CHAPTER SIX
I MET A woman at a diner next to the hotel when I was aching for breakfast and on a hunt for a good buffet. We chatted, or rather, she talked and I pretended to listen while drinking margaritas and dining on overfilled plates we couldn’t finish. Determined to get Calind out of my head, I pretended to listen and enjoy myself. It was the only reason I could think of to explain why I agreed to hit the blackjack tables back inside the hotel after brunch with my overly talkative companion.
“Regan? Let’s go.” The new girl I met at breakfast whose name I couldn’t remember tried to coax me away from the table.
I was up and should’ve stopped. The people at the table threw me dirty looks as though they thought I didn’t belong. I think they knew I was somewhat cheating, or they were small-minded assholes who thought I didn’t have the money to sit at the table.
An arrival made the new girl nervous. “Oh shit. Officer? What’s this about? We’re just two beautiful girls having a good time. Honest.”
“Except neither of you belong at this table,” the stocky security officer barked.
“How do you know which table I belong at?” I asked, my tone full of condescension. “Do you know my net worth? I’ll give you a hint: it’s more than your rent-a-cop salary pays you over several lifetimes.”
“You’ve been marking the cards,” one of my tablemates scoffed. “I can tell, cheater.”
The security guard attempted to grab my arm. “Come with me.”
I stepped back and stared at him like I’d break his arm if he came near me again.
“She’s with me, Daniel.”
I startled at the smoky, deep voice. My attention darted to the other end of the table to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. I wasn’t expecting him to be there, and I wondered how he tracked me.
Calind, dressed in a slate gray button-up and black straight-legged pants, made it hard for me to be anything other than horny. His brown eyes lured me in, digging into my mind, inducing a senseless, dizzy feeling that scared the shit out of me.
“She’s played her last hand,” Calind assured the security guard.
“Your cape isn’t needed,” I said, my voice barely above an audible register.
Calind scrutinized me with a tight frown. “I’m not a superhero. I’m a man chasing a woman who doesn’t know what she wants.”
That burned. I shook it off and surveyed the security guards. One had become five standing strong between the blackjack table and me.
“Gentlemen,” I began in a flirtatious tone, “am I being charged with something? Accusations based on speculation won’t be enough without proof. Trust me, you can’t fuck with me like you think you can. I could have all of your jobs by the end of the day.”
“Yeah, I know who you are. Heard your old man croaked,” the woman with a sour face caked in makeup snapped at me. “I hope he left you with nothing. It’s a shame his only child is a criminal.”
Her words ripped at a gaping emotional wound. Had my father died? “W-what?” I stepped forward, prepared to tear her head off.
Calind intercepted, blocking me from her. His gaze held me, willing me to back away.
The security guards turned to Calind, waiting for his command. He looked over his shoulder at the guards and gave them a nod. The five men relaxed and dispersed to do something other than bother me.
Annoyed, I walked away from the table.
“You’re welcome,” Calind’s voice loomed behind me.
THREE OF THE four penthouse suites where Calind booked our room were rented out for a party full of university students on summer break. The party spilled out into the halls of the suites and interrupted my need for quiet before I made a phone call to find out if the caked-face woman at the blackjack table was telling the truth about my father’s death.
I had proof by way of a search on my phone for news articles. I couldn’t make the phone call to confirm it. Denial overcame me. I took most of the afternoon and a few hours of the night to find the courage, and I couldn’t handle the interruption from a rowdy party.
I placed a sweater over my tank sleep dress and stepped out to investigate. In the center of the hall equidistant from the three suites stood a DJ stand. Inebriated college kids flooded the hallway, nearly overcoming it.
A drunk coed tapped on the microphone, interrupting the earsplitting music, and announced that it was her party. She ordered the men she deemed as hot in the crowd to “Lose your shirts, or get gone.” When the less attractive men in the crowd groaned, she added that she was, “Very serious.”
Calind’s presence was a puppet string, pulling at the back of my neck. I turned toward where the pull was the strongest. His eyes were following me through the crowd like motion-detecting lasers.
I hid inside the suite and closed the door.
Staring at the door, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Calind was on the other side. I sat on the bed for hours, waiting.
I strode to the door, opening it, and slammed it behind me when met with Calind on the opposite side of the narrow hall. “Where the fuck have you been?”
He shifted his back from the wall, coming toward me with a piercing stare. “It’s you who keeps running away from me.” His voice deepened under the loud cacophony surrounding us. He slammed his hand on the doorknob, jamming the door with a thrust of his hand. “To ensure you can’t run away again.”
I glanced from his hand to him in awe. That was… “Interesting. How the hell did you do that?”
His attention shifted to the right with his head angled in my direction.
Three drunk girls, giggling and staring at Calind as though he was lemonade on a humid summer day, arrived in the hall behind him. One of them said, “Take off your shirt, sexy,” to Calind.
He didn’t acknowledge their demand but appeared annoyed by it. “We’re leaving,” he said.
“Are we?” I questioned, folding my arms in defiance. “Because I’m staying.”
“Your obsession with control is on the cusp of wearing on me.”
Calind took out his bow and shot an arrow straight at the heart of the reason I ran from him. And to think, I thought he didn’t know. “You know,” I retorted, “there’s a reason I’m upset, and it’s not about you. Of course, your narcissism makes you think you’re the reason for everything. Didn’t you hear the woman back at the blackjack table?”
He searched my eyes as though he was combing them for gold. The internal pull became strong enough to induce a migraine.
More women added themselves to Calind’s cheering section and kept chanting, “Take off your shirt!”
I touched my head, my headache worsening from their demands. “Please shut them up and take off your fucking shirt already.”
“Will my objectification make everything better for you?” he asked.
“Pfft. You’re hardly objectified, if at all,” I scorned.
“Every time you’re near me, your eyes linger at my cock for at least thirty-seconds.”
I grabbed his collar. “Take off your shirt.”
“Or, you’ll what?” He slammed his palms against the door, pinning me. Dents appeared in the door, creating a circular pattern in the wall around his hands. “You put too much into the way you desire things,” he whispered, his words jagged. “You’re in desperate need of a lesson in humility.”
“You mean give you total control? To submit?”
“Aspects you’ve learned nothing about.”
Dejection won out over sadness. “What am I supposed to do, Calind?” I asked in a small voice. “I think this is almost too much for me. I need a script, or at least instructions.”
The change in my tone made him break his stance. Despite the broken doorknob, he grabbed my hand, pulling me back into our suite with ease.
I walked toward the terrace and grabbed my pack of cigarettes and a lighter from the bed. “This isn’t only about you.” I lit a cigarette as I eyed the twinkling, garish lights of the strip.
“My father,” I said, exhaling the smoke from my bitter menthols. “I don’t know what I felt when that woman told me he was dead. Maybe I felt nothing. I’m not supposed to feel anything, right? He hated me, and I hated him.”
He joined my side, leaning over the rail. “The tears on your cheeks tell a different version of your story.”
I swept the moisture away from my face and turned my back to him.
“I understand why you think there is a need to be this way. Our society isn’t the kindest to women, much less to black women. You’re supposed to be strong and uphold a protective shield whenever things aren’t in your favor. You don’t have to do that with me.
“I need your trust and I need you to know you can have your moments of weakness, knowing I won’t exploit them or label you as weak. You’re allowed to feel whatever you want to feel, whenever you want to feel it. I only ask you remain authentic with me and respect me, or this won’t succeed. If I left things at your preferred personal limit, this won’t progress. I will constantly blur the lines of your boundaries.”
A hint of shock zapped my mind. Calind knew more than I expected about a side of the world he didn’t have to see. He also broke his composure. He wasn’t supposed to be speaking this way, was he? “You’re breaking the rules. Can you do that? Won’t it mess up the experience?”
“I’m allowed to.”
“Why?”
“Because, while you think you chose me, I chose you.”
“Explain that. Does it have anything to do with who you really are? The way people respond to you? One would swear you were a powerful man. A man who owned every damn place I’ve set foot in since I met you.” I gave up on my wish to know the answers the second his body tensed up and clamped down before my eyes.
“You know the weird thing about being told you’ll die?” I asked. “It manipulates your mind in crazy ways, ways you don’t think about until you step outside of yourself. Sometimes you don’t recognize the person you’ve become. I’ve been so sick, I empathized with other terminally-ill people who’ve ended their lives on their own terms.”
“You’ve attempted?”
I knew it was serious before Dr. Kraye said those three nasty words. “I love myself too much to do myself in. Or maybe I’m not strong enough. Maybe I’m a coward.”
“You haven’t discovered the true definition of strength yet.” Calind leaned forward and embraced my face. There went that crazy feeling, making my teeth chatter. “I want to show you you’re stronger than you assume. However, it’s palpably clear you’re not ready to be receptive.”
I gave him a strained smile and nodded. “I’m ready.”
Calind studied my expression, fingering the corner of my new frown. He shook his head as though he found what he didn’t want to see. “If only it were the truth… I’ll give you time. You have thirty days to submit to what I want, on your own. After which, the window will close, and we’ll both walk away from this as if it never began. If you find yourself ready to commit before the time winds down, contact me—” he touched my phone to his to exchange data, “and I’ll send for you.”