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ELEVEN
NALANI
I understand the game.
That’s all this was to them.
A damn game.
I honestly liked Eva, not just because she’d left her marriage with obscene money, or even what she’d turned Honey Branch into, which was admirable.
She was justlikeable.
But the truth of the matter was, she was very much part of a class of people so stupidly rich that the rules the rest of us governed ourselves by onlybarelyapplied to them.
If at all.
And technically… I would soon be a part of it.
Which I wasn’t sure how to feel about.
I understand the game.
I couldn’t get that shit off my mind, even once I was three drinks deep with my homegirls.
“Naaaala,” Morgan urged. “I know this isn’t exactly everything you dreamed the night before your wedding would be, but…damn, bitch. Perk up. You’ve got us up here now, and we’re in it, we’re celebrating. The least you can do is look on the bright side. Where did you say you guys were honeymooning again?”
“Some private resort off the Pacific coast,” I answered. “But did you hear what those guys in the booth behind us were talking about earlier? They said it was looking like blizzard conditions were possible tomorrow, so who’s to say I could get out of here even if I wanted to? What if you guys aren’t able to get home?”
“It’s a mountain, sis,” Alexis assured. “They get heaps and heaps of snow every year and I am quite sure they know how to handle a snow plow or something. And if wearestuck up here… they’ve got good food and liquor and these cabins are quite cozy.”
“Until the food runs out and we have to consider cannibalism.”
“Stop.” Alexis laughed. “Either way, I’m with Morgan. You’re about to marry a fucking billionaire. A fine, generous one.”
“That generosity is limited solely to what makes him look good,” I reminded her. “Don’t let this little all-expenses-paid getaway fool you. He’s an asshole. You know he told me I had to wash my damn hair?”
Morgan gasped. “Excuse me?! Baby the press is giving finest mulberry silk, so what makes him think your hair needs washing? He thinks it looks dirty?!”
I blew out a sigh. “Fine.Let me not make it out to be something it wasn’t. He wants my hair back natural,afterI spent two hours this morning getting it silked out. Like damn… if you had stipulations on what my hair was supposed to look like, you couldn’t have said that shit earlier? I could have been doing something else.”
“Okay, I hear you, but… on the bright side,” Alexis started, “Can we appreciate for a moment that this Black man loves and wants his Black woman’s natural hair? Bare minimum award, sure, but… I kinda like that he wants that. Heisreimbursing you for the visit to the salon though right?”
“He sure the hell is,” I countered. “It’s the least he can do for inconveniencing me. That’s probably about to be the theme of the whole weekend, inconvenience Nalani. Get on her last possible nerve.”
I glared at my empty cocktail glass, annoyed that it hadn’t somehow filled itself.
“I don’t know, y’all. I’m just…over it.”
“Is it too late to not go through with it?” Morgan asked and my face curled into a frown.
“Girl, hell yeah.” I laughed. “I signed the damn contract. And besides that—remember what’s at stake for me. I am… going to have to do like Alexis said and get my shit together to just tough it out. Grin and bear it,” I told myself, nodding. “And at least I’ll look pretty doing so. Right?”
“You’re gonna be downright gorgeous honey,” Alexis crooned from beside me, throwing an arm around my shoulders. “Now, let’s get another round and change the damn subject.”
“To what?”
“Ooooh… to what Orion’s dick is gonna be like.”
