The caption: DaVinci Bryns and mystery woman leave his annual charity gala. Sources say she’s the guest of honor and possibly his new girlfriend.
That was a week ago, and it hadn’t stopped since. Every day, a new post. A new angle. A new comment section full of people I’d never met having opinions about my life, our life. Some of them were supportive. Most of them were... not.
Who is she?
She’s cute, I guess.
He could do better.
Gold digger alert.
She doesn’t even look like his type.
I’d made the mistake of reading the comments once. Never again because they had me ready to drop a pin to my location or request theirs to see if they could pop all that shit in my face.
But here’s the thing—I didn’t regret it. Not the gala. Not the attention. Not him. Because the alternative? The idea of walking away from DaVinci because I was scared of what people would say? That made me sick to my stomach.
Besides, the man had beaten Keith’s ass and made him apologize to me. Then took me home and fucked me so good I’d forgotten any reason I’d given to keep from enjoying this. We went round for round until we were spent, and that morning we ate bagels, sipped coffee, and fucked some more on his back patio.
So yeah. I could handle some internet trolls.
What I couldn’t handle was facing Tessa and Sametra, which is why I’d been avoiding them all week. But they’d cornered me this morning with a group text that said:
Gym. Noon. Don’t make us come to your house.
So here I was, at the gym, stretching on a mat while they both stared at me like I owed them money, and payment was due.
“You look different,” Tessa said, squinting at me like a jeweler inspecting diamonds.
“I look the same. Don’t start.”
“No, you don’t look a damn bit the same. You look well-rested… relaxed. The smile is wide and shit. What's tea?”
Sametra snorted. “Just say she got some good dick because we know this glow. I ain't mad at it.”
I threw a towel at her. “Y’all are annoying.”
“Can we not do this here?” I glanced around the gym, but it was relatively empty. Just us and a few other people, minding their own business.
“We absolutely can do this here,” Tessa said, dropping down onto the mat next to me. “Because you’ve been dodging us for a week, and we deserve answers.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything,” Tessa said, settling onto the mat across from me. “Start from the beginning. The gala. The dress. The honor. All of it. Because unlike Sametra, I wasn’t there, and I need details.”
Tessa had to work the night of the gala, and I hated that she had to miss the celebration of me. My cheeks grew flushed thinking about the gala and what he had done.
“Girl, it was beautiful,” Sametra said, jumping in before I could. “The dress alone was worth the price of admission. And when DaVinci gave that speech about her? I was crying.”
“You cry at everything now,” I said. “You’re pregnant.”
“Still. It was sweet.” Sametra looked at Tessa. “And then Keith’s dumb ass showed up drunk and tried to ruin everything.”
“I heard about that,” Tessa said, her eyes lighting up. “What happened exactly?”
I told her the quick version. Keith showed up drunk, tried to act a fool, and DaVinci shut it down. Fast. Clean. No theatrics. Then he dragged him off and made him apologize to me.
“Wait,” Tessa said. “He made Keith apologize to you? To your face?”
