Page 25 of For the Lover in You
Mila scoffed and shook her head. "You're my boss, right?" she asked.
"Um... yeah," I replied, confused at what she was trying to imply.
"Then, regardless of whatever we do, it's business. Never pleasure."
"Touché."
"Plus, it seems as if you do a lot of mixing business and pleasure," she added.
I knew her comment was shade because of the phone call with Ari. Before I could counter-argue, the server had returned with my drink. Even though I didn't feel as if it was necessary, a part of me felt the need to explain the dynamic between Ari and me to Mila. I could tell it left an unpleasant taste in her mouth. I didn't want Mila out here thinking I was anain't shit nigga.
"The conversation you heard —"
"Mr. Houston, again, you don't have to explain anything to me."
"I know I don't, but out of respect for myself and my business, I feel as if I need to."
I could give Mila either the watered-down version of what Ari and I are like or the real, gritty truth. The more I looked at her, I couldn't force myself to tell her everything. I didn't want her to judge me and feel some type of way about me. It was already hard enough to crack her shell. I didn't want it to become even harder.
"Ari sells clothes. She's the owner of a boutique storefront that she happens to rent from me. We've flirted a lot, then one day shit got crazy. I was having a rough day, and she was there. We fooled around once. It's nothing more. She just keeps trying to get me to do it again and again, but I won't."
Mila stared at me. She didn't have any expression. I couldn't bring myself to tell Mila the truth. For some reason, I cared about what she thought of me.
"It was a mistake, a mistake I would never make again."
She didn't have a response. She kept her eyes strained on me.
"You're judging me, I know."
"I am because you're lying. She didn't sound like a one-and-done type of girl."
I sighed. "Aite, it was more than once, but things never went anywhere between us."
Mila sipped her water.
"My husband... ex-husband mixed business with pleasure, which ended up with me in the predicament that I'm in now," Mila countered.
"Your husband had an affair?"
She nodded. "With his intern, the pre-teen who was at the diner when he came in, showing his natural ass."
To say I was shocked was an understatement. A man destroying his family never sat well with me.
Mila chuckled, but I could tell she wasn't amused.
"She'd been in my home, around my child, and even in my face the entire time she was sleeping with my husband. Now, she done ended up pregnant with his child."
I could hear the hurt in her words. All the pain and anger made sense. Mila was broken and struggling as she tried to put herself back together.
"I'm so sorry you're having to experience this shit. No one deserves that."
She shrugged. "I've been spending months trying to remember if I did anything bad. I would have sleepless nights trying to figure out why life was beating the shit out of me, yet I still can't figure out why I was karma's public enemy number one."
My heart went out to Mila. Here she was blaming herself for a fuck nigga that didn't appreciate her for who she was.
"Don't look at it like that," I advised.
"Then how else am I supposed to?" she asked.
