Copyright © 2017 Christina C. Jones
Cover art by Christina Jones. Images by Porsha Antalan at www.brwnstockimaging.com.
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real locations, people, or events is coincidental and unintentional.
To God be the Glory…
Thank you so much to everyone who made this book what it is. To Love Belvin for believing in me enough to do this again (and the first time). To the friends and peers who have encouraged me along the way. To my amazing betas who gave feedback that kept me pushing forward. To my family, who dealt with me isolating myself to get this done, and kept me fed and loved on in the meantime.
And, as always, to the readers. Your excitement and support for this project have provided much-needed energy through this whole process (and my whole career) and I can’t thank you enough.
Enjoy.
One
“She ain’t sorry – or at least, that was sports news sweetheart Wil Cunningham’s attitude just last night when she was captured on video giving the middle finger and plenty of “boy byes” to her – apparently – former fiancé at a popular local club. Beyonce’s “Sorry” was the backing track for the dramatic scene, that a witness tells us was sparked by actor Darius Hayward’s attempt to pull his estranged fiancé down from dancing on a table. Three days ago, we broke the story of Darius’ steamy affair with his “Boardroom” costar, actress Jessica Leigh.
An anonymous source reached out to us with videos, pictures, and screenshots that collectively, served as irrefutable evidence that Darius – recently honored by Sugar&Spice magazine as their annual sexiest man – is no angel. The news came just two days before the couple, often revered as hashtag, relationship goals, was due to get married. Our source from this video claims that Wil was out with friends and family who had come to New York for the wedding, in an attempt to mitigate her heartbreak over her fiance’s dramatic betrayal with drinking and dancing. Someone spilled the beans on where the anti-bachelorette party was taking place, and Darius decided to pop up in attempt to communicate with Wil, who has reportedly not been speaking to him.
Her limited response to his attempt was an emphatic declaration that she wasn’t thinking about him, and advice that he would be better served by “finding Becky”. Sounds like Darius might want to get used to the bitter taste of sour lemonade.”
I rolled my eyes at that corny last line and then tapped the screen of my phone to close the browser window where the video had been playing. Of course I knew better than to watch gossip news, but my cousin had sent me the clip, so I couldn’t help it. Hell, watching a cheesy video about that particular drama was preferable to living it.
Here I was, doing both.
I navigated my phone back to my music app, where I cranked up the brand-new playlist I’d created during a bout of sleeplessness two nights ago. Once it started up, pounding through the Bluetooth surround system Darius had been so adamant about needing, I picked up his golf club again.
Ciara and Nicki Minaj serenaded my angry soul with “I’m Out” as I positioned a tiny, frosted vellum box of chocolates inscribed with “Wil & Darius get hitched” in the perfect spot on the floor. Cici was just reminding me that I was better than the new chick my “King” was on when I swung, sending the offending chocolates soaring through the air. The package – like the fifty or so before it, broke open, causing the chocolates to land haphazardly among the lighted shelves that contained Darius’ prized sneaker collection. A whole damn room full of shoes he valued and cared for and treated like the babies we’d planned to have.
Once I finished my game, I would crank the heat for this room straight to hell.
The thought made me smile.
“Wil! Wil! Girl, I’ve been looking all over this house for you! What is all this mess?!”
I grinned a bit more at the sound of my mother’s voice, looking up from a freshly positioned box of chocolates as she appeared at the door. There was clear concern etched into features that mirrored my own. Enviably thick brows that required weekly trips for grooming to avoid looking werewolf-ish, thick lashes that made the thick brows not seem quite so bad. The kind of lips that been declared “soup coolers” – and worse – on the playground, and that cute nose we shared? Wrinkled.
“What in the world are you doing?” she asked, big brown eyes growing even bigger as she surveyed the room from her place in the door.
I smirked, then swung the golf club, causing her to let out a little shriek as chocolates flew in the air. Picking up another box, I put it into position before I answered. “Working out my aggression.”
She snorted as Jhene Aiko began with Lyin’ King, singing about a man who essentially lied and broke hearts for the fun of it. “Is that what you’re calling this?”
“Yes.”
“So that flower massacre I passed in dining room… should I assume that was part of your self-prescribed anger management as well?”
I swung again, muttering “yes”! as the chocolates from that particular box landed perfectly against a pair of white on white on white suede sneakers Darius had paid a particularly exorbitant amount for. “Yes,” I said again, a little louder, this time answering my mother’s question. “And you know how I feel about flowers.”
“I do,” she nodded. “Those looked like peonies, so you must have been particularly upset,” she mused, stepping fully into the room and brushing aside a few random chocolates to take a seat on the bench Darius used to change his shoes – another reason I should have known better than to agree to marrying his ass.
I shrugged. “I think anger right now is pretty valid, don’t you? I mean, you would think he would get the message – leave me alone. But no, he has sorry ass apology flowers with a sorry ass apology note delivered on what should have been our wedding day. So maybe I did shred four dozen peonies by hand, who hasn’t?”
Instead of replying, my mother sighed, looking around the room for another few moments before she spoke. “Well… you haven’t been speaking to him, or letting him back in the house, so I suppose he’s trying to get through to you any way he can. And before you say I’m defending him, I most certainly am not. Simply stating facts.”
“I’m not keeping him from anything,” I contended, even though we both understood the shaky veracity of that claim. “Just because I changed the code for the gate and called and had his name removed as an authorized person with the security company doesn’t really mean that much. If he was really about that action, he would figure it out.”
She raised a single eyebrow. “But the security guards know the code, and know him - yet no one is letting him in. You have nothing to do with that either?”
“If they took sides, that’s not my fault. They love me. Everybody that matters does… except, apparently… the man I almost married.”
A harsh sigh burst from my lips after that and I shook my head, grabbing another box of chocolates from the plastic bin they were stored in. I was barely halfway through, and my shoulders were starting to ache from swinging the golf club.
Maybe I should just dump the rest and call it a day.
Feeling my mother’s gaze against my back, I turned to find her staring at me, and lifted an eyebrow. “What?” I asked, and she straightened a little, resting clasped hands atop crossed legs in that uniquely Carla Ann Cunningham way that always made me question my manners.
But there was no scolding, only a slight raise
of her shoulders as she leveled me with a steady, kindly gaze. “Nothing, I guess. I think I assumed your statement about Darius was going to be followed by tears. I was just waiting.”
I laughed at that. A deep, hearty laugh that turned the kindness in my mother’s eyes to concern for my sanity as I straightened up, clutching my stomach. Looking her right in the face, I shook my head. “No. Absolutely not. I refuse to cry over him. Haven’t shed a single tear yet, and don’t plan to. Ever.”
My mother’s deep, knowing sigh set my teeth on edge. That universal sound of oh, just you keep living was all too familiar, and as usual, ill-timed. Three days ago, my world had been turned upside down. I wanted to stay firmly rooted in my anger, strong in my conviction that this man, this situation, would not break me, wouldn’t bring any tears from my eyes.
Of course, if they did… I would’ve been justified.
Three days ago, I was happy.
I was just days away from being Mrs. Darius Hayward, and we were going to celebrate after in the most major turn up possible. Aunts, uncles, great-grands and cousins were starting to filter into town, with my mother’s home serving as central station. My phone was blowing up with delivery and vendor confirmations, and the working out of last minute details.
I was over the moon.
We were taking one of the last moments of quiet we would have together until after the wedding. My man liked fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, yams, and collards, so that’s what I was cooking for him. He didn’t stay in the kitchen to keep me company while I cooked, but I didn’t mind that. I had the TV blasting some trashy gossip news while he was upstairs in his ManCaveTM, or maybe smelling the leather in his sneaker room, which was right beside it.
I laughed when his name came from the TV. Rumors and fake scandals came with the territory, and I wasn’t the slightest bit concerned. The lies about he and Jessica were nothing new, and they were ridiculous. The woman had hugged me, told me she watched the show, gushed over my engagement ring. Shaking my head, I’d gone to the wall and pressed the intercom button for upstairs. “Hey babe,” I giggled, knowing my voice was echoing through the whole second floor of the home we’d shared for nearly two years, to my mother’s chagrin. “They’re talking about you again. Apparently, they have “undeniable evidence” about you and Jessica now,” I laughed.
They didn’t have anything. She was his coworker, nothing more.
I took my finger off the button and turned to look at the screen.
His coworker that he’d supposedly been sexting.
They showed the screenshots, like those couldn’t be faked.
His coworker he’d supposedly been sending pictures of his dick, with downright filthy captions. They showed those, with the naughtiest parts blurred out, like it couldn’t have been pictures of anybody.
His coworker he’d supposedly been screwing long enough to have a whole playlist worth of clandestinely shot sex tapes with. They couldn’t really show any of those, but assured the audience that it was her, and it was him.
I took my eyes away from the TV screen long enough to look up at where Darius had come down the stairs, and was staring at the screen too. There was tension in his shoulders, anger in his curled fists, and when he turned to look at me, fear in his eyes. Fear, and… guilt.
The stick of butter I’d been holding – I didn’t skimp on the butter in my man’s yams – fell from my hands and hit the floor with a wet thump.
It was him.
He didn’t even bother denying it. After years of denying that anything was going on with the woman… this time he didn’t. This point, three days before I was set to devote my life to him, that’s when he decided there had been enough lying.
Only because he couldn’t anymore, when there was video, and pictures.
So, no.
There would be no tears.
“You know he had the nerve to have special temperature controls installed for the room? Just this one.” I tossed down the golf club and grabbed handfuls of chocolate boxes, opening and spreading them throughout the shoes to make sure they all had their own special treat. “To protect the leather, he said.” Once I was done, I turned back to my mother, who’d been silently watching.
“You know he’s going to sue you about these shoes, right?” she asked, a question that made me shrug.
“If he does, his judgement can come out of whatever I’m awarded in my countersuit for emotional pain and suffering.”
I walked up to the temperature control pad and cranked the green numbers as high as it would let me, then motioned for my mother to follow me out. She shook her head about it as I used my phone to turn the music off, then closed the door behind us.
“I feel so much better now.” I told her as I headed down the hall. Her hand on my wrist stopped me, and she gave me a little tug intended to make me turn around. But I didn’t want to. She tugged me again and I turned around anyway.
“Do you really?” she asked, looking me right in the eyes. “What are you doing, Wil? Trying to hurt him because he hurt you?”
I swallowed the lie that I wasn’t hurting, and averted my gaze. “Maybe.”
“Don’t.” Her reprimand was firm, but not unkind. “Let this be the last move you make that’s intended to hurt him back, because I promise you baby girl – there is only more pain down that path.”
I pulled in a deep breath through my nose, letting it filter back out before I shook my head. “He humiliated me, Mama. I’m out here with my face splashed across gossip blogs and entertainment news looking like a fool because I trusted him!”
“And the best thing you can do for yourself now is to not let him see you sweat. You want to hurt, scream, curse, cry, baby girl do it. But when he, or a camera sees you? Your head had damn well better be high. No more of these video clips, or destroying his property. You need an outlet, you get yourself to a track or a boxing ring. You understand me?”
I scoffed. “So he just gets let off the hook, and that’s okay with you? He gets to betray and embarrass me with no repercussions while I pretend to be the bigger person?”
“No repercussions?” My mother laughed, and shook her head before she raised her hands to cup my face. “Sweetheart… you were always the best thing that happened to that man. Anyone would have been lucky to be able to claim you as theirs, and now he has lost that opportunity. Trust me, my love. He will see you whole and happy without him, and it will tear him up inside.”
I chewed at the inside of my lip, trying my best not to give in to the heat building in my cheeks, and the tears pricking the corners of my eyes. It wasn’t until I felt them subside that I shook my head. “If I was so good to him, good for him… why?”
My mother’s expression softened to a wistful smile. “Sweetheart… he probably can’t even answer that for himself. But I can tell you this – it’s about him. Not you.”
She was my mother. That was what she had to say, to attempt soothing her daughter’s broken heart. Instead of arguing, I just nodded, knowing I really didn’t have the energy for anything else.
“Have you eaten?” she asked. “Or slept?”
I shrugged. “I’m fine, mama.”
She let out a shoulder-heaving sort of sigh that made it clear she knew the real answer – no. But I didn’t have the heart to say I hadn’t eaten because the intense betrayal I felt made my stomach queasy, or that because I hadn’t been able to help myself, and had found the sex tapes online, now I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing Darius screwing another woman.
“Get yourself cleaned up,” she told me. “And pack a bag. I’m taking you home, and you can stay with me and dad until you find a new place, okay?”
Again, I just nodded.
It hurt like hell to think about it, but the truth was, I didn’t really want to be here. Yes, this had been home for me and Darius, the house we bought together, the house I thought we’d eventually raise kids in.
Now, being here made my skin crawl.
Every inch
of this house was permeated with him.
So he can have it.
Keep your head held high.
That was a lesson my mother had drilled into me from a very early age. Through middle-school track meets and beyond, win or lose, no matter what, I was never supposed to “let my crown slip”, not in public.
It was a lesson I took to heart.
So much so that that it was something I became lauded for – professionalism and grace, being a good sport. Even when I was privately seething, I could put on a warm smile and tell a joke, shake hands with a conniving opponent, keep my cool in tough interviews. This was no different – or at least, I was trying my very best to convince myself of that as I walked onto the set of “From the Sidelines”, the sports talk show that held one of WAWG’s prized timeslots.
The greetings were warm from everyone I passed – cameramen, producers, crew. They acknowledged me just like usual, and I greeted them back in the same way, as if nothing had happened. But I could see the sympathy in their eyes, feel the “I’m so sorry” and “I can’t believe he did that to you” and “well, it’s his loss” just dying to spring from their mouths. There were other sentiments though, ones no one would express out loud to me.
She must not be good in bed.
Maybe she can’t cook.
I wonder what she did to make him cheat on her.
And hell… honestly, I wondered too. But I still managed to keep a smile on my face and kind words on my tongue. I was at work. This was my job. Even though the only thing I really felt like doing was taking the last of Darius’ golf clubs to the windows of his matte black on black Tahoe, my usually sunny disposition was where my “America’s Sweetheart” reputation had come from.
I’d already lost my pride to him – I wasn’t losing anything else.
“Wil, what on earth are you doing here?”
I stopped on my way into the green room for a cup of coffee to see Connie, one of WAWG’s execs, hurrying my way. She was followed in close succession by Sarita – the bad cop of their duo. Together, they were the HBIC around here, even though they weren’t “supposed” work directly on From the Sidelines. I wasn’t surprised to find them prowling around though – instead of delegating and sitting back like other execs, they were always putting their noses in something, and honestly becoming harder and harder to work with.
Determining Possession (Connecticut Kings Book 3) Page 1
