Dangerously In Love Read online

  Her father tried to convince Dayna that the divorce had nothing to do with his love for her. His words were not comforting. She still felt unloved.

  Rushing into marriage with Reed had been a distraction from the pain—a bandage over her lacerated heart. The bandage, however, had slipped off, exposing her marriage as a sham. Dayna cupped her face with both hands and solemnly shook her head. Reed didn’t love her either; she realized that now.

  Finally seeing the light, Dayna realized that she had tried to get from Reed the love her father had abruptly withdrawn. How sick was that? Still, she had treated Reed with warmth and all the love she was able to give and had received nothing in return.

  As badly as she wanted to have a child with her husband, she had to face the reality that bringing a child into an unhappy marriage was not the answer. She had to take the advice she’d offered her mother only a few moments ago: It’s time to let go.

  Dayna drew in a deep breath as if preparing herself for the lifestyle change that would soon occur. She actually felt good and wanted to tell her mother. Then, she realized that her mother would not be happy to learn that her daughter’s marriage had failed. There was a strong possibility that her mother might even take Dayna’s failed marriage personally—as if she’d passed on to Dayna some mutant gene.

  So Dayna decided to handle her situation privately—in her own way and in her own good time.

  Chapter 9

  I’m out with Cecily. Be home around nine. Reed snatched the Post-it off the refrigerator, crumpled it, and pitched it into the waste can. Narrowed eyes fixed upon the gleaming chrome stove, where not a pot or pan was in sight. He quickly shifted his gaze to the microwave, approached it with suspicion, and snapped the door open. The sparkling clean oven was empty. There was no dinner plate waiting to be zapped. No Post-it with further instructions on where to find his dinner. Nothing! Bewildered, he wondered what was going on with Dayna. Where the hell was his dinner?

  He scowled in thought. Unwilling to believe his wife would behave so irresponsibly, he backtracked to the double-door refrigerator. Smiling in anticipation, he opened one of the doors. But to his dismay, there was no carefully covered plate filled with heaping portions of his favorite foods. There was nothing for him. The only thing in the refrigerator was rabbit food: carrots, cucumbers, mushrooms, tomatoes, and three bags of shredded lettuce.

  He slammed the refrigerator door and opened the freezer. Maybe she decided to freeze his plate. Again, there was nothing for him, just boxes of more diet shit. Reed perused the labels on the boxes: Weight Watchers, Lean Cuisine, Healthy Choice. Nothing in there but a bunch of inedible bullshit.

  Reed felt a storm rising inside, but subdued by hunger and with no available target, he calmed himself and scanned the frozen choices again. Just about everything in the freezer boasted low calorie, low carbs, low fat, low sugar, so he begrudgingly selected a small box of frozen turkey with a miniscule portion of stuffing and gravy. He ripped open the cardboard top and stuck the meager meal into the microwave.

  Muttering obscenities, he abruptly changed his mind, yanked open the micro-wave oven door, and tossed the frozen dinner in the trash. He’d stop and get something more filling and more appealing while he was on his way to the PBP meeting.

  He made a mental note to have a serious discussion with Dayna later that night regarding his dinner expectations. Then he let out a crude chortle. Shit, Dayna didn’t have the resolve to stick to a diet; she’d be back to frying chicken and pork chops in no time. Knowing her, she’d probably already admitted diet defeat and more than likely was chillin’ with Cecily at The Olive Garden stuffing her fat face at that very moment.

  Starvin’ like Marvin, with his stomach on dead E, Reed did not enjoy the mental image of Dayna sitting up in a restaurant somewhere sticking her fork into an enormous platter of colorfully arranged, aromatic, steaming cuisine. Seething, he raced up the stairs. Without caring where it landed, he flung his leather briefcase, which was more for show than necessity, and changed from his monkey suit into casual gear.

  “You’re kidding?” Cecily turned her drink up to her lips and took a quick swig.

  “No, I’m very serious. I’m going to ask Reed for a divorce.” Dayna let the statement hang in the air for a few seconds. “The house, however, is in both our names; I’m sure that’s going to present a problem.” Dayna swallowed. “I should have listened to my mother; she warned me not to include his name on the deed. But I was so in love. I never dreamed it would come to this.”

  “What happened? How do you go from marital bliss to divorce court in a couple of days? Last I heard, you were talking to your travel agent about a cruise.”

  Dayna laughed sardonically. “Yeah, I thought a cruise would rekindle the old flame. But how can you rekindle something that was never there?”

  “Oh, Dayna, I’m so sorry,” Cecily said, getting out of her seat to give Dayna a hug.

  “Girl, please.” Dayna motioned for her friend to sit back down. “I’m fine. I swear…I’m fine.” She gazed out into the moonlit night and briefly enjoyed the view. She and Cecily were sitting outside at a small table on the upper deck at one of Dayna’s favorite restaurants. Cecily was having the Finlandia vodka special as Dayna sipped water that cost seven dollars a bottle. The bottle was tall and beautiful with an unusual shape; it looked like hand-blown glass. Dayna decided to get her money’s worth by taking the bottle home to use as a vase.

  She turned back to Cecily, prepared to tell her friend that observing her parents’ dysfunctional relationship had opened her eyes, but out of respect for her mother, she changed her mind. Her mother would be mortified to know that Dayna was airing the family’s dirty laundry. She said instead, “Reed’s been getting a free ride throughout our marriage. His only responsibility is the monthly note on his Lexus and his car insurance.”

  “You deal with the mortgage payments by yourself?”

  Dayna nodded. “And everything else.”

  “Well, how did you allow things to get so…” Cecily searched for the right word. “So inequitable?”

  “I don’t know. There’s something in a black woman’s nature that makes us try to be the champion of our men. Reed could never get ahead on his job, which of course, he blamed on everyone but himself. He didn’t make enough money to drive the Lexus and help with household expenses. I tried to be understanding. I thought I was helping him to maintain his self-respect. Now I realize that trying to help him caused me to lose my self-esteem.” Dayna gave Cecily a sad smile. “Anyway, it’s over now. I just have to figure out how to get him out of the house and get his name off the deed.”

  “Have you seen an attorney?”

  “Not yet.”

  “What are you waiting for? You can’t figure this legal mess out on your own. You need to let your father know you’re in trouble; he can solve this problem quickly.”

  Dayna ignored the mention of her father. “It’s going to be a bitter battle and I’m just not up for it yet.” Dayna sighed and then suddenly brightened. Changing the subject, Dayna said, “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve lost three pounds.”

  Cecily, who’d been a size six her entire adult life and couldn’t fathom being encumbered by a weight problem, gave Dayna a blank look. “Good for you,” she said with a shrug and then leaned in close. “Walk to the restroom with me; I want to check out that hottie sitting at the bar.”

  Dayna turned her head in the direction of the bar.

  “Don’t be obvious!” Cecily scolded as she slid out of her seat. “Come on, you can get a look at him on the way to the restroom.”

  Somewhere along the walk from their table to the restroom, Cecily trailed off into another direction without giving Dayna any warning. Dayna spotted Cecily smiling into the face of the hottie. Cecily didn’t play when she was on a manhunt. Social amenities went out the window. Dayna shrugged and went to the restroom alone.

  She left the stall and peered into the lighted mirror as she washed he
r hands. Her face looked smaller. The three-pound loss really made a difference. All the green salads she’d consumed and the gallons of water she’d drunk during the past two weeks was finally paying off.

  Dayna left the bathroom beaming, walking with the confidence she’d had when she was a size eight. She cut her eye toward the bar looking for Cecily.

  Now seated on the bar stool next to Mr. Hottie, Cecily was in full-flirtation mode, chatting enthusiastically, fingers fluttering to her exposed cleavage and lashes batting away like crazy. Dayna smiled and shook her head. Cecily was seriously putting her thing down.

  Despite all the light-hearted fun she seemed to be having, Dayna knew Cecily was desperate for a committed relationship. She hoped this encounter worked out for her.

  As she approached the bar with the intention of discreetly telling Cecily she was going to head on home, Dayna had the distinct impression that someone was watching her. Her eyes darted away from Cecily and locked on to the hazel eyes of a brown-skinned man standing behind the bar. Whoa! She felt herself flush. Bronze-colored skin contrasted with hazel-colored eyes was an unusual, and well…lethal combination.

  Beautiful locks brushed his shoulders and added to his physical attractiveness. Dayna felt slightly woozy and gripped the side of the bar as she quickly averted her gaze. She inched up to Cecily, who didn’t see her coming, and placed a hand on her shoulder.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” Dayna said breathlessly.

  “Hey,” Cecily said, twirling around on the barstool. “I want you to meet my new friend, Kendrick. Dayna, this is Kendrick.”

  “Hi. Nice meeting you, Kendrick,” Dayna said politely, and then addressed Cecily. “Look, I’m going to head home; I totally forgot I have to grade some papers. Oh, and I have to work on an IEP for one of my students. It feels like our workload has doubled since the state took over the school district, don’t you think?” Dayna rambled. The handsome bartender had rattled her nerves and she couldn’t understand why she felt the urge to run away. It wasn’t as if he’d spoken to her. They’d simply shared a moment; eye contact, that’s all.

  Unable to figure out why Dayna was going on and on about nothing in the midst of her love connection, Cecily began a series of rapid head nods, nonverbally communicating, Dag, can’t you see I’m busy? Go ahead, leave! Roll out!

  Flustered by the eye contact with the bartender, Dayna didn’t pick up Cecily’s signal; she continued to ramble until she caught a glimpse of Cecily’s strained smile. She bade Cecily and Kendrick a speedy good-bye, gave Cecily two quick air kisses, and fled the restaurant as well as the penetrating eyes of the devastatingly handsome bartender.

  She immediately spotted her Chrysler in the well-lit parking lot, disarmed it, and slid inside. As she mentally reviewed the highly intense connection with the bartender, Dayna could feel a bright shade of pink rising from beneath her honey-toned skin. With all those pretty, slender chicks surrounding him, she wondered how he even noticed her. Maybe she just imagined the whole thing. It didn’t matter anyway. Ending her marriage to Reed was going to deplete all her energy; it would be a long time before she had the strength to get back into the dating game.

  Dayna started her car and then remembered the pretty bottle of water she’d left at the table. She shook her head at her forgetfulness, but after locking eyes with a black Adonis, it’s a wonder she remembered her own name.

  Chapter 10

  Reed ate dinner at Champagne’s Restaurant on Chelten Avenue. The combination seafood platter, three beers, plus the tip he gave the waitress had depleted his cash. He swung by the Sunoco station to gas up and to tap the ATM machine inside. After jabbing in the secret code, the message on the screen asked if he wanted to withdraw funds from checking or savings. He and Dayna had joint accounts, but she paid the household bills from the checking account and kept a running tally of the funds in that account. Reed chose to dip into their savings account to get some fun money for the evening.

  Fifty bucks would have been a sufficient amount to indulge his leisure pursuits for one night, but Reed withdrew the entire daily limit—six hundred dollars—just for spite. If his dinner had been ready, he reasoned, he wouldn’t have had to dig into his pocket for a damn meal. It was all Dayna’s fault; she only had herself to blame.

  There was no official PBP meeting at the hall on Broad Street, but he stopped by anyway just to bust it up with his brothers.

  “Yo, what’s up, Reed?” Chris Miller, a member of the PBP, greeted him. Reed didn’t like Chris; he hated the brother’s self-assured smile.

  “Give any more thought to that business deal I told you about? Man, I’m telling you, you don’t want to miss out on this venture. Now, I’m trying to put you down with some serious money.” Smiling confidently, Chris shook his head like Reed was an imbecile for not writing a check on the spot.

  “I’m on it, man. I just need a couple more weeks,” Reed said, stalling.

  According to Chris Miller, the city of Chester, though just a small town, was brimming with financial possibilities. There was talk that casino gambling was coming to Chester in the next five years and Chris had already started buying dirt-cheap property. At only thirty-two years old, Chris had inherited twelve rental properties from his deceased parents and apparently had inherited their real estate acumen as well.

  According to Chris, the deal he offered was not a get-rich-quick scheme. It was a well-planned, fail-

  proof business maneuver with guaranteed mega bucks for those fortunate enough to get in on the ground floor. Chris envisioned Chester as the next Atlantic City and spoke with the confidence of Donald Trump. Chris’s next goal was to buy entire blocks of boarded-up and abandoned houses. It was a chance of a lifetime and Reed wanted in, even if it meant five more years of Dayna’s emasculating control. The problem was, Chris expected him to come up with twenty thousand dollars as soon as possible and Reed didn’t have access to that kind of cash.

  Reed’s expensive car and the home he and Dayna were buying made him appear prosperous, but it agitated him to no end that it was all just a front. He’d thought about asking Dayna to dip into her retirement fund, but he knew she wouldn’t go for it.

  His best bet was to try to hit Dayna’s father up for a loan. But then again, accepting her father’s money would give Dayna co-ownership; she’d start acting like she was Ivana Trump in the Chester casino venture and Reed was certain she’d attempt to reduce him to the role of an aspiring apprentice.

  Reed suddenly felt uncomfortable and out of place. Most of the PBP members were flourishing in their chosen professions. It seemed as if every one except him had the magic formula to success. After being accepted into the group, he had expected an instant lifestyle change. So far, all he had gained was invitations to expensive events, membership fees, endless requests to perform civic duties, and now the impossible task of coming up with twenty grand just so he could feel like he was a true player in the game.

  “Yeah, I’m going to sit down with my accountant in a couple of days; I’ll get back with you,” Reed told Chris, his voice filled with manufactured confidence and self-importance. Then, with a tremendous amount of resentment toward Chris and all his so-called brothers, Reed straightened his slumped shoulders and exited the suffocating atmosphere.

  With music blasting and tires squealing, Reed roared down Broad Street. He felt powerful behind the wheel of his black Lexus SC430. So powerful, he felt like he deserved some female appreciation.

  There was no point in looking for Buttercup; he knew she still had an attitude. He couldn’t blame her. He shook his head in remorse as he thought about his inexcusably bad behavior that night. Then, remembering the money in his pockets, his eyes lit up. Money was a powerful persuader that Buttercup wouldn’t be able to resist.

  It was Tuesday. Where would she be on a Tuesday night? It was hard to keep up with Buttercup. She was a smoker, addicted to crack. She wasn’t disciplined enough to follow a schedule or stick to the rules and regulations of most
strip clubs, so she just floated around, getting in wherever she could fit in. When there was nowhere to fit in, she worked the streets.

  Not knowing where to begin, Reed decided to try Smitty’s Lounge, a small dive on Fortieth and Ludlow Streets that featured lap dancing in a small room upstairs on Tuesday nights.

  Reed paid the five-dollar admittance fee at the door and rushed past the bar without even nodding to the bartender or any of the patrons. The excitement of knowing there would be a smorgasbord of bare-assed women milling about and competing with each other to ride his dick made his heart race as he bounded up the stairs.

  There was an additional bar in the back of the darkened room upstairs. Reed went straight to the bartender and ordered an Old English. Taking a swig, he turned around and leaned against the bar as he scanned the small room looking for Buttercup. She wasn’t there, he quickly assessed. Disappointed, he guzzled the entire bottle and immediately ordered another.

  Feeling dejected, Reed slumped against the bar, but instantly perked up when the MC introduced Aziza. A few feet above floor level were planks of wood that had been hammered together to form a makeshift stage. Carrying a cloth satchel, Aziza, fully covered in a long black satin and lace negligee, took center stage.

  Aw, shit! Fuck Buttercup; it’s on now, Reed thought to himself as he waited for Aziza’s set to begin. Aziza was a veteran; she’d been dancing for over twenty years and Reed had been thinking about getting with her for quite a while. He’d felt a little intimidated because she was an experienced pro, but fuck that. Tonight, he’d make a move.

  A mature and big-boned woman, amazingly Aziza was still sexy as hell. She didn’t bullshit around on stage like the young dancers did. The young girls were impatient to get back on the floor to collect the ten dollars per lap dance and usually gave lackluster performances onstage.