Chapter 12
Niko
There’s tired… and then there’s the kind of tired where your soul feels like it’s running on fumes…
that’s where I’d been living for the past damn year.
Dallas stayed busy no matter what month it was.
Holiday season just turned everything up.
Traffic was crazy, Christmas lights were everywhere, and muthafukas kept trying to book me for intimate Christmas dinners like I was a personal chef on standby with nothing else to do.
I walked out of the kitchen at my Dallas flagship with my shoulders tight.
We had just finished a private tasting for a high-profile couple, and they were talking about flying me out to Cabo for their New Year’s Eve party.
My team was excited about Cabo. I wasn’t.
The check looked nice, but the timing was trash.
My phone buzzed in my jacket pocket for the third time.
I pulled it out, seeing that I had another email from my father about the Hargrove event that he was expecting Victoria and I to attend.
I ignored that shit and headed to the Tahoe that was waiting for me.
It had been almost a year of nothing but bullshit.
Those fake ass pictures with my fake ass fiancé were starting to drain the life out of me.
We only had a month left before the wedding and I was no closer to wanting to get married than I was the day I opened my dumb ass mouth and agreed to it.
Everyone saw a perfect ass couple when we were out, I only saw another chain around my fuckin’ neck.
The truth was, Victoria and I were actually cool.
She wasn’t the stuck-up barbie bitch that her image made her look like.
We got along; we could joke and sit in a room without not hate each other.
She was smart and knew how to move in any crowd and on paper, she made sense, but in my bed, she did not.
We tried fucking early on and it was awkward as hell.
She would tense up every time my dick got close to her pussy.
That shit had me wondering what the fuck was going on?
I knew I wasn’t no ugly nigga and I also wasn’t desperate for no pussy so I took that as another sign from the universe telling me what I already knew: We didn’t belong together.
I didn’t have the patience to coach a grown woman through shit she clearly did not want, so I left it alone and never tried again.
Shit, my lotion had been doing the trick just fine and when shit got too backed up, I’d call Candice over to handle it.
We pulled to my building and I got out and headed inside. I rode the elevator up and walked into my penthouse, already tugging my collar loose. Victoria was on my couch with a glass of red wine. She had kicked her heels off by the door and her blazer was tossed on the armrest like she lived there.
“You let yourself in again,” I said, dropping my keys in the bowl by the door.
She lifted her glass. “Perks of being the fiancée.”
“Real fucking funny.”
“I try.”
She eyed me. “How was work?”
“Busy as hell but very profitable.” I sank into the chair across from her. “How was yours?”
“Annoying.” She rolled her eyes dramatically. “My mother has every holiday weekend between now and the wedding mapped out. Parties, teas, charity events, an ugly-sweater brunch that I never agreed to. Your father called to coordinate schedules and I almost blocked his number.”
“Join the club,” I said.
She took a slow sip. “You look tired.”
“Shit, I am tired.”
“From work,” she asked, “or from this little Broadway show we putting on for everybody?”
“Both.”
She snapped her fingers. “See? Finally, some honesty from Mr. Frost.”
I stared at her. “Why you so full of jokes today?”
“Because if I don’t laugh, I’ll throw myself off your penthouse balcony,” she said.
That pulled a low chuckle out of me before I could stop it, despite my mood. We sat in silence, watching the city glow through the windows. Christmas lights where everywhere, but none of it touched my mood.
She set her glass down. “So, I had an idea.”
“That sentence is dangerous coming from you,” I mumbled.
“Relax. I’m not announcing a pregnancy or asking you to practice our first dance.” She tucked one leg under her. “I need a break before I cuss somebody out in front of a camera. You look like you do too.”
“You’re not wrong.”
“Good. So, tell me what you think about disappearing for a week.”
“Disappearing where?”
My stomach dropped. My jaw tightened as the flashbacks resurfaced of Winter Haven. Of all the damn places on the map…all the luxury resorts she could’ve scrolled past… She picked that one. She caught every bit of it and smirked.
“Yeah. There.”
I swallowed the reaction, keeping my tone flat.
“Out of all the places you could’ve picked… you picked that one?”
“That place stuck with you,” she said, studying me. “So, I figured that meant something.”
“You don’t know shit about that trip.”
She lifted a brow. “You sure?”
“What that mean?”
She grinned slow. “You remember coming back her drunk the first weekend I stayed over? After we tried to…”
I frowned. I remembered being pissed off and leaving. I remember going to the bar down the street and drinking a shit load oh Hennessy that night, but not much else.
“What happened?”
She straightened, cleared her throat, and dropped into a perfect deep-voiced imitation of me.
“You came in here smelling like a whole bottle of liquor, flopped right onto this couch, looked me dead in my face and said—”
Her voice lowered:
“Man, that woman got me fucked up. Elise… whatever her real name is… she was on dick all damn week in Winter Haven. I bent her over damn near every surface in the lodge…and somehow…she left with a piece of me.”
My jaw flexed. She kept going, absolutely delighted.
“Man, I don’t even be fucking just anybody like that unless she really get under my skin.” Somewhere between the sex and the snow, she got in my head. I ain’t never felt no shit like that.”
She sat back, laughing. “Right after that, you passed out and was snoring and drooling all over the damn couch.
I covered my face. “Man…”
“That’s why you get tender anytime someone mentions Winter Haven, Romeo,” she said, swirling her wine. “You came back… rearranged.”
“Man whatever,” I said, trying to act unbothered but she could see right through my facade.
“Relax. I’m not asking for a play-by-play. I have my own love life to worry about.”
“Oh yeah?” I asked. “You finally saying that shit out loud?”
She hesitated only a second and sighed. “I’m tired of pretending. You know I don’t want this marriage any more than you do.”
“I figured that out when you damn near ran off my bed.”
She laughed loudly. “I ran because I’m not into you…at least not like that.”
“Then what are you into?” I asked, though I already knew.
“Women,” she said. “One woman, specifically. My girlfriend Mya. We’ve been together on and off for over a year and I love her, but my parents would implode if they knew.”
I nodded. “That explains a lot. I kinda already knew thought because it was the only way any woman would turn a nigga like me down.”
“Boy please. My point is,” she looked me in the eye, “you’re not the only one trapped in a storyline you didn’t write. I didn’t ask to be anybody’s corporate wife. You didn’t ask to be the legacy golden boy, yet here we are.”
I couldn’t argue that because she was right. All I cared about was running my businesses and becoming successful off my own shit. I didn’t give a damn about no legacy bullshit or a company being passed down to me.
“You sure you can deal with that?” I asked. “Me going back up there?”
She rolled her eyes. “Niko, you’ve been dealing with it all year. Might as well let the mountains take a turn.”
I snorted. “Fair.”
“And for the record,” she added, “this trip isn’t about me. You’re not my type—at ALL. I’m just trying to make this engagement tolerable for both of us. If going up there gets you straight? Merry Christmas.”
I shook my head, laughing once, low. “You wild.”
“I’m honest.” She stood. “So? You down or not?”
Every sensible part of me said let it go. There was no possible way that she would be there again. A lot can change overtime, and I just didn’t want to admit how I would feel if she wasn’t there but, I was willing to take the chance.
“Yeah,” I said finally. “Book it.”
She exhaled, relieved. “Good. I already reserved the cabin. I just needed you to say yes so I didn’t feel crazy.”
“You booked it BEFORE coming here?”
“Of course.” She shrugged. “You’re a control freak. If I didn’t lock it in first, you’d find a reason to cancel.”
I sighed. “You know me too well.”
“I do. Just not in the way our families want.”
She slipped her heels on, grabbed her purse, then paused at the door.
“One more thing.”
“What.”
“If you see her? Don’t haunt yourself another year. Speak up and tell her how you really feel or let it go,” she said and walked out.
Silence took over the condo, and I welcomed it.
I walked to the window, seeing Dallas sparkle like it had something to celebrate, yet I didn’t feel any of it.
All I could think about was her being somewhere out there, living…
existing… with no idea that I was about to walk right back into the space we once shared.
“Elise,” I whispered her name out loud for the third time since she walked out that cabin room.
Winter Haven was calling me back and I didn’t know if I would get closure, chaos or answers, but I knew one thing for sure… I wasn’t walking away from it or letting it walk away from me.