The dressing roomwas filled with my family and friends.
The make-up artist, nail tech, and hair stylist were busying themselves, getting my wedding party and me together. The content creator I hired took photos and videos of the wedding party and me as we got ready for one of the biggest days of my life. I was set to marry one of the most high-profiled actors in the movie industry—Akeem Spivy.
I couldn’t lie and say I wasn’t nervous.
There was this feeling in the pit of my stomach that I always got when something was about to happen. Sometimes it was good things, but this insurmountable tugging had me fake-smiling, fake-laughing, and waiting for something to go wrong.
I knew the reason I felt this way.
The night prior, I was immersed in a lovemaking so passionate that I think I left my soul back in that house.
Guilt was what I surmised.
I had been preparing for this day for over a year. Being on Akeem’s arm looked good to the public’s eye. To them, we were the ideal couple, with hashtags featuring our names as couple goals. We were the young, get-money couple, who everyone idolized and aspired to be like—the new Ciara and Russell Wilson.
Though Akeem was a tad bit controlling sometimes, it wasn’t overpowering, and he always showered me with love since I’d met him.
The night we met, my sisters, Junipher and Jessica, two best friends, Aniya and Lauren, and I were at Sexy Steak in downtown Detroit. It was a highly upscale restaurant that used to be the place where civil war vets used to frequent back in the early 1900’s that had become popular in the millennium.
I was there, celebrating my thirty-fourth birthday with my sisters and friends. When we asked the server for our bill, she told us not to worry about it and that it had been taken care of. Confused, I questioned her, and she replied that it had already been taken care of by one of their celebrity guests. She then handed me a note with a number on it and the nameAkeemwritten in fancy cursive, telling me to call him.
Everyone knew who Akeem Spivy was because he had seemingly blown up in the industry overnight. Stunned, I decided to go and personally thank him since he paid the almost seven-hundred-dollar bill. I knew it was probably nothing to him, but the gesture was nice. Plus, I felt it would be rude not to thank him personally.
When I approached his table in the back, he was there with his security, eating alone and looking every bit of fine. When we locked eyes, he smiled and offered me a seat. I declined becausemy girls were ready to go, but I thanked him and he made me promise to call him, or he’d find me.
The next day, I called, and the rest was history.
That was three years ago.
There wasn’t a day or night that went by that I didn’t think of Zion. The stronghold he had over me was insane, but he was the first man to capture my heart and show me a love I hadn’t experienced since his going away.
I tried to be there for him.
I told him I would wait for however long he had to do time, but he refused.
When he sent me away and blocked me from seeing him, it broke my heart even more.
I loved that man with my soul, and he just pushed me away as if his leaving me didn’t affect me.
I tried to get over him.
I tried to keep him in my past, but he warned me that he was coming back for me. I didn’t think he was serious.
Fifteen years was a long time to still be in love with someone, but while life had moved on for me, it didn’t for Zion.
Now, my past threatened my future, and I didn’t know what to do.
When he pulled up at the Airbnb, I was both shocked, overjoyed, and confused. There was no way the man I fell deeply in love with was finally free. There was also no way I wasn’t going to do as he asked and kick my girls out.
He had aged well and looked so fucking good that, in my drunken state, I was already anticipating us having one last fuck before I married someone I didn’t love as I loved him.
The way he fucked me like he had a purpose and point to prove, somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew it wasn’tgoing to be the end of us. Zion was adamant about having me, and I was afraid that once I married Akeem, Zion wouldn’t stop pursuing me relentlessly.
The wedding was going to be on every blog site and social site known to man, so I couldn’t back out.
My phone buzzed on the vanity, just as the make-up artist sprayed the matte finish on my face. I looked at the unsaved number, already knowing who it was, and my heart froze in my chest.
Zion Sullivan—thepast that threatened my future.