by C. L. Donley
He got all the way to the end of the VIP room, hit the crash bar on the exit door, and suddenly there she was.
He couldn’t see her face, but he didn’t need to.
He knew every inch of her body by heart. His mind instantly flooded with memories. His brain sent signals to every part of him, and he wanted for breath.
She was wearing an elegant black jumpsuit that crisscrossed, just above the dangerously low open back. Her hair was in loose, voluminous curls and she had a drink in one manicured hand. The sight of her skin caused his knees to buckle, though due to entirely different processes it was the precise hue of his own. Despite their dueling nationalities, they were like two separated pieces of pottery from the same clay mound. Not even with his own wife had he shared such a visual union. Lick, his brain kept telling him over and over, yet it was neither the time nor the place. The small of her back alone sent a shiver through him. He was made painfully aware of his five-month sexual sabbatical.
There was a young African American man with her that made eye contact with Bel when he walked onto the terrace. He bent to whisper something low to Kim, and she turned around to face him. Bel’s jealousy was inflamed as he drunk in the sight of her, partying with some swole motherfucker while her son lay helplessly in intensive care. She was wearing dark smokey eye makeup, and she looked stunning and pissed.
“Well, well. If it isn’t the ghost of Christmas ass!”
“Who’s this?” Bel began.
Kim’s heart hammered within her, and she felt at any moment she was going to lunge herself at him.
“This is Nunya!” she heard herself snapping.
He was in front of her now, and she was unraveling from the outside in, the way he had taught her body to that weekend on the jet and at his place in London. Her pulse was raging. Her body seemed to think they had a lot of catching up to do.
He didn’t look happy to see her which both pissed her off and saddened her. She’d rehearsed this reunion many times and only now did she realize that in none of them did he wear any expression but that confident smirking gaze. She did not prepare herself for reality. His intimidating presence was fully bared, as if he wanted her to feel it. She felt it alright. He was so sexy he was actually a physical danger to her. Did she really once have the confidence to land this guy? He’d had the nerve to put on cologne. Did he think he was getting laid tonight?
“I’m Jamaal, her brother,” the man said, clearly not disposed to Bel anymore than Kim. Bel inwardly relaxed.
“This is Fahid, also my brother.” Behind him, Fahid nodded politely.
Kim eyed Fahid briefly, who was darker, resembled Bel only a little but had the same fiery expression. He seemed to be an intense guy, looked much more like that typical middle eastern prince, but that was the thing. Fahid looked like a Hollywood casting job. Bel looked like royalty that was trying but failing to blend in with modern society. Failing because he was clearly the evidence of a bygone era, and couldn’t possibly be from the same place and time, no matter how much California slang he spoke fluently and with precision. She hadn’t noticed such a detail before, but now that his brother was standing next to him it was obvious.
“We need to talk,” Bel said, removing his shades. She resumed her position at the terrace with her back to him.
“Talk,” Kim said, forcing her gaze away from him, forcing him to confront the contour of her ass as she leaned over the terrace.
“Were you ever planning on telling me?”
“You assume I didn’t try.”
“I know you didn’t try.”
“Really? And how would you know that? Do you admit to ghosting me?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you got ghosted the fuck back, how’s it feel?”
“Like shit,” he admitted.
“Mmph!” Kim said emphatically, shaking her head as she looked at her brother. She rolled her eyes. Jamaal was in awe. He was never surprised when Kim caught a big fish, but the way she could keep them coming back was always like watching a master magician at work. And Bel Hafiz was a big fuckin’ fish. It was the first time Kim had ever been dumped, and it looked more and more like even that was a TKO in her favor.
“I’ve made arrangements to be Jabari’s donor. You can tell Mya I appreciate the gesture.”
“Tell her yourself, I’m not your damn secretary.”
“I got the surgery moved up to two weeks.”
Kim turned around with a look of astonishment on her face.
“How?” she asked. She knew the answer more or less. He was a desert prince and a billionaire.
“I can’t stay long; I have to go back to my country.”
“Why are you talking like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re from fuckin’ Zumunda.”
He laughed. It was a reference to Coming to America, his favorite movie.
“It happens after I’ve been home for awhile. I don’t speak much English there.”
Kim’s face softened as the humid summer wind gently blew through her hair. She sighed, willing herself to be diplomatic.
Good God, he was sexy. Sexier even than Amara’s husband but then again, Grayson wasn’t flooding her senses with flashbacks. His presence was so hypnotizing that she instantly started to waver, wondering if maybe she’d been wrong about him, even after all he’d done. His gorgeous gray eyes bored through her, and she was reluctant to hold his gaze for long. He wanted her, that much was clear, and she was sizzling under his attention like popcorn kernels on a stove. She suddenly thought perhaps telling her brother to meet her was not such a wise idea.
“Well… what can I say except…thank you,” she shook her head as she looked off in the distance. “I honestly didn’t think you would be here let alone… care enough to do any of that so, thanks,” she said with a shrug.
“I didn’t do it for you. I did it for me,” he answered coldly.
“Oh, okay,” Kim’s eyes went wide for a moment, trying to let his detachment roll off her back.
This is co-parenting, she thought. Better get used to it now.
“When he recovers, he’s coming with me to Ghassan.”
Kim furrowed her brow.
“He’s a bit young to be traveling I think. Maybe in about six months—”
“Permanently. I will be taking custody of him.”
The high profile corporate lawyer in her was amused.
She looked over at her brother and was suddenly doubled over in dramatic guffaws. He had to grin a bit. This woman, Bel thought. Five minutes back in her presence and he instantly felt whole again.
“You do know that I’m a lawyer?”
“A very good one.”
“You really think your little sand trap ass, desert ass crown is gonna get a court of law to choose you over me?” she spat out angrily.
He smiled.
So she knew— some of it, at least.
Good for her. And it saved him one of many explanations.
“I don’t have time for court proceedings.”
“Ohhhh I see, so you’re going to just snatch my son right out from under me,” she deduced.
“No. You’ll be coming too.”
“I’m sorry?”
“My father is…ill. I’m to take the throne. And you will be my queen.”
Kim was completely stunned.
She searched his face for signs of a joke, but there wasn’t one. His locs were shorn, and he looked like some gorgeous, ancient thing from a historical fantasy book or Bible story. And now he was saying he wanted her to take his hand, leave everything she’s ever known and jump into its pages.
The longer she looked into those deceptively soft, striking gray eyes the more foolish she felt herself becoming. She was stronger now because of him and what he’d done, but she forced her memory back to those lonely nights, the desperate cries of wondering why had he done it, what was he thinking and where was he right this minute. She’d nearly gone mad with heartbreak.
Months of weepy late night phone calls with her sponsor were about to be completely wasted because she was about to make the worst mistake of her life and consider the offer to be with him.
This motherfucker.
Her eyes moved to his mouth, to his jawline that it took everything in her not to reach up and bite. His eyes moved to hers.
She rehearsed the instructions of her kickboxer brother.
Keep your eye on the target, she remembered.
She balled her right hand up into a fist.
Dominant leg to the back, lead with the flat of your fingers.
Swing!
Bel distantly observed that Kim had suddenly dropped a few inches, hunkered down in a faintly familiar stance. By the time he realized what was happening it was already too late, but he figured he could take it, not to mention deserved it.
Bel’s brain jostled a bit from the force to his lower jaw.
Fahid lunged forward to catch King Belkacem al Malwali of Ghassan as he fell backward, on his way to literally hitting the deck, like a ton of bricks.
Forty Two
Chapter 42
When Kim’s hand connected square on Bel’s jaw, it hadn’t felt as good as she would’ve liked.
In fact, there was a searing pain moving up her arm.
She’d never broken anything before in her life, but she was pretty sure she had tonight.
She splayed her throbbing hand, loosely shook it before cradling it in her other hand. She stumbled back inside through the exit door, found where Mya and Dale were cozied up in the VIP section and sat right in between them, her legs in a wide stance. Immediately she plunged her hand in the cold ice-filled bucket that held the champagne bottles. It didn’t take a psychic to gather what’d happened.
Kim’s brother Jamaal had followed with a surprised and somewhat guilty look. He hoped Bel wasn’t the type to put females in prison.
Wordlessly Dale took a deep breath and hung his head.
“Oh! Where are my manners? Dale, Jamaal. Jamaal, Dale,” Kim gestured with one free hand.
“Pleasure.”
“Can I take a selfie with you?”
“Sure!” Dale said faux cheerfully. He turned to Mya on the white couch. “Be right back!”
“We’ll be here!” Mya returned.
Dale posed with Kim’s brother before he sauntered casually out of the VIP section, out the exit doors onto the terrace.
“Did you get a good lick in?” Mya asked.
“Pretty sure I knocked him out.”
“Do you feel better?”
“Not really.”
Mya shook her head.
“What did he say?”
Kim summed it up without giving away too much.
“He wants Jabari to come live with him. And he wants me to come too.”
“Well that’s good news, isn’t it?”
“Uh, no. I got a job, and a mortgage, and a life, and my parents…”
“Your fuckin’ parents???”
“Yes my fuckin’ parents. I can’t just up and leave.”
Mya gave her a stupefied look. Her parents, however lovely they once were, were now bonafide zombies, eaten away by drugs and completely consumed by blind destructive selfishness and dementia. They’d wiped out all the savings she’d had for school and to otherwise raise her two brothers, no less than three times. Anytime they ever came around they only set Kim’s life back even more than they already had. Which made her achievements all the more awe-inspiring.
“Well, you know I don’t understand that, and I guess I never will.”
“Probably not.”
“So imagine if your parents weren’t here, what’s really holding you back?”
“What’s really holding me back is that I don’t even know dude. We fucked one weekend. That’s it.”
“And that’s why you punched him?”
“No, I punched him because he’s threatening to take my child away from me if I don’t agree to go with him.”
“He said that?”
“He didn’t have to.”
At that moment, Grayson and Amara were making their way upstairs to the VIP section. They each looked pristine, neither with a hair out of place and yet it was evident to everyone that they’d just gotten back from doing it. Amara surveyed the sight of Kim’s hand in the champagne bucket and dreaded drawing the obvious conclusion. She asked anyway.
“Why, Kim. Why is your hand in a bucket.”
She suddenly withdrew it and winced as she examined it. Despite the cold, her hand was still swelling to nearly twice its original size.
“I think I need to go to the hospital.”
Amara slowly wiped her face with the palm of her hand. She turned to her husband who was already eyeing her, still thinking of their interlude and not about Bel or his sustained injuries.
“Go,” he said. Amara sighed.
“Might as well go back to Vanderbilt. We’ll probably be in the ER all night.”
“Ahem,” Jamaal cleared his throat conspicuously.
Kim gave an exaggerated sigh as she loosely extended her functioning arm between Jamaal and Grayson.
“Grayson Jamaal Jamaal Grayson.”
“I’m her brother,” Jamaal filled in.
“Nice to meet you,” Grayson said cordially. He clasped Amara’s hand as she passed.
“Call me when you get there,” Grayson said in her ear.
As the three sat in the waiting room, then the examining room, then waiting to hear the results of the x-ray, they laughed, reminisced and caught up.
“You and Dale though!” Kim began, addressing Mya.
“Are they not adorable?” Amara gushed.
“You was doin’ the most at the wedding too, like ‘ugh! Dale! No thank you, black love 4-evs!’”
Mya giggled shyly at the memory.
“Oh my God, Amara look at her!”
“I love him,” Mya suddenly admitted. Kim threw her head back, fake crying as if she were holding a bag of miniature puppies.
“They’re getting married,” Amara projected.
“Amara…”
“Girl, stop, you better marry that fuckin’ man. Do it for our ancestors.”
Mya rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, I said it.”
“I had a miscarriage.”
Amara’s face fell. Not her too.
“When?”
“A few months ago.”
“You know that happens all the time; it doesn’t mean something’s wrong.”
“Dale was disappointed. Like, really disappointed,” Mya frowned.
“What about you?”
“I don’t know, I mean… I don’t want to wait much more. I was excited, but I didn’t change my routine. I just wonder if I worked too hard.”
“You can’t beat yourself up about it. You got plenty of eggs left. So you guys are trying right now?”
“Not really. I mean, that wasn’t planned. I wanted at least another year with the company, but I know Dale’s chomping at the bit.”
“What do you want?” Kim offered.
“I want Dale to be happy.”
“Mya—”
“No, for real. I’ve achieved plenty. I was gonna hang it up, remember? I’m only in the Netherlands because Dale forced me to go.”
“Why would he force you to go?” asked Amara.
“Because he said he didn’t want me to resent him if I passed up the opportunity.”
“And now?”
“And now, I wish I would’ve listened to my gut and stayed because now my career is taking the fuck off and… now we’re out of sync. I can tell he isn’t happy.”
Kim tried to sympathize with her friend. They could tell she was anxious, but she didn’t say much more about it. Amara was the only one among them that knew of Dale’s elaborate proposing plan that he’d divulged to her the night before, and she was biting the inside of her jaw willing the subject to change.
“I be trying hard to picture Dale gettin’
it in, but I really just… can’t,” Kim suddenly came to the rescue. Mya and Amara cackled.
“Tryin’ hard, Kim?” Amara smirked.
“Why you cain’t?” Mya protested. They laughed.
“Like, for real ya’ll, let’s get into this. Let’s talk size,” Kim said.
“And girth,” Mya volunteered.
“Oh shit!”
The girls cackled conspicuously in the ER as they had their first proper gossip session since the billionaires entered their lives proper. Kim did her share of the listening this time, so as not to draw the attention.
As they waited for the doctor to come back about the X-ray’s they were quiet a moment. Kim sighed.
“I’m so stupid. I could’ve been at Jabari’s bedside by now if I’da just… aw hell. I’m foolin’ myself, that son of a bitch was gettin’ hit tonight regardless.”
“Okay, Kim. Time to come clean,” confronted Mya.
“What are you talking about?”
“You know damn well what I’m talkin’ about. Why would you punch out a man you supposedly barely know or care about?”
“You’ve never been like this about a man. Even Vince, who you swore was the one,” Amara reminisced.
Before Bel, there was Vincent.
Vincent was a patent lawyer, black, brilliant, driven, and loved Kim’s ambitious alpha female sensibilities, or so he said. At times she felt herself shrinking for his sake, but she suspected every relationship was destined to be like that on some level. She told herself it was worth it if he was truly the one. He didn’t judge her past or her parents, never said derogatory things about them. They seemed pretty compatible sexually, but like most of her other relationships, she couldn’t know for sure because after six months they still hadn’t had full on penetrative sex.
She’d told him at first that she wanted to wait. He told her that after his previous relationship that was all well and good by him. As time wore on, she could tell that he was falling in love with her. The more they waited, the more his anticipation grew, along with his admiration. When he’d had his proposal skywritten during a clear autumn day atop the roof of the AT&T building, he thought he’d more than earned the right to finally “sample the goods,” as it were. She’d agreed, but there was only one problem: her vagina hadn’t.
