“Youare coming to my house tonight, I’m cooking dinner.”
“What are you microwaving? Or ordering?” I asked sarcastically.
“Girl you trippin’. I could have been a chef had I not gone into tech. Just be ready later tonight. I’ll have Lloyd come and get you around seven.”
“Will do.” We talked a few more minutes then we hung up.
Iwas in the back of Titan’s Bentley as Lloyd drove up a long driveway that turned into a large circle driveway. My mouthalmost hit the floor when Titan’s home came into view, it was a two-story Mediterranean style mansion and there were lights coming from everywhere. For some odd reason, I wondered how much Titan’s light bill was as Lloyd stopped and parked in front of the wide walkway that led to Titan’s door. His entire driveway was made out of stone pavers that were strategically placed to make a checkered pattern. Lloyd got out and opened my door. He smiled as he helped me out the car, and as soon as my feet touched the pavement, he was leaving. I stood in the middle of Titan’s driveway and looked over the beautifully manicured landscape. Titan also had two big ass garages on each side of his house, and I wondered how many cars he owned as I walked up the walkway to his front door.
I walked across his porch to the ornate black iron and glass double doors and there were windows everywhere I looked from outside of the house. I could see from the arched window over the door that there was a large chandelier in the foyer. I was definitely impressed with what I saw. After I observed the outside of the house, I finally reached out to ring the doorbell, but Titan opened the door before I could press it.
“I was wondering when you were going to finally ring the bell,” Titan said with a big smile on his face.
“I had to admire the beauty of your home first.”
“Well, I rather admire the beauty of you; come in,” he said, moving to the side. When I stepped into the foyer, I heard Titan cuss under his breath.
“Huh? You say something?” I asked smugly, looking over my shoulder. I knew the dress I was wearing tonight would get a reaction from Titan, because I made sure it was short, backless, and most importantly, tight in all the right places.
“I was just admiring your dress,” he said, keeping his eyes on my ass.
“Oh yeah? What do you think?” I asked, spinning slowly.
“I think we need to hurry up and eat so I can get to my favorite dessert, caramel de Bailey.” He grabbed his dick and adjusted himself, and I felt wetness pool between my legs when I saw the massive outline of it through his gray sweatpants.
He then came to me and held my hand and walked me down the hall to his large kitchen. He pulled my chair out and I sat at the large marble island and watched Titan’s sexy ass maneuver around the kitchen as he finished cooking. I admired the way his shoulders flexed as he moved the pan to sauté asparagus, and how nice his ass looked when he bent over to take the salmon out of the oven, and how his biceps tightened when he popped the cork on the wine.
“You keep looking at me like that we’ll have to skip dinner altogether.” His voice made me jump because I didn’t notice that he stopped what he was doing and was now looking at me. Instead of being embarrassed about eye fucking him, I just shrugged and accepted the glass of wine from his outstretched hand. A few minutes later he was placing my meal in front of me, and I had to admit that it looked as good as it smelled.
Once he was seated next to me at the kitchen island, he held my left hand and said grace before we began eating. Our conversation was light and about random topics. I learned that he was born and raised in Texas and was the first in his family to go to college, which is why he started the charity to raise money for first generation college students. He told me that his mom and dad were still married and were celebrating their 36thwedding anniversary in a couple of months and invited me to come.
The topic of marriage made me remember what Marlow told me about Titan being divorced. I wanted to wait and see if he would bring up the subject because I wanted to enjoy “the honeymoon” phase that Marlow was talking about, but I wasn’t built like that. If I wanted to know something, I had to ask. If hedidn’t want to talk about it after I asked then I would let it go for now.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were married before?” I blurted the question out once he stopped talking.
I probably could have asked the question better, but I didn’t feel like beating around the bush. When my question was out I saw his whole body tense like a shock of electricity went up his spine and his hand that was holding mine clenched to the point that I had to pinch him with my free hand to let go. Once he released my hand, he rubbed both his hands down his face and let out a deep breath. The air seemed to have left the room and was now replaced by tension so thick you could cut it with a knife. I thought the question was reasonable, but it was obvious that the subject pissed him off. I spoke again when he continued to sit there as though warring with some internal conflict.
“Marlow always do background checks on potential clients to make sure we’re not getting mixed up in bad business and she told me you had a nasty divorce.” My voice was even and calm as though I was trying to calm down a scared animal that was ready to attack because Titan’s whole vibe was on edge now.
“Nasty is a nice way to put it, but the divorce wasn’t the only thing that was nasty, the fucking relationship was too,” he said through clenched teeth. He was about to drink the rest of his wine but stopped, “I’m going to need something stronger,” he mumbled before he got up and went to the bar on the other side of the kitchen.
I watched as he filled two short crystal glasses with dark liquor, and when he returned to the island, he set one down in front of me and gulped his. I didn’t drink dark liquor, but the way he was acting right now, I would be an idiot to mention that now.
“Eva and I met our freshman year of college, but we didn’t make things official until the following year and then we gotengaged the year after we graduated. We got married two years after that because I started my first business and was focused on that. I worked a lot and at first my long hours weren’t a problem because she claimed my ambition and drive is what attracted her to me.” He chuckled, but it wasn’t humorous, more like disbelief.
“Anyway, we got married and three years into the marriage everything was going well, or so I thought. Suddenly, she began complaining about how I wasn’t home, so I changed my schedule and hired more people to alleviate my workload, and shortly after that, she began acting weird. She would take calls in the other room, but she worked and developed software for a Healthcare company for their electronic medical records, so a lot of the things she worked on were confidential. Since I also worked in tech, we always discussed business away from each other to avoid any conflicts of interest, so her talking in another room didn’t raise any red flags. But then she began staying out late and told me it was for work.”
“My dad told me she was shifty, too sneaky, and my mom never liked her but there weren’t enough signs for me to confront her about anything, and I wanted to be married. We started to argue one day because, after I made changes to be home more, I felt like she wasn’t meeting me halfway.” He took another long sip of his drink.
“When she got pregnant a year later, I was the happiest man on earth. I was at every doctor visit. Hell I even scheduled a twelve-week paternity leave to be with her once our baby was born. Then…. She left me. I came home from work and her shit was gone, there was no note, I had no missed calls, nothing. It was like she vanished. I called her, and her number was disconnected. I called her job, and they told me she put in her two weeks’ notice because her husband got a job offer in Tennessee. Well, I wasn’t aware I was going to Tennessee, so I was confused. At the time I was more worried about her and thebaby than I was angry. I tried to call everyone we knew but no one knew anything.”
“She sent me an email a week later that said she was ok. That was all she said. When I tried emailing back, the address was inactive. I was about to hire a private detective after she disappeared to at least find out where she went because she wasn’t using credit cards. About two months later I got a call from her cousin in Tennessee that I met once at our wedding, and she told me Eva was staying with her. After she gave me her address I hopped on the first flight to Nashville. When I showed up she answered the door and had a baby in her arms.”
“I could tell from the look on her face that she didn’t know I was coming and since our baby wasn’t due for another three months, I assumed it was someone else’s baby she was holding. But when I looked past her and into the house, I saw her cousin who called me, and her grandmother had this look of pity on their faces. Her grandmother was Jamaican, and when she began yelling at Eva, I couldn’t understand anything because they were speaking patois, but I had a feeling what it was about.” Titan’s hands were trembling, and my heart was breaking for him and when I tentatively reached my hand out, Titan grasped it tightly and held it like he needed the support.
“Eva told me right there on her grandmother’s doorstep that I wasn’t the father of our baby. I had no words because my damn heart was shattering, and it took everything in me not to fall to my knees and cry. I was in complete disbelief. You hear about shit like that happening, but I never thought it would happen to me. Instead of choking the life out of Eva, I walked away and got on the next flight back home. I didn’t hear from her ass again until she served me with divorce papers and a copy of the paternity results that proved I wasn’t the father. But the kicker was that she had the fucking audacity to want half of everything. She even wanted me to pay a ridiculous amount in alimony tosupport her and the child because she claimed that I didn’t allow the father to be a part of the child’s life after she told me I was not the father. She said I was mentally and emotionally abusive. That woman was trying to destroy my name, so she could get more in the divorce settlement. She had all these emails and text messages that were from a fake account that she tried to say were from me and the court was believing her. Thank God for my family and my computer knowledge. My family all wrote sworn statements to the courts that said she was a liar. I hired someone to trace the emails she created, and they traced the IP addresses back to people she knew, and my brother Torrence was still in law school at the time, but he collaborated with my attorney and found documents that showed I wasn’t in town on the dates she was claiming I was abusing her.
“The divorce was finalized a little over three years ago, and in the end, she didn’t get a dime from me. Our divorce was brutal because of all the lies that were unearthed about her and the lies she tried to tell about me. My brother said I should sue for defamation, but I wanted it all to be over.”
