Chapter 3
THREE
Karys
One foot in front of the other, Karys roamed through the almost empty dining room of the assigned private room Cyanna’s assistant emailed him the details to a couple days ago.
She’d been communitive on Cyanna’s behalf; he could appreciate it.
When the option came down to a virtual meeting or in person, he jumped at the in person invite, even suggesting a restaurant he was an investor of.
He hated to ambush her, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to get in her space immediately without this channel.
Upon walking into the private dining room, he spotted Cyanna in the corner one hand on her hip, the other holding the phone that pressed to her ear.
Her shoulders were hiked to her ears. No telling how long and how much pain she was in from carrying the stress there, and in her lower back.
He could spot it in the subtle way she shifted her weight from side to side.
Smaller – she was smaller than she’d been the last time he saw her. A flood of aggravation.
“After this meeting, I’ll stop by,” she conceded to whoever was on the other end. Her tone was professional so it couldn’t have been the man she married. Someone she held in high regard delivered news she didn’t want to hear.
Cyanna hung up, pulled in a deep breath before spinning around. When she spotted him, she froze, brows furrowed as she looked down at the screen of her phone and back up at him. “Karys, I know you said you were pulling up, but I have a meeting.”
“Yeah, with Hillcrest Holdings. I’m Hillcrest Holdings,” he announced, making her huff and roll her eyes. “You could’ve really just sent this in a text like you do everything else.”
“Wouldn’t be able to see you. And therein lies the problem. I needed to put my eyes on you,” he stated.
Cyanna lifted and dropped her arms. “I’m here. I’m fine. We’ll do your project; I’ll put someone on it. Meeting over.”
There went her avoidance. The only thing that drove him crazy about her was how she shut down what she needed for the sake of surviving.
That was a product of the family she came from.
Be pretty, be perfect, be the princess. Cyanna attempted to walk past him, but he clasped his hand around her wrist.
“No, Princess. This meeting isn’t over. We’re going to sit and eat, and you’re going to talk to me. When did we start this? Avoiding each other, not keeping it real, huh?”
Cyanna licked her dry lips and fluttered her eyes.
The way his eyes bore into her, he knew she was seconds from breaking.
There was no better place to fall apart than with him.
He’d hold those broken pieces and put her back together piece by piece and kiss every crack until fully healed.
At least that’s the way he dreamed it. The way he thought about it when his mind drifted off.
“You’re busy living your life. You don’t need to be weighed down by my problems, Karys. Just go be happy. One of us deserves that,” she muttered the last part as her eyes broke from his.
“Both of us deserve that,” he corrected. However, he silenced the last part – they’d never be truly happy until it was them together, the way it was designed to be.
Cyanna barely smiled. Evidence that she hadn’t in the honeymoon phase of her marriage. She rubbed the back of her neck with her free hand. A sign that she was soothing a headache.
“Sit down and let’s eat,” he commanded, releasing her wrist.
Reluctantly, Cyanna led the way to the table and sat down. Her eyes purposely avoiding his. Karys carefully balanced his attention between her and his phone, where he was sending a message via app to the staff about what the lunch selections would be.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Cyanna posed, trying to release herself from his spell.
“Because you’re not talking,” he spoke with a breath of frustration. “There was one time in our journey together where you’d tell me everything. Now I feel like I’m a spectator in your life and not someone experiencing it.”
“I can say the same,” Cyanna mumbled, pushing her freshly blown-out hair out of her face. “There isn’t anything to tell. Life sucks sometimes, that’s it that all.”
His eyes softened in remorse. Since hearing the news, he couldn’t help but think about how things could’ve turned out differently if he would’ve told her years ago that she was his. That he loved her far more past friends. That his player ways would’ve been buried had he had her.
She studied him. “You know.”
“Unfortunately,” he replied softly. “Your husband let it slip like it was nothing.”
Cyanna scoffed bitterly. “It was nothing. To him, at least. To me…felt like the little bit of light I could see was being stripped from me. And he left me alone to go through it.”
Her eyes dropped to her hands, and he moved to her side. “I don’t want to break, Karys. I can’t break.”
“You can. You’re safe to break with me. You’ve always been safe here. I told you-”
“To call; I know. But calling would’ve meant that I-”
“That you what?” he pressed, needing to hear the words to prompt the rest of their lives together.
Cyanna rubbed her lips over one another and swiped the remnants of the tears from her cheek. “That I-”
“Karys, there you are,” the voice of his on again-off again girlfriend flooded into the room.
Cyanna pulled away, plastered that manufactured grin on her face and looked up at the faux bubbly, perfectly-molded girlfriend. Yanieca. She looked just like a woman who got a man like Karys.
Karys grunted inwardly before allowing Cyanna a few inches of space to herself. “Yanieca, how’d you-”
“Your assistant told me you had a meeting about the new development. So I figured as the operations manager of H&H, I’d pop in and see how everything was going. I didn’t know you’d be here. You know, with your busy schedule and all,” Yanieca said, shooting her gaze over to Cyanna.
Cyanna lowly scoffed in laughter. “I try to be hands-on with my clients. That’s the luxury experience. How are you?”
Yanieca took a seat once she realized Karys wasn’t going to move. “I’m great. Keeping this one’s affairs in order and I’m planning his thirtieth. Did he tell you about it? It’s going to be at the beach house. You and Damarco should come.”
“Damari,” Cyanna corrected.
“I’m sorry?” Yanieca posed.
“His name is Damari,” Cyanna shared, before looking at Karys who was glaring at Yanieca. “I’ll have the office send over the initial contracts and let’s plan a walk through for next week.”
Karys stood when Cyanna did. “I’ll walk you to your car.”
“No need. Enjoy lunch with your girlfriend,” Cyanna hummed as sweetly as she could.
“We need to finish this conversation,” Karys muttered.
Cyanna swayed her head and patted his shoulder in the friendliest way she could muster up. “Enjoy your lunch, K. Yanieca, I’ll see you.”
“At the party right? With a plus one?” Yanieca asked, looking up at her with that jealous glint in her eyes. “Dmarco, your husband?”
“Can’t confirm, he’s a busy man,” Cyanna replied with a roll of her eyes before walking out.
When the door closed, Yanieca looked at Karys. “Why are you always so concerned about her? She has a husband and there’s so many other firms who can renovate that block.”
“It’s the block we grew up on,” Karys stated, instantly annoyed that he had to explain this to her, again. “I thought you had something to do.”
“I wanted to sit in on the meeting and I wanted to go over this guest list one more time before this weekend. If she’s not coming, I can take her name off of the list.”
Karys cut his eye at her. Yanieca’s envy was his fault.
She was familiar, so he kept her around for the times he thought he could actually move on from loving Cyanna the way he had.
Every time he attempted to create the life he wanted with her with someone else, something would happen.
He’d be launched into Cyanna’s orbit again or Yanieca would say or do something that irritated the fuck out of him.
Again, his fault. A mess he made that he had to clean up.
“Her name isn’t coming off the list. I don’t want my house toppling over with niggas I don’t know.
Keep your friends to a minimum. And since I’ve already paid for this shit, I won’t cancel it.
Food is coming out, enjoy it. I got to go,” Karys replied, strolling out the room.
He’d learned not to break up with her in public spaces.
When he called it this time, it would be the last time he did.
More than ever, he was determined to get his woman.