Mr. Blackwood

1 – CAMILLA VALENTINE

“Craig, would you please move that stack of boxes to that far wall? Riann, what time are the movers scheduled to arrive?” I asked.

“They will be here at eight,” Riann Gaines, my executive assistant replied. She fluttered around the room like a butterfly and checked the labels on the box. Every now and then she pulled an ink pen from her tidy bun of braids and chewed on it thoughtfully before she tucked it away again.

The lease was up on my office space, and the building’s management was not renewing leases.

They were transitioning the old building into a mixed use space of residential loft apartments and retail space.

They had collaborated with some real estate developers to transition the entire area into a live, work, shop, play area.

I had been stressed for the last six months about where my little crew would go, but I’d lucked out and found prime real estate space in downtown Atlanta.

The commute from my home in Decatur, Georgia wouldn’t change by much.

It was roughly the same distance from my three-bedroom, two-bathroom house in Decatur to my midtown office as it was from home to the new downtown office.

I was excited because there was more opportunity for growth for my magazine, ColorMe CEO.

My magazine featured articles about regional corporations and CEOS in the southeastern United States. I wanted to expand it to a national reach, and the opportunity had recently been presented for me to do just that.

I looked around at the crew who was assembled in the office with me.

Other than my executive assistant, there were six more people assisting with the move: my best friend, Shana McIntyre; my two full-time reporters, Brittany “Britt” Anderson and Solomon Knowles; my marketing and sales associates, Patrick Jones and Craig Arrow; and Valencia “Val” Wright, my editor.

“You’ve been in this building for five years.

You worked at the newspaper here, and you started your own publication here.

How do you feel about leaving?” Shana wore a pouty look as though she could sense my distress.

She was a graphic designer, and I often used her as a consultant for the magazine.

“I’ll be the first to admit that it’s bittersweet.

It was a hard blow when the newspaper went out of business, but I bounced back.

Taking my savings and starting up the magazine was a scary choice, but it was the best one I’ve ever made.

I’ll miss this place. There are a lot of memories here, and I made plenty of friends, but it’s time to move on,” I answered with a shrug and a nostalgic smile.

“I’m proud of you, girl,” Shana stated. She wrapped an arm around me, squeezed me to her, and kissed my cheek before I shoved her away.

“Girl, get away from me with all that,” I grumbled.

I wasn’t an affectionate person, but Shana was. She knew that I wasn’t good at mushy stuff, so getting me to talk about my feelings and displaying affection was a bit much, especially when it happened in front of my staff.

“You know you love me,” she teased as my staff laughed at us.

“Whatever. Anyway, this is a great opportunity for us to grow in the new building. We’ll have more space to hire more staff.”

“The greater opportunity is our connection with Sullivan Investments,” Patrick spoke up as he dropped down onto a table edge.

“Are they serious about investing in us?” Solomon asked.

“They are. We just need to be able to pull off the interview they’re requesting to show that we have national appeal. I won’t lie; it won’t be easy snagging an interview with Jabari Blackwood, but if we can pull that off . . .” I whistled and everyone nodded their understanding.

“Not only will Sullivan Investments give us the money we need to grow and hire more staff, but we will have easier access to Fortune Five Hundred execs that we don’t have access to now,” I explained.

“No one’s ever been able to gain that type of access to do a feature on Jabari Blackwood. I’m not certain how we, a fledgling local magazine, will be able to do it,” Britt pronounced, scrunching her nose and turning her lips down.

“With that type of thinking, we won’t be able to,” I commented sharply.

“I’m just saying. My bad, though,” Britt apologized, throwing her hands up.

“We all need to make gaining that interview our primary focus once we’re settled in the new building.

Solomon and Britt, I want you both to change your stories to ones that focus on a broader national appeal.

Riann, I need you to search for writers, photographers, and experts from other regions who would diversify our perspective and then schedule them for interviews.

Patrick, switch our marketing strategy to a wider, broader appeal, including the hashtags and digital distribution.

“Craig, you need to partner with Comag to get our print copies on national bookstore chain shelves and retail hubs. You also need to find a way to get bulk multi-user digital access passes into the hands of corporate HR and communications departments at national companies besides the Southeast. I’ll work with national PR firms that represent Fortune 500 execs to try to lock-in cover features for the magazine.

We need some leaders the people really want to hear from.

We need to restructure our columns too.”

“How so?” Val asked.

“By industry rather than geographic like we’ve been doing,” I replied.

“So, you’re thinking tech, manufacturing, and finance?” she asked.

“Exactly. We need to do whatever it takes to get a story out of him,” I explained.

Riann stopped pacing and turned to look at me. “Have you seen him? I heard that he gives Travis Cure vibes, and he’s the sexiest, most eligible black billionaire out there. I would get with that.”

Britt laughed loudly and clapped. “Now that’s a taboo age gap if I’ve ever seen one. Girl, you’re twenty-six, and I heard that man is in his forties.”

Val smacked her lips. “Taboo or not, age gap me, baby. From the way I’ve heard he looks and is built, that’s a BILF.”

When we all stared at her and I asked, “What?” in puzzled wonder, she stared back at us like duh before she explained. “A billionaire I’d like to fuck.”

We all laughed and shook our heads. “Girl, you’re too old to be robbing the cradle like that,” Britt remarked, laughing.

“There’s only nine years between us, where’s the problem?” Val asked, shrugging.

“Y’all can change each other’s diapers, I guess,” Craig muttered over his coffee mug.

Shana spat out her water laughing, and Riann declared, “Eww, now that’s just nasty.”

“Or kinky, depending on how you look at it,” Solomon pronounced.

Britt scrunched up her face and asked, “What in the Fifty Shades of Grey?”

“How old is the guy?” Solomon asked.

The answers ranged from thirty-eight to seventy-two.

Riann stopped laughing long enough to remark, “There’s no way that guy is in his seventies, sixties, or fifties. He may be in his forties, and that’s pushing it.”

“I don’t know how good he does or doesn’t look, and I don’t care. We need his story,” I stated.

"Wait. None of you have seen this man?” Shana asked.

“No.” We were one voice, one sound like we were practicing for the movie Drumline.

“He doesn’t give interviews, either TV or print. He’s seldom been spotted publicly, and when he has been, he’s on the move so fast that no one has really gotten his picture other than a side or back profile. If you know him, you know him,” I explained.

Shana pointed her finger at me. “What you need to do is find a man and stop being married to this magazine.”

I rolled my eyes and countered, “I’m a business owner, and that means that I sacrifice for the greater good of my company.”

“To what end? Does it mean that you give up having a personal life? Does it mean a future where you grow old and lonely and have no man and no kids?” Shana challenged.

“I’ll pass on the kids part, but I would love to have my itch scratched more frequently than I do now,” I replied with a wink and a tone low enough for only Shana to hear.

Shana replied in a normal tone. “It’s not going to happen as long as you keep chasing millionaire dreams.”

“Girl, please. I have multimillionaire dreams. Only those with no true aspiration like you stop at a million. Once I have my millions, I’ll be chasing my billions.

I’ll be a multimillionaire who will be making lots of people’s dreams come true, if I hold firm.

Don’t block out my sun with your shade,” I teased.

“You’re going to be a lonely old bat with a houseful of cats, and someone else will be running your magazine,” Shana quipped.

“Ooh! Ooh me!” Britt proclaimed, raising her hand.

“I’ll be rich enough to hire a gardener or a pool boy who will ease my ache. If all else fails, I still have this among many other forms of entertainment at my disposal,” I whispered again, and patted the Vesper vibrator necklace tucked away in my blouse.

Shana looked up behind me and grew still for a couple of seconds. Finally, she spoke. “Or maybe your prayers have been answered, and you don’t need those toys.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

Shana bobbed her head behind me. I turned around and saw my ex-husband, Nick Valentine, standing in the doorway behind me.

“Hey, gorgeous.” His voice was filled with happiness and dripped sensuality like a melting popsicle on a hot summer day.

Nick was six feet, one inch, and he had dark, mahogany skin stretched over taut muscles. His thick, curly, dark brown hair had grown long, and his dark eyes sparkled with delight. He was Dominican, handsome, and no-damn good for any woman in the vicinity.

“Nick, what are you doing here?” I asked in surprised exasperation as I walked to where he stood.

“We need to talk.”

“About what?”

“Our annulment. It was never finalized.”

I dropped my favorite mug and broke it.

***

“So, what appears to be the problem?” I asked Nick as we finished our steak dinner at his hotel.

I hadn’t wanted him to know where I lived, because he would casually pop up when I least expected it.

Nick liked really good food, and the places he dined at were extremely difficult to get last-minute reservations to.

Therefore, he opted to have dinner at his hotel with room service from the fine-dining restaurant in the hotel.

He had insisted on being cordial and making small talk over dinner.

“Apparently, the paperwork wasn’t completed accurately, and it was filed late.”

“So, what does that mean?”

“We have to actually divorce now, because we’re technically still married and past the annulment period.

I’ll just need your signature on these papers.

” He shoved an envelope my way, and I opened it and rifled through the papers.

He was silent while I read through the documents.

It was all routine stuff that I didn’t believe I needed an attorney for.

“Whose screw up?” I asked not looking up at him as I quickly scrawled my signature on a few pages.

“My attorney and mine. He reached out to me to let me know, but apparently, I was out of the country for that period of time.”

Nick was a doctor in the Doctors without Borders program.

He signed up before we were married and had never disclosed that bit of information to me.

He said it was his calling and his life’s work.

That was part of the reason that we broke up, because I hadn’t wanted to travel to and live in remote parts of the world.

Neither had I wanted to have a long-distance marriage where he was in and out of my life.

The other part was that he was a big flirt, which I learned after marriage.

He believed every beautiful woman needed to be acknowledged and made to feel gorgeous.

To be fair, our affair was brief, three months. We had married on a whim believing we were deeply in love.

“This isn’t fair. How long have you known about this, Nick?”

He sighed and ran his hands through his thick, curly tousled hair. “About a year and a half.”

“A year and a half?” I stood. “Why am I just now finding out?”

He shrugged casually as he stood. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t anything personal, Cami. I was off saving lives. I had every intention of reaching out but things happen, you know?”

“No, I don’t know! You arrogant—arghhh! It’s always about your life, your career, you and everything concerning you. You truly believe the world circulates around you. You’re trying to sabotage my future.” I circled the table to face him.

“How? You’ve gone on with your life just fine.”

“You’re a selfish bastard.”

“If I were selfish, I never would have walked away when you told me to get out.” He reached out and gripped my shoulder in a calming manner, but I shrugged it off.

“You only did it because you didn’t want to answer for your selfish decisions and reckless behavior.”

“How was I being reckless because I pursued my dreams?”

“You knew that I didn’t want you to give up my dreams to go to some remote war-torn country.

You knew that you were in that program when you asked me to marry you, and you refused to not sign up again when it was time.

What kind of life is that? What if we had kids and something happened to you?

You’d be in essence leaving me as a widow to raise our kids? ”

“What if nothing happened? What if you just overreacted for nothing? What if we could still be together? I can tell you still love me.”

“I hate you, Nick!”

“Do you, Cami?” He gripped the back of my head and covered my lips with his. I recalled how sweet his kisses were, and how much I craved them in the short while that we had together.

My body hungered for his touch. It had been more than a year since I’d last had a man touch me that way. He tugged at the hem of my blouse, and I reached for the button on his jeans. Within minutes we were naked, and my legs were wrapped around him.

He carried me to his room and tossed me on the bed. I inhaled, anxiously awaiting what he would bring to my body as he covered his length with a condom.

My honeypot stirred with longing and ached to be filled with his length. When he joined me again, we were a convoluted mess of limbs, tongues, and appendages.

“Ohhh, Nick!” I moaned as he filled me and stretched me wide.

My tightness welcomed him, expanding to wrap around his familiar steel. Nick thrust deep inside of me as his hand made its home at the nape of my neck. He slowly worked his way up, tangling his fingers in my hair.

“Is this what you’ve missed?” he asked as he pumped up inside of me with slow measured torture.

“Ahh, yes! Yes, Nick!”

“I’ve missed you, too, beautiful. You feel so good, . . . like coming home.”

He kissed me and slowly dragged his lips to my neck where he bit before his mouth found its home on my nipple. I held him close not wanting it to end, but in time it did. After three orgasms where his mouth once brought me to a release and his dick did twice, we lay side by side in bed.

“This will never work.”

He sighed and replied, “I know. We’ll go to the lawyer’s in the morning.”