“How long did you know Chanel was on drugs?” she asked in a serious tone, making me shrink like she caughtmepopping pills.
“Fuck… come in,” I sighed and stepped aside so she could make her way inside, trying my hardest not to notice the way her ass moved in that fucking yellow dress. “Give me a minute.” I left her in the living room and ran to my bedroom to throw on a t-shirt and a pair of sweats over my shorts so she could focus without looking at a nigga’s print. When I got back, she was sitting on the couch, typing frantically on her phone.
“Hey,” I said as I sat across from her.Ihad changed, but she was still sitting there looking good as hell with her chocolatey thigh on display through the split in the dress. I hadjustgot to the point where I could be around her without getting hard in business casual, but now she had the thighs out?! Shit wasn’t fair! She took another moment to type something else into her phone before looking up at me.
“Hey,” she called back. “So when I asked you to tell me everything, I’m assuming you left out a few things?” She scolded me with a single brow raise that had me rubbing my hand over my face in shame.
“I didn’t tell you about the drugs,” I sighed.
“Tell me now… please?” she asked gently. I paused wondering how she knew the cheat code. I expected her to come in, guns blazing,—like she always did—and cuss me out until I complied. Yet the softness in her voice and the sincerity in her tone was just what I needed to open up like a can of sardines.
“Shit…” I sighed, rubbing my hand down my face before I went on, “Her mother Dior has been an addict her whole life… drugs, alcohol, men, gambling, you name it, she does it. Chanel ended up in the system for a few years when she was young and some horrible shit happened to her—shit that she never healed from. When I first met her, it wasn’t so bad. She liked to party, but it’s Hollywood, everybody parties.”
“Did you—” I cut her off before she could even get the question out.
“Never. I’ve never had anything stronger than weed or a couple drinks. My dad is an alcoholic and that had the opposite effect on me. On the rare occasion that I have a drink, I won’t ever get too drunk, and I keep it in house. I don’t know how many people I had to pay to keep her shit under wraps, and she nevergave a fuck. I tried to get her into rehab multiple times, but she would always just check herself out and go get high again.Shewas the abusive one—put her hands on me more than a few times. The time I found her overdosed on the bathroom floor was the last straw. I put her in rehab and she didn’t even make it eighteen hours before she left to go get more drugs. After that I was done. I couldn’t continue to love her more than she loved herself, and I couldn’t keep hurting myself trying to hold onto her.”
“So why not make this known?” she asked. “When the lawsuit came about, or when she was dragging you to the press, why not say something, Chase?”
“I promised her.” My head lowered in shame. “When I first found out she had a problem, she begged me. She sobbed and broke down and made me promise not to tell anyone. It’s not her fault. She’s sick.”
Amaya bit her bottom lip in thought, then sighed heavily before she spoke again.
“She’s doing this so you’ll take her back. She doesn’t like that you finallycut her loose and she’s basically extorting you unless you take her back.”
“What?” I rubbed my hand over the top of my head, eyes focused on nothing in particular before they rose back to her face. “Nah, there has to be another explanation.”
“I heard it straight from the horse-headed hoe’s own mouth. She said you haven’t been taking her calls and are ignoring her advances, and until you do, she’s gonna go through with the case until you lose everything.”
“Amaya…” I blinked slowly. “How do you know this?”
“I ran into her at an event today… nice lady by the way. Her loose lipped ass was bragging about the shit as her and her friend shared some nose candy in the fucking bathroom. The bitch is dumb as fuck.”
“I thought you told me not to call her a bitch?” I questioned with my brows raised.
“Yeah,you. I’m not on trial and have the common sense not todo the shit in public where people can hear me… Unless you plan on telling on me?” she asked with a teasing smirk on her face.
“Your secret is safe with me.” I resisted the urge to wink at her.
“We should really get ahead of this—do you haveanyproof of her drug use? Rehab receipts? Anything?”
“Amaya, I can’t use that shit against her. It will go public, and I just can’t do that to her.” She gave me the blankest of stares as her eyes scanned my face for some sort of indication that I was lying. She found nothing
“You fuckin’ with me, right? Why would wenotuse this?”
“I don’t break promises,” I said. My head was still swimming at the depths of Chanel’s betrayal, and the sheer audacity to think that I wouldevergive her another chance after the shit she was pulling.
“So if it comes down to it in the end, which is more important, Chase? Protecting her, or protecting your legacy?” she inquired, brows raised.
“Fuck…” I sighed. “If there’s absolutely no way around it, I gotta choose me. I’m hoping that with all this money I’m paying on this bougie-ass attorney, we can win the case without having to air her out.”
Her nostrils flared as she suppressed a laugh.
“I’ll do what I can, but I don’t fucking lose. If it comes down to it, I’m airing that bitch out. She’s lucky I didn’t putmyfucking hands on her.”
“Damn, you gon’ set it off like that for me?” I chuckled.
“For you? Boy, fuck you! She came atme!And the only reason I didn’t lay her looney ass out is because it wouldn’t look good for this case. Let me catch her with no witnesses around.” I looked at her with a perplexed expression on my face
