by Falon Gold
“It’s okay, Blake. I told Camron that Layla, Sasha, and Bailey…” I throw up a little in my mouth. “…can stay here with me.”
Then I side eye Camron, signaling for him to amen with me before Blake gets any more heated. He doesn’t hesitate.
“The woman of the house has spoken, Blake, so she’s not going anywhere. Stay for dinner so we all can talk.”
I’m not sure I did the right thing covering for Camron, but the smile unfurling on his lips is almost a reward in itself. Panty-freaking-dropping! Should be licensed as lethal. He kisses my knuckles, making matters worse. I begin to fan myself. Astrid grins.
Blake steps to Camron. “I want to know exactly what you’ve done to get Amari here. She wanted nothing to do with you twenty-four hours ago.”
An ex-cop and a practicing martial artist stand toe to toe. Both over six feet tall. Neither backing down. Carmon pulls on my hand, relocating me behind him. That’s definitely protecting me from incoming blows. Everything is going downhill fast. Nothing good is going to come of the truth at this point.
Then do something… like lie.
I swat at Camron’s forearm, resume my spot beside him. “Stop it, you two. Blake, I’m fine. Here of my own free will. Thank you for your concern though.”
Astrid jerks on Blake’s blue, long-sleeved dress shirt over black slacks. “Blake, let it go. I don’t think Amari’s being held hostage exactly.”
“Maybe not, baby, but Camron’s already admitted to doing something illegal to get her here. It’s just a matter of time before I find out what it is. Then I’ll be back, Camron. And it won’t be with handcuffs, cousin. You’re not getting off that easy. If anything happens to Amari while she’s—”
“Blake, it’s okay.” I couldn’t let him finish. Don’t want to be an ear or eye witness nor the source that tears the cousins apart. “If anything happens here I can’t handle, I’ll call Astrid. I have her number.”
Lot of good that’s going to do you when you don’t have your phone.
Blake doesn’t know that, but he does an appraisal of me from head to foot. “If she gets one scratch on her—”
“I hear you, Blake,” discharges from Camron like a firearm blasting off.
“Good. Because I’ll be the next set of consequences and repercussions you suffer through because of Amari.”
“What consequences and repercussions did I cause, Camron?” I’m the one still reeling from those stemming from quitting my job. Haven’t had time to cause trouble for anyone else. Not much anyway.
Camron peers down at me. “Nothing hurts worse than hurting you and being without you, Amari. I would’ve done anything to be good enough for you.”
That’s how he feels? Jaw hitting the floor now.
I slam it right back shut. “You’re good enough, Camron.”
“No, I’m not, Amari.” He comes across with so much conviction, I have to believe that he believes it, then he cuts to Blake and Astrid again. “Are you two staying for dinner?”
I wonder if he came after me for the sole purpose of me making him a better man for me. And if he did…
Tallying up how much I’ve royally fucked up with him gives me a bad case of the vapors. I paw at the inside of Camron’s elbow with my free hand, needing an anchor to this moment. It’s look like I’m fawning all over him. That’s better than appearing to be about to faint for ruining more chances than I knew I had with him. A bitter pill to swallow, and my throat refuses to.
Chapter Seven
~Camron~
Blake shakes his head. His disapproval is a living, breathing being in the entrance hall with us. No doubt a setback in reforming the full bond we developed then lost as children. To get it back, I’d transport New York to Timbuktu piece by piece, but I won’t chalk Amari up to the girl that got away to pacify Blake and anyone else.
I need this time with her before I let her move on to a man who deserves her. I’ll take on high water and Blake combined to keep her here for the time being. If he wants to know what I’ve done to ensure Amari is mine for however long it takes her to realize I have nothing of hers, not even her heart, he’ll have to stay for dinner.
Amari lays her head on my arm, an Oscar-winning performance of the doting girlfriend. “I need to go to my room and take care of some things, Blake and Astrid. Will you come back tomorrow?”
I glance down at her, not liking how she sounds distant and down suddenly. I wrap my arm around her. She nuzzles the side of my chest with her nose then stills, with her eyes closed, neck working overtime as if she’s trying to get something down that just won’t go.
Astrid nods. “We can do that, Amari. Blake, we need to get to the hotel now if you’re not staying here to make BJ a bottle. If he starts crying, he becomes just your son until he isn’t.”
Blake smooches Astrid’s cheek, while evil-eying me. “Okay, baby. Let’s go. I’m taking your jet home the day after tomorrow, Camron, and keeping it in case Amari needs us to get back here quickly.”
“Consider it a wedding present, Blake. If you need me to run interference with Ashley tomorrow, let me know.”
Amari and I disconnect so I can walk them out. In the foyer alone, she looks as if she’s been forsaken. Sad. Maybe Astrid can come visit more. I’ll certainly suggest it after Blake has cooled down. Once he and Astrid are in the car with Ernesto, who’ll drop them off at the Ritz-Carlton before going home himself, I lock the door. Amari windmills inside the circle of Tiffany vases, instinctively following them ascending the stairs. She doesn’t really need an escort. They lead right to her room, and I think she’s aware of that.
She stoops over to finger the petals, completely disengaged at this point. There’s a faraway look in her expression, as if she’s here in only body. Well, we know how much I hate that, but maybe everything I’ve had moved in her room will reconnect her to the living. To me. Because everything I say and do pushes her further away.
At the top of the staircase, the vases veer into the west wing where our separate bedrooms are behind two sets of double doors. Bailey and crew are thankfully entrenched in the east wing.
Amari reaches her room at the end of the wide, empty hallway. This is one time I’m not going to open her doors for her. She turns the knobs slowly, allowing the lyrics to Maxwell’s Pretty Wings to be carried into the corridor on a soft breeze blowing in from her balcony.
“Good Lord,” she utters then walks inside. Shocked. Good. “This room is the size of two apartments in my building.”
I wouldn’t be amazed if she expected me to stick her in a broom closet after her first meeting with Layla, Sasha, and Bailey. A total catastrophe, but they followed my instructions to the letter for the quick makeover for Amari’s homecoming thankfully. It would’ve been my breaking point if they hadn’t. And maybe Amari’s too.
“I should give you a tour of the house before you…” Shut me out even more for the night. “…go to sleep. If the lingering paint fumes are too much, you can stay in my room tonight. I can camp in my office. There’s a couch in there.”
I can’t be sure if she’s heard a thing I said while surveying the mahogany, California King canopy bed at the back wall, freshly painted in eggplant copied from the floral comforter. Potted palm trees are scattered about the room. Creeping ivy snakes out of their pots on the giant nightstands to tease the mosquito netting crowning the bedposts and throw pillows in every shade of purple.
Then she sniffs the air, and it’s too damn cute.
“I don’t smell anything. Just tell me where the light switch is and describe the rest of the house for me.”
I never know what she’s going to do or say next. Don’t want to miss a thing, good or bad, so I lean against the wall between the opened bedroom doors and the oversized dresser. These moments will have to carry me into the next lifetime.
“The dials for the lights is on a pad behind me. The first is for the overhead light.”
She points upwards. “That’s not a light. That’s
a humongous chandelier that would spotlight the whole property.”
“Good, you won’t need your glasses when reading or making shoe designs.”
She whirls around on me. “How do you—”
“I know most of what I need to know about you, Amari, and you tend to doodle when you’re bored on the jet. The middle dial is for the lamps beside the bed, third for the ones on the wall above your lounging area. Fourth for the heated hardwood floors. The remote controls for the stereo and TV in the armoire are in the nightstand.”
She heads toward the couch and loveseat in front of the French doors. On each side are immovable glass panes for the live plants hooked to chains strung from the ceiling. She changes course, gliding across the room to the farthest nightstand. It’s like she walks on water when she moves. Graceful. Serene. Angelic. And probably upset if she’s discovered what I think she has. Nothing I do for her is right. Whatever she does next is going to be entertaining, frustrating, and might lead to another one of those times Blake has warned me about; giving her space to sort through her feelings and let my fuck-ups become foggy to her.
She picks up a ceramic elephant, pushes the ivy stems aside, to trace the rim of the planter. “This is the same planter I nicked with a trowel. This is my plant. Are all of them mine?”
“Yes. I didn’t want them to die because you’re too stubborn to have someone water them.”
Yeah, that’s going to rub her the wrong way.
Should’ve just nodded my head. “I thought you’d be happy I had them brought here, along with some of your other things. Your furniture and breakables are in storage.”
“Is this why you told me not to take anything with me? So you could empty out my apartment?”
“Yes. I’ve been thoroughly reprimanded by Blake for letting you carry the basket during our trip in Arrow. I was trained to let a woman be her own woman, until she asks for help, but I’ve decided you can’t even tote keys when I’m around. I just don’t want to hear Blake’s mouth. It’s like listening to wolves baying at the damn moon.”
She laughs with her whole body. “Camron, first of all, thank you. These plants are like my children. At this rate, I’ll probably never have any. And second, it’s the heavy-lifting Blake was talking about. Not things like keys or purses… or phones. You could’ve told me this from the start instead of letting me think my things were going to be a part of a free-for-all for crooks.”
Will I ever get tired of hearing her say ‘thank you?’ Nope. If she’s happy, then I am too. I get more comfortable in my position, crossing my feet and arms.
“I probably should have, still learning, so forgive me. Your purse is in the closet with your other things. The girls hung just about everything up, but you can put what you want in the dresser and tallboy with your underthings.”
She sobers up. The temperature drops. I rub at the fine hair raising up on the back of my neck. Shouldn’t have mentioned the other women.
She puts the plant back, jeans outlining her ass, triggering flashbacks of being imprisoned in her body that’s wall-to-wall tight. Too warm. Almost too wet. Exactly right for quickies. Not so much for when I’ll want to make love to her all night. My cock is at full mast, demanding I fuck her for however long it lasts. Haven’t gotten nearly enough of her—powerless to resist her striptease in the car. Supposed to have taken it slow with her. If she so much as twitches now, I’ll be on her again.
“Do you want kids, Amari?” I’d have asked in the car, but I was already inside her raw before I thought about it, needing to punish her for lying to me.
Hurting me.
I ended up punishing myself with her heat and snugness of her body that she forced me to endure every time her tunnel closed around me.
“Yes, I do want kids, Camron. Very much.”
Wrong answer. She’ll have the first in nine months if I stay here any longer.
“I should go.” I straighten up to walk out.
Amari props her hands on her hips. “Tell the witches I said thank you for supervising the placement of my underwear. Although, I’m sure they’re not up to their standards, I’ll still piss them off.” Firecracker. The roof isn’t going to last long with all of them here. And I don’t want to blow up with it.
“Amari, I couldn’t give a shit what they think about anything. I just couldn’t be in two places at one time. Would rather be with you than anywhere else. I called Bailey for decorating advice yesterday, and she volunteered her and her henchwomen services. I answered her call at your apartment because I needed a moving company on short notice and to get you to your parents’ house for dinner at a reasonable time. Yes, I get I should’ve called a professional now, but Bailey was available to delegate to at the eleventh hour, had a designer on speed dial who she promised could perform miracles, and she could be here to keep you company when I can’t. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t deal with women in plural unless I’m at a fundraiser, and I had no idea they’d act as children when we arrived. You’re welcomed to kick them out when you get ready. Just let me know when.”
I swipe a hand down my face, utterly worn out from trying to appease Amari, yet still thinking of more ways to make her want me even after we’re both six feet under. Apparently, I don’t know when to quit striving for something once I put my mind to it.
“Camron, stop stressing. I’m not blaming you for their behavior. That’s on them as grown women whether you slept with them or not. This suite is beautiful by the way, but don’t do that to me again.”
For a moment, everything is still. No music plays from the wall CD player over the bed. The draft from the French door dies down. The air condenses. It’s as if everything is hiding from something that’s coming any minute now. It is, my three thousand four hundred and fifty third failure with Amari in one day. Might as well get it over with.
“Don’t do what exactly this time, sweetheart?”
“That! You switch up on me. Ice cold one minute, and then you’re so fucking sweet that my teeth ache. Just be the monster to me so I’m not stuck in love with you after you throw me away in… eighty-nine days.”
She’s counting too.
Just not high enough, and she doesn’t know how to take me. Huh.
I grin. “Stop protecting yourself from me, Amari.”
It’ll be so much easier to fall in love with me if she just lets her shields down. Tony Toni Tone begins to croon That’s All I Ask of You from the system in the four corners of the room, as if the chart-topping guy group knew I needed cosigners.
“I can’t stop protecting myself from you now, Camron.” Now? When has she not?
“You can, and I can wait until you do.”
“Shit, you’re patient too?”
“Yes, baby.”
“Well, that plus the smile on your face frightens the hell out of me.” At least she’s being honest.
I’ll do her the same service. "I should scare you, woman. I’ll find you in the morning for breakfast. Night, Amari.”
You should’ve stayed and fucked her, dummy.
True, but it’s not solving anything, and I need to plan my next attack.
She’s given me the element of surprise, and doesn’t know it. Despite what I promised her in the car—to let her go—it’s not a choice anymore. There’s a distinct possibility that I can give my dying campaign for her heart new life. I have one-hundred-seventy-nine days to win her. Hopefully, there won’t be blood or tears shed on either side before.
********
~Amari~
“Night, Camron.”
He closes the doors quietly behind him, and what am I doing? Smiling like a goddamn lunatic. If ever I’ve saw a man about to go to all-out war for something he wants, Camron is it. And he’s coming for me… again. Soon. I can feel it. I’m not leaving anything to chance though, which means my family still needs to be counselled about their financials. I’ll have to let them in on my secret then swear them all to secrecy. Camron’s not a man to be trifled with when h
e’s on a mission, or his back is up.
“I need my phone.”
He didn’t stick around long enough to designate which shut doors located catty- corner to each other are the closet. The first one yields a bathroom right out of a spa. Oh, my damn!
Sections of small mosaic blocks surround the standalone octagon shower, sunken jacuzzi, and expensive bath products neatly lined on his and her sinks, along with a makeup line that matches my skin tone perfectly. It’s unavailable at the market on the corner of my block, so I didn’t buy them.
Fortunately, my hygienic things were relocated to under the 'her' side of the cabinet. Postponing a hot soak in lavender in the jacuzzi with jets makes me a little irritable, but there’s only one more door. Get to it, Amari.
Walk-in doesn't do the closet justice. I explore the vast space with a vanity set for an adult in the back corner, padded benches in the center, and wall-shelving for shoes and purses.
"I could move all my furniture in here and... damn, Amari, you don't have anywhere to call your own anymore."
Regret seeps in—I gave up so much willingly in order not to lose everything, but what's gone defined me. My home. My independence. My...
A tag peeking from between two shirts on environmental-friendly bamboo hangers catches my eye. I don't own anything I haven't worn.
"Vera Wang! I buy Faded Glory and Levi's." Then I single out more tags.
Twelve-hundred dollar Versace shredded jeans. Three-thousand-dollar peep-toe Manolo winged-heels. Five-hundred-dollar Gucci purse.
"Bitch! Layla moved her stuff in here anyway!"
Somebody’s about to get it.
I break for the door. Behind it, the purse I left in my apartment squats humbly in a slot, light reflecting off the set of keys in front of it. Oh, I bet those witches went through it. My car key is missing, but there’s a BMW key in its place. In the same second I spread my fingers toward the bag, my phone vibrates in it.
"Hey, Mama. Just listen to…”
“Amari, you better be fine, girl.”
