Page 29 of Book Bae

Arabella’s golden-brown cheeks turned red, and the redness slowly radiated outward until her entire face was red. Those beautiful eyes were narrowed and shooting sparks at me, and her pouty lips were puckered as though she had just sucked a lemon. Her fingers turned red as she gripped the other side of the island, and her shoulders heaved up and down.

“You what?”

“I’m not gonna repeat myself, Arabella, because you heard me.”

“You fucked another woman and got her pregnant? You won’t even fuck me without a condom!” she exploded.

“I used a condom with her.”

“Then how the fuck did you get her pregnant?”

“It burst. How the hell else do you think I did it?”

“You fucking moron! How could you be so stupid? I guess she’s some random bitch, huh?”

“Watch your mouth, Bell.”

She grabbed apples and oranges from the large bowl in the center of the island and started throwing them at me.

“The fuck is wrong with you, girl?” I shouted and ran around the island. I snatched the last two apples from her hands and threw them across the kitchen. When she attempted to grab more, I lifted her off her feet and carried her to a wall.

I pinned her against the wall with her hands above her head. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“How could you do this to me?” She sobbed.

“Do what to you, Arabella?”

“We were talking about getting married again.”

“No, you were talking about marriage again. I told you that I’ve given up on that idea. Marriage isn’t some type of marketing tool that you use to pull the wool over people’s eyes to launch a book, Arabella.”

“I told you that it could become a great marketing technique to introduce your next series. We didn’t have to stay married.”

“You and I aren’t compatible in that form.”

“But I’m compatible enough for you to screw when it’s convenient?”

I shook my head and pointed at her. “That’s the shit I’m talking about. It was cool while it lasted, but that’s the reason I stopped screwing around with you. We’re toxic together, and you know it.”

“Whatever. You’re impossible right now.”

“You act as if I’ve betrayed you, as if we were in this relationship, and I cheated on you. We were fuck buddies, Bell, that’s it. When I was with her, I hadn’t been with you since the night of my party. It’s been six months since we were last together. You’re clearly moving in different waters.”

She wiped her tears and shrugged with her arms extended. “I told you that the men I was dating during that time was for publicity purposes and networking only.”

“That’s your problem. You see relationships as business ventures. I don’t. I need more than sex, Arabella. I need more than just a warm body and a cold heart.”

She scoffed. “Good luck with that. You need to remember that those stories you write about are just that—stories. They’re fiction, Micaiah, a broke man’s joke.”

“I’m sorry your ex-husband did a number on you, but I still have faith in my heart that my soulmate is out there somewhere.”

“You haven’t learned in three marriages that this is all it will ever be? Give it up, Micaiah!”

Her words stung, because she knew that was a sore spot for me. My first wife, Gemma, divorced me when she met a Hollywood producer who promised he would fulfill her dreams of becoming an actress; he did too. Not A-list, but he fulfilled his promise.

Arabella and I never should have been married, and we annulled it soon after it happened.

I divorced my third wife, Karen, Malachi’s mom, because of her addictions. She became addicted to alcohol and pain pills after a car accident. No matter how much I tried to help her, she refused it. When Malachi was born addicted, and I learned that she was still taking it during her pregnancy and even afterward, that was the end for me. I tried even after Malachi was born, but she placed him in jeopardy while I was away, one too many times.