Chapter 14 #2
“Mr. Ellis,” I say, “you brought one of Honey’s employees to our home using a name unknown to us, after being part of a private arrangement tied to said home. If your defense is a technicality, you’ve already lost.”
Bryce looks at Lizzie. “My intent wasn’t to hurt you.”
Lizzie leans back like his words smell bad. “Basic bullshit men always say when they get caught doing some fucked up shit. What was your so-called intent then, Fredrick? Or Bryce, whoever.”
He doesn’t answer fast enough.
Desiree steps in then. “Answer her.”
Bryce’s eyes cut to her.
I take one step forward.
He remembers himself.
“I wanted to talk to you,” he says to Desiree. “About expanding and extending our contracts.”
The truth right there for the women to see, but I call bullshit. If I’m not mistaken, he started dating Lizzie about three-ish months ago, the contract is only four months.
Lizzie stares at him. “Expanding?”
Bryce looks at her, then Jetta, then back to Desiree like he’s still trying to sell the ugliest thing in the prettiest packaging.
“Linden and I thought if everyone had time to get comfortable, there might be a conversation.”
“Comfortable for what?” Jetta says.
Desiree laughs once, and I know that laugh. Nothing good follows it.
“You mean attached,” she says. “You thought if they cared about you first, you could use that to get me to agree to something later. Not even having the decency to give them a choice about a world they know nothing about.”
Bryce looks at her like he wants to soften the words after they have already cut through the room. “I know how it sounds.”
“No,” Jetta says, standing before anyone can stop her. “I don’t think you do.”
Linden turns toward her. “Jetta—”
“Don’t.” She points at him, and her hand is shaking, but her voice is not.
“You sat across from me at dinner. You met my cousin. You let me talk to you about work. About my life. About things I don’t just hand out to everybody.
And the whole time, you were just trying to see if I could join you in some freaky shit with my boss? ”
Linden’s face changes. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Then exactly what the fuck was it like?” she demands.
His lips spread but nothing useful comes out.
Lizzie’s still looking at Bryce. “I’m assuming you followed me here after I specifically told you I needed to go see my friend tonight.”
“I was trying to prepare you.”
“After eating my pussy, then delivering her flowers, you were trying to prepare me? No, you were trying to get ahead of it,” she says. “That’s different.”
Delivering her flowers? That’s news to me. Mr. Kinsley has attempted to be extremely busy in my absence. Duly noted.
Desiree’s hand moves against mine. I catch her fingers before she can step forward because I know that look on her face. She wants to tear into both of them, but the women are doing what needs to be done.
Bryce looks at me then. “Theo—”
“Last time. Mr. Kelly,” I remind him.
He looks down, his ego obviously bruised at the correction.
“And you will address the women in this room before you address me. You used them to reach Desiree. Start there.”
Desiree pulls her hand from mine and steps toward Lizzie and Jetta.
“I need to get this out before anything else gets said,” she utters. “I hate that either of you are standing in our home hearing anything about our private life. I hate that they made my privacy part of a way to get to you both.”
Lizzie wipes under one eye. “Desi—”
“Let me finish.” Desiree’s voice breaks just enough to piss me off because she’s done nothing wrong, yet she’s still the one paying the emotional tax.
“I’m not ashamed of my life with Theodore.
Nor am I ashamed of what we do. But private does mean private.
And these men don’t get to turn my choices into gossip because they got bold. ”
Desiree looks at each woman. “Would both of you be okay with signing a confidentiality acknowledgment tonight? Not for them. For me. For us,” she says, motioning between the two of us.
Jetta’s eyes squinch on her beautiful oval-shaped face and her lips tighten.
“Your job’s safe,” she says. “This isn’t me being your boss. This is me asking as a woman who got exposed without agreeing to it.”
Lizzie cuts her eyes at Bryce. “I’ll sign.”
Jetta nods. “Me too.”
Bryce makes the mistake of exhaling like something has eased.
Desiree turns on him. “Don’t you dare look relieved. They’re protecting me. They’re not protecting you.”
I pull my phone from my pocket and send one message to Marlana at the concierge.
Incident protocol. Kinsley and Ellis. Immediate suspension. Full review for permanent expulsion. Counsel notice tonight.
The reply comes back before Bryce finishes trying to look unconcerned.
Acknowledged. Profiles frozen. Legal will issue notice within the hour.
I turn the screen toward both men.
Bryce reads it first.
Linden’s face follows.
“Your profiles are frozen,” I tell them. “Your contracts are terminated. Your names will sit in review before the night is over, and every agreement you signed is going to be looked at by people who get paid very well to make discretion expensive.”
Bryce says, “We didn’t disclose anything.”
I step into his space before he gets another word comfortable in his mouth. My elbow comes up short and brutal, catching him under the chin hard enough to snap his head back. His teeth cut into his lip, and blood shows at the corner of his mouth before he works to get his balance back.
“You used access,” I say. “And you keep pretending that’s smaller than it is.”
He touches two fingers to his mouth, and stares at them like his body needs a second to believe it.
Linden takes half a step. “We didn’t force anybody.”
I turn and catch him across the mouth with the back of my hand, my nugget ring opening a clean line across his cheek. He stumbles one ugly step sideways, his hand flying up to his jaw, all that smooth shit knocked out of him.
Jetta laughs, hurt all through it. “You didn’t give us the truth either.”
Lizzie looks at him. “Which means we couldn’t consent to whatever room you were trying to build, Dumbass.”
Desiree’s eyes close briefly.
When they open, she looks proud of them.
So am I.
I tug my cuffs back into place, smooth the front of my shirt, and put my hands in my pockets.
I look at Bryce and Linden. “You’re going to leave this house without another word to either woman.”
Bryce looks toward Lizzie.
“Try it,” she says.
He knows better at this point.
Linden looks at Jetta, and she stands beside Desiree before he can say her name.
“My driver’s still outside,” I tell them. “He’ll stay until both cars are gone.”
Bryce’s face hardens. “You’re really doing all this?”
“You showed up at my house with a plan for my woman,” I say. “This is me ensuring I handle this shit appropriately.”
Bryce laughs once, but it comes out wrong. It’s a sound a man makes when he realizes what he thought was a loophole was just a noose he created for himself.
“Your woman,” he says, his eyes cutting to Desiree.
“That’s the problem with both of you. You keep acting like her fat ass doesn’t want more than just you.
Like she hasn’t had my dick in her mouth and me in her pussy.
Him too,” he adds, jerking his heavy bearded chin toward Linden.
“All while you watch us fuck her brains out. The fuck kind of man are you?”
Desiree eases away from me, and I let her go because I know exactly what she’s doing. Her hand moves along the back of the sofa, casual enough for everybody else to miss and familiar enough for me to know she’s already three steps ahead of the room.
I move before he finishes taking the breath after it.
One second he’s standing in my living room with too much mouth. The next, his black ass is against the wall beside the archway, my forearm across his chest, my hand fisted in his shirt.
The room erupts around us.
Lizzie says my name. Jetta curses. Linden takes one step forward.
“Uh uh.”
Desiree doesn’t raise her voice.
She doesn’t have to. She’s at the far end of the sofa with the nine in her hand, low at her side, her finger tapping at the trigger and every bit of her attention on Linden.
We don’t have children in this house because neither one of us wanted them. We built our life around privacy, freedom, and each other, which means the things meant to protect Desiree can stay close without anybody mistaking this house for a place made for little people.
Linden’s eyes drop just enough to let me know he sees what she has in her hand.
I keep my eyes on Bryce.
Desiree says, “Try another step.”
Linden lifts his hands slowly, palms out, all that charm gone from his face.
Smartest thing his high-yella ass has done all night.
Bryce breathes hard under my arm, shirt twisted in my fist, finally accepting he can’t run a damn thing here.
I lean closer. “You don’t get to speak for what Desiree wants.”
His lids pull so high they damn near touch his brows, and his pupils go wide with fear.
“You don’t get to use these beautiful women to get near her. You don’t stand in this house and confuse temporary access with position. And you damn sure don’t try to turn her appetite into permission you were never given.”
Desiree says my name behind me. “Alpha.”
I hear what she means.
I release Bryce and step back.
He catches himself against the wall, shirt wrinkled, mouth bloody, dignity looking about as useful as the lies that brought him here.
Desiree keeps the pistol low at her side, finger off the trigger, still focused on Linden like she has already decided he’s worthless.
“Now,” she says, “both of y’all can get the fuck out of my house.”
Bryce adjusts his shirt like there’s pride left in the fabric as he walks out with Linden on his trail.
I stay where I am until both men pass through the foyer going out the front door. Desiree keeps the nine low at her side, and neither man looks back.
Once the door closes behind them, I turn the locks and I see Desiree let her shoulders drop for the first time since I’ve been home.
“Y’all are serious as hell,” Lizzie says.
Desiree sets the nine on the console table, still close enough to reach.
“Tonight seemed like the right time to make that clear.”