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He ignored me and walked back into the room.
After last night, what would he want to talk to me about, and why would he sayit like that and then just walk away? Now, I had to play it cool until he came back,but I wasnervous as hell. He returned out ten minutes later and sat across from me.
“It’s probably cold now,” I told him when he picked up my teacup.
We eyed each other for a few moments before we both started speaking at the same time.
“Go ‘head,” he told me.
“No, you said you had to talk to me. I just want you to spit whatever it is out because you know how my mind works.”
“I know.”
Heglanced down at the table before looking back up at me. The whites of his eyes were turning red.
“Mr. Dymon, is everything okay?”
I reached out and grabbed his hand, caressing it. Since we’d been living together, I realized that he loved affection and comfort. Thoughwe couldn’t do it in public, he loved our long hugs in the house,andhow I held his hand whenwe were just simply walking together around the house.He also loved when I grabbed his hand in the car. Because ofthe way he was, I knew that he’d never admit it. It all came together when he told methe way he grew up. His mother didn’t nurture him the way that she should have.
“No. Everything is not okay, Quinci. Last night, I said some things, and we did a lot ofshit,and we need to talk about it.”
“I agree.”
“But…I couldn’t possibly mean that if I kept a secret from you, right?”
I nodded my head. The moment Iblinked,tears formed in my eyes.
“I hate secrets,” I choked out. “I really do. I really do.”
When my chest started to burn, I took a couple of deep breaths to try and get myself together.
“Quinci,I probably should have told you this before I expressed my feelings for you because if you look at me different after this, I don’t know, man.” He rubbed his hand down his head.
“Just…just spit it out.Please, so we can just fix whatever needs to be fixed.”
He rubbed his lips together.
“Quinci, years ago, several, before I was even the CEO of Danger Inc, Kia…Kia and I were kind of…sort of…in love.”
My heart hit my feet. I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. I considered myself a great reader of people, but that was one thing I never would have put together.
“It was one of those things where we were young—that bond over title typeshit.At the time,I didn’t want anything serious, but I knew when I did, it would be with her. She knew what I was doing,but I took care of her.Drunk and high one night, the condom snapped. And you can guess where I’m about to go with this.”
“No. No, I don’t know where you are about to go with this. Continue, please.”
He cleared his throat. “Kia got pregnant.I wasn’t ready to be a father, and I told her that, but she was ready to be a mother…well, wanted to be a mother, I guess, so she kept the baby. I was a little pissed, butI was getting ready to graduate and I had the money, so I was like, whatever. I kind of started getting excited for the baby.We were going to move to Texas, and I was going to open my own tech company with Ryan and Price. And then…that shithappened with my father, and I was back in New York, in a CEO position of a company that I’d never worked for. Naturally, she got put on the backburner. Quinci, a company with thousands and thousands of employees from the headquarters, down to the hotel inBiloxi, was thrown into my lap. Having to navigate that, my father’s sex scandal—I was at the end of my rope. My family didn’t trust anyone, so they hit Kia with a mountain of NDA papers.Things went from bad to worse.
“Because of all theshitgoing on, I didn’t think it was best for her to move to New York at the time. Reporters would’ve been following her around, adding more stress to her, and I cared enough about her to keep her safe in Cali.She wasn’t due for anothersix weeks, so I was in Beijing,in and out of meetings with my dad’s partners, when she went into labor.Though those meetings were important,theyunderstood the situation and they rescheduled the rest of them.Since that was handled, I thought everything would be smooth sailing.I’d get there and everything would be okay.”
When his eyesstarted misting over, I knew what he was about to say was going to be hurtful.
“Quinci, everythingbad that could have happened that day, happened.I got to thejet,and they told me that a part or something was broke on it. They could fly without it, but they didn’t want to take any chances. The part they needed was eight hours away. So,instead of waiting on the part, I hopped on a last-minute flight to LA.It was the mostuncomfortable fourteen hours of my life in the middle seat, but I was getting happy because I was about tobe a father.I was going to be able to treat my child the way I wished I had been treated.I got to the hospital…picked upflowers and when I got to the room…”
Tears slipped down his face.
“Dymon.”
He shook his head. “When I got there, the baby had already taken its last breath. Her people wouldn’t let me in the room, saying that it was my fault. They’d even pounded that into her head. I never got the see the baby. She had the baby cremated, and that was it. She never had a baby shower or any of that and wanted to wait until birth to find out what it was, so I never knew. I never knew any of it. After begging her to let me see something… anything, she told me that I was probably happy because I didn’t want it anyway, and that I’d be just like my father. She went in on me. When I left the hospital, that was the last time we spoke. I showed her better than I could ever tell her.If that’s what she thought…then I was going to show her. I was very open with her about my family and the way I felt about them, and the very first chance she got, she threw it in my face.”
