Chapter 5
Now I Gotta Try to Incorporate This Woman into My World
Double (Jinx)
On the helicopter to the private airstrip where we would board the private jet back to America, I couldn’t help but wonder about what was going through her head.
I knew the last few weeks, particularly this day, had been fucked up.
So, even though we could’ve spoken to one another through the headsets we were wearing, I decided to let my new wife make it. There would be plenty of time to talk.
Once we made it to my home, I showed her to the guest area.
I didn’t live on a compound with east and west wings.
I stayed in a normal four-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bathroom, single-story home.
The square footage was manageable, but I still had a small staff—a cleaning team of two, and a chef—none of which lived on my actual property.
I made sure to put her in the bedroom furthest from my own so she could feel like she had her own space and privacy.
I wasn’t sure how she spent her time, but with the time difference, the drama, and the travel, I was tired as hell. I took a shower and fell into bed.
Though I’d been exhausted, I was one of those people who was just naturally an early riser. When my alarm went off at 6:00 a.m., I got up, worked out, and took care of my hygiene.
A few hours later, I was outside her bedroom door. I knocked lightly. There was no response. I knocked a second and third time. Finally, her muffled voice called out, “Please stop knocking. I don’t want to talk to anybody. I just wanna be left alone.”
I didn’t even trip. I knew her yesterday wasn’t what she would’ve wanted it to be. Again, I let her make it. I headed down to the kitchen to have breakfast. After that, I would hole up in my office and get some work done. Even though it was Saturday, the grind didn’t really ever stop.
By lunchtime, I figured that there was no way she wasn’t starving.
I headed back to her bedroom and knocked lightly once again.
“You gotta be hungry by now,” I told her through the door.
I heard what sounded like a feminine growl and chuckled to myself.
Tinsley Campbell . . . Waters didn’t fuck with me.
“You can come in,” she called.
Her invitation surprised me. I pushed the door open. My eyes immediately found her as I crossed the threshold into the room. She stood in front of the dresser at the mirror, arranging the wild mass of curls into a ponytail or a bun—or something on top of her head.
She might not have been the societal standard of beauty, but everything about her physical package was pleasing.
She was kind of tall and had the nerve to be shaped like a Coke bottle—just curvy for no damn reason at all.
Her skin was fair—the color of café au lait.
She reminded me of my mother that way. Her eyes were about a shade or two darker than her skin, and while they weren’t hazel, they were a bright, warm light brown.
Her heart-shaped face was covered in dark-brown freckles.
They weren’t dotted across the bridge of her nose or sparsely sprinkled across her cheeks.
Freckles were scattered across her face the way that stars were scattered across the heavens.
They were random and plentiful. I had already decided that they were my favorite of all of her features.
Her lips were a close second, though—pink and full, with the top one being slightly smaller than the bottom one.
They looked kissable and suckable. Her hair was thick and curly.
The way she had it gathered on top of her head, with a few curly pieces falling down around her cheeks, gave her a youthful look.
“You hungry?”
She blew a sigh from between the lips I liked so much. “Yeah.”
“Cool. Let’s go eat. I know it’s lunchtime, but since you skipped breakfast, the chef prepared more brunch-like dishes.”
“That sounds good.”
We walked to the kitchen in silence with me leading her to the island, where covered platters awaited us.
“Moses made sure that I understood that you’re a pescatarian.
I talked to my chef, and he’s with it.” I lifted the cloche from each platter.
When she gave a little gasp of surprise at the shrimp and grits, buttermilk biscuits, and fruit compote, I turned away from her to hide my smirk and walked over to the cabinet where I kept the plates, grabbing one for her.
She gave me a small smile as she took the plate from my hand. Smiling Tinsley was even prettier than non-smiling Tinsley to me. “Thank you.”
“I know this situation is crazy as hell. I get that. I want you to hear it from my mouth so you don’t have to wonder.
I’mma do everything in my power to make our time together breezy.
I’m not lookin’ to give you a hard time or make you feel like a hostage or no shit like that.
You’re my wife. I plan to treat and respect you as such. ”
“Thank you,” she repeated.
Once our plates were fixed, she followed me into the formal dining room. We sat across from one another. “I never eat in here.”
Her eyes widened. “Where do you usually eat?”
“In the kitchen, at the island, or in my office. Sometimes in the family room.”
“In your office? You eat while you work?”
“Yeah.” I put a forkful of shrimp and grits in my mouth.
“And when you eat in the family room, you probably have the television on, huh?”
“Yeah.” I glanced over at her and caught her pretty eyes trained on me. “What’s up? You look like you wanna say somethin’?”
“In my culture, we sit at the formal table to have all of our meals. We don’t work, watch television, or play on our phones during meals. We talk to each other. What if I asked you to do that?”
The smirk on her face had some attitude behind it.
I’d spoken to Moses on the phone before I agreed to marry his niece.
While Lynne had given me all of the information she had, she didn’t really know Tinsley.
She’d met her a couple of times, but Tinsley was Lianna’s niece, not Lynne’s.
Before I could agree to marry her, I needed to talk to somebody who really knew her, who would also be invested in protecting her.
He told me about her detached relationship with her parents, about how she’d spent her life being controlled by her father.
He told me how she had to learn how to make decisions for herself once he passed away.
He told me how the aunt had swooped in and started trying to control her as an adult and how Tinsley had done everything she could to stand her ground.
I was well aware that I married a fighter. I liked it. In my family, a pushover would get pushed right the fuck over. She would need to have the courage of her convictions when dealing with us.
She wasn’t going to have to fight with me, though.
The two men I admired most, my father and my grandfather, liked to spoil their women.
I planned to give in to her as much as I could.
Besides, I already knew that if I planned to earn her trust, I needed to make things feel like they were her decision.
I shrugged my shoulders. “Ask me and see what happens.”
She frowned up her face. “What?”
“What, what? Ask me your question, and see how I respond.”
“I would like—”
I cut her off. “Start with, as your wife, then ask the question.”
She made a little annoyed noise as her arms folded over her chest.
“Your food’s gonna get cold.”
She sucked her teeth. I kept eating. “Fine,” she finally huffed out. “As your wife—”
I cut her off again. “Yeah, I like the way that sounds.”
“Ugh!” She frowned at me before picking up her plate and leaving the table.
I didn’t follow her. If we were going to form a real friendship, she would have to get used to my personality quirks, just like I would have to get used to hers. It was better to show her the real me, rather than woo her into a false sense of security. I kept eating.
Less than a minute later, she returned. “As your wife,” she started as she retook the seat across from me. “I would like it if we ate our meals at this table and talked to each other instead of being distracted.”
I made eye contact with her. “I like that idea. You got that. Starting with dinner or breakfast tomorrow?”
“Maybe breakfast.” She covered her yawn with a dainty hand. “I might sleep through dinner.”
“Listen. I know this isn’t the situation you saw for yourself, but outside of the obvious, are you cool?”
She breathed out a sigh that was heavy with the weight of everything she probably felt at the moment.
“I’m glad that instead of being at my wedding, I’m away from that situation.
I’m still pissed, though. Not like, at you or at anybody in particular, outside of Gretchen and Sterling Gillespie.
I’m just pissed at the whole thing. The fact that my aunt was willing to trade me, a whole human, in an effort to save a company and get her hands on my money.
The whole thing makes me want to flip everything over.
And in order to avoid that, I literally had to leave my business, my apartment, and basically everything I’ve ever known.
I had to be kidnapped/rescued under the cover of night, marry a different stranger, and be airlifted out of my home country.
To be honest, I haven’t even processed all of this. Nothing even seems real to me.”
“Damn. You’re right. I hate that shit.”
“I know this is a long shot, but do you think there’s any way I could get some of my belongings from my apartment back in Felicidad? Probably not, huh?”
“Nah. That’s not likely. Gillespie probably has your place under twenty-four-hour surveillance.”
“Well.” She exhaled. “At least most of the things that I treasured are at Velvet & Vintage. Maybe one day, in a hundred years, Faylise can send them to me.”
“What’s Velvet & Vintage?”
“My company. Faylise, you know my friend that the cocky guy with the gun knocked unconscious? She’s my business partner. We do event design.”
“Word?”
She stared at me.