Chapter 6
AURORA
Montgomery Rudolph was a very determined man.
Always had been, it was one of the qualities that made him attractive. Him being disgustingly handsome had always been more plus than primary. He made me laugh, treated me like the hottest bitch walking, and he respected my brilliance in my field.
Revered it, even.
My office had always been kind of a sacred space, even before it was actual office space, when it was just a room wherever we lived. He knew that when I was in my zone in front of a screen, I was locked in, not to be bothered.
Which was why I didn’t think I needed to take steps for him to not be allowed in the building.
I didn’t understand what a mistake it was until he was at my office door with that fucking smile and a bouquet of my favorite flowers.
As if my personal life hadn’t been conversation enough around the Hive.
I had been able to avoid him otherwise, ignoring and blocking calls, and he gratefully had been giving me physical space, probably knowing it was for the best.
Apparently that grace period had expired.
“What the hell are you doing here?!” I asked, springing up from my seat at my desk to meet him at the door. I peeked out to a sea of faces turned in my direction. They scattered when they saw me there, but I knew they were still watching.
Shit.
I grabbed him by the arm, pulling him through the door so I could close it from prying eyes.
Damnit, Shan.
If she hadn’t stepped out for an appointment, there was no way his ass would be in my face right now.
“I asked you a question,” I snapped, turning to him with crossed arms.
He turned up the wattage on his smile, extending the bouquet in my direction. “I thought it would mean more if I brought you the flowers myself.”
My nose wrinkled.
At him, and then the flowers, which I made no move to accept. “I don’t have time for this.”
“Rori, come on,” he pleaded, following me to my desk. “Don’t be like this.”
“Excuse me?” I rounded on him, eyes narrowed. “However I’m being, you made it that way, with your actions. Don’t you dare try to turn anything around on me.”
“I’m sorry,” he insisted, in a tone that suggested his words as true, but I’d heard that shit too much at this point. He put the oversized bouquet on my desk, freeing his hands to grab mine. When I tried to pull away, he held them tighter. “Rori… I know I hurt you?—”
“You keep hurting me,” I countered, successfully freeing my hands from his. “And I cannot keep letting it go. For what, Monty? Because you love me?”
“I do love you. I’ve loved you for… hell, twenty years. I had to beg you to accept a ring!”
“With good reason,” I scoffed. “If only I could turn back the hands of time and listen to whatever it was that made me feel like getting engaged wasn’t a good idea.”
“You don’t mean that.”
I sucked my teeth.
Hard as fuck.
“Boy! Look at where we are. Look at what you’ve done! My hesitance to get married, my insistence on a long engagement is the only thing I can look back at and say, well, that was smart, as far as this relationship is concerned. What a blessing to have been dragging my feet to plan a goddamn wedding.”
His eyes went wide, head pulled back.
“That’s… the only good thing about us to you? After all these years?” he asked, quietly shoving his hands into his pockets.
The look on his face, the clear sadness in his demeanor… damn my heart for still giving a fuck how he felt.
“That’s not what I said,” I corrected, trying to exercise some compassion, but his tone was angry when he shot back.
“It’s what it sounded like.”
My eyes narrowed. “Fine.” I shrugged. “If that was how I felt, again, whose fault would that be Monty? Are we going to act like it came from out of the blue?”
“Baby,” he sighed, dropping to his knees in front of me. He grabbed me around the thighs, pulling me close as he stared up. “Just tell me what I need to say, do, whatever. I’ll do it. I brought your ring with me, I’ll propose again, right?—”
I pushed at his head, not bothering to be gentle about it. “Have you lost your mind? I am never putting that fucking ring back on.”
“You want a different ring?”
“I want you to leave,” I insisted, successfully extricating myself from his hold. “It’s done, okay? We’re done. Over. I cannot do this anymore.”
Still on the floor, he scrubbed a hand across his face, looking confused. “Is it the baby? Because you know I?—”
“Always wanted kids,” I finished for him, nodding. “I know. And you wanna know something? Honestly… that’s probably what I’m least bothered by right now.”
“Okay…” He nodded, doing a little knee-walk thing to get back into my space. “What are you most bothered by?”
“The disrespect,” I answered immediately, backing up again. “It was my birthday, Monty. And you weren’t there. Because you were with her. While the rumors, well, truth, swirled, on my fucking birthday, you were with her.”
“She had a scare, so we had to go to the doctor.”
“Of course she did.” I smiled. “But judging from your presence at Veil that night, while it was still my birthday… I’m guessing everything was fine.”
Silence.
“Right. That bitch recorded you breaking my heart, put it on the internet, and played victim to my villain, all with you right by her side, instead of mine.”
“Come on,” he huffed, pushing himself up from the floor. “That’s not fucking fair. I was trying to get in touch with you all day, Aurora! I sent gifts, I sent lunch, I sent flowers… you ignored me. Should I have sat around sad?!”
“Nigga?! Yes!” I exclaimed, tossing up my hands. “Yes, you absolutely should have sat, alone, with however you were feeling.”
“You didn’t!” he countered. “You were having a grand old time at the game, with that same country ass nigga you used to get your lick back.”
My mouth dropped. “Get my lick back?!”
He must’ve known that was some bullshit, because his hands went up in front of him. “Rori…”
“Fuck you,” I snapped, shaking my head. “That wasn’t even the tip of the iceberg. To get my lick back, it would take years of fucking randoms and not even bothering to hide it while you sat in the background wondering why you weren’t enough!’
Monty frowned. “What? Not enough? Aurora…” He moved toward me, arms out, but I immediately backed up, prompting him to stop a few feet away. “You’re everything to me.”
“Not everything.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t know what you mean,”I snapped. “And it doesn’t matter anyway, because I’m done. I’m done,” I repeated, looking him right in the face.
“Because of Tatum Wilder?”
“Because of you,” I corrected. “Don’t blame him. It has nothing to do with him. You come in here and you tell me I’m ‘everything’ to you, meanwhile you can’t even be faithful, Monty! What am I supposed to do? You and your fucking side bitch have got me out here on the internet looking stupid, and you don’t even have any remorse!”
“I’ve said I was sorry, over, and over, and over!”
“But you’re not!” I exclaimed. “And you wanna know how I know that? Because you won’t stop,” I said, answering it myself before he had a chance. “You said it yourself, you keep saying sorry over, and over, and over, for the same goddamn thing. I get it, monogamy is not your vibe anymore. Is that what it is? You didn’t know, but now you do. That’s your truth now. Right?”
He shrugged. “I… I don’t know, Aurora. I guess?”
“Cool. Let that be your truth. That’s perfectly fine. But it’s not mine,” I said, jabbing a finger to my chest for emphasis. “I love you. I’ve loved you, for so long. And for a long time, you were the best person I knew. Now?” I scoffed. “You have such a deep lack of consideration for me that you think I should be okay with what you’ve been doing.”
“That’s not it.”
I hiked an eyebrow. “Then what is it?”
“I love you,” he said, stepping forward to grab me by the face to keep me from looking away from him. “I love you, Aurora, even if you don’t believe it. But the thing is… I can’t live a lie because I love you.”
I blinked. “Who is asking you to?”
“You are! By making me choose!”
I rolled my eyes. “Boy, please. Men love to say women can’t handle the truth, when what it really is, is that you don’t like that the truth might revoke your access. You’re fucking selfish. You’ve chosen yourself, and really?” I laughed. “Good for you. But guess what? Finally… I choose me, too. You don’t get to live in a world where we both choose you.”
“Would you prefer we both choose you?” he countered, releasing his hold on my face to toss his hands up, as if me getting my way was such a distasteful thought.
“No, actually,” I huffed. “I would have preferred that we choose us, just like before. I chose you, and you chose me, and together we were perfect. I don’t understand what changed. I don’t understand… the man who moved heaven and earth for me, for my family… Monty, where did you go?”
“I’m still here. I’m still me. But nothing ever stays the same.”
”Yeah,” I agreed. “It doesn’t. And that’s too bad, isn’t it?” I moved away from him, going around to the back of my desk. “Take those flowers when you leave,” I told him as I sat down.
“Seriously, Rori? You can’t even accept the flowers?”
I scoffed. “Those people out there pity me enough because you’re living your truth in public so fucking hard. It’s the least you can do, to let them see that I have a backbone. Take them.”
He pushed out a sigh… and picked up the flowers to take with him.
“Rori,” he said, looking back as he turned the doorknob.
“What?” I asked, beyond ready for him to just leave.
“Tell your new boyfriend I’ll see him on the field.”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t have a boyfriend, Monty. Congratulations on the baby. I know it means a lot to you.”
He gave me a little nod. “Thank you.”
And then he was gone.
And I could breathe.
Could, but didn’t.
Okay… couldn’t, actually.
I rolled back from the desk, putting my head between my knees to try to force a breath to actually work all the way to my lungs, instead of getting caught in my chest like now. The tears welled up, and I had to choose. I could swallow them, or breathe.
Cry, or die.
Shit.
Well…
The legacy I’d already created wasn’t half bad?
“Rori!”
My head popped up in time to see Shan strutting into my office without knocking. I wasn’t even mad. Her appearance was enough to shock me out of the emotional overreaction trying to kill me.
Something, probably the impending panic attack, on my face made her stop in her tracks halfway to the desk, nostrils flared and eyes wide. “I just saw Monty leaving as I was on my way up. What happened?”
“Monty happened,” I huffed, scrubbing a hand over my face, taking half of my eyelash extensions with it.
Perfect.
“Are you okay? I would’ve tripped him, but he was on the other side of the lobby. Carrying a bouquet of flowers. Looking sad and dumb.”
My eyebrows went up as I looked away from the stray false eyelashes decorating my palm. “Sad and dumb?”
“Oozing sorry and stupidity. Very sad. Very dumb.” She nodded. “Look, I took a picture.”
I sat up a little more as she finished approaching the desk, unlocking her phone to extend to me. I accepted it, taking a good long look at the semi-blurry picture she’d caught of Monty.
He did, indeed, look sad and dumb.
Woefully, it did not make me feel any better.
I didn’t want him to be sad. I wanted him, us, to be happy, like we used to be. But with everything that had transpired at this point, I fully understood that was impossible now.
It just… wasn’t that easy to wish it away.
None of this was easy.
Not when the fuck Monty narrative wasn’t nearly as black and white for me as it was for everyone else. With the exception of Sierra, and even her view was limited as my friend, no one knew how very deeply Team Aurora Mitchell Monty had always been.
Lots of men claimed their woman could have anything she wanted. If he could get it, it was hers.
Monty had actually stood on that.
Over and over.
Anything I asked of him, he gave.
Except fidelity.
Maybe it really wasn’t within his ability?
“Where did you go just now?”
I blinked, remembering Shan was still in the room with me, and we were mid-conversation.
“I was just looking at the picture,” I said, sitting back. “He showed up with flowers.” I gestured at the phone. “I sent him off. I’m not interested.”
“That’s right. Stand on business, sis.” Shan nodded, picking up her phone. “Are you okay?”
“As okay as I could be, I guess,” I answered. “I really just want to get back to work. Have we heard back from the dietitian about the updated supplement recommendations?”
Supplements were a tricky, often controversial subject to handle, but it was a topic very near and dear to my heart. We had a team of dietitians and researchers digging into clinical trials, consumer research, medical journals, anywhere they could, for information about supplements that supported postpartum recovery, both mental and physical. Energy, breastfeeding, stress, libido, all of that.
I needed to know so we could present the most accurate possible information to our app users.
“They need another week. There’s a new study on rhodiola coming out, and they want to wait on it.”
I nodded. “Okay. That’s fine. But I want to get the updated journal pushed out to the app as soon as possible.”
“I’ve got you, boss lady. You know I’ll stay on top of it, keep you posted, all that good stuff.”
“Thank you, Shan. And um…since you’re back on the grid now, I actually do think I’m gonna call it a day and go home.”
Ugh.
I hated having my day cut short due to personal drama once again, especially since it wasn’t even like I could hide it.
“Yeah, of course,” Shan readily agreed. “I’ll hold it down around here for you.”
“Again, thank you,” I told her, and she nodded.
Once she left to get back to her own office, I didn’t waste any time packing up to leave. I avoided making eye contact with anyone on my way back through the hive, not wanting to see that same pity I’d been getting all week.
I could still feel the stares though.
There was nothing I could do about it, so I kept it pushing. I already hadn’t been sleeping well since all this mess had blown up, and Monty’s drop-in had brought a fresh wave of emotional exhaustion.
On top of everything else, he’d zapped the last little bit of energy I had.
On the way home, I cleared my head, using an exercise I employed often. I focused on song lyrics, sticking with a whole album, in order to keep myself engaged in that task instead of giving in to the mental load of whatever was on my mind.
It usually worked well.
And today was no different. I was successfully blank in the head with the exception of the unofficial live version of “Cozy” on a loop in my mind.
Until I walked through my front door and was met with the sound of someone already in my damn space.
Not what I was expecting, and certainly not what I wanted.
“Fucking Monty,” I grumbled, tossing my bag and keys onto the table beside the door.
I hadn’t had the chance yet to change the locks, despite what I’d claimed on the phone with Tatum, but that shit was going to get fixed as soon as possible.
I stalked to my kitchen, where the sounds were coming from, ready to verbally rip my former fiancé to shreds for daring to invade my space a second time in the same day.
And hell… maybe actual shreds too, with the way I was feeling.
I turned the corner, my pissed off dial turned all the way to ten…. only to be met with a completely different sight than I expected.
“Auntie Rori!” my four-year-old niece Amina screamed, hopping off her seat at my kitchen counter to run to me.
Zero hesitation, I met her with wide arms, picking her up and pulling her into a tight hug against me.
“Hey, my boo,” I gushed, kissing her on the cheek. “You look so pretty, who braided your hair like this?”
“Ms. Amanda!”
“Oh, well, she did a wonderful job. The prettiest braids for the prettiest girl,” I complimented before I turned to my mother, who was busy at the stove but glanced back to grin at me. “Mama, what are you doing here?”
“My cell phone works just as good as anybody’s,” she said with a pointed look.
If we didn’t talk often, I could have interpreted that as an admonition of not calling enough.
But what she actually meant was that she’d been on social media and had seen everything that was going on.
One more layer of embarrassment I’d done my best to not really think about.
My family.
My family was watching this mess go on, probably had people asking them about it.
Even more reason for me to finally just put it all to rest.
I could not and would not put up a front though. I was glad to see my mama.
Relieved, even.
I never would have called and asked her to come, but that was one of the perks of having a mother like mine.
She knew when her kids needed her, even when they didn’t themselves.
“Daniel needed somebody to watch over Mini Mouse while he went on a trip for work. Me and her got bored looking at your old rusty daddy, so we decided to take a little drive up.” Mama explained, parroting what she’d probably told Mini, Amina, to wrap her arrival in a package that was a little better for my ego.
“We thought we’d come see what you were up to. And Mini wanted you to see her purse.”
“Miss Amanda got it for me,” Mini said, pulling my attention to an adorable Minnie Mouse shoulder bag on the counter where she’d been sitting.
“Oh well that is just lovely, but now I have to know. Who is Miss Amanda?”
“Daddy’s girlfriend!”
Instantly, my gaze popped back to my mother who gave me a look then turned back to the delicious smelling pot she was stirring at the stove.
“I guess I don’t really need to ask how Daniel is doing then, huh?” I asked my mother, and she shook her head.
“Daniel is doing just fine, and we are glad for it.”
I took a moment to consider it and then… “Yes,” I agreed. “We are.”
“He sends his love,” Mama continued, then flipped off the burner she’d been using, and moved it to where I kept my bowls. “He also sends a voucher for an a-s-s whooping, should you need to cash it in for a certain football star.”
I smiled. “I will let him know that won’t be necessary next time we speak.”
My mother smirked at me as she started dishing what I now knew to be jambalaya into bowls. I sat down next to Mini at the counter.
“You sure?” she asked. “’Cause I might cash in a two-for-one and send him and Daddy. I’m so disappointed. I sure thought I knew that boy better than that, for him to be acting?—”
“I really don’t want to get into it right now, Mama. He came up to the office and?—”
“That’s why you’re home at this time?” she guessed correctly, and I nodded. “I had planned for this jambalaya to settle in a bit, but since you’re here now, I’m feeding you.”
I laughed. “Okay yes, let’s talk about you breaking into my house.”
“Breaking in? I got a key,” she huffed.
“Well, I’m gonna have to get you a new one when I change the locks.”
She raised an eyebrow at me. “Changing the locks? I like it. You’re serious.”
“I’m so serious this time.”
“Good.” She nodded. “Stay that way.”
That admonition made me think of Tatum’s “Stay Done.”
It had been several days since that conversation, and we hadn’t spoken in that time.
He’d reached out once, but I didn’t reply—mostly because I didn’t know what to say, mostly because I was an extreme dork who didn’t know how to talk to men because I’d always been up under Monty.
I’d embarrassed myself enough with that freaking voice memo I sent to apologize for the picture.
Ohhhh the picture.
I still didn’t know what the hell I was even thinking, posting that.
Well.
Actually.
I did know what I was thinking. I was thinking I didn’t want to look quite so sad and pathetic and desperate and lonely so loudly in front of the whole world. I didn’t want to look like I was how Monty’s little girlfriend was trying to make me seem, some clingy ex who couldn’t let go.
I didn’t want to look like I’d lost.
And I wasn’t sure I’d been very successful.
All it had done was get people talking, which usually never went the way you wanted.
I knew better, on about twenty different levels, which was why it was nowhere to be found anymore on my page. But, because the internet was the internet, of course it had still circulated—was still circulating—and only created an even bigger mess.
Even more drama than I was already plagued with.
Sierra assured me it would die down as long as I kept myself low-key, and I was doing my best. I was not a celebrity, so it shouldn’t be that difficult.
The problem came with being connected to a celebrity that attracted messiness.
It’ll be fine, I repeated in my mind as I tucked into my bowl of jambalaya and then spent the rest of my afternoon into the evening playing and socializing with my mother and niece. The condo had more than enough space that there was no need for them to get a hotel to stay overnight. They would just stay with me.
Once Mini was tucked away in bed, I joined my mother in my living room with a bottle of wine… and a wish and a prayer that she did not want to talk to me about Monty.
Admittedly, the chances of that were slim.
I wasn’t sure who was more angry at him, her or me.
“Okay now,” she said, as soon as I was settled beside her. “Talk to me about the new big fine football player the internet says you’re banging.”
My eyes went wide, my mouth dropped open. “Mama?!” I gasped.
“Girl, don’t you mama me, we’re both grown! Turns out your man ain’t shit? Fine. I saw the way that other man was looking at you at that basketball game. You know I looked him up on the internet? Found some workout footage. Have you seen that man’s legs?” She giggled. “Like tree trunks. You know who he remind me of? Your daddy when he was that age.”
“Okay, that’s enough of this,” I said, taking a big gulp of my wine.
“What?” Mama said. “I’m not lying. Your daddy was?—”
“Mama! If you want there to be anything between me and Tatum, I can tell you now, it is never going to happen if he makes me think of my father because you’ve embedded the visual in my head,” I explained, and she promptly buttoned her lips shut. “Thank you.”
“But—”
“Ma!”
“It’s not about him!” she swore. “Can I say what I was gonna say?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “What is it?”
She hiked her chin in the air. “All I was going to ask is… are you okay?”
Shit.
Leave it to my mother to drag me right back to the edge of tears with just three little words.
“I… don’t know how to answer that, actually,” I told her. “These last few days have been… a lot. The basketball game, the restaurant, that interview, the baby. And then Monty showing up to try to reconcile… all of it is crazy to me. But I’m… I don’t know. Resolute. I mean, it’s not like the infidelity was something new, so there’s not really anything to process. I’m honestly not even sure why this time was the proverbial straw. I don’t know what it is that makes this just so untenable.”
Mama was quiet for a moment, then let out a deep sigh. “Sweetie… I think you know why.”
Frowning, I opened my mouth to refute that, but actually…
No.
She was right.
I did know.
It was the baby.
Bringing a baby into the picture put everything in a completely different perspective. Not that a baby made the betrayal worse, or deeper. It was just… a reminder that made me understand, as much as I didn’t want to.
Monty had always wanted children, and I had, too.
In a major way.
It was something we talked about a lot.
But when it came to actually doing it… I wouldn’t.
Couldn’t?
There was no clear answer for it in my head.
This thing he wanted so much, this thing I’d let him believe could happen, would happen.
Had not happened.
That was the fact of the matter.
So he… made it happen.
Just not with me.
I didn’t have to wonder what another woman was doing for him, what she might have over me, when it was right in my face. She might not be prettier, more successful, give better head, whatever.
But she was having the baby he wanted so badly.
I didn’t even know, would never ask, how it happened.
Was he trying to get her pregnant? Did he choose her for this? Or was he just indiscriminately, recklessly fucking around with no protection, and she just happened to be the one to win the have Montgomery Rudolph’s baby lottery?
And it was most certainly a lottery.
I wasn’t in a position where Monty’s money meant that much to me. I wouldn’t pretend he hadn’t been the one to invest in my business so I could grow it to where it was, but it was done now.
I could walk away and not skip a beat.
But for someone not in that position, Monty was a come up.
One who’d never lacked generosity.
So… it was easy to understand the mutual benefit for them. It was kind of… the most understandable thing.
Not a great way to go about it, but… I got it.
Finally.
I just wasn’t about to stay on that hamster wheel.
“It’s okay for you to not know if you’re okay,” Mama said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders to pull me into her for a hug. “None of this is linear. It never is. That anger, the heartbreak… the grief.”
“I know,” I agreed. “It’s just such a strange feeling. He hurt me so deep, and I just… I don’t even want to think about it. I don’t want to hate him. I don’t want to be angry. I… want to go back to when there was nothing to grieve,” I admitted, unable to keep my voice from breaking over the words. “But I… I am angry, and I do think I might hate him, but I… I told him congratulations on the baby, and I meant it. Because I know how much he wanted that. And I guess there’s some part of me that still… wants him to have the things he wants. But why?”
“Because you love him.” Mama shrugged. “That doesn’t suddenly change just because you know the relationship is over.”
“I don’t want to love him anymore,” I whined, knowing exactly how ridiculous it was, but I didn’t care.
“I know, baby,” Mama assured, kissing the top of my head. “But there’s no going back. Only forward.”
I nodded.
She was right.
It hadn’t been long enough yet for my feelings surrounding all of this to not be complicated. Even when I admitted to myself that deep down, I’d known the relationship wasn’t viable for a while.
I wasn’t just dragging my feet on planning a wedding; I simply wasn’t planning a wedding.
Because however silly it may have been for me to put up with Monty’s bullshit as long as I did?
I knew better than to walk down that aisle.
It was bad enough figuring out what to do with myself with the current circumstances. To pick up the pieces of a failed marriage?
Would have been untenable.
So… yeah.
Only forward.