“Okay, okay.” Martha patted her hand.
“We were in a good place before.”
“Real good, apparently.”
“I mean before we slept together. I enjoyed the vacations we took, almost like we were a family again. I was excited about this year’s trip. This year he planned to take us to the Galapagos Islands. Four days in Ecuador and ten days on the islands.” She sighed. “Seeing him all the time and being friendly was hard, but doable. Sleeping with him was a mistake, and now this baby complicates everything.”
“I do want another grandchild, but…” Martha sighed. “What are you going to do?”
“I want this baby.”
“How do you think Terrence will feel?”
“He’ll want it. I’m not worried about that. But he’ll think a baby means we’re getting back together and…”
“And you wanted that, too.”
“I did.” She blinked rapidly and bit into her bottom lip.
He penetrated the shield she put up to protect against him, and she’d fallen for him all over again. But in true Terrence form, he reminded her why they never worked the first time.
She’d always loved the bad boys when she was younger, especially those New York men. Their accent and swagger always did her in. Ennis’s biological father had been from Queens, but he died unexpectedly from a ruptured spleen. Then she met Terrence, and he wowed her with that smile and made her believe they’d belong to each other until the end of time.
Even when she learned that wasn’t true, she hung in there because he’d been good to her otherwise and loved her son as his own. Looking back, she couldn’t believe she put up with his behavior for so long. She made her peace with the situation, convincing herself it was enough that he came home to her. It was enough that he wrote songs about her, shouted her out as his rock, his queen, his soulmate in almost every interview, and certainly every awards acceptance speech.
But those grand gestures weren’t enough. They were never enough. She loved him, but he was bad for her. Bad for her heart and bad for her sanity.
“When am I going to learn? How old do I have to be before I finally get it? He’s no good for me,” she whispered, voice trembling.
Her mother caught her hand again and squeezed. “You get it this time. Be strong and walk away from him on your terms, with your head up. Like you did before.”
She nodded her agreement. That’s all she could do.
Baby or not, she and Terrence were over.
She’d received her sign.
15
“Everything in that article is a lie.”
Charisse had barely crossed the pristine hardwood floor of Terrence’s swanky condo in West Buckhead when he blurted the words.
She dropped her purse onto the circular bar that separated a large kitchen filled with Bosch appliances from the living room filled with white furniture and windows that spanned from the ceiling to the floor as they looked out onto the city. At least he hadn’t tried to touch her, for which she was glad.
“I’m fine and how are you?” she asked in a pleasant voice.
Terrence studied her for a moment. He didn’t look so good, and she secretly reveled in his distress. Why should she be the only one upset? She hoped he hadn’t slept a wink in the hours leading up to this meeting, as he wondered whether or not he’d be able to lie his way out of this particular mess.
“I’m fine,” he said.
“How did things go on the set?”
“That’s not why you came here.”
“I’m trying to have a normal conversation. Do you not want to tell me how filming went?”
He scrubbed a hand down his face. “All right…filming went well. I think I’m really getting the hang of this acting thing. Crew was great, everything was great.” He swallowed. “Do you want to sit down?”
“No. This won’t take long.”
“Charisse…”
“I don’t want to talk about your latest girlfriend.”
“We have to talk about it, and she’s not my latest girlfriend. You’re the only woman in my life. JoJo lied. That video is not from last week or the week before. It has to be from a year ago, which was the last time I saw her.”
“Okay. If you say so.”
His brow wrinkled in consternation. “Don’t do that. Don’t mock me.”
“I’m not mocking you. I’m accepting what you say, like I did in the past. Of course that video is old. You also never knew where the numbers came from that showed up in your pockets. Brenda was a stalker and you’d never met her before. Oh and sure, all those suggestive photos posted on Gossip Bomb over the years are not you—they’re of a guy who looks like you. Right?”
He looked ill, but she didn’t care how pitiful he came across. She’d seen that expression before—contrition and a little bit of fear. Yet she couldn’t muster a smidge of sympathy, because it was her heart that was breaking. Not his.
Terrence clasped his hands together. “I admit, I lied to you in the past. A lot. But this time—”
“This time, you’re not lying.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“I didn’t come here to talk about her.”
He frowned. “Then why did you come? You’re obviously upset.”
“Yes, I’m upset, but I’m not going to waste any more energy on you and your women.”
“She’s not my woman! You are the only woman I’ve touched or seen since April. Period. No one else. You have to believe me. You really think I would invite you to New Orleans while I was laid up with another woman? While we been working on possibly getting back together?”
She shook her head at him in disgust, refusing to allow the sadness that filled her heart to swallow her whole. “I realized something about myself when I saw that video of you and her walking into the hotel together. I realized that for years I wanted to believe you, but you keep showing me you’re not worthy of trust. At some point, I have to get it through my thick skull that you’re no good for me.”
Terrence closed his eyes. “Don’t do this.”
“I didn’t do this, you did.”
He opened his eyes. “She’s just out to get me.”
“It’s always the women’s fault, right? You’re so innocent.”
“No, I’m not innocent, but I’m telling the truth this time.”
“Of course you are.” She gave him a fake smile. “I came to give you some news, and I need you to be quiet so that I can say what I need to say and leave.”
He fell silent.
Charisse licked her lips nervously. “I’m pregnant.”
His eyes widened. “You are?” As expected, elation took over his face, and he appeared ready to burst with joy.
She nodded.
“How far along are you?”
“A couple of months.” Based on the timeline, she got pregnant in Macon.
“I know what you’re thinking, that this baby is a mistake, but it’s not. We used to say we wanted four, remember?” he said.
They’d lost their first child—the child she supposedly used to trap him—to a miscarriage. She suddenly wanted to cry and pressed her lips together, focused on a point beyond his shoulder because she couldn’t look at him. “We used to say we wanted a lot of things.”
Terrence took a step closer. “We can still have that. All of it. Everything we said we wanted,” he said urgently.
She dared to look at him and saw the earnest plea in his eyes.
“This baby is a sign,” he said. “A sign that we should be together and stop sneaking around like we’re doing something wrong. A sign that we can make our relationship work again, no matter what obstacles come our way.”
“A sign?” Charisse scoffed. “Yes, it’s a sign. A sign that we were careless. We’re not kids. We’re adults and should have known better.”
“I don’t regret it. If that’s what you want, then you can forget it.”
She glared at him. “Does anything get to you at all? Do y
ou care about anybody else but Terrence Burrell?”
He reared back like she’d struck him. “That’s unfair.”
“No it’s not.”
“Yes, it is!” he snarled. “You think nothing gets to me? You get to me. When I can’t see you, when I can’t hear your voice…” He shook his head. “You’re my world, but you don’t believe me. We’re happy. Don’t let this woman split us apart.”
“Do you really think my anger is about Brenda or JoJo or any of your side chicks? It’s about you, Terrence. You can’t keep your penis in your pants.”
“I’ve been faithful to you!”
“For two months!” she screamed. “You can always hang in there for a while, and then you go right back to doing the same bullshit. Four months from now or six months from now or a year from now, there’ll be another stripper or model or groupie that I have to contend with. That’s our history, and now you expect me to simply accept what you’re saying is the truth? That this time is different?”
“This time is different, but you don’t want to believe me. You don’t want to see I’ve changed. I tell you I love you all the time, and you don’t say a word. You don’t react, you don’t say shit.”
“Oh, does that hurt your feelings? You tell me you love me, like you always did, and I’m supposed to fall at your feet and thank my lucky stars that you love me.” She shook her head. “You lied to me, you cheated on me, you made a fool out of me.
“What do you know about love? You don’t love me. You never loved me. I loved you. With everything inside me.” Her voice cracked. “I loved you so much, I put up with your bullshit for years while you ran around on me. I loved you so much I didn’t care that people said I became pregnant to trap you after you got your record deal. I didn’t care because I loved you, and I believed you loved me, too. I used to think your jealousy meant you loved me, but it doesn’t. You want to own my body. You see me as a possession, and that’s not love. You want to keep me away from Austin and other men and to be the only one to screw me—because that’s all you’re capable of feeling. Lust. That’s it. All you care about is my body, and when that goes you won’t want me. You’ll be like any other man and trade me in for a newer model.”
She wiped the tears from her cheeks, unable to stop saying all the words she’d wanted to say in the past. She’d yelled at him before, but she’d never said these words. “You want to know how I know? You told me in those pathetic songs you wrote for me.” She laughed-cried for a minute and then sniffed. “One of your greatest hits was supposed to be a song about me, and I hated it so much.
“You hold the key to my heart
Those other girls don’t mean a thing
You hold the key to my heart, sweetheart
You the one wearing my ring.”
Before he told her he’d written the song for her, the ad-libbed sweetheart at the end of several lines signaled the song was about her. In all the years they’d been together, she’d never heard him call another soul sweetheart. That endearment was uniquely assigned to her.
“And then my other favorite, ‘Bomb Pussy.’ Oh god. When you wrote that I thought it was sexy and funny. We were still in the honeymoon stage, but later, I hoped that no one knew it was about me, but of course everyone knew.”
She picked up her purse. “I’m not saying you’re incapable of love. I know you loved Grandma Esther. I know you love our children. But you never loved me, Terrence. Maybe someday you’ll learn to love someone the way I did you. Our relationship was good for those first couple of years. Maybe you’ll experience that again one day, and the person you love will love you back and treat you the way you deserve. But it won’t be me. I did love you, more than anything and anyone, but I can’t go down that road with you. I gave you all of me, and I can’t risk doing that again.”
She placed a hand over her belly. “I want this baby, and one day we can talk about it. One day when we’re not so emotional—when I’m not so emotional.” She gave a little laugh.
His face remained solemn and his eyes bleak. Not once did he open his mouth to interrupt while she spoke.
“I’m sorry, Terrence. Take the kids wherever you want, but I can’t do any more summer trips with you. I can’t sleep with you anymore, and I don’t want to look at you or hear your voice for a while. I allowed you to treat me that way, but I won’t again. We’re done.”
She walked out without a backward glance.
16
Terrence sat with his feet propped on the coffee table and a beer growing warm in the hand resting on the sofa beside him. In less than six months he went from the high of the Grammys to the depths of hell.
His grandmother passed away and reconnecting with his ex-wife turned out to be the worst decision he had ever made. He would have been better off not making love to her again. Not enjoying her scent. Not touching her, not whispering words of love and dealing with the crushing disappointment when she didn’t whisper them back.
Over the past couple of weeks, he’d thrown himself into work at the studio, his escape. He spent long days and nights writing and recording, which kept his mind off his self-inflicted misery. Yet the Annihilation album was nowhere close to being finished. The songs were subpar and the lyrics rudimentary at best.
The kids spent time with him only once during the two-week period, when he took them to a movie premiere. He recorded a couple of songs on the soundtrack and played a small role in the film. It was the first time his children walked the red carpet with him, and the pictures from that night—him standing with his two youngest in front and his oldest beside him, still made him smile. Only one reporter threw out a question about Charisse, which he ignored. Otherwise, the curiosity surrounding their lives fizzled into oblivion, replaced by the next hot topic du jour.
He missed Charisse, but he stayed away, at least for now. He had questions about her health and the baby, but she’d made it clear she didn’t want to see or hear from him.
He thought back to that Sunday—the teary eyes, the pain in her voice. Yes, he was jealous and possessive. He did want to keep her body for himself, but that was not all. He wanted her smile and laughter for himself. Her kindness and her big heart and her lasagna for himself. But she wouldn’t believe that because his past actions spoke way louder than words.
Hearing her talk about her feelings in the past tense was soul crushing. She said she did love him. She had loved him. But he killed her love after years of abusing her trust and mistreating her, instead of cherishing her like the jewel he knew her to be. Now the years stretched out before him like a bottomless pit with no end in sight.
Sipping the tepid beer, he watched a mother sob into a microphone on the late-night news. Her tear-filled eyes faced the camera as she begged for her runaway child to come home. “Please come home. Please. I don’t know what I’m going to do without you.”
He sympathized with the woman. Her words resonated with him.
Without you.
He had everything money could buy—clothes, cars, a SMART condo with every technological advance imaginable. But he didn’t have his family. He didn’t have Charisse, the love of his life. Without her, his life was nothing.
Without you.
He frowned. A beat started in his head and words drifted across his mind’s eye.
“There is no me without you,” he said to the empty room.
He set the beer on the floor and jumped up from the sofa. He pulled open the drawer of one of the side tables and removed a notepad and pen. He kept them stashed all over the condo for moments like this, when inspiration hit him.
He sat back down and started writing. The words flowed out of him. This was the love song he should’ve written to her years ago, instead of that other mess he released. He cringed when he thought about the lyrics of “Wearing My Ring.” To think that had been his idea of a love song to his wife. To think it became one of his biggest hits. He couldn’t count the number of articles that said it showed his softer side. What a joke.
<
br /> Terrence wrote and wrote. He scratched out a line here, changed a word there, and continued writing.
An hour later, he stopped. He had poured his heart into the song, and it said everything he hadn’t been able to say to Charisse. She’d never hear it though. This one he’d keep to himself. But he needed to record it, even if the song never saw the light of day.
Terrence picked up the beer bottle from the floor and dialed Bo’s number as he walked to the kitchen.
“Hello?” His friend’s groggy voice came over the line.
“What are you doing?”
“Sleep, man. What do you think? I’m in London, remember?” He flew there for the tail end of a hip-hop festival, which meant it was a little after five in the morning.
“I’m sorry, man. I want to get into the studio, and I need you to set it up for me.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now.”
“What about Kamisha?”
“She’s not used to working with the studio people. It’ll take her two hours to do what will probably take you fifteen minutes.” Terrence emptied the warm beer down the drain and placed the bottle in the recycling bin.
Bo sighed heavily.
“Spare me the attitude. You got this, right?” Terrence asked.
“Yeah, I got this.”
“Good. Set it up for me within an hour.”
He hung up without waiting for a response. He went into the bedroom and changed into comfortable clothes and a pair of Nikes. Then he exited with the folded pieces of paper tucked into his back pocket.
Within forty-five minutes he entered the studio at the other end of town. Bob, the engineer, was already there and waiting for him.
“This must be pretty important for you to want to meet on such short notice in the middle of the night,” Bob said when he came in. He wore a plaid shirt and his hat turned backwards. “I did the usual set up for you.”
Terrence sat beside him. “This is gonna be a little different.”
Without You (Quicksand Book 2) Page 9