“I never cheated on you. I cheated with you!”
“Whatever. That has nothing to do with that bitch coming to my door telling me how she thought you would’ve told me about the two of you—”
“What?!”
More tears filled Milan’s eyes and streamed down her cheeks. She quickly flung them away. “That damn baby looked just like you!” She pointed into his face.
Kendu shook his head and said more to himself than to Milan, “I’m going to find this bitch and when I do, she’s dead.”
“How would you know where to find her if you don’t know who I’m talking about? You need to work on telling better lies!”
“What’s the bitch’s name?” he pressed.
“What? You know her damn name! Don’t play dumb!”
“I promise you, if I knew her name and I knew who she was, I would be leaving here right now, going to find her and fucking her up!”
“Whatever!”
“What the fuck is her name!” He clenched his jaw.
“You tell me; you’re the one sleeping with the bitch!”
“Do you even know her name?!”
“I don’t have to know her name to know you’re her baby’s daddy!”
“I have two babies: Aiyanna and KJ.”
“That baby looked exactly like you!”
“Did she tell you that was my motherfuckin’ baby?!” The veins in his neck stood out and his eyes bulged. “Answer me!”
“She didn’t have to say that! I know what the fuck you look like and I know what that damn baby looked like. White chicks are not just floating down the street with black babies unless there’s a black daddy attached to their asses! I’m sick of your shit! I’ve been putting up with it since I was eight and I’ve had enough!”
“Then maybe you need a damn change! Because I’m tired too. You’re accusing me of something I didn’t even do behind some bitch I don’t even know!”
“You know who she is!”
“I just told you that I didn’t!” Kendu walked up so close to Milan that she was forced to take steps backward, stopping when her head hit the wall. “You just let some random chick and her baby come up to you, call my name, and instead of you cussing her out and telling her to get the fuck away from here, you take a plane to come see me and ruin what the fuck we got?!”
“I handled her! And that’s right. I got my ass on the plane because I had to handle you!”
“Let me tell you something, Milan. I love you. I would die for you. But I will divorce your ass.”
“What?” Milan gasped. She expected to curse him, dig her way to his core and force him to feel the ache she’d been rocking in her chest since she laid eyes on that trick and that baby, but him threatening to divorce her was never on the agenda. If anything, that was her damn line. Yet, here they stood, locked in an intense stare that felt more like a test of their hearts than of their wills.
Milan sucked in a deep and painful breath, not knowing how she would force it to come out—would she bellow it out of her mouth or would she hold it and pass out? Her marriage flashed before her eyes. More tears slipped out. She wanted to believe him. She needed to believe. But her mind held on to the possibility that none of this was true. Her heart pounded.
She searched for words.
Nothing.
He wiped the stream of tears that covered her cheeks and for a moment they stood in toxic peace.
“I love you,” Kendu whispered, breaking the silence. “But I have to know that you trust me. I have to know that my wife will not believe anyone else over me—”
“Knott.” She called him by the childhood nickname she’d given him.
“I have to know that, Milan. Otherwise we don’t have anything.”
“But the cheating—”
“Have I ever cheated on you, Milan? Ever?”
Silence.
He continued, “And, yeah, I had a wife before you, but I was always in love with you—”
“Do you think I liked always being on the fuckin’ side?” She pushed him on the shoulder.
“I didn’t force that on you! You agreed to it. You played your damn position and that’s what the hell you need to do now. Play your damn position as my wife and stop acting like some insecure side jawn.”
“Fuck you!”
Kendu looked Milan over and said, “Fuck me? Is that how you really feel? So we’re done here? This is it?”
Fix it. Suppose he’s telling the truth.
Suppose he isn’t.
“Knott, I just—”
“Milan, I don’t want anybody else but you. You gotta know that. I love you. You and my kids are my world. I need you to believe that.”
Trust him.
I can’t.
Fix it.
“Knott, I just . . . I just . . . felt like I was losing everything.”
“I would never do anything to intentionally hurt you.” Kendu pressed his forehead into hers, softly kissing her on the lips. “I’ve never loved anyone the way that I love you.”
She kissed him back, slipping her tongue into his heated mouth.
“I’m sorry, Milan. I won’t lie to you again.” He lifted her up and laid her on the bed. “But you gotta know I would never cheat on you.”
I don’t know that.
But I want to know that.
Stop thinking.
Milan watched the moonlight slip between the eyes of the electronic miniblinds as Kendu undressed. His beautiful body, highlighted by protruding muscles, deliciously suckable pecks, and a dick so pretty that she grew a new appreciation and admiration every time she saw it. She ran her hands over her nipples and squeezed.
Kendu lifted her gown over her head, pushed her breasts together, and latched on to her chocolate nipples. He gave them one last kiss and pinch before he made his way down to the center of her belly, arriving at her shaved middle, slowly parting it, easing his tongue into it, and tasting her pussy—made butterscotch one tongue stroke at a time.
Milan felt her volcanic mountain preparing to erupt. She opened her eyes and swore she was in heaven. She had to be. Because the ecstasy that cocooned her body and caused her to thrust uncontrollably against Kendu’s mouth couldn’t have come from any other place.
“I want you to rub it on my face.” Kendu lay on the bed and Milan sat on his face. He dipped his fingers and tongue back into her wetness. Sucking her erotic lips into his mouth, squeezing her clit, and licking the sides of it. Her thighs shook, her pussy pumped, and sweet milk escaped from between her pink lips into his mouth and oozed onto his chin.
“Every time that I’m with you, that I feel you, that I taste you, I know that I’m home,” Kendu said, as he pulled Milan’s ass onto his shaft. She arched her back and held her head down and he spoke with every thrust and pound of his never-ending inches. “And don’t you ever let anybody”—he yanked her hair—“ever fuck that up.”
CHAPTER 24
CHAUNCI
Two Days Later . . .
In the year they’d been a couple, no moment between them had ever been this quiet.
Their times together were always chock-full of endless conversations. Laughter. Talks of their respective daughters. Reminiscing about the sweetness of yesterday and anticipating the promise of tomorrow. Their lovemaking had been filled with the sounds of yanking hair, ass clapping, shaft slapping, and pounding, until their bodies cried out in shivering screams of “I love you,” and panting whispers of “Jesus. . . .”
Now they sat in silence beneath the morning sun, in the center of a grassy Manhattan fork in the road known as Bryant Park, at a small bistro table, with the camera hovering over them. Chaunci looked to her left and Emory looked to his right, both watching the dance of New York City traffic.
“I can’t do this,” Emory said, and then turned to face Chaunci, who slowly turned her head toward him. She looked down and then locked into his stare. “It’s too much,” he said.
“What’s too much?”
&
nbsp; “This.” He stretched his arms out to each side and then brought them together with a clap of the hands. “We’re always on display. Always. We’re sitting in the middle of a public park, for Christ’s sake, and for what? Because this is where your producer told you to be? Will we ever get a private moment to discuss how fucked up our relationship has become? Or is this it? Our problems are made-for-TV drama. I’m so sick of this shit!”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to quit!”
“I can’t do that!”
“Well, then I can’t do this!” He pounded his fist into the table. “You can’t ever do anything I ask you to. Who disappears for four days straight without a word to her man? Had I done that, you’d be finished with me. But you, you have yet to explain where you were! And on top of that, the last time I saw you, you left me standing in the middle of the street!”
“You were making a scene. Like you are now. And you need to lower your voice and talk to me like I’m sitting in your face and not a block from you.”
“Where were you, Chaunci?”
“I told you! I was in France. My God, will you let it go?! How long are you going to focus on me being gone? I’m back now; can we deal with that?!”
“You are selfish as hell.”
“I resent that.”
“Join the club.”
“Emory, listen. I’m sorry that I left without saying anything to you, but I had to. I felt overwhelmed and crowded. And I just . . . I just needed to get away.”
“So, I’m crowding and overwhelming? That’s what you’re saying to me?”
“That’s not what I’m saying—”
“Then what are you saying? Because the way I’m feeling right now, there’ll be no wedding.”
“What?” Chaunci said. “So you’re calling the wedding off? Are you serious?”
“As serious as you were when you left me for four days without so much as a damned text message.”
Chaunci pushed an index finger into her left temple. “Didn’t I just apologize for that?! Would you get the hell over it? Damn! Do you understand that I’ve lost my company! That Grant Preston has stolen it from me!” Tears welled in her eyes. “I worked my ass off to go from a struggling writer, to one magazine, to ten different magazines, to being a publishing machine. Morgan Enterprises was my dream! And he just comes along and takes it from me, and is now sitting in my office running my company. And you’re supposed to be my future husband and instead of you asking me how I feel, you’d rather argue about bullshit!”
“So now my feelings are bullshit?”
“I never said that.”
“That’s exactly what you said. And as far as your company, of course I know about it, but not because you told me—I read it in the paper. All you’ve done lately is shut me out! You don’t talk to me. You don’t confide in me anymore. Your goddamn lawyer knows more about you than I do. Hell, are you fuckin’ him?”
“Don’t be ridiculous!”
“I’m not being ridiculous. Here I was calling hospitals, calling your assistant, a thousand times a day, and nothing. And where were you? In France. Working on not being overwhelmed!”
“How many times do I have to apologize? Damn it! Okay, I left town. I didn’t call you. I’m sorry. But. Please. Let. It. Go.”
“It’s not about you leaving town; it’s about you being inconsiderate of me! If you’re going through something you should’ve talked to me!”
“Every time I tried to talk to you, you would say shit like, ‘That’s business. Put your big girl panties on and deal with it.’ I don’t want to hear that shit!”
“No, you don’t want to hear the truth. You think my business doesn’t have its ups and downs?”
“A hundred-thousand-dollar cleaning business funded by a bank does not compare to a multimillion-dollar publishing empire financed by shareholders. I am not giving presentations while holding a dustpan and a broom in my boardroom.”
Emory hesitated and Chaunci knew by the look in his eyes that she’d shot an invisible round of bullets into him.
She sighed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. But, Emory, listen . . . I’m scared.” She let the tears glistening in her eyes fall. “I’m scared as hell. And I’m taking it out on the wrong people. I feel like I don’t know what to do. I know that what I did to you wasn’t right, but I can’t undo it. I can only ask you to please forgive me because I love you and I need you.”
Silence. Emory looked to be in deep thought as his eyes bounced around the park and his fingers danced an accordion on the table. He looked at Chaunci and stared through her.
“Would you say something?”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you forgive me. Say you love me. Say you’ll be here for me. I need you more now than I ever have.”
He stared back into the space. “You have to stop pushing me away.” He brought his eyes to meet hers. “You know that I’m here for you.” He wiped her tears. “But as much as you need me, I need you to talk to me. You don’t have to keep everything so bottled up.”
“I love you.” She stood up and walked over to him.
He stood up and pulled her into his embrace. “I love you, too.”
CHAPTER 25
BRIDGET
After being here for close to two hours waiting for a cast that had yet to arrive or even call, I was exasperated. I looked around the empty dining room before turning to my camera crew, who were all set up and ready to record the cast’s swanky, private lunch at Per Se, the most fabulous French establishment in all of New York City, and said, “These whores. Wear. Me. Out!” I took a deep breath and slowly released it through my nose. “But I refuse to let these bimbos make me sweat. I will keep cool. Remain calm and—” I spun on my heels and turned toward the door, observing Vera and Jaise chatting feverishly as they sashayed in.
“WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?!”
Vera and Jaise both stopped in their tracks. Looked at each other and then over to me. “Bridget, let me just add you to my list of who I’ll be getting straight today,” Vera said, then placed her clutch on the oblong, white-linen-covered table. “Don’t you ever in your damn life speak to me like that again. And I mean ever again. When I walk into the room you are to greet me with a ‘good morning,’ a ‘good afternoon,’ or a head nod.”
“My, my.” I grinned impishly. “Who pissed in your stiletto?” I clutched invisible pearls.
“Well, damn.” Journee sauntered in, her pale peach, chiffon minidress flowing with the sway of her stride. “Looks like I arrived on time.”
Jaise rolled her eyes and mumbled to Vera, “Grab your purse; the ghetto tramp just walked in.”
“Journee, dear,” I greeted her. “I don’t believe you’ve met Vera. You do know Jaise, don’t you?”
Journee cut her eyes at Jaise while turning to Vera and smiling. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”
“You as well,” Vera said. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Well, whatever you heard”—Journee shot a look at Jaise—“it’s not true. I’m much worse.”
Vera snickered and Jaise looked her over from head to toe. “Umm, excuse me,” Jaise said. “We don’t entertain wild beast.”
I turned and gave Carl the signal to zoom in.
Journee placed her purse on the table. “See, Jaise, I was going to be gracious and give you a pass.”
Sure you were.
“But you insist on fucking with me.”
Because that’s what she does. She fucks with everybody and then sings “Kumbaya.”
Journee carried on. “Now don’t make me step out of my Jimmy Choos—”
“You know what,” Vera interjected, “I don’t think you need to do that. Because if you do, I’ll have to get involved and I am not in the mood. I didn’t wear the right shoes. This is a limited edition Chanel dress. We just met. And you seem to be the kind of chick I would like.”
“I respect yo
u and Jaise being friends,” Journee said, “but if you get into it, I’ll just have to open two cans of whoop ass instead of one. Now you seem like I might like you too, but your girlfriend is a whole other story.”
“Look,” Vera said, “I know Jaise can get out of pocket.”
“Excuse you.” Jaise batted her mink lashes.
“And bourgeois,” Vera carried on.
“You call it bourgeois. I call it manners and speaking correctly, not butchering the English language with truckloads of ‘ain’ts,’ ‘motherfuckers,’ and ‘bitches.’ ”
Vera took her right thumb and index finger and made the signal for Jaise to zip it. “Didn’t we discuss you being quiet sometimes and listening to what other people had to say?” She mumbled, “I got this.” Vera turned back to Journee and pointed at Jaise. “Now that bitch is mouthy, but that’s my damn girl, and unless we’re going to get this party started by kicking each other’s asses, then I think we should all take a step back, have a seat, and start over.”
“Excuse you, Oprah,” I said to Vera, as they silently agreed and took their seats. “But this is reality TV and if Gayle needs to get her ass kicked, don’t you dare stop it. Now, let’s just move on because I feel my blood boiling and I will not let you three get under my skin. Besides, I need to show you all something before Milan walks in.” I pulled an article out of my briefcase and handed each of them a copy. “Read that.”
They each read the two-page article intensely.
“Oh no, this bitch-ass whore didn’t!” Jaise said, slapping the article on the table. “Milan has lost her damn mind. This interviewer should’ve kicked her ass! I ain’t never seen no shit like this! Oh, this cannot go to print!” She snapped her fingers. “Someone get the editor in chief on the phone.”
“Wow, Jaise. For someone who doesn’t believe in butchering the English language, you certainly just slaughtered it.” I laughed. “And besides, they’re running this baby next month. Just be thankful we got an advance copy of it.”
Jaise carried on. “How can this bitch say I don’t know how to keep a man and class me as an angry black woman?! I am far from angry! And for her information my husband is home with me. How’s that for angry! How dare Milan say that I’m angry! Have you seen her viral YouTube video where she cussed King Cheatin’ Ass out for whoring around?!” She looked at Journee. “You hit that damn nail on the head!”
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