Page 11 of Double

By lunchtime, I figured that there was no way she wasn’t starving. I headed back to her bedroom and knocked lightly once again. “You gotta be hungry by now,” I told her through the door. I heard what sounded like a feminine growl and chuckled to myself. Tinsley Campbell . . . Waters didn’t fuck with me.

“You can come in,” she called.

Her invitation surprised me. I pushed the door open. My eyes immediately found her as I crossed the threshold into the room. She stood in front of the dresser at the mirror, arranging the wild mass of curls into a ponytail or a bun—or something on top of her head.

She might not have been the societal standard of beauty, but everything about her physical package was pleasing. She was kind of tall and had the nerve to be shaped like a Coke bottle—just curvy for no damn reason at all. Her skin was fair—the color of café au lait. She reminded me of my mother that way. Her eyes were about a shade or two darker than her skin, and while they weren’t hazel, they were a bright, warm light brown. Her heart-shaped face was covered in dark-brown freckles. They weren’t dotted across the bridge of her nose or sparsely sprinkled across her cheeks. Freckles were scattered across her face the way that stars were scattered across the heavens. They were random and plentiful. I had already decided that they were my favorite of all of her features. Her lips were a close second, though—pink and full, with the top one being slightly smaller than the bottom one. They looked kissable and suckable. Her hair was thick and curly. The way she had it gathered on top of her head, with a few curly pieces falling down around her cheeks, gave her a youthful look.

“You hungry?”

She blew a sigh from between the lips I liked so much. “Yeah.”

“Cool. Let’s go eat. I know it’s lunchtime, but since you skipped breakfast, the chef prepared more brunch-like dishes.”

“That sounds good.”

We walked to the kitchen in silence with me leading her to the island, where covered platters awaited us. “Moses made sure that I understood that you’re a pescatarian. I talked to my chef, and he’s with it.” I lifted the cloche from each platter. When she gave a little gasp of surprise at the shrimp and grits, buttermilk biscuits, and fruit compote, I turned away from her to hide my smirk and walked over to the cabinet where I kept the plates, grabbing one for her.

She gave me a small smile as she took the plate from my hand. Smiling Tinsley was even prettier than non-smiling Tinsley to me. “Thank you.”

“I know this situation is crazy as hell. I get that. I want you to hear it from my mouth so you don’t have to wonder. I’mma do everything in my power to make our time together breezy. I’m not lookin’ to give you a hard time or make you feel like a hostage or no shit like that. You’re my wife. I plan to treat and respect you as such.”

“Thank you,” she repeated.

Once our plates were fixed, she followed me into the formal dining room. We sat across from one another. “I never eat in here.”

Her eyes widened. “Where do you usually eat?”

“In the kitchen, at the island, or in my office. Sometimes in the family room.”

“In your office? You eat while you work?”

“Yeah.” I put a forkful of shrimp and grits in my mouth.

“And when you eat in the family room, you probably have the television on, huh?”

“Yeah.” I glanced over at her and caught her pretty eyes trained on me. “What’s up? You look like you wanna say somethin’?”

“In my culture, we sit at the formal table to have all of our meals. We don’t work, watch television, or play on our phones during meals. We talk to each other. What if I asked you to do that?”

The smirk on her face had some attitude behind it. I’d spoken to Moses on the phone before I agreed to marry his niece. While Lynne had given me all of the information she had, she didn’t really know Tinsley. She’d met her a couple of times, but Tinsley was Lianna’s niece, not Lynne’s. Before I could agree to marry her, I needed to talk to somebody who really knew her, who would also be invested in protecting her. He told me about her detached relationship with her parents, about how she’d spent her life being controlled by her father. He told me how she had to learn how to make decisions for herself once he passed away. He told me how the aunt had swooped in and started trying to control her as an adult and how Tinsley had done everything she could to stand her ground.

I was well aware that I married a fighter. I liked it. In my family, a pushover would get pushed right the fuck over. She would need to have the courage of her convictions when dealing with us.

She wasn’t going to have to fight with me, though. The two men I admired most, my father and my grandfather, liked to spoil their women. I planned to give in to her as much as I could. Besides, I already knew that if I planned to earn her trust, I needed to make things feel like they were her decision.

I shrugged my shoulders. “Ask me and see what happens.”

She frowned up her face. “What?”

“What, what? Ask me your question, and see how I respond.”

“I would like⁠—”

I cut her off. “Start with, as your wife, then ask the question.”

She made a little annoyed noise as her arms folded over her chest.

“Your food’s gonna get cold.”