My heart banged wildly around in my chest.
“Love?”
“Love. I love you, Z. All I want to know is...am I worth the risk?”
Confidence burrowed deep within under the layers of fear that it had been hiding under and poked its head out. Like a growing flame fanned by the winds, it increased in strength until it pushed its way up from my belly, through my chest, up into the tunnel of my throat, and out of my mouth.
But logic and reality set in.
“I don’t know, Lake. I’d like to say yes, but...I’m still struggling with the thought of turning away from a guarantee to a, maybe.”
“Let’s just try this temporary arrangement. You and I date until either I change your mind, or your wedding date arrives, and you’re walking down the aisle toward him.”
“Okay,” I breathed out.
The invitation he offered struck a chord of fear in my heart. Was I about to do this?
CHAPTER 18 – XIOMARA
WHILE I’D AGREED TO date Lake, we had spent little time together. I was busy at the office and seldom had time for dates on the weeknights or weekends.
Yet, somehow Lake was never too far. Sometimes he’d pop up when I least expected him to. Or he might just send me a quick text to check in on my day or even have flowers delivered to me at the office.
And each time that I saw him, it stirred up a little more anticipation within me. The anticipation of our next encounter.
As I sat in a suite at The Golden Arena in Durham, he was running through my mind. The possibility that he was somewhere near drove me crazy.
And while I should have been paying attention to the game that played out on the court below, I wasn’t thinking about the players. Nor was I paying attention to the excited fans that shared the suite with us.
Russell had invited me to the basketball game between the Dragons and the Atlanta Blaze. He’d been planning this date night for almost three weeks.
It wasn’t really a date, but a business meeting. He was entertaining business constituents on behalf of his father, which was also part of his company’s collaboration with Lake’s charitable giving committee.
There were three other couples besides us in the suite tonight.
I’d dutifully entertained and responded as expected, nodding my head and saying yes in all the right places. There were even a few times when I would engage in intelligent conversation. But tonight, I was all burnt out.
I didn’t want to be here, and I didn’t care to be watching the game. My mind was full of thoughts about the dinner party at Lake’s mansion. It would happen the week after Christmas.
I’d finally given in to Russell’s request to go away for the weekend, and it coincided with the dinner party that Lake invited me to. I had difficulty deciding what to do, but I knew I had to decide soon.
As much as I wanted to be with Lake, my priority was dealing with the impending marriage and the issues Russell and I was facing.
A part of me felt guilty for not mentioning the dinner party to Russell.
He and I had an agreement that we could do what we wanted in our private lives. And that included being involved with other people. But we also knew that we would have to keep everything low profile to avoid drawing attention to ourselves in the media.
When we’d given our relationship a chance and started dating, we tried to be intimate. It hadn’t worked for me. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t turn me on.
And truthfully, he wasn’t either.
That bothered Russell, and he’d tried to excuse it away until he gave up.
For me, it was a relief because I no longer had to drum up something I just didn’t feel. His attention turned back to his personal life, and we agreed to date for appearance’s sake only.
An event at Lake’s was a private affair that I wasn’t worried about getting out to the media. But I also worried there might be guests there whom Russell knew. It was a simple decision; I needed to go away with Russell over the weekend.
“Are you ready?” he asked, sitting beside me and taking my hand in his.
Russell pressed a kiss to my cheek. Turning to send a stiff smile his way, I said, “Sure.”
Looking around, I noticed that the game ended, and his constituents were picking up their things and preparing to leave.
“Thanks so much for having us, Russell and Xiomara. I had a blast,” one of the men’s wives named Natalie said.
“Great, I’m glad you could come out. We must do this again sometime soon,” I lied.
“Yes, we should,” she agreed with no more intention of actually making it happen than I had.
“Hopefully, the next time, not only can The Dragons pull off a win, but maybe they can avoid having another player added to the injured list,” Russell sneered.
“I wonder how Chambers will handle this one,” Natalie’s husband, Mike, said.
With two minutes remaining in the third quarter, the team’s starting guard had ended up on the injured players’ list, along with another of their star players who’d landed there earlier in the season. All night everyone had been making projections about how the injuries might impact the rest of their season and their chance to make it to the playoffs again.
“Marc and I enjoyed ourselves,” Sandra Tyler, another woman, said, hugging me before we exchanged air kisses.
I said my goodbyes to the other two couples as they left before grabbing my purse and walking to Russell’s side. When we opened the doors to the suite, I could see the other fans who held suite tickets pouring from their rooms as well.
“Traffic’s going to be a nightmare. We should’ve
