Chapter 7
Kalliope
A FEW DAYS LATER
“These look good on you, babe.”
I blushed under his scrutiny, thinking about all the times that I wanted to hear him call me baby, sweetheart, sugar, or any term of endearment at all, anything except for bighead and skinny minnie. Those were names that he always teased me with as a child, and I quickly grew sick of them.
“This is too much, Drè.”
“Come on, baby. Your worth will never be limited by money. This is the least that you deserve. You should have been showered with gifts all along.”
“We have a beautiful handbag that pairs well with these shoes, Mr. Jones,” the salesclerk offered with a bright smile.
She had damn dollar signs flickering in her bright blue eyes. I was already struggling with accepting the pair of Jimmy Choo heels from him. Just because he caught me eyeing them while he was taking a call out on the sidewalk didn’t mean that I expected him to buy them for me.
The minute he laid eyes on me, he ended the call and rushed me right into the store. We had just left a few other boutiques and stores where he had spent twenty stacks on me in clothes, shoes, jewelry, and accessories, and he’d placed the bags in the car so that we could finish shopping.
“No, Drè. I don’t need another gift,” I argued.
“Bring the handbag, ma’am.”
“Why are you doing this?” I asked in a low tone when she walked away.
“Why are you being so difficult? What’s wrong with a man wanting to do nice things for his lady?”
“Your lady isn’t accustomed to living like this and having a man lavish her with these types of expensive gifts. I buy things for myself.”
“Why?”
“Because if I wanted something expensive in the past, I bought them. Remy was the only relationship I’ve had, and he bought me cute little necklaces and rings, but I buy my own clothes, shoes, and anything that’s expensive.”
“What’s that got to do with me, Kalli? I’m not him, so don’t expect me to act like him.”
“I don’t. It’s just . . . I mean, I appreciate you wanting to do for me like this, but I’m not accustomed to this. It’s a different level of a relationship than I’ve had, and I’m not there yet.”
He cupped my chin in his hand and tilted my head back slightly. “You’re at that level, baby. Everything that I have is yours, and anything that I don’t have, you can get.”
The salesclerk immediately came back with the handbag, and I couldn’t deny that she had an eye for fashion.
Andrès bought the shoes, the handbag, and a bottle of Royal Diamond by Amaffi.
We stepped into Solomon Brothers so that he could check on a watch that he had specially designed for his brother, Solomon.
I walked around the store eyeing various pieces that I found intriguing. Andrès was deeply engrossed in his conversation with his personal jeweler when I spotted something that I wanted. After a couple of minutes, a salesperson finished with another couple and came to serve me.
“You ready, babe?” Andrès asked after another fifteen minutes.
“Yeah. Did you get everything you needed?”
“Yep. Did you see anything you wanted in here?” he asked me.
“No, but I’m starving. Can we grab lunch now?”
“Yeah. Sounds like spending money works an appetite up in you,” he replied teasingly.
“Or it sounds like that smoothie I had for breakfast wasn’t enough to hold me over,” I replied, giggling.
“Babe, I told you we could have gotten breakfast when I picked you up.”
“And I told you that—”
“Hold up, baby. Let me grab this call; it’s relating to the house construction.”
“Okay.”
He moved from the doorway of the jeweler to the front window. I walked a few paces away to give him some privacy and to check out a bakery. When Andrès glanced up at me, I pointed to the bakery, and he nodded. I stepped inside and bought some cupcakes before I returned to the sidewalk.
Andrès was still on his call, so I hopped on social media while I waited.
“Kalliope?” A male’s voice rose slightly above the din of the loud vehicles passing by and people talking, causing my head to jerk up.
“Kalliope, I thought that was you.”
I hadn’t seen or spoken to Remy since the day I found him and Ellis together.
I’d run out of there and not looked back, except for the night I had gone back to vandalize his property, but I hadn’t seen him.
My father and brother and a couple of my male cousins had gone by there to pick up my things the morning after I left when he wasn’t home.
Moving in with my parents wasn’t an option. Kelsey let me crash at her place for a few weeks before I found a brownstone on the other side of town from Remy. I wanted to eliminate the chance we would run into each other again, and thus far, I’d been successful.
My parents told me that he called, and my mother had cursed him out.
That wasn’t enough of a warning because he had shown up on their doorstep, and it had taken our neighbors to keep my dad from beating Remy into the ground.
Now here we stood, facing each other, and I realized that all the therapy in the world had not prepared me for this moment.
“Uhm, . . . what do you want?” I asked in a wobbly voice.
“You changed your number, so I haven’t been able to get in touch with you. I went to your job, and they said that you didn’t work there anymore. I looked all over for you, but I couldn’t find you.”
“If you hadn’t been so far up Ellis’s ass, pun intended, you would have known that I was terminated that day,” I replied hotly.
“I know what I did was wrong, Kalliope, but I thought we could have worked through things. I mean, you deserved honesty and transparency, but I deserved to be heard out.”
“I deserved someone who handled my heart with ease and respected me enough to tell me when things were over. You deserved nothing but what happened.”
“I didn’t mean for you to find out that way. It only happened a few times, and I was trying to stop it, but then she started blackmailing me. Every time I turned her away, she threatened to tell you and her parents.”
“I really don’t care about that anymore. My life with you is done.”
He reached for my hand and grabbed it. “Baby, please. It doesn’t have to be, unless you’ve moved on.” He glanced up and over my shoulder just as I felt Andrès take my hand.
“Nah, son, she came back home,” Andrès stated, rubbing the webbed space between my thumb and index finger before he lifted my hand and kissed my knuckles.
“Kalli, can we please just—”
“You can’t do shit but march your corny ass on down the street, nigga.”
Remy balled and un-balled his fists repeatedly as he stared into my eyes but spoke to Andrès. “I wasn’t speaking to you. I was talking to Kalliope.”
Andrès moved in front of me and stepped so close to Remy that their shoes almost touched.
Drè was a couple of inches taller than Remy, but Remy was larger.
“Anything you’ve got to say to her, you can say it to me, and I ain’t trying to hear that shit, nigga.
Now I’ma tell ya ass one last time, step the fuck on before I catch a case. ”
“You were always jealous of what she and I had. So, of course, you would take the perfect opportunity to move in. I bet you couldn’t wait until things broke down between us,” Remy declared.
Andrès sniffed and rubbed his nose with his thumb before he angled his head.
“I ain’t never been jealous of no nigga, and I didn’t have to wait for shit.
If you couldn’t close the deal in ten years, she was never yours in the first place, but I knew that all along.
This is the last time that I’ll warn you, step the fuck away and stay away. ”
Remy looked between the two of us and replied, “I hope you’re happy, Kalliope.”
“I’ve never been happier in all my life.”
He turned and walked away. Until Andrès wrapped me in his arms and held me close, I had no idea that I was trembling.
He dropped a kiss on my forehead and whispered, “I got you, beautiful. You never have to worry about that sort of pain again.”