She turned and glared at him. “I got off early.” She struggled to keep more tears from escaping. If this was her idea, and she knew they would be making love, why did it hurt so much?
“You told me you loved me. When you accepted my proposal, you said you loved me.”
He was quiet for a minute, then, “I did. I mean, I do.” He pulled his robe tighter around him. “It’s just not the way a man should love a woman when they’re getting married,” he admitted.
“When did it change for you?” she asked softly. “When did I no longer matter.”
He sighed heavily. “You always mattered. It’s just that . . . well, when you started planning for the wedding, it opened my eyes. With everything with your mother—shit, I felt like I was in a threesome already. I wanted the old Tori. The Tori who knew what her life was all about and didn’t need some bitter woman to tell her what to do.”
Tori let the tears escape freely. “Dallas, the way you are with Alicia …”
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he whispered. “But the schedule said you weren’t supposed to be home until four hours from now.”
“I told you, I got off early.”
“You do that a lot, you know,” he said.
She whirled to face him. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You give Alicia one time to put on the schedule, but I’ve noticed that lately you come in at a totally different time. Almost like you’re trying to catch us doing exactly what we were doing.”
Tori’s lips parted and closed, and a flash of something lit in her eyes. Finally, she looked up at him. “What it is about being with her—I mean, besides sex—that appeals to you so much.”
That wasn’t a real answer, but Tori was too hurt right now for him to call her on it.
“What could you possibly have in common?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “Sometimes I think that you’re just hanging on to her to teach me a lesson.”]
“That’s not it at all. Why can’t you just believe that I love her?”
Tori shook her head as if that were impossible.
After a few silent moments, Dallas asked, “Are you sure about this, Tori? You can call it off at any time ...”
“No,” she said before he could finish. “We’re going to do this. You and I are going to be married. I’m fine,” she said as she turned away and stomped out of the bathroom.
Dallas waited a couple of seconds wondering just how much more would Tori be able to take? How much more would any of them be able to take?
Chapter 23
Thursday, December 20—6:07 p.m.
“We need to talk,” Dallas announced as he slipped into the space across from Tori at the dining room table in their condo.
James Mitchell’s gaze swept over him, and Dallas met the old man’s look measure for measure. The man had no right to judge him. He could blame Bernice all he wanted for their financial problems, but James had also committed his own mistakes. The man had a major gambling problem and that was the reason Tori’s family was in serious debt. So he wasn’t going to take a dressing down from James about something that didn’t concern him. Especially from a man who kept inviting himself to this home, flying to Dallas as if it were just down the street from Chicago.
Tori’s eyes narrowed in Dallas’ direction, but it was Alicia who stretched a hand across the smooth ebony surface of the dining room table and placed it on his arm and asked, “What’s wrong?”
He removed her hand from his arm and clasped it within his hand.
“Bernice called my agent,” he answered with a pointed look at Tori. “She wants a million or she’ll sell a story about us to the press.”
Tori jumped up from the table nearly knocking over the vase of flowers. “What?”
James grimaced as he let loose with a string of curses.
Tori rested her fingertips against her temple. Her perfect white teeth held her bottom lip prisoner. “But I gave her—”
Dallas’ head whipped to her, his left eyebrow raised. Tori quickly clamped down on the rest.
James sighed with impatience. “I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. She’s losing a husband. She’s been cut off from spending Dallas’ money …”
Dallas smirked at Tori, who quickly averted her gaze.
“And she doesn’t have a place to live anymore.” James shrugged as though the issue was of no serious consequence.
“What are you going to do?” Alicia asked.
“I’m filing a police report,” Dallas replied. “Blackmail is a felony.”
James helped himself to an apple from the fruit bowl that Alicia made sure stayed on the dining room table. “Do what you gotta do. She brought it on herself.”
“Please, don’t,” Tori said, reaching for Dallas’ other hand. “Let me talk to her first.”
“She never listened to you before,” Dallas replied evenly. “What would make her change this time?”
“Why can’t you just give her the money so she’ll go away?” Tori asked.
Dallas looked at her for a long while, pissed that Tori would be so cavalier with his money. “If I give her a million, next time she’ll want more. You know how these things go.”
“But what about me?” Tori snapped, looking at each person sitting around the table. “Suppose she does talk? Do you know what’s going to happen when people start talking about the fact that you chose an older woman over me?”
“Seriously?” Dallas said, frowning down at her. “That’s all you’re worried about?”
“Well, I meant, chose my own aunt over me.”
Dallas leaned back in the chair. “Let’s say I do pay. There’s no guarantee that Bernice still won’t run her mouth after she gets the cash.”
“Don’t turn her in.” Her soft brown eyes pleaded with him. “Just give her a little something, and she’ll be all right.”
“What do you think?” he asked Alicia, whose wry twist of the lips showed exactly how she felt about this turn of events.
“Don’t ask me a question about saving her,” Alicia answered. “If she was on fire, I’d toss in some lighter fluid to keep it going.”
Dallas let out a low whistle.
James cleared his throat, clearly holding back harsh words, but keeping his focus on Alicia.
“But she’s my mother,” Tori shrieked when no one said anything for a while. “You can’t send her to jail!”
“And she’s trying to hurt you—for money!” Alicia shot back, staring Tori down. “The way her old trifling ass ran through James’ money, even a million more wouldn’t last. Dallas has sense enough to realize that. And she doesn’t care about that cash you’re slipping her under the table,” she said. “She’s already hurt you in front of your family and now, she’s ready to do it in front of the world.”
“And you’ve done a hell of a lot worse,” Tori countered. “But you don’t see us putting your ‘old trifling ass’ out to pasture. Now do you?”
Seconds ticked by. The silence between the two women was unsettling. Then there was a sudden movement. Dallas was out of the chair and intercepting Alicia before she made it to the door. “Alicia, you’re not going anywhere.”
Alicia snatched away. “I’m not doing this shit, Dallas!”
“Baby, don’t,” he whispered so only she could hear. “You can’t keep running.”
“So, I need to stay here and endure this?”
“It won’t be much longer. I’m sure we’re going to find a house that you like soon. And who knows, maybe she’ll wash her hands of this before then.”
Looking over her shoulder, Dallas didn’t miss the flash of envy in Tori’s eyes, but what concerned him was that he also saw a spark of something cold in James’ eyes.
Dallas escorted Alicia back to her seat at the table and said, “So we’re in agreement?” He looked first to a stone-faced Tori, then to Alicia. “Bernice doesn’t get paid.”
Alicia nodded.
“I didn’t agree to that,” Tori r
eplied with a haughty lift of her chin.
“Two out of three is the majority.”
“But I—”
“Might want to get used to it, Tori,” Dallas said, causing her to pout. “Majority rules in an open relationship. Bernice doesn’t see one dime of that money.”
Tori sulked as she slid down in the seat.
James glared at all of them but lingered on Alicia as he said, “I think I need a drink.”
Tori made a beeline for the cabinet and pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniels and two glasses as Dallas grumbled, “Man, don’t get them started.”
Chapter 24
Monday, December 24—7:07 p.m.
“Dallas!” Tori shrieked and it tore him from his spot in the loft and he hurried down the spiral staircase and into the living room.
Tori and Alicia were both standing in the center of the living room, staring at the wide-screen television. The real estate listings of Alicia’s final house selections slipped from her fingers and landed on the floor.
Dallas followed their line of vision.
Bernice Mitchell primped a little while the cameras panned first to the host, and then a wider shot of the studio and Los Angeles cityscape background itself.
Dallas was riveted to the screen when the words, NBA Star’s Secret Life. flashed across.
The host crossed one leg over the other, causing her already short skirt to expose even more of her thighs. “So you’re the mother-in-law to be and the sister-in-law to the aunt?”
“Yes, I am,” Bernice replied. “I’m here to tell it all. The man is having a threesome with relatives.”
The shocked gasp of the tow-headed host was more fake than the weave slapped on her head.
“Dallas Avery is known for his charity work, and funding start-up businesses,” the host said, looking directly into the camera. “We’ve only heard a few details of his love life until Tori Mitchell came on the scene. You know, those unfortunate court cases were just a mess.” The host looked back at her guest. “We’d love to hear everything. A Threesome. An aunt and a niece.” She gave Bernice’s thigh a reassuring pat. “Give us all the dirt, honey.”
Bernice leaned in as though she and the woman were old friends. “Well, it was Thanksgiving …”
“Uh huh.”
“And he was coming to meet the rest of Tori’s family.”
The host looked at the audience and said, “Looks like one family member checked him out more than everyone else.”
“Oh, yes,” Bernice gushed. “She sure did. I caught him in bed with my brother’s sister right before Thanksgiving dinner.”
“Well, that could be a major problem. Doesn’t your daughter have this big wedding coming up?”
“Sure does, and I was planning the whole thing.” Bernice nodded, looking more like a puppet. “But you know what he did?”
The host leaned in. “What?”
“They moved that man-stealing cougar in with them.”
Tori gasped, and inched away from the two standing next to her, mumbling, “She said she wouldn’t say anything.”
Dallas did a 180. “You’ve been talking to her?” he demanded, then caught up with her before she could make it out of the room. He whirled her around to face him. “You’ve still been telling her what’s going on in my house?”
She tried to shake off his hands. “It may have slipped out that Alicia was living here.”
“Slipped out!” he roared. “Tori, I swear to God you can be dense sometimes. You’re the one who said you didn’t want people to know and you told your mother?”
“Don’t snap at me,” Tori shot back, trying to free herself from his grasp. “We wouldn’t be in this situation if you hadn’t let your dick do all the talking.”
Dallas put an instant three feet between. “Yes, all my fault. Got it. Again. You’re still here—because somehow I twisted your arm. Got it. Again. And let’s not forget one major issue that started it all was you telling too many people my business in the first place. What part of that did you not get? Again.”
“Dallas—”
“I don’t even want to hear it,” he said, waving her off. He scooped up his cell from the coffee table and dialed up his publicist, who finally answered on the third ring. “Y’all watching this?”
“Yep,” Liz answered. “The entire staff is in the boardroom taking it all in.”
“And y’all didn’t have a handle on this?” he demanded.
“Hell, we didn’t know this was coming,” she protested. “They contacted us about a doing an interview with Backstage Pass, but we know you don’t do rag mags or gossip shows.”
“And you didn’t think to mention it when we talked the other day?”
“They didn’t say anything about this Bernice person, who is making up these kind of stories,” she protested, then paused. “She is making all of this up?”
“A little truth thrown in with a whole lot of lies,” he replied.
“And that’s all it takes,” Liz said dryly. “I’ll get our legal team on this.”
Dallas tossed his cell onto the sofa and went back to stand between the two women. Finalizing house choices was going to take a backseat to getting a handle on this today.
“You should’ve listened to me,” Tori said, folding her arms over her bosom. “We should’ve paid her the money.”
“We? You’ve been paying her enough!” Dallas yelled. “By the way, where’s your American Express Card, Tori?”
She quickly looked away.
“See, that’s what I mean. You gave her access to more than enough money, and it still wasn’t enough,” Dallas growled. “You feed a starving hound, they’ll keep coming back to the same bowl. Again and again. This right here,” he said, gesturing to the screen, “was bound to happen. Giving her that million or not.”
“You don’t know that,” Tori snapped.
“Oh, but I do. Didn’t you say that she ripped into your college fund?”
“Well, the family needed it,” Tori protested.
Alicia laughed and it caused both of them to look her way. “James didn’t need a damn thing until your mother lost her mind. What did she need twelve damn furs for? It’s never that cold in Chicago. Three cars? Really?” Alicia said. “The woman has two-hundred pairs of shoes.”
“So she’s stylish,” Tori protested weakly, then shook her head as if she knew how dumb that sounded.
“Be honest, Tori,” Alicia said. “She’s always been stupid when it comes to doing what it takes to keep an address and some food in her belly, but she certainly knows her way around the bedroom.”
“Well, she isn’t the only one,” Tori taunted, smirking. “I mean, knowing their way around a bedroom.”
“That might be true,” Alicia shot back. “but I don’t need my husband—or in your case, fiancé—to keep rescuing my ass from financial messes I made.” Tori froze, but Alicia kept going. “How long did you think he’d keep doing that? He had to get tired sooner or later.”
Alicia was more right than she knew. Dallas had grown tired of relatives and family friends who were continually hitting him up for cash that they thought fell from some orchard of money trees growing in his backyard.
Some of them kept their hands outstretched in spite of the fact that Dallas had given them each a one-time cash distribution when he came into his good fortune. The smarter ones—mostly the women—used it to partner up with Dallas and open up businesses that ranged from bakeries to boutiques and foundations to social agencies. Dallas had received more than a return on his initial investment from them, even expanding some of the businesses for a greater return.
The fellas, on the other hand, thought he was kidding about that one-time rule. They squandered theirs away, then put themselves in line for another hand-out.
So now there were two dinners during the holidays—the early one where Dallas could enjoy his time with his parents and sister, and a second one that Dallas rarely attended because he didn’t want to insult every
one by leaving when someone pissed him off, which they frequently did.
And since Dallas kept his business to himself, there were no tabloid stories for his family to sell.
Somehow, Tori’s mother didn’t get that memo. She was all in for serving up anything that could turn a quick buck. The woman should have been a hooker instead of a wife—she would’ve made a mint with the way she liked to screw people over.
“Say what you want about what I did,” Alicia said after a few moments. “You can’t say anything about that fact that I bailed your parents out of a tight spot. And that didn’t have anything to do with Dallas, that came from having basic common sense in knowing that a woman has to have four things to survive: An address, food, clothing, and a way to keep bringing in income.
“Your mama thinks it’s a man, fancy clothes, and material things—and not exactly in that order. And I’m beginning to think you’re a hell of a lot more like her than you think.”
When the interview ended, Dallas clicked off the TV and said, “Well, she might have done us a favor.”
“Are you kidding me?” Tori shrieked, pointing to the screen. “How can this be good?”
“She’s put our business all out there in the street,” he said, looking over at Alicia. “So, now we don’t have to hide in plain sight anymore.”
“You’re not going to—”
“Damn straight,” he snapped. “You let her know that Alicia was living with us. She’s on national television making up shit I haven’t even thought of doing. Threesomes? Me taking turns with both of you every night.” He slapped his palm against his forehead. “Woooooow, that’s something I didn’t even think to put on the table. I’ll tell you one thing, she’s got a wicked imagination, which is more than I can say for her daughter.”
“Dallas …” Alicia chided in a softer tone, but he silenced her with a look.
“The days of Alicia having to be kept a secret are over,” he said. “Thanks to you and your greedy mother, everything you didn’t want people to know …”
Tori stormed from the room before he could finish.
Open Door Marriage Page 15
