“You’ll have to excuse her, she’s from the south.” The lady nodded as if that explained it.
“You better let me hold on to this until we’re through. It’s clear you don’t know what to do with it. Come on, let’s go have lunch. We’re going to need the strength because it’s not every day the king announces that he’s engaged.”
Panic shot through my heart at her words. Being pampered like that had almost made me forget the dire situation I was in. I opened my mouth to tell her that I had no plans of marrying Gabriel, but I thought better of it. She was loyal to him and I didn’t need to reveal my hand just yet.
Her eyes raked down my body taking in my granddad’s overalls and my flats. She frowned.
“His bride to be will be the envy of the entire world, so she must have the perfect dress and maybe a couple more emergency outfits just in case.” She touched the straps of my overalls.
“You’re different, unique, and that’s good. That’s why he noticed you.” She smiled. “Let’s get lunch.”
During lunch Stacy told me a lot of things about Gabriel. And now I knew why she wanted to be a lawyer. Stacy could talk. She told me that her brother and Gabe had been best friends since they were in diapers.
“Girl, back then Gabe was so mean! All the boys in the neighborhood were afraid of him. Just like their daddies were afraid of his father before him.” She became reflective in that moment.
“Hell, everybody was afraid of Gabe’s father, including Gabriel. That man was just evil! When he was murdered, the world became a better place to live in.”
“Wow! What happened to him?” She blinked coming out of her thoughts. And for a minute she looked at me as if she had forgotten I was sitting here. She shook her head.
“No—nobody knows…. let’s get some dessert!”
Okay, she definitely knew what happened to his dad. I found her response to that question strange, but I didn’t harp on it because it was clearly a topic that made her uncomfortable. However, I had no more time to even think about it because after lunch she proceeded to drag me from store to store. I wanted to cry and beg her to stop. But once she got going she became a force to be reckoned with.
She found something I just couldn’t do without in every store we went to. And Jerome the driver, who Stacy called my bodyguard because he didn’t just drive but went into each store with us—never complained. He just carried the bags and placed them in the back of the black Navigator he drove. I don’t know how he did it. How he managed to keep the car parked just out front each store we went in. Stacy insisted we walk so we didn’t miss anything.
And do you know she wore that pair of nine inch heels the whole time. My feet were hurting for her and I had on flats. The phone vibrated in the front chest pocket of my overalls. This was my first cell phone and I had no idea how to work it. It said that I had a text message. I could see on the front screen that the message came from Gabe. I touched it and the message popped up.
Gabe: Won’t be home for dinner, have a meeting. Don’t wait up.
I stared at the screen. I had no idea how to respond to that. What the world did he mean don’t wait up. Why would I—wait a minute!
If he wasn’t there this would be a perfect time to search for my bag and get out. I looked at Jerome who was standing by the door of the store. He did not let me out of his sight, except when I went to the restroom. And each time I came out, it was to see him standing somewhere close to the door.
Then there were even a couple of times when guys approached us to introduce themselves, and Jerome would make a sound in his throat. When they looked up at him, he would just shake his head telling them to move on.
One guy, who was obviously bolder than the others tried to approach me, he ignored Jerome and reached for my hand anyway. Jerome causally put his hand in his pocket sliding his suit jacket back just a bit to reveal the gun he carried on his waist. Startled, the man’s eyes flew back up to his.
“Off limits!” Was all Jerome muttered. The poor guy got the message that time because he went on about his business. Appalled, I looked at Stacy who had also witness the situation. She looked at me with a stunned grin on her face.
“Wow! Gabe must really be into you. You are so damn lucky!” I frowned at her words
Lucky?
She said that like his over bearing possessiveness was good. I didn’t understand her, or Shanice and the girls at Shugga’s who had all fawned over this man. Sure, he was handsome. Very much so, but so was my great-grandfather. And my great-grandfather had also been overbearing and possessive. My pa-pa said that if a man even looked at my great-grandmother, my great-grandfather would lose his mind.
Until that day he did go crazy, and killed himself and her.
Dear God, I couldn’t live like that. Isn’t that what my pa-pa feared would happen? He feared that I would fall prey to the curse that was placed on the women in my family. It’s why I have been in disguise my whole life, so that I could beat the curse and not attract a man like my great-grandfather.
But alas, it seemed that one could not outrun their fate. I had managed to attract a man that was worse than my great-grandfather in every way. At least my great-grandmother made a choice to marry her husband. That choice was taken away from me.
