Free Fortune & Fame: A Novel by Victoria Christopher Murray, Reshonda Tate Billingsley Page A

hope.
    “You leave that to me. You just do your part. Get the people”—he brushed a tendril of hair away from her face—“to fall in love with you. Give the camera what it wants, and I’ll take care of the rest.”
    Mary glanced down at the card again. She’d never in a million years thought she had a shot at getting her child back. But now that it was a real possibility, she’d be willing to do whatever it took to make that happen—including star in a ratchet reality show with Rachel Jackson Adams.

Chapter
NINE
Jasmine
    J asmine rushed down the hall, but then paused right at the landing. She stood at the top of the steps and surveyed the sprawling foyer below.
    This was the life, their temporary Atlanta home, or “baby mansion,” as she’d been calling it for the last week. When Hosea had told her that the church had found a house for them, she’d been leery. Her plan had been for her and Hosea to make the trip to the Peach State and find their own home. But Jasmine had to admit that Mrs. Whittingham and Brother Hill, two of Hosea’s father’s most trusted assistants, had done the doggone thang.
    This five-bedroom, six-bath, forty-two-hundred-square-foot home with a family room, library, backyard pool, and jacuzzi not only had enough space for Jasmine, Hosea, and their son and daughter, but their nanny, Mrs. Sloss, and Mae Frances both had their own bedrooms, too.
    Jasmine placed one Gucci pump on the step below, then the other, and slowly descended down the curved stairway. This was exactly the home she’d dreamed of when she was growingup in that little two-bedroom cottage in Inglewood, California. Jasmine, her mother, her father, and younger sister, Serena, had been squeezed into eleven hundred square feet that had felt like a closet. She’d been so jealous of her best friend, Kyla’s, Ladera Heights home that she’d vowed long ago to live a grand life. And she’d made it!
    Jasmine so wished that Kyla could see her now. But of course, that wasn’t possible. She and Kyla hadn’t really spoken since Jasmine had slept with Kyla’s husband. Jasmine didn’t understand why Kyla couldn’t just let that go. After all, she’d been so different then; coveting everything that Kyla had. But now that Jasmine had more than Kyla (and everyone else she knew), she’d been delivered from coveting.
    Letting go of that sin was probably the reason why God had bestowed so many blessings on her—including this upcoming one. Jasmine was so ready to become the million-dollar-a-week reality TV star that she was born to be.
    At the bottom of the stairs, Jasmine decided that they would definitely have to shoot a few scenes here at her home. And every time, she’d have to make her grand entrance just this way. Of course, they would only be able to do that when Hosea was away. It had been easy enough to convince him that her doing this show was fine, but she hadn’t told him about Natasia—and she didn’t plan to!
    Jasmine’s heels clicked against the foyer’s marble floor, but then she quieted her steps when she pushed through the French doors that led to the family room.
    “There you are, darlin’,” Hosea said, jumping up from the sofa. “I was beginning to worry.” He glanced down at his watch. “You’re running late.”
    “Sweetheart, don’t you know that every star has to make an entrance? We cannot be the first ones there.”
    Hosea chuckled. “I still can’t believe you’re doing this.” He looked over his shoulder at Mae Frances, who was sitting in oneof the burgundy wingback chairs. “Nama,” he said, calling Mae Frances by the name that Jacqueline had given her when she first learned to talk, “was just trying to talk me into going to the restaurant with y’all.”
    Jasmine’s eyes widened when she looked at her friend. Was Mae Frances really starting to lose it? Her talking to Hosea about this made Jasmine think that maybe she really was coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs.
    Mae Frances’s face was