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Before he let her go for the night, Manny did address the topic that changed the course of their living arrangements. “I almost forgot. Did you receive the email this afternoon?”

Ivy, of course, knew exactly what he was talking about. She had barely looked at the results of his STI panel. It had been three days since she received her own results. They had discussed it then. However, Manny insisted that until his negative test results were returned, the matter would not truly be resolved. Now they had been. She would like to say she was relieved, but in truth, the test didn’t tell her what she already knew in her heart of hearts.

Chapter Twelve

MILKED YOU FOR A SAMPLE

Emmanuel thought he would sleep in after the hectic day he had yesterday. Not to mention being up half the night talking to Ivy, but he found himself fully awake after only four hours of sleep. He wanted to call her, but she needed her rest, plus she had a busy day ahead of her. Before their date, which he patted himself on the back for asking for, she was spending the day with his Mom and Sage. Then the granddaughter/grandmother duo would take off for the mini getaway and the couple would meet for dinner.

After he abandoned the idea of trying to sleep, he headed to the condo’s gym. Emmanuel didn’t want to purchase equipment and place it in one of the spare rooms. Something about that sounded way too permanent. He had no intention of his current living situation being long term.

He did not intend to have a long or gruelling workout session, but at one point, he felt like he was being chased by an insatiable longing. It had been decades since he felt the weight of it bearing down on him. As a child, it had been horrible. Otherwise, his childhood was what dreams are made of. Emmanuel had the very best money could buy. He was well-liked by his peers, so they wanted to spend time with him. His mother adored and doted on him. Still, that loneliness was always there… a treacherous companion. It became so persistent that he eventually became accustomed to it. It played like a soundtrack as he went about his life. The only time it dissipated was after he fell for Ivy. Now that he was away from her, the feeling came roaring back.

Emmanuel only put an end to the rigorous torture when he registered his shorts were soaked from his sweat. The workout would be felt later. After a quick shower, he made himself breakfast. It was nothing like he would have prepared for his family. Sage loved blueberry pancakes and damn near burnt bacon. Yeah, he had to get back to his life. Before they experienced more separation. He hadn’t discussed it with Ivy, but Sage wanted to move in with him. The idea of his little girl being away from her home didn’t sit right with him. The taste of the food was barely registering. At this point, it was just fuel.

Despite his lengthy workout, he had the whole day ahead of him. The very last thing he wanted to do was work or anything related to it. Instead, he pulled up the initial file Darsh had sent over on the Journee woman. Emmanuel didn’t know what he expected to find, but it wasn’t this. By all indications, the woman was a choir girl. Obviously, she couldn’t have a criminal record and be a vice-principal, but she didn’t even have a damn parking ticket.

They had poured over her finances. Fiscally responsible was an understatement. The Journee woman had a perfect credit score. Emmanuel had to call Darsh to verify what he saw.

“Is this right? Does she actually pay all her utilities in one payment at the beginning of the year?”

“Yeah. This chick is unbelievable with money. Her house is almost all paid off. She has paid off her car. She has a healthy savings account and a retirement savings plan. Oh, and she has started a registered education saving plan for the kid. Whatever her motivation is, I don’t think it has anything to do with money.”

That wasn’t good news. Greed, Emmanuel understood. Greed was easy to address. The unknown…

The Journee woman’s upbringing was picturesque. Upper-middle-class family. Her parents were high school sweethearts and still married. Her father was retired and had handed over the accounting firm to his eldest daughter. She, like her mother, was an educator. The Journee woman was a teacher. She had won Educator of the Year seven out of the ten years she taught in the classroom. The Journee woman attended the same church since she was a child and still attended every Sunday. After which she went to her parents for lunch.

“What the fuck!! What are we missing?” Emmanuel asked himself.

Her social media presence was scarce. She had one private account, and when Darsh had managed to get in, well, his notes said it all.

‘No pictures of her or her family. It is mostly of nature, her garden, and places she visited.’

Again, no ties to the province of Ontario. She lived on the other side of the country. This shit didn’t even begin to make sense.

It seemed that she was all in on being a parent. She had the child in a premier preschool and had him in all kinds of activities. So, she took parenting seriously. No partners that they saw.

On paper, she seemed to be a normal hard-working woman. So why did she decide to blow his life to smithereens? They were still digging, but it didn’t seem like she had any mental health illnesses.

The majority of pictures were surveillance photos. So, most of them were from a distance and/or grainy. Once the Journee woman didn’t jog his memory, he didn’t dwell on the younger black woman. Emmanuel double-checked her age, though. At first glance, he had thought she was twenty-five years his junior. In his opinion, thirty-four was almost as bad. She was practically a kid to him, regardless of how accomplished she was.

Darsh was still watching her, as well as digging into her past. He’d asked the investigator to do a background check on every single person in her life. Emmanuel was starting to wonder if the Journee woman was the villain in all of this. They had to be missing something.

Emmanuel would drive himself crazy, poring over the same information repeatedly. For tonight, he would have to push it to the back of his mind.

He had a date which he was looking forward to. Tonight, was all about them. Fuck all the stress and the doubt of the last few months.

Emmanuel had just gotten on his shirt when the buzzer rang. The person who normally visited was supposed to be on a Dinner Cruise. He knew because he had gotten him tickets. Yet when he opened the door there, he was.

“Frank, what are you doing here?”

Frank didn’t bother to greet him. Instead, he just pushed past him and took a seat on the couch. Despite Emmanuel’s protest, his friend had made sure that he wasn’t ‘lonely’. Even if he didn’t have a date, Emmanuel didn’t want to spend his Saturday with his friend. Not that he didn’t appreciate Frank looking out for him, but Frank’s theories were becoming more outlandish

“Hey, have you ever been on a trip and woken up disorientated? Or couldn’t remember the events of the night before?”

Or one of Emmanuel’s favourites.

“Has anyone sent you a drink, or brought you a drink? Well, I suppose they could have slipped something into your food.”

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