Page 5 of Mark My Words

“You better because you’re my date until I get my hands on Cleveland.” Angelica snickered and threaded Destiny’s final braid. Cleveland Smith and Angelica were the next Destiny-and-Malik of the area. The neighbors and locals knew about their flirtatiousness as much as they knew about Destiny and Malik’s young love.

“Well, I’ll be there until you leave me by the wayside.”

“Oh, hush, if you give Gregory a chance, you wouldn’t be in this predicament.”

“Please don’t start.”

Angelica dropped her elbows onto her thighs and rolled her neck. “Why not? He’s fine, successful, tried to get at you the whole time y’all were in college, and what did you do?”

Shetsked, and Destiny thought about Gregory Willis. He was the local dream guy, handsome, educated, single, but unfortunately for Destiny, he wasn’therdream guy. And at this rate, she would be alone for a lifetime in search of that person that could replace Malik Jernigan.

Chapter Two

“Have you lost your mind?” Malik’s dark voice speared through the phone.

Flustered, Stormi Livingston shifted her cell from one ear to the other. “Can I get out of the station before you start with me? Why are you tripping anyway?”

“Why am I tripping?” Malik tossed the keys to his Cadillac on the counter of the hotel’s full bar inside his penthouse suite.

It had only been thirty minutes since he checked in and rolled his luggage onto the elevator when the daytime talk show with his now-ex-girlfriend Stormi Livingston caught his view in the lobby.

Something made him stick his hand out and catch the door, then roll the luggage off of the elevator to listen in on the televised interview. To say he was stunned by what was being streamed was an understatement.

“You lied, in front of a full national audience! You don’t think that’s a problem?”

“It can easily be cleared up. Look, Tamara kept poking, and I just gave her what she wanted to hear. It was a mistake. I had no intention of saying we were engaged. And why are you so mad? It’s not like at one time we weren’t engaged.”

“That was before you fucked my best friend, Stormi!”

The line quieted as Malik brewed, but not from the repulsive action of her betrayal, but from the lie, she’d told in front of possibly millions of viewers.

Stormi bristled. “How many times do I have to apologize for that?”

Malik let go of a heavy sigh and shook his head.

“You don’t. And you’re not hearing me. I’m not looking for an apology. We are not together anymore. Haven’t been for months now, but for some reason, you refuse to tell people the truth. I’ve kept my mouth shut to give you the time to tell your family and friends when you were ready. But this…” his jaw clenched as he bit down on his teeth. “Fix it now, or I’m doing it for you.”

He disconnected the line and dropped his phone on the counter with his keys.

“Unbelievable.”

Malik grabbed his luggage by the handle and lifted the suitcase as he cleared the room. He unzipped his bag in the master suite and removed the clothes and the masquerade costume he planned to wear later that night.

It was the forty-eighth annual costume ball, and on this night, the town would come together to raise money for the No Children Left Behind charity. Besides congregating for a good cause, the citizens were eager to have a good time in the cloak of night. However…

It’s notthe only reason you’ve returned.

No.It wasn’t. Malik’s ultimate decision to head into town wasn’t merely for the ball, or to see his mother, for that matter. His return was all about the reunion with her.

“Destiny…”

From the moment she broke up with him, a million reasons why wreaked havoc on Malik’s psyche.

Was it another guy? A loss of interest? The need for her to be free of him?

She told you the reason.

But it wasn’tgood enough for Malik. It didn’t help that Destiny gave him nothing more than her excuse of being his distraction.

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