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31 LA’BELLE EVANS

I woke up to an empty bed and the smell of him in the sheets.

My whole body felt different. I hadn’t been to Pilates in weeks, and everywhere that had been tight now had this low, satisfying ache. It sat deep in my hips, and I felt it every time I moved.

I sat up and looked around the room, like it might tell me where he’d gone. There were no sounds or smells from the kitchen. His Patek was still on the nightstand.

I got out of bed and went into the living room where I’d left my phone the night before, forgotten and completely dead. I plugged it in and went to get myself together while it powered back up.

My hair was a tangled mess, and there were passion marks all over my neck. I touched one and felt the phantom of his mouth all over again. I hadn’t looked like this since the Bahamas.

After brushing my teeth and wrapping my hair back up, I found a fresh pot of coffee in the kitchen. I made myself a cup and checked on my phone. There was a single text from Cardez.

Cardez

Had to check on something. Be back later. Call Marco if you need to go somewhere.

That was it. No good morning. Just straight to the point, like nothing about today was different from any other day.

What did I expect though? A heart emoji? When did we ever do soft mornings? And he damn sure wasn’t about to text me the way a lovesick nigga in a movie would. Honestly, that was half the reason why I liked him.

So why was I here feeling some type of way about it?

I took my phone over to the island and sat down. For the first time, with nobody else in the room and no wine to soften the edges, I let myself sit with everything that happened last night.

Last night hadn’t been nothing.

It’d be easy to say I wanted to sleep with him to distract myself from how I felt after seeing my mom, but I’d been telling myself a bunch of bullshit for months now.

Cardez’s presence made my body recalibrate, even when I was pissed at him. I’d even started listening for the sound of the elevator when he came home. I’d been ignoring my feelings because staying mad at him was easier than admitting I liked him.

I swore to myself that what happened last night was going to be a one time thing, but all I did was show him how much I missed him. That nigga had me sobbing over bomb dick.

“Bitch, you are so dumb,” I muttered.

This was supposed to be simple. The marriage was a sentence I was serving, and I was supposed to hate him for it. Instead, I was sitting in his kitchen wearing his shirt, covered in hickeys like a teenager, missing him and wondering where he’d gone to so early without telling me.

My phone vibrated against the counter.

Gideon

You ask your fiancé for the money yet? Time’s almost up.

My stomach dropped.

I didn’t know how Cardez would react when I came clean about Gideon. Regardless of what happened last night, I still stole from him, and I’d already been too scared to tell him about the first hundred and fifty. Telling him about Gideon on top of that? Yeah, no.

If I could be honest with him with my body, why was it so hard to tell him the full truth?

Because this kind of vulnerability couldn’t be softened with orgasms and pillow talk. This was the kind that would put that cold look back on his face. I never wanted to see that again.

I picked the phone back up and texted Marco. He was the only person in Dez’s circle I knew well enough to ask, and from our few interactions, he’d keep it real with me without making me feel worse than I already did.

You busy? I need you to come up here for a minute.

Marco

I’ll be there in an hour.