Page 41 of 10,000 Hours With A Rich Menace

“I’m gonna be your husband. Don’t you think I should know your personal shit?” His hands started to move, and he rubbed them in circular motions.

“This is business… right?”

He didn’t reply, just watched me. Menace had this thing where he observed you, right in front of you. That glare was enough to make you never sin again in life. “It doesn’t have to be.”

“Well, you made it business when you went out of town and never called me.”

“Don’t have your number.”

I shoved my blankets into my arms as I removed myself from the couch. “You had ways to get my number, and you didn’t call to check on me once. Jeffie called me every day, and I heard you in the background and you never asked for me.”

“Are you mad at me because I didn’t ask how you were, Wonder?”

“My name is Stevie. I get this marriage is something that helps us both out… mostly me because you can marry anyone you want. We don’t need to pretend this is something that it’s not. Just let me know when the wedding is so I can show up.”

I stomped away, my blanket trailing as I headed to my bedroom, and he stood there. No emotion, rebuttal, or anything. It was like he was content with pissing me off and would sleep like a baby because of it.

When I made it to my room, I hated that I had blown up like that. The truth was that he had scared me and saw me vulnerable about my mother. I didn’t feel comfortable enough telling him about her.

This was fake and my mother’s death was very much real. The two should never mix, and I needed to check my emotions at the door.

It was business.

Menace

The flightfrom Japan was exhausting.

It didn’t matter if you traveled in style either. My jet was equipped with whatever I wanted or needed for long flights. Half the time me and Jeffie never saw one another because I stayed on one side, and she stayed on the other.

After a business trip and long flight, I was always greeted home with silence. The sound of the TV blaring could be heard from the front door. It was always quiet in my house when I returned home.

The silence was deafening and at times I would play music to kill through it. This time, the sound of a movie playing in the distance made my heart jump. It was like I remembered there was a woman now staying in my home.

When I rounded the corner, she was wiping her face as tears fell down her cheeks. I thought it was something she was watching that was making her cry and dispelled that thought when I saw she was watching an Adam Sandler movie.

That man’s movies never made you cry like the way Wonder was sitting on the couch crying. I stood there for a minute before making my presence known.

What I didn’t expect was for her to go off about me not calling her. This shit was new to me. Was I supposed to call her? I mean, shit, I made sure she got water, sun, and food. The fuck else was I supposed to do from across the world?

The word business arrangement hit me harder than it should have. Wonder wasn’t wrong, this was exactly what this was. I didn’t like to think of the shit like that because she was in my home.

My home was sacred, and I didn’t welcome anybody in this bitch. She was not only in my home, but she had settled in and made herself comfortable. The sound of my automatic shades opening had me open my eyes.

I remained in bed for a few seconds too long and was inside my head. Thinking about how she called me out about not calling her.

Why did she care so much?

Not knowing why she was crying kept me up most of the night, too. What made a woman like Wonder cry? She was easy going, spunky, and always positive, even when she was moments from dying.

The light knock followed by the shuffling across my heated floors, and the humming caused me to lean up in my bed. Purple was putting down the laundry on top of the chairs in the room to be put away by housekeeping.

She had one headphone on and was shaking her hips while humming, which was further pissing me off. When she turned, she jumped, dropping my white cashmere Brunello Cucinelli shirt on the floor.

A shirt that cost eleven hundred dollars and she had my shit on the floor. “You used to make your Barbies fuck, huh?”

“Excuse you?”

“Why the fuck are you in my crib with those little ass shorts, knowing my future wife is on the bottom level?”

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