At their compassionate stares, tears crowded my eyes, because they knew me, knew my situation at home. My biggest regret was giving into Mother’s pleading on my return from Germany and staying with her. While I despaired over her lifestyle, at least she wasn’t delving into mine when I lived on my own, and now here I was.
“What did she do or say now?” Ila asked softly.
Blinking back my tears, I told them everything. “Mother waylaid me as I was leaving and said…she said something about how I shouldn’t give thegoodsaway for nothing—to make sure I had the ring on my finger and a hefty, iron-tight prenup signed before sleeping with a player like him again. Except, I didn’t know War was standing right behind me—”
“What?” Both Ila and Ray gasped in unison, eyes wide.
“He heard everything,” I whispered.
Swallowing hard, I leaned against the basin. “Anyway, everything just went from bad to worse once back at the apartment. I tried to explain things to him, but he…he said he couldn’t deal with it and walked out. I mean, I know he had to see his trainer…” I swiped my wet eyes with the back of my hand and met my friends’ worried stares.
Ila tore tissues from the dispenser and handed them to me.
“I can’t do this anymore. I just can’t.” I squashed the tissues I held. “My self-esteem is not even ground level anymore but buried six feet down. I didn’t have just Craig cheating on me, also Steven in college, and my first boyfriend in high school. But War, he’s different, and now…” I shook my head, unable to voice the dread churning inside my skull over him leaving me for good.
“Did you talk to him about this?” Ray asked. “Tell him your fears?”
“Show him the mess I am?” God, no. “Besides, why would he even want to stay? Would your guys stick around if you had a mother like mine?”
“Well, I came close, though in a different situation,” Ray said with a wry grimace. “Jack’s grandmother, in my case. She didn’t think I was good enough for him, had someone else for him to marry—a merger of their companies. And she threatened me. Yeah, it wasn’t a good time. I nearly made the worst decision ever and let her win, but thank God I came to my senses in time.”
Right. I never got to hear the entire story of what led to their Vegas wedding.
Ray sighed and continued. “Anyway, after Ila’s wedding, he told his grandmother about us and even showed her the prenup.” She rolled her eyes. “The money was all she cared about. He gave me all his shares in Blackstone Inc., his grandmother’s company, even though I wanted none of it.”
Despite my despair, a small smile broke free. “Good for you.”
“Great. Now, go get your man and make things right. I took a chance because I love Jack.”
“And I did too, Char,” Ila said softly. “Devyn—when I saw him and my cousin together, going at it in his study, it broke me. But I gave Max and me a chance, and it’s the best thing I’ve ever taken a gamble on—” she broke off as a woman walked inside, smiled, and disappeared into a stall.
Unable to continue the conversation, Ray removed her lip gloss from her small evening purse and applied it.
Ila smoothed her dress, then refastened her topknot. I moved away from the basin.
The toilet flushed. The woman came out. “Love your unveiling,” she told Ila, washing her hands. “I just bought the abstract wind.”
“I’m glad you liked it. It’s my favorite, too,” Ila said, and the woman sailed off, happy.
Heck, all of Ila’s pieces were her favorite.
The moment the door shut, she pivoted to me. “Darn, I can’t stay long. Charli, listen, War cares about you. We saw him that night at the club, especially after you got hammered. Protective, caring—man, we’ve never seen him this way before.”
I dropped my burning eyes to my feet, remembering.
“And when Julian arrived,” Ray added, “Well, we all know how that turned him into a near caveman, short of beating his chest. Charli, helikedyou from the get-go. And War doesn’t like many people, from what I’ve seen.”
I knew that.
“Look.” Ila gave my arm an affectionate rub. “We’ve all heard about our guys’ pasts before us. They played hard. So when they fall, they fall hard, too. No one else mattered, just us.”
“It’s not the same thing here.” I shook my head, wanting so badly to believe what they said but I knew differently. Because the truth was worse, embedded in my mind. I might have been a child, but I remembered those derogatory whispers,A future gold-digger like her mother.
“He’s done with all this, I know it,” I told them. “Besides, every time he looks at me, I’ll always wonder if he’s comparing me to my mother and that I cannot stomach.”
I pivoted to the basin, grabbed more tissues, and dabbed my tears. Damn my mother for ruining what could have been something wonderful.
