by C. L. Donley
But Bel ghosted women. Before it was a term, he was doing it, and he got a perverse pleasure from doing it.
He loved it when they left threatening voicemails, tracked him down or showed up at his job.
It’s what his wife would’ve done.
It’s what he’d wanted his wife to do. To shimmy out of the dirt over her in the cemetery, even if she could only slither up to him like a monster. He would’ve liked that. He would have to tell her “no, not like this.” And she would cry. And he could be the one to let her go rather than the other way around.
“I had a wife once. And that was enough. I’m never getting married again,” Bel declared.
It was a hell of an admission.
Three years of knowing Bel and it was the first Dale had heard of it. He tried not to let his astonishment show.
Bel was only 26, and he’d been married before. And he was kind of a piece of shit. Meanwhile, Dale’s fiance had called it off because she’d wanted to fuck some more guys— permanently.
Had he been trying to spare Dale’s feelings by keeping it secret? A bit of envy sprouted in Dale’s mind.
“What happened?” asked Dale.
Bel took a hit of his blunt. “She died,” he said flatly.
Dale was quiet, feeling a bit sheepish in the face of his envy.
So he wasn’t just a royal sowing his oats. He was running. It seemed there was more to Bel than what met the eye.
Dale wanted to delve, but he kept it light. That seemed to be what Bel wanted, what helped.
“That sucks, bro.”
Even that was a bit much for Bel, so he abruptly changed the subject.
“You got that movie on DVD?”
“Absolutely.”
“Let’s watch that shit right now, it sounds funny as fuck,” Bel said, blowing smoke out of his nose and mouth.
“Oh my God,” Dale gritted his teeth. Bel grinned as Dale leaped off of the couch, the idea of watching Coming to America at 2 am striking him in the moment as revelatory.
Bel’s instincts about it had been right. It was the funniest movie he’d ever seen.
Thirty Seven
Chapter 37
Kimberly Pritchard moved her stiff, sore limbs, atrophied from being stuffed into a poorly cushioned chair in the corner of her son’s hospital room. The cold, clinical beeps and whirring of the breathing machines tore through her scant dreams, assuring her in that sickening way that the nightmare of the last three days was indeed still a reality. She tried not to focus on how much she wanted to be home in her warm bed, her son lively and kicking at her side. Tried not to focus on how she was one poor decision, one ignored intuition away from that reality. A distinction the size of a breath had landed her here. In this hell. Her baby invaded with tubes and coaxed to peaceful slumber only by tears and fatigue, not his mother’s touch and voice and breast.
She looked at the clock. 4:53 am. She’d managed roughly three hours of sleep. More than yesterday, but still not enough to feel refreshed. Perhaps she never would, and maybe she deserved that.
She got up to use her breastfeeding pump. Jabari ate through a feeding tube and had trouble swallowing, but they used as much of her milk as they could. Plus, it soothed her to pump. It was one part of her routine that she could keep. When she asked herself if there was anything she should focus on there was only one pressing concern: get her baby a new liver. Once that could be achieved, she would move on to whatever else may need to be done, feel whatever she needed to feel, sue whoever needed to be sued, bury whoever needed to be buried underneath the jail. Anything not immediately related to that would have to wait.
Amara and Mya would likely be here this morning, she thought.
Probably with…them. His friends.
She suspected that Bel probably knew it all by now— not only that there was a baby but that he was sick. Kim was ready to see fully what kind of man he was. She’d long ago confronted the harsh reality that despite being a gorgeous, wealthy, successful businessman, he was full of nothing but worms. Psychopathic ones.
Would he even bother? To help, to call, to actually show up?
It didn’t matter to her. She was praying that he didn’t, that he would prove to be the loser he’d shown himself to be when he said he’d call every day, spend weekends together, and all manner of other plans wistfully made in the moonlight with warm lingering kisses and heavy lids. All kinds of lofty speeches, speeches that she had returned and it made her cringe with embarrassment to remember them.
When Amara entered the high stakes poker game with Grayson, Kim instantly knew she wanted to be on that guest list. Because she was a fuckin’ dime, and she needed a real challenge. The six-figure level was nice but… eleven?? She had to get one of those motherfuckers eating out of her hand before she went to her grave. And for a blissful moment, it seemed like she’d succeeded and in record time, even by her standards.
She did have to credit him with accomplishing what no man before him had been able to: successfully penetrate her. And then impregnate her.
It had been a painful, sometimes tedious, sometimes embarrassing ordeal. But she’d been so tired of being defective, so tired of defeat that it had been worth it. And he’d somehow made it romantic, something intimate that they could always share without having to say a word. He was the first man whom she’d ever let take care of her, and she was afterward ruined. It had been a moment in her tumultuous life as gorgeous as the man himself.
And then he just vanished, on the wings of promises. It took her a full ten days to come to terms with it afterward, and that after she’d waited a week before she felt justified to start trippin’. Her Al-Anon group got an earful for a solid two weeks before someone had to tell her the harsh reality lovingly: if her junkie parents never failed to get a hold of her, then he was more than capable. It wasn’t a mixup, wasn’t a misunderstanding. He wasn’t dead in a ditch somewhere or in jail, or in a coma. He was alive and well, and that was it. He wasn’t coming back.
He’d strung her along the full way, just like when she was five, and her stepdad told her that if she followed the end of the rainbow, she was sure to see a leprechaun. And like she had done at five years old— when an hour and fifteen minutes later she was utterly lost and unsuccessful— she’d blamed herself.
If any man could slip through her defenses, however, it was Bel Hafiz. Or should she say, Prince Belkacem al Malwali of Ghassan, a name which anyone with an internet connection and the inclination could discover? And she’d had both of those.
He was a rich, handsome, pampered royal. Prince of one of those mid-east puzzle pieces that sat on a big bubbling wellspring of oil and therefore didn’t need to follow the rules. No wonder he had no conscience, using women as playthings. Toying with their minds because he was bored enough with just using their bodies. She supposed she should feel accomplished to make it onto such a man’s radar. It had never been about the money for her, not directly. It was about power, about having access to the most untouchable men in the world— and making them beg for it. It hadn’t quite happened that way, and unfortunately, she had to learn the hard way how the 1% get down.
She felt a bit embarrassed to be as surprised as she was, in hindsight. The moment she laid eyes on Bel, she knew she was in the room with the alpha to end all alphas. Even with his laid-back facade, he exuded authority so palpable and was almost fatherly. For him, she was likely small potatoes.
It certainly made for an interesting story. She had to keep reminding herself that she accomplished what she’d naively set out to, which was get pregnant by a gorgeous billionaire. Not to mention that a weekend was technically deemed an acceptable ghosting period. But it had been so so intense, and the promise of love had blinded her, dulled every sense she had. When it was over it was like a death, a searing pain just as blinding.
And then came Jabari. And it was as though none of it mattered.
The luxury, the security, the love that she sought wasn’t real love at all
. Love was giving and giving up. And for the first time in her life, she finally had the true kind. She was beyond grateful. Even to be where she was, in the worst pit of boiling regret and helplessness, she was on some level thankful to have something to care about this much, something tangible. If there was anything her tumultuous unbelievable life had taught her, it was gratitude.
She would have to do everything she could in her power to make sure that nothing or no one could take Jabari away from her.
At 8 am Dr. Journegan came in to speak to her about finding a live donor.
It was a relatively new alternative to the traditional transplant which would allow her son to bypass the waiting list. Her hopes rose to nearly normal levels for the first time in 24 hours. She wasn’t used to such a quick turnaround, but she took the lifeline, trusted it. She was at one of the best children’s hospitals in the country. All Jabari would need is someone who shared his blood type to give him a piece of their liver and let it regenerate.
“My blood type is different, but my friends will be here today, and I know they’ll all be willing to try.”
“What about Jabari’s dad?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“Don’t know…” prompted Dr. Journegan.
“Don’t know where he is, if he’s planning to be here, what his blood type is, how to reach him…nothing.”
“Gotcha,” answered the doctor. She didn’t bother telling Dr. Journegan the father’s identity. She likely wouldn’t believe it if she did. Let him come and confirm it himself.
“But… we have mutual friends so I can find out.”
“The sooner we have a match, the sooner we can begin,” said the doctor.
“How long will it take?”
“About four to six weeks to schedule the surgery.”
Kim thought she would faint. They were telling her that she would have to wait. Which meant that she would inevitably have to do something else other than be in this room, while her baby stayed in this room. She would have to eat, sleep, laugh, go outside, live life while this thing, this one thing that mattered, busied itself with the process of getting done. Dr. Journegan saw the same ashen complexion she’d seen many times.
“There’s a chance we could expedite your son’s case, but it would still be three to four weeks of him here.”
“What can I do?”
“In the meantime? Feed him, hold him, talk to him, go home and get some sleep when you’re ready. Write in the journal we provided, trust me. Give Jabari a piece of his life to look back on. It doesn’t seem like it right now, but you’re going to forget how all of this felt.”
Kim nodded, fighting back emotion.
“This is gonna be his home for the next month or so. As soon as you know of a match contact Mindy anytime, day or night. We’ll be looking for matches as well, but we prefer family or friends.”
With Mindy’s help, Kim got Jabari fed and clothed for the day.
It was still only about 9 am. Her assistant Chandra was probably already at the office. Right when she had that thought, a text came in from her:
FMLA papers leave on your desk or send to the hospital?
Chandra was an angel sent from heaven, and when this ordeal was over, she was going to steal her back from whoever would inevitably poach her while she was gone, because she would not be returning to work, just as Chandra had anticipated.
Kim forced herself to do her habitual counting blessings ritual as she held Jabari as close as she could while he was hooked up to machines. Jabari was alive, instead of dead as he should have been. And instead of being dead as she should have been, she not only had a college degree but a law degree, a swanky apartment in the city less than a mile from the hospital downtown, an assistant, a six-figure income, and a beautiful boy that was technically a prince. She laughed.
“Prince Jabari,” she lilted. He had a thin tube taped to the side of his cheek that led to his nose, and a pacifier in his mouth. His eyes and skin were still the dark yellow they had turned the night before last. But his eyes were as lively as ever, and she’d barely heard him cry since last night, almost as if he was suffering but remembering to spare her. It, in turn, made her want to cry but she wanted to spare him too.
About an hour or two later she got a call from Mya.
“Hey, we just landed are you still at the hospital?”
“Girl, yes I haven’t left.”
“Okay, give us about 20-30 minutes.”
“Is Bel with y’all?”
“No, but I thought you didn’t want him to know??”
Kim was too embarrassed to ever admit to the girls that he’d up and vanished.
It was a good thing they’d all been too busy in life to catch up with her much after that weekend. Otherwise, they would’ve gotten an earful of all her future plans with Bel. Then she’d have had to admit that he’d never communicated with her again, even after she left a gaggle of voicemails.
It was easier to just frame it as the baby transaction she’d initially made it out to be.
They didn’t suspect that any news that they had about Bel was the only news about him she could get her hands on.
“I don’t want him to know, but did anybody listen?”
“Well…sort of. I don’t know. Amara had the guys promise to at least wait ‘til we landed to talk to him but…the only person on their phone right now is me,” Mya suspiciously concluded.
“Right!” urged Kim, accusatory.
Dale grabbed Mya’s hand and kissed it before placing it in his lap, his admission of guilt.
“I talked to him a few hours ago.”
“Dale just said he talked to him a few hours ago.”
Kim’s guts churned. While she slept, Bel was getting the news from his friend that he had a baby, and that her negligence had landed him in the hospital.
“What’d he say?” Kim tried to sound uninterested.
“Dale says he was in his home country at the time, so even if he hopped on a plane that very second, the soonest he could be here is what… like 8 pm?”
“He hopped on a plane?” Kim asked suspiciously, disbelief in her voice. Mya repeated her question.
“Um, yeah,” Kim heard Dale’s response faintly as if it were obvious.
“Did you hear that?” asked Mya.
“Yeah,” Kim responded, sounding tired.
So Bel was actually on his way. To the hospital.
Deep breath, girl, she told herself.
Once Jabari was born, Kim had to face the fact that she would be laying eyes on Bel again eventually at some point, she just planned to be wearing a Diane von Furstenberg jumpsuit with six-inch heels, and her hair blown out when it happened. He was undoubtedly going to be looking like sex and wealth no matter how he showed up, so she had to get her mind right. A children’s hospital was no place to be engaging in fisticuffs, certainly not the time to be having hot uncensored flashbacks like the ones that had already begun in her head.
Shit. He’d been her first and only. She was too mentally turned around to even think about sleeping with someone else afterward. Then she found out she was pregnant; then she found out she wasn’t anymore, then the next thing she knew she was having a baby. Her son caused her to tear when coming out, and she thought she’d never want to look at another dick after that. Jabari was the man in her life for only a few short months before disaster hit.
Suddenly now she was thinking of Bel and thus became aware of her body again. Her vagina again, once her bodily protectee, her obsession. She thought back to the gravitational pull of their first meeting, and that was before the sex. If he showed up all smiles, all sociopathic smoothness, would she even be able to resist? Hell, did she even want to?
Shocks went through her body. Oh no. Would she really betray herself with something so low? She’d seen women do lower things for lesser reasons. She thought back to her mom the prostitute, in the alley. She couldn’t relinquish that kind of power.
But then, if she truly
wanted him out of her life, she knew well enough that becoming clingy and desperate would be the way to do it. Either he would flee the scene, or he would show himself to be so despicable, that what’s left of her dull flame of desire would be completely snuffed out.
Nah, that wasn’t even her style.
She’d have to find the courage to resist him. Sexy beast or not, he didn’t deserve her.
“Call me when you get close. The hospital’s like a maze, I can meet you out front,” Kim said.
“Okay. Any good news?”
“Possibly. The doctor says if I can find somebody with Jabari’s blood type, they can do a live donor transplant just using a piece of someone’s liver. That way I can bypass the waiting list, but that still takes like, four to six weeks, and that’s if I found someone today.”
“It can be anyone?”
“Yeah, just as long as they’re his blood type. The liver regenerates so the piece will grow into a full liver.”
“Oh my God!”
“I know right? Amazing.”
“What’s his blood type?”
“B positive.”
“I’m B positive.”
“Mya…”
“Girl, don’t even say it. Let’s do it.”
Kim let herself weep with joy a bit. Her boy was going to be okay. The future was back in view. She held the phone, speechless.
“I’ll call you when we get there,” Mya concluded.
“Okay,” Kim sniffed, “I love you so much, girl.”
“We love you. We’re on our way.”
Thirty Eight
Chapter 38
Of all the rooms in the palace over the years, all stately black and golds, burgundies and greens, the library remained Prince Belkacem al Malwali of Ghassan’s favorite.
In childhood, it was because of all the enclosed spaces in which he could hide that made it nearly impossible for his myriad brothers and sisters to find him. Then as an adolescent, it was his favorite place to steal away with his childhood best friend and future wife, Leilani. Back when he was innocent. When all the stolen kisses had been her idea, and he would surprise her with dried flowers he’d hidden in random books for her to find. Finally, it was his favorite place because unlike virtually every other room in the palace nothing had changed, and no one else seemed to see much use in it, so it stayed empty. Emptier than the chambers of his heart, emptier than his bed for the past five months. And the quiet distracted his miserable mind and spirit.