Devesh noticed that Reign had been a little distant ever since the night her date with Ali had come to an abrupt end. Maybe she was angry that he had interfered. The man was about Reign’s age, seemingly wealthy, of middle eastern descent, handsome in a way that he could also be a model—enough that Devesh could see what appealed to Reign, but not so much that Ali Khan deserved to hold a place in his wife’s life.
Devesh may have had the home court advantage, but he felt himself losing ground in Reign’s life. She and the children were settling into his parent’s home, but the first bone of contention came with the fact that Reign did not like having the children too far away from them at night. Though the house was massive, she preferred that he create the twins’ sleeping space in the studio that was directly adjacent to his master bedroom. She wanted to keep a watchful eye over them—especially at night.
The place had a number of aunts, uncles, cousins, and siblings who looked out for all of the children, so Devesh did not understand her concern. He tried to talk her out of it, but she was adamant, or she threatened to sleep in the space that had been originally designated for the twins.
Devesh replaced some furniture and rearranged the rest in his master suite, then did his own brand of remodeling to make it a place that he and Reign could share comfortably with the children. He still managed to have a portion of the space sectioned off perfectly for the couple’s privacy. With the children sleeping in what was now essentially a separate room connected to theirs, only then did Reign began to relax.
He had her meet with the architect and contractors working on his building—two upper-level condos being combined into a state-of-theart penthouse. It would add more time to the completion deadline, but in the meantime, they changed his master suite in the Maharaj layout to satisfy her need to be near Leena and Kamran. Better to have her close and get used to sleeping next to him, than for her to be on the other side of the house, and the divide between them become wider. Though there was some privacy afforded between the master bedroom and studio, it wasn’t enough. So much for seducing his wife over the next few weeks. That would be pretty hard to manage with two young ones nearby—and ones who were a little more aware of things than he would prefer.
Reign meant the world to him, and he was grateful that God had given him the opportunity to do what he should have done long ago. He could be patient. For a time.
Marriage was not something he—or his twin—had set in their sights. When Anaya had unexpectedly married his best friend, Pranav, Devesh had not been elated by the news. They waited until Devesh was out of the country filming a commercial. By the time he came back, they were married. For three weeks he didn’t speak to either one of them.
Devesh’s twin had relationships before, but they never seemed as solid or had a propensity to be as long-lasting as the man who finally convinced her to slide down the aisle. Then he watched them, witnessed a change in Pranav that was so profound that it didn’t take long for Devesh to realize that there was no better mate for Anaya. His sister was glowing like a shiny rupee, and he’d never seen her so happy. Or Pranav for that matter. Then the children came. Seeing Pranav as a father was a wonder to behold. Anaya had become a mirror image of their loving, caring mother when it came to her children and husband.
Now Devesh was having his own time of it. Maybe he should call in some reinforcements.
Devesh was sitting next to Jay at his home office in Chicago putting the finishing touches on some images that would go on Devesh’s website.
“Mom’s been sad so long I don’t think she knows how to be happy,” Jay confessed, clicking the keys and brightening the onscreen photo of Devesh wearing a dark designer suit and tie, looking more like Bond—James Bond. “I mean, she has had her moments but … she taught you how to play Spades, right?
“Yes, she’s also teaching Anaya and some of the others who want to learn,” Devesh said. “I think I’m getting pretty good, but Pranav learned from some sisters in college, so we get a little challenge on the board.”
“Have you all ever been so low in points that you’ve gone below zero?”
“When I was first learning,” he began, gesturing for Jay to slide to the next image. “We had to bid a blind six or seven just to get back on board.”
“And that’s what I mean,” Jay explained, taking his eyes off the screen and putting it squarely on Devesh. “Some women experience things in their world that makes them spend their entire lives just trying to get to zero. Being molested or abused early in life puts them below zero and they struggle just to get on board.” Jay put his focus on Devesh.
“Are you saying …?”
“No, because that would be her story to tell,” Jay said, and then he focused on the image of a family portrait next to his Mac taken when the twins turned four. “But I can tell you this, since it made local and national news; her sister was thrown down a flight of stairs by an uncle who wanted her to remain silent. The only thing that kept him from killing mom, too, was that she grabbed a butcher knife to keep him away. Then she ran out in the hallway of the apartment building and yelled fire—and everyone came running.
“Fire?’
“Yes,” he answered. “She thought yelling help or rape wouldn’t get the same response.”
Devesh shook his head.
“The emergency team was barely able to save his life. They found him with the knife embedded so deep in his thigh it required surgery to remove it.”
Devesh’s heart slammed against his chest. Reign had mentioned some tragic experience had happened to her growing up, but had been vague about the details. So much so that he’d thought she had been molested. But nearly killing a man to protect yourself from harm and witnessing a sibling meet her death, and the horrible things that proceeded that act, that had to have a lasting impact.
“I think mom blames herself for Tasha’s death because she didn’t tell sooner.”
So much loss and death surrounding their family. “So how do I help get her past all this, Jay? I’m sure it’s still weighing on her.”
“You just have to find a way to make her comfortable with being happy. It always seems as if she feels that happiness is about to float away.”
“That sounds wonderful in theory,” Devesh countered, still trying to absorb what Jay had shared. “But putting it into action—”
“Is not as hard as it seems. I was in the shower one day, and she came home early. I didn’t know she was there and I came strutting out of the bathroom butt naked. She got a glimpse of what she hadn’t seen since I was able to wash my own parts.”
Devesh chuckled, realizing Jay was trying to lighten things with a little humor.
“I ran to the bedroom and put some clothes on. When I came out, she said ‘one thing’, then she pointed to my groin and said, “You got that from your Mama ‘cause your daddy wasn’t hung like that.”
Devesh was too choked up to laugh. “She actually said that?”
“Yep. I was so busy cracking up. I didn’t have time to feel embarrassed,” he said laughing. “Laughter eases so much. Put Mom at ease, maybe that will work.”
“Speaking of putting your mother at ease, let’s revisit that plan to get you to move to California.”
Jay laughed, but at least he didn’t brush it off this time. Devesh had taken a step outside of the Pullman home and found the same issues existed as when he helped Reign pack up her life and move to California.
“I’m thinking about it more and more,” Jay said, sweeping a gaze across several boxes from his apartment that he hadn’t bothered to unpack. “I might have my cousins Shogun and Demarco to move in here.
“Cousins? Shogun?”
“He’s a tattoo artist. Those two are some of the few family members that my mother actually keeps up with.” Jay clicked and moved on to more family photos and the few friends that Reign had sent his way. “Mom’s a little calculated with keeping her circle small. When she wants a family member to leave, she loans them money. She
doesn’t bother to call them and ask about it, because she knows they have no intentions of giving it back. That way, they can’t be mad at her—it’s a mutual parting.”
“Damn.”
“And you haven’t heard the half of it,” Jay said, grinning. “When my grandmother forced her to choose between having a roof over her head and being out on the street, my mother, who was fourteen at the time, didn’t have any problem showing just how unfair that was.”
Fourteen-year-old Reign was forced to get up in front of the church and apologize for shaming her mother by getting pregnant. She complied, but was angry the entire time. Especially since she was fully aware of things going on behind the scenes. While she still held the microphone, she paused and then ended her apology with, “But I have a question, though. Is it only the girls you want to apologize just because you can see what we’ve done?” She rubbed her hand over her extended belly as the question drew murmurs of discontent. “Dawn got pregnant. No one asked Mason to come up here and apologize. Alexa got knocked up. No one made Eric say he was sorry. My brothers weren’t made to get up here either.”
The congregation roared with disapproval aimed directly at her. Some of them stood, raising their voices in contempt.
“Now, I know it does not excuse what I did,” Reign continued, holding up a hand to signal they should quiet down because she wasn’t done. “But I’m just saying Brother Harold’s been sleeping with Sister Odessa’s husband for the past two years. Everybody knows it.” She focused on the golden man whose face turned a magnificent red. “Oh, and I don’t see Sister Justine and Brother Martin up here apologizing for getting busy in the choir room during rehearsal when the pastor’s wife caught ’em a few months ago.”
“Now, wait a minute,” Brother Martin stood, shaking his fist at Reign. His wife yanked him back down in the pew, then slapped her purse on top of his head nearly knocking him unconscious. Sister Justine left her husband’s side and tried to run from the church. Her exit was blocked by the ushers who seemed to be having a grand old time with all of the skeletons creaking out of the closet and running up the church aisle as if the devil was on their heels. One of them, Sister Dorothy, even managed to give Reign the thumbs up sign, so she’d keep the party going.
“I’m just saying let’s keep it fair,” she said, ducking out of the reach of Deacon Jones who was making an attempt to snatch the microphone from her. “A sin’s a sin. I think everybody should take a turn up here.” She gestured toward Deacon Byrne as she slid up the aisle, managing to still be heard over all the chaos. “That is a whole bottle of Dr. Tichenor’s in your pocket ‘cause you need a little nip of that eighty-proof every now. Nobody needs fresh breath that bad.” She winked at him, and even his wife laughed. “My mama told me that one.”
The entire congregation was now on their feet, in heated conversations, some arguing about the truth she let spill. Choir members hastily left their seats. A few of them managed to tip out of the back door to the lower level before she let loose on them, too. The usher board had closed the rear doors so no one could run out that way. One of them sprinted down the right side aisle to get to the choir entrance to block that as well.
Reign slid a sly look to her fuming mother, who was dressed in the pristine white uniform of the pastor’s personal nurse and was sitting in a special seat near the pulpit. “And the only reason my mother’s on the nurse’s board,” Reign said, keeping a steely glare on her mother. “Taking care of the pastor, getting his water and handkerchiefs, fixing all that good food and baking those sweet potato pies especially for him, is ‘cause she’s hoping for a little … sin of her own.”
“I knew it,” the First Lady said, waggling a finger at Thelma, wide brim hat tipping almost off her head. She nearly climbed over the pew, aiming to get to Reign’s mother. Two women nearest her, held the stout woman back.
Reign looked toward the red-faced Pastor who was fit to be tied. “And doesn’t look like he’s turning down nothing but his collar, so maybe I should pass the mic to him. Come to think of it, Brother Jimmy, Brother Patrick, and Brother Russell need some time up here, too.” She moved up the middle aisle and back toward the pulpit ignoring the three men in question. “Each one of them offered me some money—for the baby’s sake. That’s what they said. But they wanted a little something in return. They seemed really happy that I was pregnant ‘cause that meant I couldn’t get knocked up again.” She swept a gaze across the congregation as Sister Delores yanked the microphone from her hand. Reign dashed toward the choir stand to snatch another one from where the organist played. “And they’re not the only ones up in here who did that. I’ve got nine offers from church men alone and close to $9,536.50.” She waggled an index finger. “And don’t forget the fifty cents. That’s a lot of dough, especially for a sinner like me.” She shrugged as if she hadn’t set the church on holy fire. “So let’s be fair about this sin thing.”
“That’s enough, young lady,” the pastor said from the pulpit, gesturing for someone to grab her. Reign faked left, then moved until she was in the far left aisle blocked in by a few folks who were grinning at her efforts and didn’t let the deacons near her.
“Oh, so I’m a young lady now?” Reign shot back, glowering angrily at him. “When you told my mother that she needed to bring her little whore before the church to apologize.”
“No he didn’t,” Sister Mabel shouted.
“But you didn’t make your nieces get up here when they got pregnant. Or any of the boys right here in this church who made them that way. I count about twelve so far. And that’s not including the ones who had abortions.” Reign snapped her fingers as realization hit. “But wait a minute, that counts as sin, too, right? But it’s not one that you can see.”
Gasps echoed throughout the congregation.
“So which is it? Whore or young lady?” she taunted, stretching out her hands as if in supplication. “Either way, I’m just saying—a sin is a sin. Let the church say ‘Amen’.”
Needless to say, Reign and her mother were immediately escorted from the church’s main sanctuary, out the door, and told never to return.
Thelma was angered at not only losing her church home, but also the pastor, who—unknown to Reign—had become the main source of income for their family.
That day, Thelma said she never wanted to lay eyes on Reign again. She kept that promise until her dying day.
What she couldn’t know was that Reign had already made her peace with whatever consequences would come with her brutal uncovering of church hypocrisy, long before she opened her mouth that Sunday.
Chapter 13
“And you thought I was going to go against her wishes and let you in on that secret?” Jay shook his head. “No, no, my brother. I wasn’t going to take that chance and have her cut me out of her life, too.”
“She wouldn’t dare.”
Jay shrugged and put his focus on the notes he’d written to share with Devesh about branding and to create a more dynamic outreach.
“You haven’t unpacked?” He gestured to all the boxes stacked up against the wall.
“No time, I’ve been hella busy.”
Devesh shifted the keyboard and pulled up the Southwest Airlines website. “That means moving to Cali won’t be much of an issue.” He typed in a date for a week away. “Come on, Jay. Let’s make it happen.”
“You have a commercial taping tomorrow.”
Devesh shook away the last remnants of the power nap he’d taken. He was grateful to be home in Cali and that nothing unpleasant had transpired between Reign and his family while he was gone. He was also grateful that Jay had made strides to take him up on the offer. They weren’t going to let Reign in on that little piece of information; not until everything was set in stone.
“What?” he said to Reign, rewinding his brain to what she had just said. “What are you talking about?”
Reign slid a set of documents his way. He sat up, swept through each one of them, trying to understand w
hat she’d done. “I didn’t send in anything to land this kind of work.”
“I did,” she confessed, looking a little concerned. “I sent in that media kit I created for you several years ago. Then they checked out the first stages of a website that Jay put up for you a few days ago. They liked what they saw.”
Devesh studied the contracts she’d negotiated again and the amount of money the company was shelling out. “This is sweet, honey, but I can’t do this. I’m out of that life now. I can’t do both.”
She extracted the contract from his hand and placed it on the nightstand. “Why don’t you talk to the job and see if there’s a night position or a way to work around your filming schedule?”
He thought that over for a moment. “I’ll do that,” he said, warily.
She fingered the fresh haircut that a stylist gave him before his first day out to work. Long hair was all the rage for product ads; not so much for conservative employers. “Having a family doesn’t mean giving up on your dreams.”
Devesh smiled up at her, pulled her to him, then held her in his arms, feeling it was too soon for another kiss like the one he’d planted on her that day out by the pool.
“Thank you for holding my vision,” he whispered.
While Reign waited to hear from the headhunters who believed they could land her a job in the paralegal field, she enrolled the children into a Montessori school and also volunteered to work there to get a feel for their style of education and whether it was the best fit for the children. At night, she put her time and energy into something else—her husband.
“Do you trust me?” she asked Devesh.
“If I didn’t trust you, honey, there’d be no way you’d have access to all of my accounts.”
“And I appreciate that trust,” she said slowly, as though weighing her next words carefully. “But I’m talking about something else.”
Devesh put his full attention on Reign as he waited.
“Your poetry.”
Those words were written to express what he felt for her since he hadn’t had the courage to tell her back then. “What about it?”
Loving Me for Me Page 9
