But when Vince began running up those stairs, she didn’t stand there like some scared side piece the way that butler seemed to think she was. She hurried behind Vince. She wasn’t able to take those stairs two at a time - her legs weren’t long enough - but she was able to move just as fast. She wanted to hear what was going on straight from the horse’s mouth, rather than what Vince chose to tell her after the fact.
She had to see this chick, and hear her explanation, for herself.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
She moved so fast that she made it upstairs just behind Vince. And she followed him across the landing and into a room around the corridor on the left side of the stairs. When he swept open the door, they entered a large bedroom. Lying on that bed was a tall white woman uncovered and completely naked. Ricki could hardly believe what she was seeing.
But it was clear to her from jump that this woman was no casual girlfriend no matter how Vince tried to spin it (if he tried at all). But this chick had to have some serious balls to be this bold. Or was this how Vince rolled?
“Vincent, darling,” she said with a grand smile on her face when she saw him enter that bedroom. “I knew you’d eventually come home.”
“What are you doing here, Cecily?”
“What do you think? I came to see you,” she said. But her eyes, like the eyes of that butler downstairs, immediately looked past Vince and fixated on Ricki. “Who’s that?”
“Get out of this bed,” Vince said to the woman he called Cecily, “and get out of my house. You know better than this!”
“Better than what?” she asked. “A girlfriend can’t visit her boyfriend’s home all of sudden?”
“You’re not my girlfriend and you know it!”
“That’s news to me,” she said firmly.
But when she said those words, something snapped inside of Vince. It was as if seeing Cecily claim ownership of him, even if it was nothing more than a lust relationship, would expose the kind of man he truly was. Which, he knew, wasn’t thekind of man Ricki needed. He hurried to her side, grabbed her by her long arms, and snatched her out of his bed.
“What are you doing?” she cried out as he grabbed her. “Stop treating me like this.” Then she added: “You told me to come!”
When Cecily said those words, it seemed to remind Vince that she wasn’t lying. He always had a woman come spend time with him whenever he was at his home in Connecticut. Or in DC too for that matter. Although all the drama with Ricki had taken him out of his routine, Cecily reminded him just that quickly that she was an invited guest. He told her to come up and spend a few days with him. He told her that before he left DC.
He rubbed his forehead. He knew he should have apologized to her for treating her so harshly, but she knew that wasn’t his style either. “Just get dressed,” he said to her with an exhausted voice. “Go back to DC.”
Cecily was hurt, Ricki could tell. “You’re throwing me out of a house you invited me to come into because ofher? How dare you treat me this way!”
But Vince was confused. “What?” How would she know about Ricki? “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about that floozie behind you!”
Vince quickly turned around. And that was when he saw that Ricki had followed him up those stairs and into that bedroom. He was so filled with rage that he hadn’t even considered the possibility that she’d want to see for herself what was going on.
But when he saw that look in her eyes, as if any hope she might have had of them ever getting together on a more permanent basis was squashed forever, his heart dropped. “Rasheda,” he said with desperation in his voice.
But Ricki didn’t want to hear it. “You don’t have to leave on my account,” she said to the woman. “I’m out.” And she hurried out of that bedroom.
“I’m out, she says like she’s some rockstar. Who does she think she is?”
Vince looked at Cecily with anger in his eyes. “Get dressed and get out!” he said to her and then hurried out behind Ricki. “Rasheda?” he yelled out as he hurried. “Ricki!”
But she was already rushing down the stairs. She was just that nimble and fast. Vince had to nearly racetrack run to get down those stairs and toward that front door before Ricki could hurry out of it. He made it down the stairs and across the foyer just as she had flung that door wide open to leave.
He slammed it back shut. “She’s not my girlfriend,” he said as quickly as he could say it to her.
Ricki turned and looked at him. Their bodies were less than an inch apart. She had turned to tell him she didn’t care. It had nothing to do with her. She was so over this drama!
But as soon as her big brown eyes looked into his big green eyes, she knew that wasn’t true at all. She did care. It had everything to do with her. “What is she to you then?” she asked him.
Vince stared into Ricki’s eyes. What was he doing? If he cared at all for this girl he would let her walk on out that door and have Baines drive her back to Milton to be with her family. He was too old and too entrenched in his ways to be of any good for her. He was a man who liked variety, and always had, when he knew she wanted nothing to do with a man like him with his varied tastes and needs. She was far better off without him.
But then why couldn’t he just let her go? Why was he so insistent on making her stay? “She’s an acquaintance of mine,” he said to her.
