“You don’t have to come out for the entire two weeks I’ll be there. Come out for a few days and stay at the Hilton with me. While I’m on set, you could go on sightseeing tours. You like history, so you could check out the Whitney Plantation. Isn’t that the one you said you wanted to visit one day? At night we could go out and try new restaurants, maybe do some dancing…”
All of that sounded enticing, but she had too much to do with the kids and the landscaping project she still needed to make a decision about. “I’ll have to see. Maybe I can come for a couple of days.”
He stroked the depths of his fingers through her messy hair, brushing the strands back from her face. “I’d like that.”
Before she could respond, the doorknob rattled. “Mommy, the door is locked.” The doorknob rattled again. “Mommy.” Her daughter’s pleading voice came through from outside in the hall.
Charisse’s head popped up and she looked at Terrence.
He let his head fall back against the headboard. “You gotta put a stop to this,” he said wearily.
“I know. But I have to let her in, which means you have to go.”
He stared at her. “I’m not leaving.”
“Mommy, the door is locked. I can’t get in.” Chelsea’s voice came louder.
“Yes, you are,” Charisse whispered. “We agreed we wouldn’t let the kids see you here at night. Coming, princess. Give me a minute.”
She scurried off the bed and picked up her silk robe from the trunk. “Chop, chop, hurry up. Go out the French doors and walk around the back to the front of the house.”
“This is ridiculous,” Terrence grumbled.
He got down off the bed, completely naked. She paused, ogling his toned back and admiring the way his dark skin glowed under the limited light in the room. His body, though not as tight as his younger days when he worked out all the time, still contained visible muscles that moved under his skin, and he had a beautiful behind that she gripped with talon-like force multiple times tonight when he’d given her toe-curling orgasms.
“Where are my shoes?” Terrence asked, slipping a foot into his jeans.
“I don’t know.”
Chelsea banged on the door. “Mommy!”
“I’m coming!” She turned to Terrence. “Go, and I’ll send them to you later.”
“I’m not leaving this property without my shoes.”
“Fine! I’ll find them once I settle her down, but that might take a while.”
“I’ll wait on the back deck, and you can bring them to me.”
“Okay. Go.” She pushed him out the French doors and locked up. The motion lights came on, and his figure moved across the grass in the direction of the kitchen.
Charisse hurried toward the bedroom door and tripped over one of Terrence’s shoes. “Wonderful. There’s one of them,” she muttered.
She opened the door and Chelsea scowled at her. “The door was locked. I couldn’t get in,” she said in an accusatory tone. She swept in like the princess she believed herself to be.
Charisse sighed. They were creating a monster.
Chelsea climbed into the bed and under the covers. “Was Daddy here?”
Charisse stopped in her tracks. “What?”
Chelsea sniffed the pillowcase. “The pillow smells like Daddy.”
“Go to sleep,” Charisse said.
She climbed into bed with her daughter, and Chelsea snuggled up next to her and flung an arm over her throat. Within a few minutes, she was fast asleep.
Charisse waited a few more minutes to make sure that she was in deep slumber before she slipped out from under her arm. Tiptoeing around the room, she located Terrence’s discarded shoes and then quietly left the room and closed the door.
In the kitchen, she opened the back door and let him in, handing over the shoes. “It’s safe to come in now. She’s asleep.”
“Thank you,” he said dryly. He closed the door and locked it. “You know you need to put a stop to her, right?”
“Yes, I know, but it’s hard.”
“How hard can it be? You tell her she has to sleep in her own room. She never did this when you and I were married. She knows she can get away with it because you let her. See where all this princess talk got you?” He bent over to put on his shoes.
“Me?” Charisse said in an incredulous whisper. “You’re the one who bought her three tiaras. That’s what started the downward spiral into princess entitlement.”
“If I started it, I’ll put an end to it. I’ll have a talk with her.” Terrence straightened, now fully dressed. “I better go. You got any bottled water?”
“Chilled or room temperature?”
“Chilled.”
“I should have a few in the fridge.” Charisse shuffled over and checked. “Flavored or unflavored?”
“Unflavored. What’s this?”
She removed one of the bottles and faced him. He picked up the proposal for the landscaping design that the yard guy brought over. “Something Tony put together for me. I want to spruce up the yard.”
“Have you gotten any other estimates?” Terrence flipped through the pages.
“No. I let Tony handle everything. You know how I am. I don’t like to deal with that kind of thing, and he was really nice and helpful with the whole process.”
She tried her hand at being an entrepreneur several times, and Terrence invested in every one of her failed businesses during their marriage—a hair salon, a children’s boutique, a coffee shop, and a lingerie store. All failed miserably because she simply didn’t have the managerial skills or the business acumen to make them work.
“I bet he was.” He didn’t sound convinced. “I don’t understand why I haven’t seen this before. It’s dated three weeks ago. You know what, never mind. I’ll have Kamisha do some checking and make sure Bob hasn’t inserted a commission into these quotes for his help.” He took a gulp of water. “I still don’t understand why you didn’t tell me about your plan to do work on the yard.”
“Because I’m paying for it.”
He frowned. “With what money? You don’t work.”
“I’m going to use some of the money you give me every month.”
“That’s your money.”
“I know.”
“So if you know, what are you talking about? That money is for you to do whatever you want with. We have an agreement. I take care of the house and the bills and what you need for the kids.”
“I know. But…” She looked away.
Terrence tilted up her chin. “But when you decided to do this, we were angry at each other, and you thought you couldn’t come to me.”
“It didn’t feel right, Terrence.”
“I don’t care how it feels. I told you I’d always take care of you, and I meant it. I want to. I want to because I love you, and I don’t want you to need anything at all. That doesn’t change because we’re fighting. Whatever you need, I got you.”
“You can’t take care of me forever.”
“Says who?”
She let out a pained sigh. “One day you’ll get married and your new wife is not going to be okay with you supporting me.”
“I’ll continue doing whatever I please, and this hypothetical woman will just have to deal.”
He tucked the proposal under his arm. “I’ll take care of this.”
“What if I remarry?”
He halted on the way out. Silence filled the kitchen. Charisse stared at his broad back, waiting for him to turn around, but he didn’t.
Finally, he said, “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
He continued to the front of the house, and she followed. There was so much more she wanted to say but didn’t know how.
“Terrence,” she whispered.
He turned around and looked at her for a moment with sadness in his eyes. “I know.”
Her heart broke a little.
He closed the gap between them in the dark hallway and clasped the side of her neck. �
�I know we’re not back together, and I know I still have a lot of work to do. I don’t take you for granted, and I’ll keep putting in the work to prove that I’ve changed, and you can trust me again. But…even if you don’t give us another chance, I want you to know that I love you, and when I say I’ll take care of you, I mean it. So let me have that, okay? It’s the one thing I ever did right with us, so… Let me do this.”
His eyes begged her to give in, and she nodded. “Okay,” she said softly.
“Which design do you like best?” he asked just as softly.
“It doesn’t matter—”
“Which design do you like best?”
“The third one.” It was the most expensive but included everything she wanted.
“Then that’s the one you’ll have.”
He gently kissed her lips and held his mouth pressed to hers for a long moment. Then he rested his forehead against hers. “I love you. No matter what happens between us, even if you never take me back, I love you. That will never change.”
He stepped away and left quietly out the door.
Charisse didn’t go back to bed. She walked into the kitchen and watched him on the monitor, ambling down the driveway with his delicious walk, like he owned the universe. He rounded the bend and disappeared from sight, where he’d parked so the kids wouldn’t know he was there.
Hands braced on the counter, Charisse bowed her head under the grip of strong emotion. Was she being too hard on him? She finally admitted to herself that she still loved him, too. She wanted so badly to tell him. She physically ached to say the words but worried about what such an admission would mean.
Capitulation. Giving in to emotion instead of listening to reason. Letting her heart control her behavior—a bruised and battered heart that seemed to be a glutton for punishment—instead of using her brain to direct her actions. If only she had a sign to tell her what to do.
Go right or go left? Take him back or not? Play it safe or take the risk? She didn’t know what to do.
“Send me a sign,” she whispered.
14
“I can’t hang with y’all, man. I’m old. I’m going back to the hotel.”
Terrence had spent the past few hours eating and drinking with the crew and some of the other actors at a local restaurant. After dinner, they split into two groups. One group left to hit Bourbon Street, while he and seven others migrated over to the bar and stood around in a circle chatting some more.
But it was getting late, they had an early day tomorrow, and he wanted to practice his lines before going to bed.
“That, I don’t believe. I know you party harder than this,” said one of the actors.
Terrence chuckled and clapped him on the shoulder. “I know you know better than to believe everything you read in the tabloids, considering some of the stuff I’ve read about you.”
Everyone in the small group chuckled.
“I’ma see y’all later. I’m out.” He waved goodbye to them.
An actress with mocha-toned skin followed and placed a restraining hand on his arm. She stood on tiptoe. “Want some company, T-Murder?” she whispered, giving her bottom lip a seductive bite. She had a banging body and for the past week had made it clear she wanted to sleep with him.
“Nah, I’m good.”
“You sure?” She arched a brow.
“Positive.” He carefully removed her hand from his arm.
“If you change your mind, you know which room I’m in.” He did know, because she’d told him.
Terrence nodded and then continued to walk out of the restaurant. He had no interest in taking her up on the offer.
He tugged his cap low on his brow so he couldn’t be easily recognized and stepped out into the night with a little extra pep in his step. Charisse called earlier today and agreed to come see him late tomorrow. On his last two days on set, he’d have her with him, and he couldn’t wait to hold her—something he hadn’t been able to do for twelve long days. They agreed to stay a couple extra days to do some sightseeing and enjoy the nightlife.
Outside, the streets were packed, but he turned right and headed to his hotel. Soon he was walking through the doors of the Hilton.
Bo came rushing toward him. “Where you been? I called and sent a text. I been trying to reach you for the last hour.”
“I had drinks with the crew after dinner.” He pulled out his phone and saw the missed texts and calls. He never heard the phone over the din in the restaurant and bar. He tucked it into his back pocket. “What’s the matter?”
“Gossip Bomb says they’re printing an interview of your latest girlfriend, an Instagram model named JoJo. She said y’all are having an affair and you’ve put her up at hotels and flown her out to meet you.”
“Who?” His mind was genuinely blank, but this could not be good.
“JoJo. I don’t recognize her.” Bo held up his phone and showed Terrence a picture he probably texted him earlier. She was a pretty young woman with pouty lips posing on a bed in lingerie for the camera. “They’re going to print the interview without your comment if they don’t hear from you, but they want a comment. You now have thirty minutes to respond.”
Terrence cursed. He recognized her. “She’s a liar. I’m not seeing anybody but my wife, and I barely knew this chick. We may have hooked up once, last year or something. Here in New Orleans, actually. Wait, now it’s coming back to me. She was here for a concert, and I ran into her at one of the clubs. You weren’t with me that time. She hung out with us in VIP and then… I took her back to the hotel. But I never saw her again after that. I sure as hell never flew her nowhere.”
“Is that what you want me to tell Gossip Bomb?”
“Nah, you can tell them to go fuck themselves.”
Bo sighed. “Whatever you say, Charisse is gonna see.”
His stomach knotted up. He needed to think about her and how this could affect their already fragile relationship. He ran a hand down the back of his head. “Okay, I need to be careful. Call Hudson Lynch, tell him to prepare a statement for me.” Hudson was his official spokesperson. “How much time do we have?”
Bo looked at his phone. “Twenty-five minutes.”
“Let’s hurry up and do this.”
They rode the elevator to Terrence’s floor. While Bo called Hudson, Terrence kneaded his temple where a headache emerged.
This couldn’t be happening now, right when he saw the possibility of winning back his ex-wife. He’d have to do serious damage control. After he finished with Hudson, he’d call Charisse to warn her about the completely false story that was about to hit online.
The media storm with Kim would be nothing compared to the crap about to hit the fan if Charisse believed, even remotely, that he’d been secretly spending time with another woman while trying to woo her back into a relationship with him.
No matter what happened tonight, he hoped she believed him.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Burrell.”
Charisse smiled tightly at the activities coordinator as she strolled through her mother’s building at the assisted living community. Even in a big floppy hat and shades, the woman recognized her. Maybe this “disguise” was a waste of time anyway. Did the seniors really care about what was going on in the life of a rapper and his ex-wife?
She took the elevator to the second floor and knocked before entering.
“I’m out here,” her mother called outside the sliding glass door.
Charisse discarded the hat and glasses on the sofa and joined her mother on the balcony. Martha’s concerned eyes followed her as she sat down at the little round table that looked out into the back courtyard.
“Thirsty?” Her mother waved at the two glasses.
“Thanks.” Charisse drank half the glass of iced water and replaced it on the table.
“You’re going to have to talk to him eventually,” her mother said.
“I know. I’ll talk to him when he gets back.”
Ever since the news broke abo
ut Terrence’s latest girlfriend, he’d been blowing up her phone. In the Gossip Bomb article, his spokesperson claimed he had not been involved with her since last year. However, JoJo provided a video of her and him going into a hotel together in New Orleans.
Charisse couldn’t believe he asked her to come see him while he entertained another woman there. One scandal ended and another reared its ugly head. Of course, her name came up because only two months ago, the rumor was that they had reconciled. She was back in the news cycle again, and she was sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Terrence called five times and sent her numerous texts, the last one stating he was leaving early and on his way back so they could talk. She texted him back, insisting he meet his obligations on set and they could talk when he came into town on Sunday.
“I was looking forward to going to see him in New Orleans, spend time with him. Then this happened.” She laughed shortly and shook her head.
Martha covered her hand. “I warned you. He hurt you before. He didn’t respect your marriage.”
“I know. You were right. I guess I wanted to believe that he changed.”
“A leopard can’t change his spots, baby. So you had sex with your ex-husband. If that’s the worst of it, you’ll be fine.”
“That’s not the worst of it,” Charisse said quietly.
“What else is there?”
She looked at her mother. “I’m pregnant.” She found out Thursday, which was why she’d wanted to fly to New Orleans to see Terrence. She couldn’t wait to tell him the news and wanted to do it in person.
Martha’s mouth fell open. “How?” She shook her head. “Never mind, I know how. But…weren’t you careful?”
“No. I just didn’t think.”
“Obviously.”
Her shoulders slumped. “Thanks, Mom.”
“Well…” Her mother shrugged. “Maybe you wanted to get pregnant.”
“No. I did not want to get pregnant.”
“Then explain to me why you didn’t use some kind of birth control. What did you think would happen? Did you forget how you ended up with the other three?”
“I don’t know!” Charisse flung up her hands in exasperation. “I was foolish. Careless.” She felt she was too old to be pregnant by accident, yet that’s the predicament she found herself in.
Without You (Quicksand Book 2) Page 8