The Billionaire's Club Trilogy: Deluxe Box Set

by C. L. Donley

  “Alright, look. Y’all know how I wanted to save myself for my husband, right?” Kim oddly began.

  The girls looked at each other. Huh??

  For Amara and Mya, there was no point in arguing semantics.

  “Yeah,” they simply said.

  “Okay. Here’s what happened,” she began.

  Kim took a deep breath.

  She thought this would be easier now that she was “cured,” that Bel had fixed her and her nightmare of nearly fourteen years was over. But the baggage was all there, packed and ready.

  Kim was instantly covering her ugly cry face. The girls were prepared. They knew that Kim had been hiding so so much from them, but they couldn’t force her to share. They just hoped that she wouldn’t one day snap under all the pressure of not becoming her parents and end up joining them on the street. They couldn’t think of anything more sad.

  They were quiet a long time while Kim simply unloaded the tears that made it impossible to speak. They found tissue and hoped that no doctors came in to disturb them at this exact moment.

  “The reason I had to break it off with Vincent was because… I literally couldn’t have sex. And he broke it off with me. I mean, we both agreed but…” she shook her head.

  “I really loved him. And I was scared, because I knew,” she spoke with her hands, “I knew what would happen. I lowkey didn’t expect to fall for him, but he was so… amazing. I should’ve let him go as soon as I knew that, I should’ve just…cut him loose. But I didn’t, because I didn’t want to. And when he was gone it hurt me so bad,” Kim commenced crying.

  Amara and Mya were puffy-eyed and solemn. They didn’t quite understand what Kim was plainly telling them. They’d asked about Bel and she’d backed it all the way up to Vince from three years ago.

  “You couldn’t have sex meaning… you couldn’t…”

  “A penis will not go into my vagina.”

  “Like… it hurts, or it literally closes up?”

  Kim gave no clarity, just nodded her head vigorously as if to say yes to it all.

  Maybe it was the trauma of growing up in a house of drug addicts. Perhaps it was the instability, the myriad “friends” and “neighbors” and “uncles” and occasionally her own stepfather that she regularly had to guard her and her brothers against. Maybe it was being exposed to her mother’s prostitution, slowly and gradually more graphic, that scared her anatomy into literally rebelling against her maturing sexuality. But it seemed no matter how much she liked a guy, no matter how ready she’d gotten, how desperate she eventually became to simply get it over with, her vagina became like the most potent bear trap on planet earth, denying penises of all shapes and sizes their desired entrance, sometimes even to the point of injury.

  Mya and Amara had never, ever seen their friend like this and they felt like terrible people. They suspected she had some sort of pathological relationship with sex, but when she said it out loud it all made sense. It was so obvious.

  Of…course.

  Of course, no one was winning all the time. Was that bubbly all the time. Of course, no one could be that focused and driven, raise a family at eight years old, and also be flighty and frivolous and callous and irresponsible in their relationships.

  And of course she wasn’t going to end up under a bridge somewhere, because somewhere deep inside of her she was positively terrified at the sight of any external, penetrative thing that seemed like it could give you pleasure beyond your control. A man’s penis may as well have been a giant needle.

  She’d been hiding this whole time.

  “I went to therapy, we flew to New York to this specialist, every week, fuckin’ $2000 a session,” she went on, “I did exercises, I bought toys, dilators, I did everything they told me. Like, overkill, you know how I do.”

  “It didn’t work?”

  “No, it did! They told me I was fine, there should be nothing wrong with me.”

  “Damn. That’s fuckin’ worse,” Amara admitted.

  “Bitch!” Kim shook her head. “They gave me this fuckin’ certificate after it was over like I’d graduated from college. I sure as hell paid for it like I did.”

  She couldn’t help trying to make them laugh. They accommodated her. Besides, it was funny. Especially the way she told it.

  “Poor Vince. He booked this fancy hotel, champagne, rose petals— I mean…candles…”

  “Oh no,” Mya was already cringe-laughing.

  “I was like, ‘I cannot disappoint this man’…girl. When I tell you my shit was on fiyerr…”

  The girls were helplessly giggling as Kim went on to re-enact Three Stooges-style sex hijinx, and compare her ex-fiance’s member to a large barrel curling iron on the highest setting.

  “My vagina was like, ‘Nope! Thanks anyway, though.’ I just couldn’t do it.”

  The girls were still attempting to recover when the doctor suddenly emerged.

  “Well, you ladies are in a good mood! So I’ll start with the bad news,” he began.

  Kim had sustained what was commonly referred to as a boxer’s fracture, the undesired result of a fist hitting an immovable object. But the good news was that the bone was still in alignment, which meant no surgery. She just needed to immobilize it with a splint.

  “Not sure who the lucky guy was, but he probably deserved it. My professional advice: retire the gloves and stick to modeling,” the doctor quipped, clearly in love.

  By the time they’d left the hospital with Kim’s hand bound, medication in hand, it was now the darkest hour before dawn.

  “Well I haven’t seen Jabari all night, I’m headed over to the PICU.”

  “Sorry,” Amara sighed.

  “Girl, that was my fault. Thank you, though. You were right; I did need to go out. And I’m glad I looked hot to death when Bel showed up.”

  “So… obviously Bel succeeded where no other man could,” Mya deduced.

  Kim threw her head back dramatically and bent backward at the waist. They’d already heard the stories first hand, but she’d apparently omitted some details, which was hard to believe.

  “When I told him the deal, he was like…” she shook her head fondly her eyes smiling, “you know how he is. Like he doesn’t take anything seriously,” she looked at Amara and she nodded.

  “He was like, ‘aw your pussy shy, girl?’ I was like, ‘yeah,’” she laughed. Amara and Mya joined in. Leave it to Bel to sum up fourteen years of trauma into a diagnosis of “pussy shyness.”

  “I mean… he was determined. Like, he was not giving up, he wanted that ass.” Amara shook her head at Kim’s indelicate description of Bel’s philandering ways.

  “He was actin’ a complete fool, too. Like he could see that I was getting…depressed so he was like, trying to cheer me up or he would, you know, try to turn me on,” Kim was all smiles and clearly back in time as she spoke about Bel’s elaborate therapy.

  “I mean, it was like “a hundred and four” play like that man is…” Kim took a deep breath.

  “So like…what did the trick?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know. He just…boom. It went in. I was like, ‘hallelujah, thank you Jesus!’ like I was for real crying, thanking the Lord and he was like, ‘that’s not even the first time I’ve heard a woman say that.’ He’s such a fool.”

  “Oh my God,” Mya cooed as if it was romantic.

  “He did, like, speak into it, so. I ain’t never seen a muhfucka do that,” Kim randomly added.

  The girls fell all over each other laughing.

  Without any prompting, Kim started elaborating.

  “He just like, started yelling into my vagina like a megaphone. Like, ‘let me in!’” Kim giggled, “He was just trying to make me laugh, like we were a good half a damn day in, by that point. But I think he for real did something.”

  “Oh…my….God,” Amara guffawed, the familiar words from her first time ringing through her body.

  “So he’s like…magical,” Mya deduced.

&nbs
p; “Yes! And Jabari is a magical baby.”

  “Wow,” Mya exclaimed.

  “I still don’t get it. Why did you dump him then?”

  Kim sighed. “Girl, he ghosted me.”

  “…Oh hell no he didn’t!” Mya blurted in rare, uncharacteristic fashion. They were, nevertheless, used to it.

  “I don’t even believe that. Like, it doesn’t make sense,” Amara stammered in disbelief, thinking back to Bel’s disheveled state.

  “It don’t make sense because you can’t see that your boss is a fuckin’ rich spoiled narcissist psychopath. Y’all knew that’s how he did women anyway. I wish somebody bothered to tell me.”

  “Honestly… I figured it was a hook-up and yeah, maybe I’d hoped it would turn into something more but… basically I assumed y’all were on the same page with all that,” Amara admitted.

  “Bitch, me too!! But he went in, like he was saying all kindsa stuff to me!! So then I started saying all kindsa stuff back! I mean, I meant it but…”

  “Why wouldn’t he just be honest with her?” Mya wondered aloud, “If he’s supposed to be y’all’s best friend, did he not think this would get back to you?”

  “Believe me, when I found out he wasn’t dead?! Oh, I was pissed,” Kim said.

  “I’m telling you, he was fucked up after we got back from our honeymoon,” Amara said again, trying to re-arrange the pieces of this love story puzzle.

  “And I am telling you…he…ghosted…me.”

  “No, I hear you. He definitely deserves to get punched if that’s true.”

  “If?”

  “Girl, I believe you, I’m saying it for myself. If that’s true then… he’s about get a foot up his ass in addition to a broken jaw.”

  “Amara ‘Brown Sugar’ Davis!”

  “More like ‘Olivia Pope.’ Consider this fuckin’ shit handled.”

  Forty Three

  Chapter 43

  Stars. They weren’t visible that night, but Bel saw them anyway.

  His head was pounding, his ears ringing, his jaw on fire. He moved it around a little trepidatiously.

  It seemed fine. Well, it wasn’t fine, but since his jawbone wasn’t grinding like it was in shards, he thought he was alright. He moved his neck back and forth, sore from where it had whipped quickly back in place from the force of the hit. Then, suddenly he heard the muffled sounds of his brother saying “your highness! Your Highness!” in Farsi.

  What the hell is he doing, Bel thought but couldn’t say. Just use my first name.

  There was no danger of espionage there, certainly no one who spoke Farsi. And though it could’ve been paranoia, it was more than likely concussion-induced confusion.

  “Don’t call me that here,” Bel slurred in his native language.

  “Belkacem!” Fahid responded.

  A moment later Bel heard another presence join them on the terrace.

  “Hoooly shit, dude,” Bel heard Dale’s voice.

  By this point, Bel was attempting to sit up, creaky and stiff as he slumped forward on one elbow. His tongue felt around in his mouth for any loose teeth, but he found nothing out of the ordinary besides blood. He spat.

  “Okay, bro. I think I’ve held my peace long enough on this. How much more of this batshit crazy woman are you willing to take.”

  “That’s no way to talk about the future queen of Ghassan,” Bel answered.

  “You gotta be shitting me dude!”

  “I’ve never been punched in the face. Did you know that?”

  No one dared to punch Bel in the face because the penalty for punching Bel in the face was death.

  His royal status nearly made military school an exercise in futility. The camaraderie that surrounded him without touching him was unbearable. He began starting fights but no one was stupid enough to engage him. No one except Qamar, now deceased, who smacked him in the face. Qamar laughed at the sight of young Bel’s distaste for being smacked, which in turn made Bel laugh. They became best friends.

  “How’d you like it?”

  “I didn’t, but…” Bel spat again, the taste of blood still swirling with saliva. “I feel fucking awesome, bro.”

  “Bro, this looks…completely insane. You gotta help me,” Dale pleaded.

  “Do you remember when I told you that I had a wife? That died?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “Well, she died giving birth to our son, who also died.”

  “Shit,” Dale sighed.

  Bel accepted his brother Fahid’s outstretched arm and got up. He was a little bit wobbly as he found the railing. A moment later Grayson was through the exit doors and made his way out to the balcony. Grayson walked up to his friends who were all composed, leaning against the terrace, save for Bel who had a split on the side of his lip and was compulsively tonguing it.

  “Kim’s hand is the size of a baseball,” he matter of factly announced.

  “Is she okay?” Bel said.

  “Probably not. The girls just took her to the hospital.”

  “Shit,” Bel said with regret.

  “Her poor hand,” Dale said.

  “I can take a punch, bro.”

  “So you guys have a kid together. So you lost your family. I admit I’m the last person in the world to relate to that. Certainly they’ve made it to the 21st century in Ghassan? You don’t have to marry her.”

  “Dale, I don’t do anything I don’t want to do.”

  “Bro, these women…”

  “Kim is nothing like… any of those others.”

  “You don’t remember their names do you?”

  “Not really, bro. No.”

  “Well, I do. Because they always damaged some shit they thought was yours but was really mine, and I remember everyone that fucking damages my stuff. Julianne keyed my car. Rachel took a shit on my bed. Deja keyed my other car.”

  Bel was trying to laugh without moving his mouth, so he had to engage his diaphragm and just let out intermittent gusts of air. Grayson giggled until he couldn’t breathe thinking about an enraged Dale, carrying on about kicking Bel out, while he bunched up his goose down comforter that his mom had gifted him and carried it out to the garbage bin like a giant cloth diaper. Fuck. Their 20’s were completely ridiculous.

  “I liked the attention. Okay, like the attention. But that was years ago, bro. Kim had every right to knock me unconscious tonight. I told her I wanted to take Jabari with me to Ghassan.”

  “Without her?”

  “No. I told her she was coming to.”

  “How’d you lose your family?” Grayson was trying to catch up.

  “What?”

  “Dale said ‘So you lost your family…you don’t have to marry her.’”

  “Bel had a wife that died in childbirth. Along with the baby,” Dale filled in.

  Grayson looked at Bel, now the only other father between them. The same fear had gripped him when Amara was suddenly wheeled in for emergency surgery when her blood pressure spiked with Sam. Grayson’s messianic eyes were compassionate.

  “You ghosted her,” Grayson realized.

  “I did. Hard.”

  “Fuck,” Dale was dumbfounded, trying to remember all the faint details of the last year that didn’t involve Mya. “Bro, did I not say this would happen? Why in the fuck would you do that anyway, I thought it was just a crazy weekend?”

  “…It was, and it wasn’t.”

  “Does Amara know??”

  “She doesn’t seem to. Yet.”

  No wonder Kim seemed so dismissive at the hospital. No wonder Bel’s lip was split.

  “So this whole time you had it coming, and you never said shit.”

  “I didn’t know about Jabari. Neither did she, apparently.”

  “But at the beginning… wait…” Dale squinted, trying to piece the puzzle together.

  “If he ghosted her, then that means the only way Kim got any information at all was through Amara, which also explains why he wasn’t the first to know about the baby,” Gray
son remembered.

  “And if Amara still doesn’t know… it’s because Kim’s been trying to spare her,” Bel lamented.

  “Did you ever reach out to her?” Dale was still confused.

  “I was going to. Only… after the miscarriage, I assumed there was no need.”

  The two men were aghast, as was his brother Fahid. He said nothing to his brother the king, just folded his arms and looked down at the floor.

  “Not that I have to explain myself to any of you, but I thought I could keep her at arm’s length, but I couldn’t, so I fucking ran. Okay? And then finding out she was having a baby… I thought after 12 years I was ready, but it was just too close for comfort. Nine months of worrying it…he would die, that Kim would die, that I had some weird fuckin’ curse on me…” He sighed. Grayson stayed quiet, but Dale seemed less sympathetic.

  “So your plan was… what, exactly?”

  “I didn’t have one.”

  “And now you do.”

  “Now I’m the king, bro, of course I have a fuckin’ plan. I got lead weights attached to my balls right now, so them shits gotta drop. No painkillers either.”

  “Well, you’re gonna at least need a leather belt in your mouth when Amara finds out about all this because she’s gonna rip you a new asshole.”

  “What was her name? Your wife?” Grayson suddenly asked.

  Bel smiled. He’d never talked about Leilani, outside of the family, and it usually bothered him to do so. This time he couldn’t control the smile, though his mouth was in pain.

  “Leilani. My son’s name was Hani,” he volunteered at the end. Tearlessly he acknowledged them. Fahid put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

  Kim’s younger brother Jamaal joined the men on the terrace.

  “I’ve been trying to keep the balcony private for you guys. I’m a bodyguard.”

  “Oh. Thanks,” Grayson said.

  “I can’t believe none of you have bodyguards. I’m sort of astounded.”

  “We’re not exactly the Beatles. Just rich,” Dale said, sounding dated even to himself.

  “My boss isn’t even a millionaire. And he’s got four.”