Chapter 1
Xylina
Asnicker escaped my mouth as I stood at the counter scrolling through my InstaFlik while the sales associate rang up the items I’d picked out.
Since spring was officially here, it was time to update my wardrobe with the latest clothes.
My personal shopper I always worked with had everything waiting for me when I first arrived at the store to look through.
Flicking my eyes to the counter, I saw she was halfway through the items. I had a full day ahead of me. After this I needed to run by the jewelry store to pick up the pieces I left to get cleaned and a few resized, following that I had to pick Princess up from her grooming at the doggy spa.
Clicking out social media, I went to my messages to see if Yosiah had texted me back. I wasn’t too far from his office and decided the two of us could meet up for lunch before I picked Princess up.
Seeing he hadn’t even opened the message, I smacked my lips and decided I would just pop up and surprise him.
Yosiah always acted like he was too busy to be entertained by my antics as he called them, but I wasn’t the one to be ignored in silence.
The past five years weren’t what I expected.
While I suspected my husband to finally cave and sweeten toward me, the opposite happened.
It was frustrating to say the least. Never had I ever had a man not worship the ground I walked on or fall head over heels for me.
Yosiah was like a brick wall, and every time I attempted to break those walls down, they got higher.
It pissed me off more than I liked to admit, but I refused to fail and give up.
The more he attempted to keep his distance from me the more I pulled.
I was used to getting what I wanted and Yosiah’s affection and love was no different.
I just didn’t expect it to take this long to achieve.
The contract on our marriage was coming to an end soon, so my time was starting to run out.
Still, I couldn’t bring myself to give up.
Never in my twenty-four years had I ever been rejected by a man and I wasn’t going to start now.
There were only a few months left until this marriage could be dissolved and I was determined not to let that happen.
In the beginning of our marriage, I tried to let Yosiah take the lead and waited for him to come to his senses and act like a real husband.
That bit got old quickly. He was so occupied with getting his company up and running and that left little to no attention for me.
When I tried to force myself into his view, he shut down more.
When we said I do, I knew he wasn’t completely on board, but I figured after some time he would give in, let his guard down, and realize how much of a catch I was.
Because of his standoffish attention, I had to work ten times harder to make our lives look perfect on my social media.
A notification from my email came through, gaining my attention.
When I clicked it, a smile formed on my face.
It was a message from Nay Chic. They were looking to offer me a brand partnership with their upcoming swimwear line.
Nay Chic was well known and in high demand.
Their clothing was all unique and exclusively designed by West Pier’s own Nayeli Monroe of the Monroe empire.
Their family had their hand in just about everything in the city.
Although I came from wealth, I hated to admit that even my father’s fortune was only a portion of what that family was worth.
Anyway, Nay Chic rivaled designer brands, many celebrities shopped there too.
Already knowing I would agree, I emailed back and asked for the terms and contract so my lawyer could look it over.
Over the years, my life on InstaFlik and other socials had taken off.
People loved my fashion sense and how I styled my outfits and often made it known.
It didn’t take long for clothing brands to notice and start reaching out.
The modeling I did here and there was also a bonus.
I started vlogging my life, daily outfits, and shopping hauls over a year ago and things took off from there.
Yosiah was the only thing not going according to plan.
While I didn’t hide that I was married, Yosiah was less convincing.
It was like pulling teeth to even get him on camera.
A few of my followers noticed his lack of presence and made comments about him.
When I brought it up to him, he would wave me off as if I was a fly pestering him.
“Your total is…” The worker read the total off and I didn’t even bat an eye, taking out one of my credit cards and tapping it on the terminal. My eyes went back to my phone and I was just about to message Yosiah again when the associate’s next words caused me to freeze.
“What did you say?” I squinted at her.
“Your card was declined, Ms. Fox.”
“It’s Mrs. Bedford! And that’s impossible, the card doesn’t even have a limit. Try it again.” I tapped the card again and waited.
My mouth pinched together seeing the word declined pop up on the screen.
“I’m sorry but—”
“Something’s wrong with your system!” I protested, feeling my body grow hot. I eyed the card. “Where’s Angelica? That’s why I only like to deal with her when I shop here. Everyone else acts incompetent!”
By now I was seething. I’d never had a card decline before and thankfully at the moment all the other customers were on the floor and no one was close enough to hear us.
“If you have another card, then—”
“I don’t need another card, I need someone to come and fix your stupid system!” By now my voice had heightened. The lady behind the counter was starting to look frazzled. Her eyes bounced around behind me.
“Xylina, is something the matter, dear?” Rodrick, one of the sales managers I was familiar with, asked as he approached us.
“Oh thank God.” I sighed. “Rodrick, honey, I don’t know what your associate is doing, but she keeps saying my card is declining and we both know that isn’t possible.”
My black card was attached to my daddy’s account. I’d had it since I was eleven and never once had an issue until now.
“I was just informing Ms.—”
“Mrs.,” I corrected, glaring at her.
The lady cleared her throat. “Yes, sorry. Mrs. Bedford that her card did not go through and asked if she had another form of payment.”
“And I told her, it has to be your system because there’s no way this card can decline!”
“Tsk, tsk.” Rodrick clicked his tongue and shook his head. “I’m so sorry about this, Xylina. Mariah here has only been with us a few months and is still learning. Mrs. Bedford here is one of our VIP clients, Mariah. As you can see in her account history, she’s one of our most loyal customers.”
“I understand that, sir, but—” Mariah started.
Rodrick put his hand up, silencing her. “I’ll take over here. Go ahead to the dressing room and see if there are only clothes that need to be re-racked.”
Her face fell and she shifted her eyes over to me. A smug look formed on my face while I flicked my hair behind my shoulders and tilted my face upward.
“Yes sir,” Mariah finally answered and slowly walked off.
“So worry about that, dear. Good help is so hard to find these days.”
I snickered. “Just make sure she’s retrained and this time properly.”
“Don’t worry, she’ll be handled accordingly.”
I waited while Rodrick did a few things. “Go ahead and swipe?” He nodded.
Satisfied to be dealing with someone who knew what they were doing, I tapped the card again.
I checked my watch for the time. My appointment at the jewelers was drawing closer, which meant I needed this to hurry and be sorted out.
“Xylina, dear, I’m so sorry, but your card is declining.”
My mouth gaped and my eyes bounced from his unimpressed face to my card.
“That’s impossible,” I mumbled.
“Oh…” I cleared my throat as heat flooded my cheeks. “Silly me, it seems the card expired last month and I must have forgotten to switch it out for the current one.” It was a lie, but there was no way I couldn’t admit something was going on with my card. “I’ll just use my debit card.”
Quickly, I opened my wallet and swapped the cards. This time the sale went through.
“Mistakes happen. I just did the same thing last month.” He snickered. “I’m glad we could get everything sorted out.” Rodrick planted the five bags of clothes on top of the counter.
“Of course.” A tight smile formed on my face.
“Just a duh moment for the books.” Quickly collecting my bags, I gave Rodrick a wave and turned, hurrying toward the exit.
Everything I had planned for the day was gonna have to be put on hold.
Right now I needed to find out why my card wasn’t working and there was only one person who could answer that for me.
To say I was frustrated was an understatement.
The credit card company refused to give me any answers because I wasn’t the primary on the account, and when I tried to call Daddy, he was unable to be reached.
I didn’t bother with Mother since she never paid attention to things like this.
I made sure to let my dad’s assistant know I needed to talk to Daddy immediately and to have him call me when he finished his meetings.
That was hours ago and I still hadn’t heard from him.
Yosiah was nowhere to be found when I got home, so I couldn’t even express my frustration to him. Princess was the only one there to help keep me grounded.
“If you were going to be a downer, you should have just stayed at home, Xylina!” Aaliyah expressed, bringing her glass to her mouth.
I cut my eyes at her. “Why does what I’m doing affect you?” My head cocked to the side.
I’d agreed to come out with the girls tonight because after the stress of earlier, alcohol was much needed. Plus the jumpsuit I was wearing tonight was one of a kind and it was only right I showed it off.