by Tia Sirrah
I placed my palms over his hands as they cradled my cheeks. I held my breath and squeezed my eyes shut when his lips touched my forehead. The forehead kiss was sweet, soft, tender. Then another. Then another, causing a reactive response in me to caress the backs of his hands, as his thumbs caressed my cheekbones. I dared not open my eyes; the reality of what I was allowing to happen seemed much easier to stomach in darkness. Then there was a kiss to my eyelid. Then to the other. Then to the tip of my nose. All while we both remained quiet, barely breathing, so afraid that this moment would evaporate into thin air by the slightest sound.
The drumming of my heart beat loudly in my ears, and I could feel the pulse in my neck thumping frantically. Even without opening my eyes, I knew what was coming next. I could feel Quentin's minty breath against my mouth and knew his lips hovered over mine.
It felt like slow motion, as my hands glided over his knuckles and over the long fingers that I was once so well acquainted with. When my finger made contact with the cool metal band on his ring finger, a cold dose of reality slapped me in the face. "We can't do this, Quentin. We're not our parents. Go home to your wife."
Quentin abruptly took a step back, removing his hands from my face as if my skin had burned him. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he said, "You're right. I'm sorry. I should go."
"Yeah, you should."
Quentin took a few steps backward, and my heartbeat finally settled. "Take care of yourself, Fatima."
"You too, Quentin. Good luck in the polls. And may you and your bride rule the world." I could hear the bitterness and disappointment in my tone. My respect for him was at an all-time low, rivaling the lack of respect that I had for myself at that moment.
Quentin straightened his back and gave a curt nod. With one last look at me, he turned away and headed to his car.
I watched him walk away. I wanted it solidified in my brain. Quentin is gone. It is finished. Our chapter, our book, our entire story is over.
Chapter 20
QUENTIN
THE VILLA LE BELLA estate had been in my family for three generations. Nestled in Lake Como, Italy's northeastern shore, the villa had panoramic views of private lakefront. For three long, excruciating weeks, Amy and I were expected to spend more time together than we had throughout our one-year engagement. Typically in March, sunshine was plentiful, and the end of winter gave way for clearing skies and cool temperatures. But of course, fate decided to kick my ass once again. Temperamental rainstorms drenched the village and were expected to continue throughout the first two weeks of our honeymoon, breaking records for typically one of the driest months of the year.
"Where were you on Friday?" Amy asked as we both stared out at the crystal lake, through the floor to ceiling windows.
"Visiting an old friend."
"A woman?"
"Yes." I turned from the view and headed towards the kitchen.
Amy had changed into a red lace number for dinner. After showering this morning, she put on a white one. Around lunchtime, a black one. All did very little to stir my dick. I had yet to touch her since saying "I do" days ago. We had sex only once throughout our engagement, about a month before the wedding. It was during one of Amy's many temper tantrums. I stared at her emotionless while she screamed and cried over God knows what. In an effort to shut her up, I bent her over the back of her sofa and tore her skirt and panties from her ass. Her cries immediately turned to gasps and moans as I spanked her a few good times before shoving my dick inside of her. Instead of giving her the orgasm she desperately wanted, I pulled out of her and came on her ass cheeks. Pleasing her was not a priority of mine.
Amy was growing impatient with my lack of interest. I'd barely looked at her since arriving at the villa. And how could I? Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Fatima's face staring back at me. And at night, while lying next to my wife, I was haunted with images of Fatima with another man pumping between her legs, causing me to wake up in cold sweats. But what did I expect? For Fatima to remain single and abstinent, while I galloped off into the sunset with a fucking bride?
I headed over to the dinner table and picked up a bottle of chilled Ca' del Bosco left by our private chef.
"Did you fuck her?" Amy asked, breaking into my thoughts.
I popped the cork before responding. "No."
"Who is she?" I smelled Amy's floral-scented perfume as she approached me from behind me.
"Does it matter?" I deadpanned, still not turning to face her.
"Don't make me look like a fool, Quentin."
Appearances. That's what my life was all about—all the fucking time. "I'm not having an affair," I say dryly. "Are you? Because you know you can." I finally turned to face her and took a few long gulps from the bottle, draining about half.
Amy folded her arms across her chest and angled her chin upward. "I don't believe you."
I cocked an eyebrow. "I can assure you that I don't give a shit who you fuck."
"I mean about the affair," she gritted out with her tiny hands balled into fists.
"Oh." I shrugged.
"We haven't had sex in over a month. And throughout our engagement, you chased every piece of black tail that you could get your hands on."
"I never lied to you. It wasn't like we were a real couple."
"That's not the point! Daddy knew you were a wild card. He said you have a fetish for black women, especially the ones with dark skin." She spat out the words 'dark skin' like it was the antichrist.
"A fetish?" I smirked.
"I'm nothing like them, Quentin!"
I chuckled. "Really? I had no idea."
She grunted in frustration and stomped her feet like a toddler.
"What the hell do you want from me, Amy? I married you, didn't I?"
The waterworks started on cue. "I'm trying here, okay? I agreed to this, as did you. It wouldn’t hurt for you to at least try to make this work. You promised. In writing," she added.
Damn it. She had a point. No one forced me to marry Amy. And If I were a better man, a man of integrity, I would have scoffed at the idea of an arranged marriage and told our fathers to fuck off. But I wasn't a man of integrity. Not anymore. Not after her. And with every year without Fatima, the bloody stump in my chest grew colder and colder. Or maybe I'd always been this way, and Fatima's presence in my life was but a mere interlude from the man I really was. I came from a bad seed. From men who had a thirst for power. From men drenched in lies. From men whose hands were covered in blood.
"I'll try," I conceded.
"Thank you. That's all that I ask." Amy's ivory skin began to redden as more tears rolled down her cheeks.
When you’re the cause of a woman's tears, you should feel something. Regret. Guilt. Sorrow. Worry. Unease. But as I stared into Amy's eyes, I only felt boredom. Sure. I could fake it and pretend that her tears affected me. But I wasn't in the mood. I could fake it all day in the outside world, but behind closed doors, I could only be me. My emotions, as rare as they were, could only be stirred by a very, very short list of people. Amelia Manchester-James was nowhere on that list.
I stared blankly at Amy. I had little doubt that I looked like a serial killer as I watched steady tears fall from her eyes. I was growing increasingly impatient with her theatrics. Why the hell was she still crying? It had been two hundred and fifty-two seconds. Enough already.
I wiped her tears with the pads of my thumbs, hoping that it would calm her a little. Her tears finally subsided, and I watched her gaze at my face before she dragged her eyes down my bare torso, pausing at my dick print through my gray jogger pants. I knew that look. I'd seen it countless times from perfect strangers, politicians' wives, horny college girls, mothers of my friends, fellow female lawyers and paralegals, and even from a few male politicians who were closeted gay.
Maybe Amy and I could find a way to co-exist. There were a lot of commonalities. We had a similar upbringing. Our families were close. We had the same political affiliation and the same core values.
We were both independently wealthy, with a fair and ironclad prenuptial agreement that protected our individual assets. And aesthetics wise, we looked good together.
This didn't have to be hard. Amy and I had specific stipulations in our marriage in the form of a contract. We both wanted kids, and Amy would have four children, all two years apart from each other, beginning after the third year of our marriage.
Other individual requests had to be negotiated with legal counsel.
Amy's requests were as such:
A new pair of tits and a tummy tuck after having our four children.
We would fuck fifteen times per month.
I would not sleep around during any of her pregnancies. (That was an easy one because I had no desire to obtain mistresses. It wasn't a moral issue, but a drama issue. I had no desire to deal with the complexities of trying to balance a mistress and a wife.)
We would participate in threesomes and foursomes—MFF or MFFF only. Amy wanted to add guys to the mix too, but that shit didn't fly with me. I was a kinky bastard, but not that kinky. The only dick that would be in the room would be mine.
My requests were as such:
Amy couldn't fuck anyone—the pool boy, fitness instructor, nanny, maid, the mailman, friends—absolutely NO ONE without my consent beforehand. (My vanity prevented me from getting jealous, but that same vanity and my ego made it impossible for me to relinquish complete control over what belonged to me legally.)
Absolutely no outside dick during her pregnancies or while we were trying to get pregnant. (Pussy or my dick would have to suffice.)
No displays of affection in private, unless we were fucking or about to fuck. And no kissing at all. Ever. At any time.
We would have separate bedrooms. (I agreed to sleep in the same bed during our honeymoon and on wedding anniversaries.)
We would both make our children a priority and would try our damndest not to let our dysfunctional marriage screw them up or make them feel unloved or unwanted.
In case of a divorce, we would each have 50/50 joint custody of our children.
"Okay." I took another healthy swallow from the wine bottle.
"Okay?"
"Okay," I repeated with more certainty. "I'll fuck you. I'll even make you cum," I said, matter of fact.
Amy's nipples immediately hardened underneath the thin straps of lace covering her fake tits. Reaching out tentatively, she pressed her palms against my pectoral muscles and slowly dragged her nails along the two cigarette scars on my chest right above my heart. She probably thought they were pox marks. Fatima was the only one who knew about the first scar I inflicted after Colton died. I inflicted the second scar immediately after Fatima left my beach house nine years ago. Amy, like the rest of the women I fucked, was too distracted by my muscles and my dick, to even question the small scars.
Amy's fingers trailed down to the ridges of my six-pack and across my adonis belt. I stood still and allowed her to touch me and salivate over my body. This would have to do as her foreplay because I wouldn't be providing any other assistance in that area today.
I studied Amy's face carefully. She was beautiful. Sapphire blue eyes. Pink pouty lips. Long blond hair. She resembled that Scarlett Johanssen chick, at least that's what my sisters said. "She's stunning," my sisters marveled. "She has a nice ass," my brother added. "She'll make the perfect wife," my dad lied. "She'll give you lots of beautiful children," both my mothers enthused.
Amy and I were both settling with each other. Married or not, neither of us had a shot in hell with the ones we really wanted. So why not make the best of this?
"I can make it so good for you, Q. Just—"
"Don't call me that."
"Okay. Quentin." Amy slipped a hand into my pants and pulled my dick out. "I know from personal experience that you're a great fuck. And you owe me. Fifteen times a month, remember?"
My dick twitched under her touch and started to come alive as she stroked it. I took one more swig from the wine bottle before bringing the bottle up to Amy's mouth. "Open your mouth," I commanded as I fisted her hair and yanked her head back. Amy obliged, opening her mouth wide and sticking out her tongue.
I poured a trickle of wine into her mouth, which she swallowed greedily before licking her lips. Good girl. She was going to do a lot more of that tonight.
Her hand began to stroke me faster, which felt like fucking heaven. After taking one last swallow from the bottle, I turned the bottle upside down and poured the remaining chilled wine over her tits, drenching her. She gasped in surprise before moaning.
I would not be gentle. And although I rather enjoyed the taste of pussy, I would not eat her. But I would fuck her—all over this goddamn villa.
This was my life now. Amy was my wife. And Fatima was my past.
Chapter 21
FATIMA
WHILE ATTENDING UCLA WITH a double major in Business and Spa Management, I went to beauty school on the weekends and secured my cosmetology license. Upon moving back to Texas, I obtained a job in a beauty salon in downtown Houston. My ultimate goal was to one day own a salon. But for now, I was satisfied with my job and my social media exposure. I worked at the salon five days a week, posted vlogs once a week, and shared pictures of my work four times a week, across various social media platforms. My followers on social media surpassed 500,000 and were steadily climbing after documenting my time on tour as the hairstylist to famed pop star, Shayla, who I met at an industry party in Los Angeles.
I shared many aspects of my life on social media. Makeup and hair tutorials. Bucket list challenges. Workout goals. Cross country and overseas travel excursions. Nightlife. And hanging with celebrity friends of mine during my time in L.A. and New York. I kept my sex life and my financial status private. Unbeknownst to my dad and me, on my twenty-first birthday, my mom's estate granted me a seven-figure trust fund. Besides the absorbent amount of money I spent on traveling, most of the money was left untouched in a diverse portfolio. As an incentive to move back to Sugar Land, Texas, my dad gifted me with a large downpayment on my very own home. With the inheritance from my dad's side of the family, I purchased my baby—a purple metallic 1967 Shelby GT500. My job at the salon and my income from social media paid for my mortgage, clothes, and basic necessities.
Moving to New York after graduating from UCLA was a spur of the moment decision and an attempt to create further distance between me and my past. I loved New York. The excitement, the culture, the history, the food, and the nightlife. But in the end, it wasn't where my heart was. My heart was in Texas with my family. So, I decided to stop running. I refused to allow the memories of Quentin and me, and the fear of seeing him again, prevent me from going home. My roots were in Texas. My family was all there, as were memories of my mother, which I clung to like a lifeline. Quentin was my past. And although he broke my heart, I didn't regret a second of our time together. I got to experience real love. It ended brutally, but oh, the lessons I learned along the way!
As the years passed by, I made peace with the fact that I now only had half a heart. The other half permanently belonged to Quentin. What he did with that half, I couldn't control. But what I did with the remaining piece of my heart, was solely in my hands. I would protect it and cherish it, at all costs and by any means necessary. I would guard my emotions and keep our past love affair all to myself, never uttering a single word about the boy who stole my heart only to break it.
I found out about Quentin and Amy's engagement while standing in line at the grocery store. Displayed on a magazine rack, on the cover of a popular celebrity magazine, was a picture of Quentin and Amy, front and center. They looked happy. Amy's smile was a mile wide, as Quentin, her beau, as they called him, wrapped his arms around her from behind and nuzzled his face into her neck. They looked stunning together. Like they were meant to be.
The masochist in me bought the magazine and kept it in my trunk until I got home. Sitting on my couch, I flipped through three additional full-page editorial photos of th
e two lovebirds, and read the entire two-page article while eating a tub of Rocky Road ice cream and listening to Fool of Me by Meshell Ndegeocello on repeat.
Best friends turned lovers: America's royalty, Quentin Ashton James V, falls head over heels in love with Railroad heiress, Amelia Manchester. The two will wed next spring at their families' country club.
"She's always been the one."
"I'm so lucky to be marrying Quentin. He's my best friend!"
What. The. Entire. Fuck.
∞∞∞
"WELCOME HOME, TO THE girl with the best baby hair in town, sick abs, and legs that I would sell a kidney for." Marley held up her salt-rimmed Margarita glass towards all the girls that I loved.
"We wish you love, successful, and all the happiness in the world," my co-worker, Kelsey, piped up.
"To my cousin, who's always had my back. Who's always been my rock. Who's the strongest person I know. I love you, girl," Novalee added.
"And to Shayla, a grammy-winning songbird. Who I have a total girl crush on," my Crossfit buddy, Stephanie, added. We all giggled at Stephanie's fangirling.
"Fatima, you are the absolute freaking best. You're talented, beautiful, hilarious, and fierce. Thank you for all that you do. I miss you, girl. And know, you'll always have a friend and a job in L.A.," Shayla winked.
"Boooo. You've had her for long enough," Marley jumped in.
"Awww, I love you divas," I said, as we clinked our glasses.
It had taken me a few weeks to paint, decorate, and unpack my belongings in my new Bungalow home. I had the carpet replaced with vinyl plank floors throughout, and I had the kitchen and two bathrooms professionally remodeled. My new stove remained untouched until Novalee showed up to prepare a feast for queens for my housewarming/welcome home party. The party was intimate, and I’m sure Shayla appreciated it. The last thing she wanted was to have to spend the entire evening signing autographs and taking selfies.