Never Keeping Secrets (4 page)

Latoya's eyes widened a bit and her mouth felt dry until she drew her tongue against it.

“We'll get the license and go to the courthouse after the waiting period and then we'll start our lives together,” Taquan said, his eyes locked on hers.

Latoya bit her bottom lip. She let the truth of her feelings settle.
In two or three days I can be married and living with this man . . . and having all the sex I want.

“We can still have the big ceremony later on if that's stopping you,” he added.

She felt all the love she had for him as she smiled and nodded, leaning forward to cover his lips with her own before she traced the outline of his mouth with her tongue. She felt the tremble race over his body. She wanted to know what other reactions she could evoke from him. She wanted to deepen their love.

She wanted him deeply inside of her.

As they both moaned in pleasure and brought their hands up to wrap around each other's body, Latoya pushed aside the elephant in the car. Her soon-to-be husband was so serious about ending her relationship with three women she knew since high school that he just moved their wedding date up. His insistence for the ties to be cut would know no end and she still didn't know if she was prepared to do that.

“I
t's really a shame how you are letting good pussy go to waste.”

Danielle Johnson shifted her slanted eyes from the message pad she was filling out to find Carolyn Ingram standing in front of her receptionist desk in the grand lobby of the offices of Lowe, Ingram, and Banks. She stiffened her back as she set down her pen and met the woman's leering gaze. Danielle felt herself cringe. “No, the shame would be your husband finding out his socialite wife is nothing more than a coke-sniffing dyke who could care less about his dick going to waste,” she finally countered, not caring one bit that the woman was the wife of one of the founding partners of one of the largest law firms on the East Coast.

Months ago, Cristal had let her ambition of becoming more than just a foster kid from Newark with champagne dreams and Kool-Aid money lead her into becoming the protégé of the socialite. In time she discovered the woman's true intentions were not to groom her and introduce her to society.

Most definitely not, Danielle thought, shivering a little at the memory of Carolyn trying to finger-fuck her during a vacay in the Hamptons. She refused to remember the rest of the fuckery that went down that night and didn't care to even imagine what else occurred after she fled the estate.

Only Carolyn's fear of being outed to her wealthy and generous husband kept her from causing a stink about Danielle still working at the firm. Still, Danielle was sick of the snide comments and leers whenever they encountered one another.

Carolyn Ingram could pretty much buy anything in the world she wanted except for Danielle's pussy and she hated that.

“It's really a shame you have such a smart mouth when you're so fucking stupid,” Carolyn hissed, leaning in close so that her words were low and just for Danielle's ears. “With my connections and your looks I could have made you into something.”

Danielle arched a well-shaped brow.

“And we both know you want that more than anything, don't we?” Carolyn offered, the tip of her tongue darting out to touch the middle of her bottom lip lightly before disappearing again. “Little sad poor kid with no parents, raised in foster care, no education past high school but speaks proper English like you sipped from Shakespeare's cup, fucking celebrities and athletes to help pay for that lovely little apartment in Livingston.”

Danielle's surprise was evident. Her anger came quickly after that. “You're stalking me?” she asked, her heart pounding.

Carolyn straightened her rail-thin frame and smoothed her hands over her bob even though a hair wasn't out of place. “Research, bitch. Just research.”

The elevator doors opened behind them and Carolyn's face became distant and composed. “Please tell my husband I'm here to see him,” she said, looking down her nose at Danielle from where she stood.

She picked up the phone as a trio of paralegals breezed past her desk. She dialed the extension directly into Mr. Ingram's office. “Sir, your wife—”

A perfectly red lacquered nail ended the call.

Danielle looked up at the older woman in irritation.

“You have a face that should be on television, sweetheart,” she said earnestly, her eyes glistening bright enough to put her sobriety in question.

Danielle jerked her head back when the woman raised her hand from the phone and quickly traced her jawline. “Don't put your pussy-smelling finger in my face again or I will snap your bony ass in two.”

Carolyn flung her head back and just laughed.

Danielle knew right then the bitch was high. Quickly she picked up the phone and dialed Mr. Ingram's extension again. “Yes, sir. Your wife is on her way back,” she said quickly, wanting the hag gone from out of her face and her life.

This time Mr. Ingram ended the call and Danielle just leaned back in her chair as she waved her hand toward the door leading to the inner offices. Carolyn just chuckled as she hitched her Birkin up onto the crook of her slender arm and walked away.

Danielle felt sweet relief flood her. She was so sick of these little interactions and interludes with the woman. Either she was tearing Danielle down with slurs or raving about her looks. Just crazy.

Rolling back in her chair she reached down to pull her cell from her purse on the floor. She checked her caller ID. She gasped in surprise as pleasure filled her. “Mohammed?” she asked herself quietly.

She hadn't talked to her ex in weeks. More than weeks.

Trying to climb the social ladder on Carolyn's Hermès wings had caused major friction between Mohammed and her. Major. It weakened a bond she thought couldn't be broken after she chose her love for him over her love of the money of a wealthy man. Choosing to put some focus on herself and stepping away from their intense relationship had been the hardest and most grown-up decision she had made in all of her twenty some-odd years. Still, it didn't mean she no longer loved and missed him. And wanted him.

Even though he still worked as the handyman for the apartment building where she lived, she barely saw the sexy dreadlocked man who turned her on with his Jamaican lilt and rock-hard body.

She hit the button to send the call to voice mail and then quickly sent him a text with trembling fingers:

Danielle held the cell phone in her hand even as she answered and transferred three work calls.

Bzzzzzzzzz
.

A deliveryman walked up to her desk and she held up her hand with a polite smile as she opened the incoming text with her hand under her desk.

“Ma'am?”

Danielle looked up at the deliveryman, her eyes and smile contrite. “I apologize,” she said, rising on her Jimmy Choo pointy-toe kitten heels—the same ones she saw Michelle Obama wearing on television. She figured those weren't a bad pair of shoes to walk in at all if her husband succeeded in November in becoming the first African-American president of the United States of America.

She signed for the documents, completely ignoring the way his eyes were enjoying the fit of her sleeveless bright red shell dress on her curves. Danielle had nothing for him but a polite smile as she e-mailed the secretary of the attorney about his delivery.

As the receptionist for the firm, Danielle barely ever left her desk in the front office. Although she was constantly active, it all felt like mindless busy work. She wanted more.

Danielle picked up her cell phone again but then sat it facedown on her desk at the sight of Monica's office number. She immediately felt tension radiate across her shoulders and neck. She honestly didn't know how much more she could stand.

Monica and Keesha were both tearing up her phone bitching about the other one. Latoya had jumped up and married Taquan yesterday without inviting anyone to their courthouse ceremony and then announced she was moving out. Monica was ticked at her for revealing to Keesha that they discussed the loan and Danielle wasn't particularly happy about Monica finally returning her dress . . . complete with a torn hem.

Keesha stayed whining about money.

Latoya was steady trying to covertly change them to be more like her.

Monica kept her phone ringing with her Cameron drama—real or imagined.

And Danielle? Danielle was tired of it all.

She was the ear to listen and the shoulder to cry on in their friendships; so much so that she rarely had a chance to sing her own sad song. And it was hard to always absorb everyone else's drama and energy and never get a chance to get hers off. Somehow the one in their midst without a mother had become the mother figure.

Danielle looked down at her cell phone again and she felt one of those sad smiles filled with regret touch her lips. There was no need to answer their calls or even call them to ask what to do about meeting Mohammed later; their conversations would just turn around to their issues and she would be left again to help them maneuver and think through their problems while grappling with her own alone.

Hours later as her workday ended, Danielle was still thinking over how unsatisfied she was in her life. Her friendships. Her job. Her lack of family. Her lack of a life. Period.

Everybody had somebody they could turn to—even Keesha had her crazy, inappropriate-ass, weed-smoking mama. And that made it harder for her not to run back to Mohammed or any of the other men she used to catalog in an address book complete with their photo, financial status, and dick game rating.

No one understood, and she honestly didn't try to reveal to anyone, just how lonely she was. How lonely she had always been. How she had lived the majority of her life disappointed, hurt, and too afraid to expect and want more.

Being left behind by parents had a way of fucking someone up like that, but the years in foster care taught her how to hide it because seeing pity in the eyes of people looking at you made everything much worse.

And so her friends neglected her feelings, her life, and her own issues and Danielle hid it all well. Still, shit had been brewing inside her for a minute. A lot of shit.

She leaned back in her chair and released a heavy breath filled with a lot of that shit. Allowing herself a ten count to hold back some “cry myself a river, I'm so fucking sad” tears, Danielle took her compact from her tote to smooth her asymmetrical bob and reapply a fresh coat of sheer pink MAC gloss to her lips. Next she slid on her jet-black oversized shades and stiffened her back as she rose to her feet with her tote now in the crook of her arm.

She could have appeared to be Carolyn Ingram or any of her contemporaries as she made her way down on the elevator and out the building to her parked car. It was all a façade. Just as forged as the role of perfect wife that Carolyn played.

Behind the wheel of her car, Danielle purposefully played the music loudly as she drove. The bass reverberated in her chest. She was trying to drown out her thoughts. Her doubts. Her concerns. Her second-guessing . . .

Danielle parked her car onto the driveway behind Mohammed's battered Jeep. She eyed his house as she eased out from the car to head to the steps of his small house, nervously playing with her keys in her hand. Her body was all nerves, racing pulse, and pounding heart as she crossed the porch and knocked on the door.

There was a time I had keys to this motherfucker,
she thought, taking one step back and looking around at the row of small houses and three-family apartment buildings on the quiet street.

Everything about this neighborhood screamed normalcy: working forty hours a week to live a decent life in a decent neighborhood.

“Danielle?”

She turned around and there he stood. In nothing but a pair of jeans slung low on his hips. Her ex. Mohammed Ahmed.

Danielle's eyes ate him up from the thin, black, shoulder-length dreadlocks down to his bare feet and every damn thing in between. Broad shoulders. Hard chest. Six pack abs. “I-I-I got your text,” she stammered, feeling completely overwhelmed by being in his presence again.

There was a time this man—this fine man—was her everything and too much of anything wasn't good.

Mohammed nodded in understanding but he still stood there blocking her entrance into his world. “When you never responded I just assumed you said ‘Fuck him' and wasn't coming.”

Danielle continued playing with the keys in her hand, wishing she hadn't lost control of her body to her nerves. “I just got busy at work,” she lied, taking a deliberate step forward with her eyebrow slightly arched.
Am I in or out?

Mohammed smiled just a little at the corner of his full mouth before he stepped back and waved her inside. “You want something to drink?” he asked, his Jamaican accent light but still evident.

Danielle shook her head as she turned a full three hundred sixty degrees with her eyes, taking in the rows of boxes and covered furniture. She whirled to face him, her eyes filled with the surprise she felt. “You're moving?” she asked, pointing behind her to the boxes.

Mohammed nodded and licked his bottom lip as he slid his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “My mom is not well and I'm going back to Jamaica,” he said, shifting his eyes up from the floor to fix them on her.