45. Jenny
JENNY
Cole wasn’t kidding when he said I wouldn’t be able to walk straight for a week. He kept me in bed for the better part of the day. We made love until it hurt. We made love until I had so many orgasms I thought I might go blind. Cole was relentless until he finally collapsed into one final sweaty heap next to me and fell asleep.
While he snored, I crept from the bed and took another shower. I winced as I turned on the hot water and washed myself; I was raw, sore, and shaky. But despite the physical discomfort—which still included my level-ten hangover—I was strangely elated. I felt like I was walking on air.
Cole and I were back together. What he’d done to me in that bed had been clear. He’d claimed me. Again and again, he’d stroked the secret spot inside that only he could ever reach. What we’d done was physical, but it was so much more than that. No one had ever reached me the way Cole had. Never, as in never ever, had I connected with a man during sex. Not until Cole. When he penetrated me, I truly felt that we had become one. One body, one soul, one… love.
I refused to think about the ramifications of what I’d done. I’d jumped back into bed with Cole, let him claim me, and given myself to him. The writing was on the wall; I was doomed. There was no future for us. Being with him like this would make it hurt so much worse when our arrangement ended.
Still, all my talk about keeping things strictly business and having my own space had gone up in smoke. I’d caved in less than twenty-four hours. But I had zero remorse. I could hate myself later when I was alone. There’d be plenty of time for regret.
For now, I intended to let the fire rage on. I was helpless against my desire for Cole, and I knew it. It would burn everything down to the ground, leaving only ashes behind.
I would be alone with the ashes soon enough.
I climbed out of the shower and dried my hair. Only when I looked in the mirror did I remember what had happened last night. My auntie Theresa had texted me. Crap! With all the booze and the sex, I’d forgotten about it. I hustled to the living room and scooped my phone from the floor. The screen was cracked, but I could still read her message from the night before.
Don’t forget I know where you are
As I cleared the screen, my phone rang, making me jump. It was a local number that I didn’t recognize, but with a pit forming in my stomach, I answered it anyway. “Hello?”
“Ms. Jenny, it’s Amari,” he said. “I’m sorry to bother you, but we just had an incident down here. I wanted to alert you right away.”
“An incident?” I croaked.
“Yeah, it was a woman claiming to be your aunt. She asked to be let up to your floor. I said I had to call you first. She started yelling. I was about to call security, but she stormed out. I’m so sorry if I did something wrong?—”
“No, Amari, you didn’t do anything wrong,” I interrupted. “I’ll take care of it. You did the right thing. Thank you for calling me.” I hung up, mind racing.
No. No. No. This couldn’t be. My worst nightmare was coming true. My auntie Theresa had shown up at Fifty Liberty. I was so screwed. I should never have come back to work for Cole. She was like a plague—she would infect everything with her vileness and her stories about my past. She would ruin me for Cole. He would never look at me the same…
My phone buzzed again, and I was not so lucky this time. It wasn’t Amari. It was my auntie Theresa.
“What the hell do you want?” I asked, voice cracking.
“That snotty-ass kid wouldn’t let me upstairs,” she snapped. “I’m gonna come back in, take a video of him, and post it to social media. Who does he think he is, huh? Telling me I couldn’t use the elevator to see my own niece!”
“Are you still here?” I asked, ignoring her insane comments. Telling her that Amari was only doing his job would be pointless.
“I’m out on the sidewalk, where he threw me outwith the trash,” she fumed.
“Don’t move,” I said. “I’ll be right down.”
The last thing I wanted was Auntie Theresa causing a scene with poor Amari or, worse, somehow getting upstairs and in front of Cole. I had to act fast—I tiptoed into the bedroom while Cole snored. I grabbed some sweats and a pair of sneakers, hastily pulling everything on.
I sent Cole a text:
Going out for coffee before I die
brB
I prayed he wouldn’t wake up before I returned—I didn’t want him to come looking for me and find me with my aunt. I took the stairs instead of the elevator, hurtling down to the ground level. Amari looked surprised as I burst into the lobby. “Hey,” I said, not stopping as I barreled past him, “sorry about that lady. If Cole comes downstairs, tell him I went for coffee, and I’ll be right back!”
Outside, the sun hurt my eyes. It was already mid-afternoon. People were milling around the Seaport, living their lives, running errands, and walking their dogs. My life felt far removed from anything so normal. My head pounded as I looked around, searching for my aunt. Finally, I spotted her—she stood across the parking lot, scowling at her phone and vaping. Fuck. My stomach plummeted. It had been years since I’d seen Auntie Theresa.
My luck had run out.
I headed across the lot, taking in her spandex leggings, crop top, and enormous sunglasses. Auntie Theresa was dressed for the gym, but the cloud of smoke billowing from her mouth suggested otherwise. Her thin, bleached hair spilled over her shoulders. She saw me coming and slid her sunglasses on top of her head, revealing prominent, dark, eerily symmetrical eyebrows. Her long, fake nails curved like talons—I was surprised she didn’t scratch herself when she moved her sunglasses. But like I’d said, today was not my lucky day.
The closer I got, the more I felt like I was having a nightmare—the kind when the familiar seems strange. That’s how it felt to see my aunt. She was the same, but she was different. The years had not been kind to her. She had bags underneath her eyes, covered by heavy, creasing makeup. Her false eyelashes were so thick I wondered how she had the strength to blink.
It struck me right off the bat that Auntie Theresa had been doing some upgrading. Her fake nails were freshly filled, her eyelashes were super thick, her newly symmetrical eyebrows were tattooed, and the sunglasses perched atop her head wereVersace. (I knew because one of Evie’s rich cousins/bridesmaids sported a similar pair in the Caribbean.) Someone had been funding Auntie’s glow-up.
Which meant I needed to be careful. Real careful.
“Fancy meeting you here,” she deadpanned.
“What do you want, Theresa?” I asked.
“I already told you. You owe me,” Theresa said. She took another pull from her vape pen and exhaled in my direction.
“I haven’t seen you in a million years,” I reminded her. “So I’m not sure why you’re showing up and making demands now.”
“You know why—because you can finally pay.” Auntie Theresa arched a tattooed eyebrow. “I seen your pictures online. I lost track of you for a while, but it’s finally my chance. And when your billionaire’s daddy called me, I knew I’d hit the jackpot.”
“There’s no jackpot.” Fuck, my headache was getting bad again.
“That’s not what he said.” She snorted. “Did you think I was ever gonna forget about the money you stole from me?”
“I took two hundred and fifty bucks from your nightstand. It was money you owed me, anyway,” I said. “And then I ran for my life.”
“I didn’t owe you nothin’. I took you in and gave you a place to live. And how did you reward me? By stealing from me and leaving that guy half-dead in my apartment!” she argued.
“He was lucky he was only half-dead. He deserved a lot worse,” I said. I reached into my bag and pulled out a wad of bills, petty cash Elena had given me from the office. “Here. That’s almost a thousand dollars. Consider yourself reimbursed.”
Auntie Theresa scowled, but she pocketed the money right away. “It’s not enough.”
I sighed. “That’s more than paying you back.”
“No way,” she said. “You left me with one hell of a mess to clean up.”
“It was never my mess, Auntie.” My temples throbbed. I wanted to scream at her, to kick and claw and say all the things I never could at sixteen. “I was just a kid.”
“You were never just a kid.” Auntie Theresa eyed me up and down. “How’s that billionaire treating you, huh? Is it serious between you two? How’d you find a guy like that, anyway?”
“That’s none of your business. My life isn’t any of your business,” I said, feeling like I might cry. “Listen, you wanted money. I gave you money.”
“I want more,” she said immediately. “Your billionaire’s daddy called me again, ya know. Said he might want me to talk about you to an investigator or some shit—but I said I wouldn’t. That’s why I’m here. I’m more loyal than you think.”
The only person my auntie Theresa was loyal to was herself. “When was the last time you talked to him?” I asked.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” When she smiled, I noticed that Auntie Theresa had treated herself to a gold-capped tooth. “Thing is, I wanted to see you first. I want to offer you a chance to make things right before all this gets out of control.”
“How much do you want?” My voice was so flat; the words sounded more like a statement than a question.
“A million dollars.” Auntie Theresa’s full smile was so ugly. “That’s a bargain for keeping my mouth shut. If that billionaire knew what you did, he wouldn’t want anything to do with you. You look different, Jenny. Cleaned up. Like you think you’re better than everybody. But I know the truth.”
“I don’t have a million dollars right now,” I said. My voice sounded dead to my own ears, like it was coming from far away. “That’s the truth. But I could pay you in a month or two.”
“That’s not good enough. I need money now . Otherwise, my lips are gonna get real loose.” She kept smiling, and the smile went all the way to her eyes. Auntie Theresa lived for this shit.
“I could give you ten thousand right now.” My stomach churned—ten thousand dollars was a lot of money. I could only pay her because Cole had already paid me for the original assignment. That money and the million dollars I would collect for being his date to James and Audrey’s wedding were supposed to be my nest egg. I needed to make it last for the rest of my life so that I’d never have to go back to hooking or working at Sizzler again.
The idea of giving my aunt money made me sick. I was making a deal with the devil, and I knew it. “That’s all I can do, I swear. But you have to promise to go away and not come around here anymore. This is a real fancy building—they’ll call security.”
“Oh, I know it’s so fancy,” she tsked. “You and your stupid building. You think you’re such hot stuff.”
Theresa was older than me by twenty years, but she’d always been jealous. Time had passed, and she’d grown into middle age, but she hadn’t seemed to mature. I would have liked to point that out to her, as well as the fact that her eyebrows looked too harsh and she had no business wearing a crop top, but I didn’t say a word. I still felt like I was trapped in a nightmare, the kind where you were frozen and you couldn’t move or scream.
“I’ll take all the money you can give me. Venmo me within the next hour, and I’ll leave you alone. For now,” Theresa added. “But don’t forget, you can run, but you can’t hide. You did some bad things, girl. If you don’t pay up, that billionaire of yours will. Or his daddy. Or better yet, both of those rich fucks.This is my lucky break. You were never anything but trouble.” She pulled another puff from her vape pen and exhaled a cloud of blue smoke at me. “Who knew you’d turn out to be my good luck charm?”
Auntie Theresa tapped out something on her phone, her long nails clicking against the case. The noise made me shiver. It sounded like spiders scuttling over broken glass. “There—I just texted you my Venmo. I’m gonna stand outside until the money hits. If it’s not enough, you’re gonna hear it.” She slid the sunglasses back down, perching them on her ugly, squat nose.
I straightened my shoulders. “If you return to the building, I’ll tell Cole what’s happening. I’ll tell him you’re blackmailing me.”
Auntie Theresa smiled again, her gold-capped tooth glinting in the sun. “No, you won’t. You won’t tell him a thing.”
She sashayed away, exhaling another cloud of vape smoke that smelled like toxic cotton candy. “I’ll be waitin’ out here. Hurry up and Venmo,” she called.
I stood there for a moment, reeling. I felt physically ill.
No, you won’t. You won’t tell him a thing. Her words echoed in my head.
She was right about that. Auntie Theresa was wrong about a lot of things, but she was right about that.