Page 16 of Taming a Menace
“Well, I’m about to get in the car. See you in a few,” I told him.
“See you there,” Wyatt said, ending the call first.
My brows dipped as I walked closer to my car. I hadn’t been to the club since college, so I had no interest in whatever was on the flyer tucked under my windshield. My disinterest didn’t stop me from looking at it before discarding it as trash.
What I thought was a flyer turned out to be something else. It was an envelope. I opened it and removed the papers inside as I sat down in my car. It took a minute for my brain to catch up to what my eyes were seeing as they darted between highlighted passages.
What the hell was this, and why was it on my car?
Mother: Caroline Brown.
Child: Destiny Brown.
Alleged father: Wyatt Lowe.
Alleged father?
My eyes swept over the document in quick passes as what I was looking at began to register.
The allegation of fatherhood turned out to be more than a mere accusation. According to the test results, Wyatt Lowe was 99.97% the father of Destiny Brown. I looked around for any sign of the person responsible for leaving the envelope on my car as my brain cells played catch up. Curiosity made me flip the test results to the back to find that the second page was a handwritten note.
Iyla,
My intention has never been to hurt you. For the past year, I have been trying to make Wyatt take responsibility for his actions. He refuses to see me or our daughter. When I found out I was pregnant, he promised that he was breaking things off with you so we could be together. You were out of the office for a few days, so I actually believed the bastard and backed off.
By the time I found out you were only on a vacation that he sent you on, I was already back in his web. He claimed that you threatened him with a sexual harassment allegation, so he had to keep playing nice with you. After the baby shower that you guys threw for me at the office, he allowed me to quit working and put me up in an apartment in the city.
By the time I delivered our child, I hadn’t heard from him in two months. I found out that he’d stopped paying the rent through the eviction notice on the door when I came home from the hospital. I had so many complications after delivery that I didn’t have the strength to chase him. Now I’m coming to you as a woman to tell you that the man you love is a lying, cheating, manipulative asshole and a deadbeat father.
He refuses to take responsibility for his actions and wants to continue to play the role of a good guy publicly when he’s not. He hasn’t done one thing for our child. I didn’t even expect him to show up for the DNA test, but I figure he was holding on to a shred of hope that she wasn’t his.
I’m not telling you that you should leave him. I just want you to know what kind of man you’re dealing with. I have no beef or hard feelings against you. Wyatt and I were already sleeping together when you started. I’m sorry for my part in this because I know I’m just as guilty as him for continuing to sleep with him knowing that you two were an item. You were always so nice to me. I just want him to man up and take care of his child.
Carly
Carly? Carly Brown, the blonde-haired administrative assistant that quit the practice shortly after I started working there? Reality set in all at once and made my chest hurt. Not only wasWyatt sleeping with both me and another woman at our office, but they had a child together.
For a whole year he had a child and never found a second to mention it to me. Red flashed in my eyes as I cranked up my car and threw it in reverse. This was why I didn’t believe in fairy tales. I wanted love, real love. I wanted happily ever after, but time after time I ended up with the shitty end of the stick.
Not that I blamed Carly for willingly being the other woman, but she wasn’t innocent either. Wyatt and I had a very public relationship. Everyone knew we were dating, especially at the office since he’d made a point to make an announcement about us.
I wanted to do something crazy, but my better judgment gave me pause. I wasn’t the woman I was in my early twenties. I had a career and something to lose. Granted I worked for the man who’d betrayed me to the fullest, but I had a career. Pulling back into the driveway, I picked up my phone and called my sister.
“Hey, what’s up? I figured you would be at dinner by now.”
“Isis, I need you.” My voice cracked, and for the first time I realized that I was crying.
It didn’t take any time at all for my sister and her husband to pull up in the driveway. I was still sitting in the car physically unable to move a muscle. Wyatt had called me three times in the twenty minute time span. All of his calls were sent to voicemail. I wanted to be long gone by the time he realized what was going on. I didn’t want to face him.
Clearing the tears from my face, I slid out of the car and led the way into the home I’d shared with the man I loved for the past two years.
“Just let me know what you need me to move,” my sister’s husband said as we entered the house.
“I don’t have anything heavy,” I muttered.
I’d sold everything in my old place when Wyatt asked me to move in. He had everything and more at his place, so I didn’t need anything from my little living quarters. The only things I’d kept were the ones that were sentimental. Now it was dawning on me that putting my faith and livelihood in the hands of a man had left me with nothing.
Silently my sister and I cleared my closet, tossing everything in the bins that I’d used to haul my stuff there in the first place. I didn’t realize that my wardrobe had practically doubled. With Wyatt footing all the bills, I had the freedom to spend my money as I pleased.
