Page 71 of Mister President

I hadn’t plannedon falling asleep as early as I did, but when I woke up and found Elias’s side of the bed empty, I went to go look for him. It surprised me to find him in his office working. Usually, he had a good work-home balance.

“Can I help?” I asked, taking small steps into his office. “I’m ready for you to get in the bed.”

Elias gave me that dazzling smile while extending his arm for me. I sat on his lap and looked down at the papers that were sprawled across his desk.

“I’m trying to come up with something new to do at the Thanksgiving party this year. I feel a pressure to make this onethe best one yet since it’s basically all on me. Neko and Mally Mal are coming back to attend, and I’ve been giving him updates on the decisions I’ve been making, but his input has been minimal since he’s been on vacation. I know I probably shouldn’t feel the pressure I do because we’re going to have some heavy pockets at both events, but I still want to do something to make this memorable.”

“Hmm…” Pulling the papers closer, I looked at all the ideas he’d written down and crossed out. They were good, but most of them were heavily centered on art itself. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it was too niched down to try to appeal to a wider audience. “I have an idea.”

He kissed my neck before looking at me. “Let me hear it.”

“Why not take the focus away from art and business and do something for the city?” I watched his brain process my words as his expression shifted, but he remained silent. “This is the holiday season. A lot of people are struggling or dealing with seasonal depression and grief. Not everyone is capable of coming out and partying or even wanting to. Why not offer baskets of food, grocery store gift cards, and business scholarships to people?

“That way you can not only shine a positive light onN.E. Art,but you can also give people a chance to donate and do a great deed in the process. Things like this often reach thousands of people. So even if people couldn’t physically come to the party or auction, they could still participate. This is a business run by you and your brother after all, so I think it would be a really good look to give to other families or even siblings wanting to start a business. There are so many ways you can spin this.”

Elias wrapped his arms around me. He kissed my collarbone and neck, then my lips—three times before sucking the bottom one between his. When his hand held my neck in place and tilted my head, I moaned. The slow, careful kiss he gave me warmedmy body and caused it to tingle. He pulled away and rested his forehead on mine.

“I think that’s a great idea. A beautiful idea. I also think you just proved why women were created to influence their men. There’s no way I would have thought of that on my own. Thank you, Mandy.”

“You’re welcome. I’m glad I could help. And you may not have thought about it because you think big, but sometimes, the little things are mighty too. You’ve turnedN.E. Artinto a multi-million dollar firm. You’ve created something that allows your brother and so many other artists to live their dreams. I’m so proud of you, baby. I don’t think I’ve ever said that before.” When he lifted me and set me on his desk, I yelped. “Elias…”

“I want you to say that again while I’m in this pussy.”

“Wait. I’m excited to get to planning. We have so many things we can d—mm…ah!”

One second, his fingers were pushing my nightgown up, and the next, they were giving my pussy a love tap that instantly made it throb.

“If you ain’t figured it out yet, support and partnership turn me on. That shit makes my dick hard as fuck. We can plan later. Right now, I need to be inside of you.”

There was no way I’d deny him of something I wanted, too, so I leaned back slightly as he put my ankles on his shoulders and pressed his way inside of me. Had I known this would be his response to me being invested in what he did, I would have been sneaking to his office at the firm to talk about his work years ago.

42

Elias

One Week Later

Amanda was right.Not only did the city love the idea of us giving back but it also led to more influential and prolific people wanting to join us through donations and attending the auction in December. I felt grounded and proud to be able to give back to the city on a grand scale. Neko and I agreed to give out a hundred baskets full of food, ten gift cards that had two hundred and fifty dollars on them for groceries, and ten business scholarships for a hundred thousand dollars each.

The scholarship winners would be announced at the Christmas auction, but Amanda, EJ, and I were delivering the baskets and gift cards today. I didn’t want to go live for the deliveries, even though I knew that would be a good look, but she insisted we do it so the cause could reach more people. I was live on Facebook, and she was live on TikTok. Because she was a part of their creator program, they boosted her live, and she had almost half a million people watching.

We’d set up a separate donation page for anyone who wanted to give for Christmas, and so far, we’d already raised close to a quarter of a million dollars. I think that was what hit my heart most—the fact that her idea and our actions motivated other people to give. Sharing this moment with our son and showing him that it wasn’t enough to make money for yourself but to also give back when you could had put tears in my eyes.

I never thought Mandy and I would get to a point in our relationship where we could do something like this, but I was grateful to God for the means to be able to do it, the desire to do it, and Him blessing her with the idea for us to do it. This was going to open doors for us individually and forN.E. Art…I could feel that in my bones…and I owed it all to my girl.

That Night

Amanda avoidedmy eyes as she walked out of the police station. She was lucky I had the connections I had. Otherwise, her ass would’ve still been locked up. Thankfully, Captain Brooks called and told me what happened. Instead of having the officer process Amanda, he let her wait in his office for me. Felicity’s and Tamar’s wild asses had been driven home.

“Ain’t no point in you looking sad now,” I fussed as we walked to my Jeep.

What started as a good, positive day turned into her fighting and getting arrested. Tonight was the first time Felicity had a dinner party with her social club since everything went down with Scotty. They went to some restaurant downtown and had a private room, but apparently, some women were mugging them from the time they went in to the time they left. Words wereexchanged, fists were thrown, and the police were called. That was all I knew, and I needed answers because Amanda hadn’t gotten into a fight in years, and she only fought when she absolutely had to.

“Are you mad at me?” she asked innocently, wrapping her arm around mine.

“I’m not mad, especially since I don’t know what happened. I just want to know what made you beat that girl up after the good day we had. What if people posted that shit online?”

Amanda groaned and kicked the air with a pout, forcing me to have to hold my laugh in.

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