“I know, but I couldn’t let you do that time with me. I couldn’t be selfish, and the more I kept seeing you, the more fucked up I felt each time I saw you walk out of that prison. I had to let you go for my own sanity, or I would have been doing life behind those bars because my emotions were too raw for you. I thought about every conversation we had and realized that I failed you, but I don’t regret protecting you. That nigga could have taken you away from me because his broke ass was looking for a come up.”
“I know. . . I really missed you, Zion. I don’t think there was ever a time when I didn’t think about you. It really broke my heart when you took me off your visitation list. I—I found out I was pregnant two months after you left?—”
He sat up and frowned at me. “What? Why didn’t you tell me? What happened?”
“I ended up miscarrying after I visited you. I was so stressed about you being away that I couldn’t eat, barely slept, and didn’t take care of myself. Junie and Jessie tried to do everything they could to keep me sane, but I was losing it without you. I couldn’t tell you that I lost our baby, Zion. You were already beating yourself up about being locked up, so I couldn’t give you more bad news. So I kept it to myself. No one knew about the baby but me.”
“You should have told me, Dinny. I’d rather have felt that pain back then than to feel that shit right now.”
I grabbed his chin to look at me. “Hey, the best thing about it is, I can still produce. I had to look at it like, it just wasn’t our time. You were gone, and there was no way I would have been okay enough to care for a baby without you. Yes, my family would have helped, but it wouldn’t have been the same. What if he or she had come? Then you would have cut us both off. What would that have been like for us?”
“I left you money and the apartment. You would have been okay. At least for a few years. If I’d known any of this, I would have fought harder not to push you away.”
“Thirty thousand doesn’t equate to the time lost. Our child would have been missing their father in their lives, and I would have been trying to make sure it doesn’t affect them as it affected me.”
He rubbed a hand down his face and took a sip of his champagne. “You’re right. I didn’t think about that, but damn. You were pregnant with my baby.”
“I know. Crazy, huh?”
He nodded. “I was making moves when I was locked up. Rahmeek and Kasey held me down for the most part, but the bag I told you to give to Meek was the paperwork to open up my clothing store. It was a little slow in the beginning stages, but Killa got in touch with this designer who was making some noise in the fashion industry, so we made a deal with him, and things started to move. As time went on, we started to see more revenue, and was able to open another clothing store—and a dispensary. I’m looking to open another one later this year.”
“Wow. Kasey, Rahmeek, and Terrell are some solid friends. Anyone else would have turned on you.”
“Yeah, but when you have a genuine heart and take care of those who take care of you, you will always get that love in the streets. Those are my brothers, and I trust them with my life.”
“I know you do. I’m happy for you, Zi, and I’m very proud of you.”
“Can’t be too proud. You were about to marry another nigga.” He looked at me with slight amusement but more so sadness. I knew I hurt him by leaving in the middle of the night. After promising him I’d stay, I broke that promise, just like I broke the one we made to each other a long time ago.
“You don’t understand.”
“Help me. Please, baby. I deserve to know why you weren’t going to choose me. That shit hurt my ego and my pride. I gave you multiple warnings that, when I returned, you and I would resume our life together. I came up with every excuse to let you go, but none of that shit made sense to me. I imagined you being happy and living out your dreams with someone else, and that shit had me peeved. But if you had told me that you still wanted him, I could do nothing but respect it and let you go, no matter how much it hurt.”
She sighed. “Akeem felt . . . safe. He felt easy. He made me laugh and distracted me from missing you. That’s why it was so easy to move on with him. That, and the fact that he promised if I helped him with his image, that included marrying him to prove he was a family man, that he would hook me up with some celebrities to become a choreographer.”
Zion scoffed and shook his head. “You had thirty thousand dollars to do whatever it was you wanted to do. Why didn’t you fund your own shit, Dinny?”
“Mommy and Daddy fell on hard times. They were about to lose their house, and I couldn’t let that happen. Then Jessie got really sick, and her insurance didn’t cover the surgery she needed, so I paid the remaining balance. I had to move out of theapartment and move in with my parents after that. It was really hard and dark for me. I wasn’t thinking about opening a studio when the love of my life went to prison, I lost our baby, my parents were almost homeless, and my sister was almost dying. It was too much.
“I found my escape through writing blogs, vlogging, and writing articles about celebrities, which garnered the attention of Akeem. I wasn’t trying to hurt you, Zion. But what happened earlier is going to ruin everything I built with Akeem.”
“Then start over. With me. I got the money to take care of you, and I’ll build you a studio next week if you just tell me that it’s what you want. Fuck that nigga and what he promised. My promise is the only one that matters.” He pulled my face to his and crashed his lips into mine. My body reacted, and I lifted and straddled his lap.
He yanked the top of my teddy down, exposing my breasts. My nipples were painfully erect as his lips trailed the length of my neck, then he latched onto my right nipple. My head fell back, and my chest pushed forward as a moan escaped my lips.
“Zion.”
“Yeah, baby?”
“I want you,” I admitted with conviction. Even after the day's events, I always knew where my heart belonged. I had become so numb to everything since he left that I was about to marry a man because of what he promised he’d do for me.
Silly shit.
My bare pussy rubbed against his joggers, creating a friction that had me leaking. My hands went to his waistband, and I reached inside, pulling him out and gripping him.
“Mmm,” he moaned. I slid off his lap and knelt, helping him pull off his joggers. I then grabbed his dick and put him in my mouth, slowly swirling my tongue over the head to clean up the pre-cum before I sucked him down my throat.
“Ah, shit, Dinny. Just like that, baby.”