Chapter 6
SIX
STORM
A xel’s right about the Universe.
God, the ancestors, fucking fate has chosen to bring us back together.
I don’t believe in God or the so-called powers of the Universe. Not really. But I believe in Shae. Always have.
And divine intervention is the only explanation for why I’m here now, hidden in shadows, watching the only woman I’ve ever loved.
Across the foyer, someone laughs, a high-pitched squeal that reminds me of Bambi’s mom, Lucielle De Luca. It’s not her, but could be her carbon copy, and I’m annoyed that the sound takes my attention away from Shae, even if just for a moment.
Shae.
Shae’s right here . In front of me.
She’s even more stunning now than she was eight years ago. My memories, my dreams, don’t do her justice.
She used to wear her hair curly—I rarely saw her with it straightened. Now, her hair slicks back from her face with a middle part, longer pieces framing her beautiful face.
The red dress pours from her body, the fitted corset-style bodice causing her tits to sit high on her chest.
They’re bigger, rounder, but then, all of her is slightly thicker, a bit curvier.
Her hips, the shapely curve of her thigh. I can tell she works out now from the way her muscles flex with every step in the fuck-me heels she wears.
She looks like an African goddess: innately powerful, beautiful, and otherworldly.
Shae Olivya Rivers never left my heart, my soul, and looking at her now—being in her presence now….
Just like that, I’m obsessed, more deeply, inextricably obsessed with her than ever before.
I’ve been sober from Shae for the last few years, at least. But I’m an addict who just got a hit after a long stretch of sobriety. It feels fucking euphoric to consume her.
And that’s a fucking problem.
Riale’s somewhere; Axel’s somewhere. I track her like a bloodhound, sticking to the places where she can’t see me and I can watch her work.
And fuck…is it terrible that I have a semi from how she took down that fuckhead Kenyon Braxton? I could see him flushing purple and sweating from all the way across the ballroom.
Kenyon Braxton is spineless and amoral—not that I have any room to talk after all the shit I’ve done for Lakeland over the last few years.
Things that also make me unworthy of Shae and her goodness.
Oh yeah. That.
“Fuck,” I whisper, stepping further into the shadows as rage, blinding rage, attempts to hijack my brain.
A slim white man steps up to Shae and puts his hand on the small of her back. Who the hell is this motherfucker? My skin feels too tight; my breath comes out too hard and hot. I’m breaking down and two seconds from committing murder, but then, she steps away.
Good, baby. Because there was about to be a bloodbath on the marble floors.
I try to calm my breathing for several long seconds as I drink her in, but then everything freezes.
Shae looks at me with narrowed eyes, and yep. There I go, wanting to haul her off and turn into a motherfuckin’ caveman.
I wait, watch, and mourn as she looks away from me and back to her companion.
Wait….
After a few more seconds, she’s gone.
Gone.
And it feels fucking terrible.
I move out of the shadows, prepared to leave the gala and head to my condo, where I know I’ll face another sleepless night battling the urge to look through the telescope Axel bought me, when a sharp shht sound comes from behind me.
I recognize the code for what it is and retreat in the direction of the noise. After a few seconds, Axel, Riale, and I stand in a loose circle in an empty dining room.
“All right, I’ve got what I need from Nancy,” Axel says. “Her email comms are bugged, including the secret folder she has on her local network.”
“That soon?” I ask, even though I know better than to doubt Axel.
“Yeah,” he drawls. “I just needed her thumbprint and to get close enough to scan her retinas.” He shrugs. “Piece of cake.”
Riale makes a rough sound in his throat, and I turn to him. His mouth is set in a grim line.
“What’s wrong with you?” I ask, already very annoyed with him.
He doesn’t respond right away.
“We can talk about it back at your place,” he says, dismissing me. But fuck that.
“Nah, nigga. Right now is fine,” I say, taking a step toward him. Riale bristles for a long moment.
“Storm, I’m on your side,” he says, and Axel stands silently for once.
“Why do I feel like that’s a lie?” I ask, narrowing my eyes. This is Riale. My best friend—a brother, really. He’s had my back more times than I can count, and I don’t want to believe anything but that he’s trustworthy.
But I haven’t stayed alive over the last several years by being an idiot.
“Speak your piece,” I add, dropping my voice low.
Riale sighs.
“You know she was here,” he says. “You should stay away.”
I run my tongue over my teeth, squinting at him.
“I have no intention of involving myself with Shae beyond what we’ve already discussed,” I say, and Riale gives me one of the most disbelieving looks I’ve seen on a person.
I roll my eyes, stepping away from the group and putting my hand on the door handle.
“She’s not good for you, Storm. Do you remember how bad it got when you broke up? You get obsessive about her, and it’s not healthy. I’m just trying to look out for you.”
I look over my shoulder at Riale and a silent Axel.
“I appreciate the concern,” I say. “But it’s unnecessary.”
And with that, I leave the room, still unsure if Riale’s warnings don’t matter because I’m staying away from Shae…or because I have no intention of heeding them.
My answer comes several hours later.
I don’t need to look through the sight to see Shae flick the light on in her living room. I’ve been sitting in the armchair next to the bedroom window for two hours, unable to sleep, as I predicted.
There’s still an hour or two until sunrise, and even though she never was a morning person when we were together, something told me Shae today would be.
I draw in more smoke from the blunt between my fingers.
All night, I’ve been thinking about her.
Tempted by that damn telescope.
Taunted, really.
So I moved from “sleeping” on the couch in the living room to the bedroom, and after hours of tossing and turning, I lit a blunt to slow my mind.
I don’t want to admit I’ve been sitting in this chair, waiting for a glimpse, but….
I might as well smile on my way to Hell.
I extinguish the joint in the bowl I’ve turned into an ashtray and grip the armrests.
Movement. Just a flicker in the other condo. I stand and head to the telescope without thinking of anything else.
I track her through the scope, my chest tightening as she shuffles across the open space and into her kitchen. Her black bonnet skews to the right, and her pink robe hangs open as she rubs at the side of her face.
Yep, still not a morning person, I see.
With her back to me, I can’t see what she does along the far wall in her kitchen, but I conclude that she’s made coffee when she turns around with a cup large enough for three servings.
She takes one step, then another, and then she’s in my direct line of sight.
“Good morning, Sweetness,” I murmur in the empty room.
I bask in the silence as she stands at the window, looking at the city below as she sips on her drink, the only movement the intermittent lift of the mug to her mouth.
I exhale.
My phone rings, startling me as it cracks the silence. Picking it up off the nightstand, I roll my eyes when I see it’s Axel calling.
“You got cameras in here?” I ask, not even saying “hello” or “good morning.”
Axel barks out a laugh, a way too loud laugh, which answers my question.
“If you wanted to see my dick, all you had to do was ask,” I throw back at him, joking.
“Man, fuck off,” he says, and I laugh—the first genuine laugh I’ve felt in weeks.
“But seriously, yes, I do have cameras, but only in the common areas and for safety. But you proved my hypothesis that you’re up watching Shae.”
I go silent.
“Aren’t you?” he drawls, and I grunt. He laughs even louder, so I pull the phone away from my face. When he calms down, I return to the call.
“Why are you calling me?” I ask, my eyes flicking toward the telescope like I’ve been in the desert for a week and the instrument is a glass of ice water.
“You’ve got a meeting in a few hours,” he says, bringing me back to the call.
“Right,” I say, not knowing what he’s talking about. “With Kenyon?”
This could have been a text message.
“No, with Shae.”
Record scratch.
“Axel…” I grind out, but he jumps into his argument.
“Listen, Storm,” he starts, his tone serious.
“I don’t agree with Riale’s stance. I think you should talk with Shae.
Not only because I think it’s long overdue, at least for you to have some sort of closure, but because she’s already tied up in this shit.
And if something were to happen to her, I know that’d send you off the deep end. Probably forever.”
I stare at the wall art above the bed, not seeing anything beyond the whirling patterns on the canvas. The thought of my worst nightmare coming true, Shae being hurt by my bullshit, makes me want to vomit and break things at the same time.
Ma would know what to do.
“All right. Thanks for scheduling it,” I say, sorting through approaches. “I’ll talk to her and convince her to drop the Keystone deal.”
The Shae I know has always been reasonable. I’m sure I can get her to be smart about this.
“All right,” Axel says, and he sounds strangely relieved. “Good luck. I’ll send you the details.”
He hangs up before I can say anything more.
I should walk away. Maybe go to the kitchen, brew coffee on that expensive, complicated machine, run on the treadmill in the smaller gym across the condo.
But instead, I lean back into the eyepiece just in time to see her exit her bedroom in a fire engine red athleisure outfit—a sports bra top with a square neck and calf-length pants that are so tight I can see the cleft of her ass.
Fuck.
Watching her, tracking her, tricking her into a meeting with me? That all makes sense.
Coming on my stomach while spying on her doing yoga? I don’t know about that.
Shae stretches for a few minutes, making my mouth dry as she spreads her legs wide in front of the stationary bike and bends down to stretch against one calf and then the other. Just when I think I’m going to violate my self-imposed no-fap rule, she straightens and slings her leg over the Peloton.
She’s so strong, and not just physically. Before Riale stopped giving me updates on her, I tracked her major milestones and celebrated her wins alongside her.
Shae crushed it on her way to the top, and now she’s one of the most well-respected venture capitalists in the business. She did that.
She did all that without me.
Shae starts to cycle after picking out a session on the broad screen attached to the machine, and I let the frantic pumping lull me into a trance state—a space where I can count my breaths and feel my heartbeat slow.
In the madness surrounding me, this moment feels like…peace.
Shae spins the red knob near her knees and begins to stand and lower herself on the pedals. I sling the scope to the screen, feeling an irrational growl bubble up my chest when I see she stares at a nigga on the screen who looks like…me.
Tight Caesar cut, medium-brown skin, and too-straight teeth that he flashes into the camera as if he’s trying to seduce every woman watching.
Up, down, up, down, Shae’s body goes, and I think she has to be close to the end of the exercise….
…when on her downstroke, she slides forward and backward on the seat.
I stand up straight, blinking past the telescope and into her apartment with my naked eye.
Did she just…?
I go back to the viewfinder in time to see her….
…fuck, there goes my dick turning to steel.
Shae rides her bike and her bike seat, rocking back and forth and tilting her face to the ceiling as she goes faster and faster.
I stare with my fucking mouth open like I’m going on Pornhub for the first time. My heart rate, still slow and steady, thuds in my chest, the blood rushing past my ears so hard I go lightheaded.
“Come on, baby,” I say, my voice sounding wrong in the quiet.
Her pedaling loses its normal cadence as she grinds down on the seat, and because I know her body like I know my own, I see the exact moment when she comes.
Hard.
Shae clenches up, falling over the handlebars and breathing so hard she rocks up and down on the machine.
She stays like that, her head braced on her arms where they rest on the handles, for a long time. So long that I think maybe she’s come so hard that she’s passed out.
But then, she sits up, her back going so straight so quickly that it almost looks like she’s been shocked.
She unclicks one foot and then the other from the pedals and stands.
Stretches.
And then I see it.
Shae wipes her hands over her eyes—her red eyes—and I watch as she crumbles to the floor.
There’s no denying that the jagged rise and fall of her shoulders are from her sobs.
Don’t look away.
This is my punishment: to see her, to be so close to her that I can almost taste her—but not be able to say a fucking word.
Not being able to comfort her when she seems to need it the most.
I stare out the viewfinder for a long moment, well after she rises, wipes her face, and strides into her bedroom like she doesn’t have a care in the world.
I don’t know what to do with my feelings…with what I just witnessed.
All I know to do is pray she hasn’t been in the same Hell I’ve been in these last eight years.