by B. M. Hardin
And he always kept his word.
Always.
I remembered being about thirteen and one day I came home from school early from feeling sick.
Mama of course was a teacher so she was working and since school was only around the corner from our house, with the clearance of Mama, I’d walked home.
Daddy was home from the military and I assumed that I was going to go home and be treated like his little princess and that he was going to take care of me until I felt better.
But Daddy was too busy taking care of someone else… his Army buddy; the man who we called Papa Pete.
Papa Pete was Daddy’s best friend.
He and Daddy were as close as brothers and he loved us as though we were his own kids.
Obviously, Papa Pete’s wife loved Daddy too.
Daddy and Pete’s wife were going at it like wild animals and that was actually the first time I’d seen oral sex.
I couldn’t believe that Daddy would do something to someone that was so close to him and to be honest, I was so disappointed in both of them.
He was such a respectable and loyal man.
He was my definition of what it meant to be a damn good man, but apparently, he was just like the rest.
They were both happily married and you would have thought that they adored their spouses.
But they were deceiving everyone that loved and cared about them and for that they both should have been ashamed.
I stood watching them for quite some time until finally they both noticed me.
I didn’t require an explanation, though they both tried to cover up themselves and explain, but I didn’t need to hear anything that they had to say.
I was the one that was going to do all of the talking.
I was clear about what they were supposed to do.
I was clear about what they had to do and made sure that they knew that they didn’t have much of a choice.
Either they stopped doing what they were doing and never see each other again or I was going to expose them, ruin their reputations, and ruin their marriages.
Without hesitation, Daddy vowed that he would never speak to or see Papa Pete or his wife again.
He’d said that Pete deserved a much better friend then he could ever be.
I never saw Papa Pete or his wife again after that day.
Even when we got the news that Pete had died, Daddy didn’t bother to go to the funeral.
I’d vowed to keep his little secret and I never said a word to Mama or anyone else.
It was just our little secret…and though he was dead and gone, it always would be.
I shook away the past as Silas kissed me.
He was good to me and I wasn’t going to mess this up.
Hopefully his job was the only thing that he was lying to me about.
After all, we were in the same boat.
***
“Do you think that you’ll be okay?” I said to Tia as she laid on the couch.
She was getting closer and closer to her due date and she was starting to feel a little pressure and hadn’t been feeling her best the past few days.
“I’ll be fine. Y’all have fun,” she waved us off and turned her attention back to Horizon.
Silas and I smiled and we headed out the door to have some much needed alone time.
I was being ordered at the hotel, every single work day, for the max of three times a day, for the past few weeks.
I was sure that Carmen had something to do with it.
I was sure that she was whispering the suggestion in some of the client’s ear just to show me that she was in charge.
Sure I was making plenty of money, but I was worn out.
And I knew that Carmen was behind it all because it seemed as though I was getting all new clients and they were all crazy as hell and requesting me to do something totally degrading and off the wall.
I mean they were requesting that I do the craziest of things such as licking their booty holes, cuming on my face and in my ears, all the way to wanting to insert objects into my pussycat.
And I won’t even mention what one man tried to do to me with his toes.
I knew that Carmen was putting them up to it and I despised the sight of her.
She was just pure evil.
But we were at the beginning of April and I was almost at the finish line.
And I didn’t care how powerful she was.
I promise, when my time was up, I was going to spank that ass and I was dead as serious about that.
She needed to be taken down a notch and I was the right one to do it.
Oh, I was going to whoop that ass.
Mark my words.
But tonight was about Silas and I, so I was going to enjoy myself.
The hotel was out of sight and it was about to be out of mind.
We decided to do a movie first and then dinner.
I loved how Silas held my hand the whole time and how he often looked at me just to smile or to periodically kiss my forehead.
He made me feel like I was the luckiest, prettiest woman in the whole world and I was so appreciative of him.
After the movie, we arrived at dinner and he seemed a little tensed.
“Are you okay?” I asked him concerned.
“Yes, I’ve never been better,” he said.
But I knew that he was lying.
I could tell by the way he avoided eye contact with me and how he often attempted to fix his attire, even though he knew nothing was wrong with it.
“Silas? Talk to me. You can tell me,” I assured him, and he looked at me as if he was unsure if he could believe me or not.
Oh no, what’s wrong?
I couldn’t help but wonder if it had something to do with his “job” or if he was finally ready to actually confess that he was lying about it all in the first place.
Whatever it was, it had him as nervous as a stripper about to dance on a pole for the very first time.
“Silas?”
He looked at me and then he smiled.
“Well, if you insist,” he said and got up from the table and got down on his knees.
I looked at him in shock.
“I know we haven’t known each other all that long but I know that what I feel is real. I know that you are the best thing that has happened to me in a long time and I don’t want to lose you. You can take your time. You can take a year or two to plan, as long as you say that one day in the near future, you will be my wife. Envy Kirkpatrick, will you marry me?” Silas finished his sentence and pulled out the ring.
I gasped at the sight of it.
It was freaking huge!
For the most part I couldn’t believe that he was actually proposing to me.
I couldn’t believe that in just a short time that he actually thought that I was the one.
He didn’t really know me.
He didn’t really know the real me.
He didn’t know all of my secrets and all my flaws.
He didn’t even know all of my truths so why on earth would he want to marry me?
I didn’t know what to say so I started to cry.
Why was he doing this?
Why was he asking me something like this?
It seemed as though the entire restaurant was looking on, awaiting my answer.
Just then my phone started to ring.
It was Tia and out of fear that something might be wrong, I held up a finger in Silas’s direction and answered the phone.
“Say yes Envy,” Tia said.
“What? You knew?”
“Of course. Who do you think picked out the ring? I know it may seem sudden but he’s good for you. And he loves you. Say yes Envy,” she said in my ear.
Without even commenting to her, I hung up the phone and smiled at Silas.
I mean, we were going to have to have a long, heart to heart talk.
There were some things that we definitely needed to discuss and if we were going to be married, th
ere were some things that we both needed to know.
I wasn’t sure if I was going to tell him about the hotel since I only had a few more months to go but on the flip side of things I wanted to know what it was that he really did for a living.
What was I supposed to do?
I guess we could have a long engagement which would give us a little more time to get to know each other and for me to figure out if this was indeed the best decision for me.
But my mind was made up.
“Yes,” I said.
Silas smiled and he gave me the biggest kiss that I’d ever received in my entire life.
The whole restaurant cheered and he placed the ring on my finger.
I stood to my feet and he gave me a long, lingering hug.
I started to scream and cry all at the same time.
I couldn’t believe that this was happening!
The crowd’s applause quieted down and everyone seemed to go back to enjoying their dinner.
Well…
“Wow, congratulations,” I heard Carmen’s voice behind me as she clapped her hands together slowly, sarcastically.
I looked at her in disgust.
Not today; she was not about to ruin this moment for me.
“Let me see the ring,” she said and reached for my hand.
She looked at the ring as though she disapproved.
“You could have done a lot better,” she said to Silas.
What?
Oh no she didn’t!
Who in the hell did she think that she was?
That’s it!
She was all out of chances.
“Carmen, if I were you, I would leave,” I said to her as I closed my eyes to keep from placing my hands around her neck.
How dare she say something like that to him?
“Envy, I’m just being honest. As much money as he has, he could have surely gotten you a better ring than that,” she said.
What did she just say?
How does she know how much money he has?
Oh no, I was right…he was a client of the hotel!
I looked at Silas who hadn’t said a word.
He was only staring at me.
“So, you know her?”
I waited on Silas to respond but Carmen responded instead.
“Of course we know each other…he used to be my husband.”
****************************************
Chapter EIGHT
“Hey, do you feel like talking?” Tia asked.
I smiled at her and shook my head.
It seemed as though I just couldn’t catch a break.
Out of all of the men in the world, and in Charlotte, North Carolina, how on earth had I met the one man who had been dumb enough to marry a woman like Carmen?
I replayed the proposal night again in my head.
That night, Carmen went on to say that Silas had proposed to me in the same restaurant that he’d proposed to her all of those years ago.
So much for feeling special!
She went on to say that he was rich and that his riches were related to his homeland, Africa.
She’d said that he’d never really told her if he was royalty or what, but she was sure that he was something to that extent.
She spoke of how he cheated on her and left her for another woman. He’d divorced her and remarried and she hated him.
The craziest part of all was that the woman that he’d remarried…was Carmen’s sister; who was no deceased of course.
She’d never told me that one of her siblings had passed away, but now I see why she wouldn’t have mentioned it.
There was so much anger in her voice and you could tell that she was somewhat happy about the fact that her sister and her niece had been killed.
When she’d told me that she’d been in love, once, I didn’t think that she’d meant that she had been married.
But she had been…and to Silas.
My Silas.
The whole time she’d spoken that night, I was numb.
I couldn’t talk, I could move.
I just stood there.
I just stared at her as if my look could cause her to have a heart attack or something.
The whole time Silas hadn’t said a word.
He only allowed Carmen to say what she wanted to say and then when she finally shut up and walked away, he didn’t hesitate to grab my hand and lead me out of the restaurant.
But he still didn’t say a word.
That night, we drove in silence.
I had no idea what to say.
I didn’t even know where to begin.
All I could think was why me?
Why did all the bad stuff have to happen to me?
Why was it so hard for me to find happiness?
What was so wrong with me that I could never have it all?
Why couldn’t I have the happily ever after like everyone else?
It just didn’t seem fair; but then again, nothing in life was every truly fair.
There was always a winner…and a loser.
That’s just the way that it was.
Since that night, I hadn’t said much.
I hadn’t said much to Silas and I hadn’t gone to work at the hotel.
Surprisingly, Silas hadn’t even asked me how I knew Carmen, but I was sure that it was coming.
At this point, hell, whether I told him the truth or a lie, it didn’t really matter.
At least now he knew that I knew that he wasn’t a doctor.
And now I understood why he always had more than enough money.
It was a lot to take in.
So, the question of the hour was…
Am I still going to get married?
The answer was that I didn’t have a clue!
Sure, I loved him by now but he had been married to Carmen.
Out of all people he had been married to Carmen.
I still didn’t know the whole story or even his side of the story.
I couldn’t help but wonder why he’d cheated on Carmen and with her sister…what was he thinking?
I agree, Carmen was a bitch, but her sister?
That was just wrong!
One thing was for sure, and that was that his character was completely shot to shingles in my book.
I’d always known that there was more to him then what meets the eye, but never did I imagine that he had all of this in his past.
Carmen had been calling me non-stop to come in to the hotel but I said that I was sick.
She threatened me but I told her if she didn’t believe me then she could fire me.
Even regular maids had sick days and whether she thought I was sick or not, I wasn’t coming into the hotel.
If she didn’t like it, she could terminate my contract and send me on my way.
But of course she wasn’t going to do that.
But I knew that I couldn’t avoid her or Silas forever. I was going to have to face both of them eventually.
Later on that evening, I decided that it was only right to talk to Silas first.
He hadn’t been sleeping at the house with us and I would be lying if I said that I didn’t miss his presence.
We all kind of missed him being around.
Horizon had asked for him on numerous occasions and I hated to see the look on her face when I told her that I wasn’t sure when he would be coming back.
“Hey,” he said at the sight of me.
I didn’t respond.
I didn’t know what to say or where to start so I allowed him to say something first.
“I hate that woman,” he said.
Didn’t we all?
But I didn’t say anything aloud.
I waited for him to continue.
“I only married her so that I could stay in the states. It wasn’t right. But at the time I was young and I was desperate for independence. I wanted to find my own way, despite being a part of family that was wealthy where I come from. I am the grandson of a king
. But I wanted to stay here and start my life here. So, I met Carmen. At first I thought that maybe it was love, but it was impossible to love her. I tried but no matter what I did she gave me such a hard time. But time was running out so I married her although I knew that I shouldn’t have. I tried to deal with her and my decision but she has her own issues that she needs to deal with and she was incapable of loving me. She’s incapable of loving anyone other than herself. And then her sister started to come around. We didn’t plan it. We didn’t plan to fall in love. Despite what Carmen thinks, we never had sex until the divorce was final. Once the divorce was final and I was in the clear to remarry, I didn’t hesitate and I married a woman that I loved more than life itself. We married and had a beautiful daughter together. It was the best decision that I ever made. I will never apologize for it. My family cut me off because they don’t believe in divorce. Not to mention that they never wanted me to marry her or any other American woman in the first place. But I didn’t care. It was my life and besides I’d always been smart with money so I’d made a few investments. I didn’t need them or their money anymore and because of love, I haven’t spoken to them in many, many years. Even after my wife and daughter died, there was nothing that I needed to say to them. I’m proud of the man that I’ve become on my own. Even before proposing to you, a while ago I’d visited Carmen at the hotel that she works for, just to apologize for hurting her. It’s just the type of man that I am. I never thought that I would love again after the death of my last wife and daughter, and then I met you. Envy, despite my past, I love you. And I can make you happy, if you let me. I just want to make you happy,” Silas concluded.
He’d said a mouth full and now I was even more confused.
It was a lot to take in and to be honest, to me, it wasn’t all that bad.
I guess because I had a lot of secrets of my own that were far worse than anything he’d just said.
And at least now I knew why I’d seen him that day at the hotel.
I guess my biggest issue was going to be trying to stomach being with someone that Carmen used to be married to.
Now that was definitely going to be a hard pill to swallow.
Just the thought of it made me feel some kind of way.
But as I looked into his eyes, I could see that he loved me. I could see that he was still as sincere as he’d been the day that he’d asked me to be his wife.
