyes burned like fire.
“Are you commanding me to tell you as my employer, sir ?”
“Yes. I am commanding you. Now obey me.”
“I finally figured out why you’re so damn pissed off at me.”
“I remember that part. Tell me the rest of it. Now.”
I smacked his hand off my shoulder and leaned in, my tone growing more guttural.
“I was worried when I took this job that I would lose myself in the role. That I would get confused about what was real, and what was just the job. Only now I think you’re the one who’s got it all twisted up.”
“You watch your mouth,” he said.
“Oh, watch my mouth, is that how it is?” I sneered. “I guess you can order me to wear tape over my mouth, or a nice ball gag. Then you won’t have to hear me speak, even though you just ordered me to tell you something.”
His expression darkened.
“You think this is a game?”
“Let me answer your question with a question, dear husband. Why?”
He waited, but I didn’t say anything else. His eyes narrowed dangerously.
“Why? Why what?”
“Why do you care so fucking much about me wearing the stupid fake wedding ring for our stupid fake relationship? Huh? Why do you care so much?”
My voice had taken on an almost pleading quality. I realized that I was showing my hand, letting on that maybe I felt more than I should have, but I couldn’t stop myself.
“Why do you care so much about your fake wife forgetting to wear her fake wedding ring? It’s all bullshit, anyway. All of it, it’s not real. It’s just not real…”
Evan’s eyes burned like fire. He took me by the shoulders and then pulled me into a fierce kiss. My eyes widened, and I stiffened against him, but then I lost myself in the moment. I gave in to the feelings I’d been fighting all night long, letting myself sin, and forget it was all fake for a few blissful seconds.
Evan pulled away from me after stealing my breath and stared at me with eyes shining with purpose.
“Is that real enough for you?”