Now Porsha knew for sure that Raven was lying about being raped. She’d actually known this since yesterday, but watching her interact with some of the staff members during the meeting two hours ago had confirmed Porsha’s suspicions even further. Raven was pretending to be a victim and doing it well enough to deceive lots of people, and Porsha wondered how long she was going to get away with it. As it was, Dillon was already onto her, which meant his father was, too, so no good could come of this for Raven. Porsha didn’t actually know Reverend Curtis Black personally, but she knew enough about his past to predict that things wouldn’t go well for Raven if she didn’t stop what she was doing. She was playing games with the wrong man, and if Raven’s theory was right about Dillon burning down his own church, then he wasn’t someone Raven should be messing with, either.
But that wasn’t Porsha’s biggest worry at the moment. Not when she’d felt a bit uneasy ever since speaking to Dillon yesterday afternoon. She’d tried to forget about his calling her, but she couldn’t. In fact, she’d thought about him all evening and again this morning, and she didn’t like how some of her old feelings had resurfaced. She didn’t like it at all, especially with his being engaged to someone else—even though when she’d asked him about Taylor, he’d immediately asked if she was jealous. Then, there was the way he’d ended their call by referring to her as “baby.” Porsha wasn’t sure why he’d spoken to her in that respect if he was in love with and was planning to marry his fiancée. Although with Dillon’s history of cheating, she knew she shouldn’t be surprised. Which was even more reason she didn’t want to feel the way she did, and she hoped he didn’t contact her again.
Porsha pulled a legal-size writing pad closer and picked up her black Montblanc pen. She smiled when she thought about the fact that Steve had given it to her for her birthday earlier this year. He’d also bought her a gorgeous set of diamond studs, and a part of her did wonder what his wife would think if she knew the kind of money Steve had spent on Porsha. He owned a successful home health care company and could likely afford it with no problem, but there was no denying that these were the kinds of gifts a husband should be buying for his wife. This was something Porsha tried her best not to think about, though, because she knew having an affair with Steve was wrong. Sleeping with any married man was wrong, and strangely, when she’d woken up this morning a wave of guilt had nearly paralyzed her. It had overwhelmed her so much that she’d thought she was going crazy.
Then, when her mind and body had seemed to relax, she’d thought about her singles ministry for women. For so long she’d been lying and telling people that God had called her to preach, but this morning she’d felt as though God truly was speaking to her. It wasn’t that she’d heard His actual voice, but He’d seemed to speak to her soul. He’d made it very clear that all the sins she was committing were wrong, and that He had something good He wanted her to do. Something that would help someone other than herself.
It had also been then that she’d decided to call her new singles ministry for women Daughters of Ruth. She hadn’t shared this information during the staff meeting because she hadn’t wanted anyone thinking she’d jumped ahead of the game, that is, before asking for their blessings. But again, she’d known since waking up this morning that this was the perfect name for what she wanted to accomplish. She felt so much passion for her new ministry, more than she had for anything else she’d worked on, and this meant everything. Because to her, the best ministries were started by people who could relate to the folks they were planning to help. Needless to say, as a thirty-four-year-old single woman hoping to find her own Boaz, she knew what it was like to feel alone and to want to be married. This was also the reason she would think that Raven would’ve been more supportive and would’ve seen how important this ministry was for the church as a whole. Especially since Raven was single and five years older than Porsha. But, of course, Raven didn’t want to see Porsha creating anything that wasn’t Raven’s idea, and she would never say anything good about it.
Porsha Googled a few articles that offered statistics about single women. She shook her head when she saw one that stated that the reason some women were single was because there just weren’t enough men to go around. Then it mentioned how, on top of that, the ratio of women to men turned bleaker when you considered the fact that some women had pretty high standards—the kind that didn’t make a lot of sense but were also the kind that likely meant they wouldn’t find a husband. For example, there were some women who wouldn’t date a man who didn’t have a college degree, even if he earned a better living than some men who did. There were also women who refused to date a man who didn’t fall into the exceptionally handsome category, even if they weren’t the most beautiful specimens themselves. Porsha didn’t understand any of the above, because as wealthy as she’d always been, she’d never cared about a man’s educational background or the amount of money he made as long as he worked somewhere full-time. Even being the finest man of the century didn’t matter to her, as long as he took care of himself in all other areas. She did, however, want a man who treated her well, and most of all, she wanted to be loved at the highest level. Second only to God, she wanted her man—her husband—to love her more than anything or anyone else until death.
Porsha jotted down a few agenda items for the first ministry meeting, but then her phone rang. She glanced over at the screen and saw that it was Steve. He’d tried calling her twice yesterday and again first thing this morning, but she hadn’t answered. She was still upset about his saying he wasn’t going to leave his wife, and she hadn’t wanted to talk to him.
She reached for her phone, barely catching his call before it went to voice mail. “Hello?”
“Well, it’s about time,” he said.
“Time for what?”
“Oh, so I guess you think that’s funny.”
“I don’t think it’s funny at all. But I’m also not going to pretend like you don’t have a wife.”
He sighed loud enough for her to hear him. “Why are you still talking about that? Why are you acting this way?”
Porsha leaned back in her chair and turned toward her window, but she didn’t respond.
“Hello?” he said, sounding annoyed.
“I’m here.”
“Look, we need to talk.”
“Then talk.”
“Not now, this evening.”
She scrunched her eyebrows. “Since when do you visit me on weeknights? I mean, maybe you do every now and then, but that’s rare.”
“I really want to see you. Is that a crime?”
“You tell me.”
“Look, I know you don’t like our situation, but there’s nothing I can do about it right now. It won’t always be this way, though.”
“You could do something about it if you wanted to.”
“I can’t help that my son is still in high school.”
“This isn’t just about your son. Have you forgotten what you said on Sunday?”
“What?”
“That you didn’t want to abandon your wife?”
“Look, baby, let’s just talk about it tonight, okay?”
“Fine.”
“I love you, and I’ll see you then.”
Porsha didn’t bother saying good-bye, because she doubted he was planning to actually show up anyway. She was pretty sure his church had Bible study on Tuesday nights, and he never usually missed going. Maybe it was time to end things with Steve. She did love him, but what if he strung her along until his son graduated high school and then still refused to divorce his wife? She’d seen this exact scenario many times before with other women. The same thing had sort of happened to her with Dillon. Maybe in a different way, but nonetheless, he’d ended up engaged to someone else. Porsha still resented him for that, too. So once again, she told herself that she didn’t want to think about Dillon. That she didn’t have feelings for the man who had betrayed her—feelings that had been buried for two years straight. Feelings that were slowly returning whether she wanted them to or not.
So, what she had to do was stop this madness from recurring. She had to end it before it ever got started.