MYAQUANNA STEPFORD
Serenity Adelaide was coming along smoothly. Despite minor hiccups with funding, it all worked out in the end. Strangely, the original $2.5 million I was awarded from Solari was doubled. An explanation of why wasn’t given, but already, I was planning with architects and engineers to draft plans for a third location in upper North Banks.
Life was good. Duke and I were even better.
“Stay the fuck away from Mya. Remove her from your class or stop teaching the class, but keep away from her.”
Fully dressed in jeans and a Fear of God hoodie, Duke hovered over me. Still in bed, I squinted away my fatigue to focus on what he was saying.
“Why is this the first thing you’re saying to me this morning?” I asked with a stretch of my arms.
“It’s not the first thing,” Duke smirked. “I strictly remember telling you to make that puffy pussy cum,” he smirked as I threw a pillow in his direction and missed.
“Naw, but for real. Stay away,” he warned. “I had a nightmare last night. You and Mya’s disruptive ass were at the center of it.”
“You act like she’s the plague,” I yawned through my laughter.
“She may as fucking well be. Stay away, Bee.”
Eyes squinting, his voice dipped low. As low as it could go. The tone he only ever used when issuing commands as we made love. “Don’t let me find out you’ve been misbehaving.”
Dropping his gaze to my exposed nipples, he took one into his mouth and bit down. The erotic sensation of his teeth, paired with my barbell ring, caused me to cry out both in pleasure and pain.
“ Mmmh ,” he groaned along with me before switching sides.
Slipping under the covers, his hand crept between my thighs. Two fingers slid inside. He tapped and stirred the softest part of my walls before slowly sliding them out. I watched as he licked them clean, savoring my flavor. I hated that he was leaving.
“Be good,” he urged, kissing my lips.
“I’m always good.”
He shot me a look but said nothing as he stalked out of the room. The opening and closing of the front door informed me he’d left. Glued to the bed, I didn’t move until the very moment.
My irritation rose with the sun. It could have been Duke’s cautioning me, or it could have been recent events. Hell, it could have been a compounding of all three. Without question, I was irked.
Myaquanna Stepford was swiftly becoming a constant source of my vexation. After Duke revealed how she’d threatened to release his sex tapes unless he gave her a lump sum of money, I knew I shouldn’t have allowed her in my yoga classes anymore. His advice wasn’t needed to that end. A few weeks ago, I’d phoned the spa concierge and head of security to inform them she couldn’t be allowed back on the premises.
Mya was a tyrant who needed to be crushed. A pestilential ass bug buzzing around what was now mine. After Duke left to meet with his attorney, I spent the remainder of my morning ruminating on how toxic she’d actually been. For weeks, I studied her in my class, making note of her moves and how she carried herself, realizing her entire exterior was fraudulent. Bitches like her didn’t need somatic release. Bitches like her needed humbling.
The bitch was holding fast to Duke’s name. Her hands were fastened to his pockets. Pockets that, if we ever decided to put marriage on the table, she’d forever have access to. Despite her infidelity, she’d indefinitely be taken care of.
Adding to that, she’d robbed him of his vitality. Duke made the decision not to have children because of her infidelity.
The laundry list of shit she’d accumulated didn’t stop there. Issuing threats . Attempting to extort him ? Showing up to my class? That had been her fatal flaw
The nerve. The gall of this woman. It grated the last of my patience. Now, she was materializing yet again in my nigga’s dreams. It would be the nail in the coffin she’d expertly procured for herself.
I knew Duke was warning me to stay away for good reason, but the more I considered everything she’d done to him, the less restraint I possessed. Without delay and punctuated steps, my bones rose. Absently, I dragged a shirt—Duke’s shirt— over my head and slid into his sweatpants. Tying the strings as if they’d stolen from me, I groaned. Before heading out the door, I grabbed my purse and crossed it over my body.
Beyond the typical tranquility of my emotional powerhouse, a fiery rage dwelled. I wasn’t angry. I was mad as hell.
I wanted her gone. Needed her out the way. Crushed to smithereens. An afterthought. Burned to a crisp like Duke had burned those damn tapes.
Mercilessly, I banged against the front door of her condo on the floor below Duke’s penthouse. The address was easily acquired through the utilization of the spa’s records. Exasperated, I was. Even this fancy-ass condo was paid for courtesy of my man. My anger doubled at the fact.
Open this door, bitch .
Flat against the steel surface, my hand hit the door. Patience was fleeting. Anger was teeming.
Bang . Bang . Bang .
Open up, bitch .
Light thuds could be heard across the floorboards before the door was unlocked and finally opened. Rapid and rampant, my heart raced.
She didn’t answer.
He did.
A man who had to have stood over six feet. He was fine as hell, too. Not finer than Duke, but still… Damn.
“Um. Is Mya here?”
“Mya!” From the door, the striking man called out to her. He was the same nigga I’d seen her clinging to in the lobby that day. I hadn’t gotten the chance to see his face, but today, it was in full view. His left hand housed the presence of a ring.
Mya came into the doorway as he stepped away, disappearing into one of the backrooms.
“Serenity, what a pleasure. What brings you?”
The fake ass greeting she issued caused my armpits to grow hot.
Deep breaths .
“Cut the shit, Mya. I know you attempted to extort money from Duke months ago. What are you playing at?”
“You sound just like Duke. That’s what he told you?” Her bemused expression sent cold racing through my veins. “Please. Come in. I’ll tell you all about Duke and I.”
Stepping inside, I noted how much smaller her apartment was in comparison to Duke’s condo. While undeniably luxuriant, it didn’t hold a candle to what was on the floor above us.
“Duke owes me. The money you claim I attempted to extort from him is mine. I stood beside him and aided him with the restructuring of that company he runs. I’m entitled to my just due. These little alimony payments are cute, but they aren’t my fair share.”
Cute , she said of fifty-thousand-dollar payments.
She continued, just rambling away. Nodding and listening, I kept my fucking mouth closed. The same way I’d done after the yoga classes. Listening. Allowing her to dig her grave deeper.
“Control was his middle name. He didn’t want a working woman. He wanted me home cleaning and cooking. Barefoot and pregnant. He was a king who needed a submissive queen. Any money I needed, he had to approve of. I wanted to go to school. He didn’t want me smart. He wanted a mindless woman. Someone who’d be waiting with her legs open at the end of his workday. Sound familiar?”
Poker face in effect, I let her speak. One of the greatest tools in the Miller arsenal was our capacity to listen. Read a rambler. Learn and dissect. She wouldn’t earn a peep out of me. Swallowing, I shifted slightly. Allowed her to think she was making me sweat.
“I think I will have a drink. Where is your restroom?”
“Down the hall and to your left,” she pointed.
Freeing my purse from my shoulders, I headed in the direction she pointed. In the privacy of the bathroom, I stood in the mirror, disbelieving I was really in this woman’s home listening to her bullshit. None of it settled well in my spirit. Fried, my nervous system was as if I’d walked into a lion’s den. After flushing the toilet, I ran the water for several seconds just in case the bitch was listening.
Let me go the fuck back out there before she puts something in my drink.
“…So, yeah, I cheated,” she continued as I stared the apple martini down, not bothering to touch it. “Maybe it wasn’t the right thing, but the man I was with was hardly a man at all. Marriage is a double-edged sword. It’s difficult once you’re in it, and divorce isn’t an easy decision. You’re damned if you do or don’t.”
Except … you didn’t make that decision. It was made for you.
“…Besides, there were other factors to consider before I left. Like my well-being. My quality of living. He’d boxed me off from having a career. I had nowhere to turn to. No funds of my own.”
She kept vomiting at the mouth until I’d finally heard enough. It was much of the same shit she used to spew after her yoga sessions though less filtered.
Leaving Mya’s condo left me more confused than ever. I hadn’t anticipated a so-called history lesson on the man I’d been with for the last eight months. While I wanted to call her a liar and a bitch and issue threats, some of what she said tracked with my experience with Duke. His attempts to keep me from working. His frequent requests for dinner. His suggestions about how I ran my business.
I’d always considered him helpful, but Mya described it as controlling . Part of me couldn’t help but wonder if I’d been experiencing a watered-down version of what she’d described.
No .
I shook my head to clear it of the looniness that was Myaquanna. Hell naw . This bitch had gotten in my head.
Only one person was responsible for dispelling what she’d expressed, and that was me, not Duke. Secure in my relationship, I had no reason to welcome in doubt.
Despite my resolution, trepidation anchored my steps as I made my way back to the penthouse. Duke and his damn ex-wife . Between the two, it seemed as if I was trapped in the middle of a soap opera.
The inviting scent of Homegrown’s breakfast platter met me as I returned to the penthouse. Pancake platters with sausage and beef bacon slapped me across the face for the foolishness of going to see his ex-wife.
“I was wondering where you ran off to so early.”
Duke approached, held me at arm’s length, and scoured me from head to toe.
“Hey,” I spoke, sliding my purse from my shoulders and hanging it on the nearby hook. “It smells good in here.”
“My shit looks good on you. Where were you?”
For ten seconds, I considered lying. Ten seconds before he was in my face, killing me with bergamot and toasted vanilla. Lying to a man who brought home pancake platters and beef bacon was insurmountable.
“I—uh...”
Telling him I did the very thing he told me not to do was, too. I wanted answers to questions Mya had birthed, but I wanted pancakes more.
“—Went to the store real quick.”
“Oh,” he said, purging the space between us and kissing my lips. “Okay. Let’s eat.”