Page 43 of Plea
Chapter
Twenty-Six
Carson
“I need you to hold this,”I said, handing the engagement ring I’d gotten for Venus to Kaos.
He stared at the box for a few seconds before taking it. “Aight. You think she gon’ find it in the house or something?”
I chuckled and shook my head as we headed down the hall. We’d just finished meeting with the board to discuss how we planned to capitalize for the last month within our quarter. Now that we were a public company and offering shares, we had to be even more on our shit. I liked the idea of allowing people to invest in us because it meant more money, but it also meant more responsibility and less control. When we first started our company, it was all on us. Once we made our first million, we established the board. And now, we had stock. It was crazy thinking about how far we’d come.
It wasn’t a widespread practice for a law firm to go public. In fact, it was actually advised that a law firm not allow non-lawyers to invest or hold shares in their company. Us going public was yet another way we set ourselves apart andpositioned ourselves and our staff to make more money and have more opportunities. Eventually, we wanted to acquire as many small law firms as we could and bring on their attorneys. The goal was to not just be the best law firm in The Hills but the only one. Or, at least, the biggest one. And with us going public now, we’d have the capital for those acquisitions, and we wouldn’t have to do the work or hold the responsibilities—our board and staff would.
“Nah. I’m trying not to propose to her ass now. It took everything in me not to propose last night.”
“What happened? And why are you waiting?” he asked as we got on the elevator. For whatever reason, neither of us liked to eat or drink anything when we had a board meeting until after it was over. I don’t think it was nerves. More like we didn’t want to focus on anything but preparing for the meeting. As soon as it was over and business was handled, I instantly got hungry.
The second the words, “Don’t laugh,” came out of my mouth, he chuckled.
“Aye, bruh. You know the moment you say that it’s going to make me laugh.”
I sucked my teeth and sighed with a shake of my head. My hand went to my chest, and I pulled in a deep breath. I felt crazy even saying the shit, so I made sure I was composed before I confessed, “That woman fucked me last night.”
He gave me a blank stare before releasing a bark of laughter. I laughed with him, but that shit had been on my mind all night and day. I wasn’t toxic in my masculinity, and I knew I was a damn good lover, so I usually always maintained control when it came down to sex. Most women, all women, let me have my way and do whatever the fuck I wanted because it made them feel good. Venus was the first woman to ever take control and talk that shit, and she damn near had me moaning and screaming her name, and Istillcouldn’t believe that shit.
“I don’t know why I try to talk to you about certain shit,” I said as my laughter died down.
“Hold on,” he said, stifling his laughter as the elevator opened. As we walked down the hall he confirmed, “You said she fucked you? What do you mean?”
“I mean exactly what I said,” I said quietly, making sure no one was behind us. “She grabbed my neck while she was riding me and told me to cum for mama. The only thing that kept me from saying, ‘Yes, big mama’ was because I did, in fact, cum. Venus fucked the shit out of my ass last night.”
My body shivered and dick got hard just thinking about it, which made him laugh all over again.
“I mean… is that a bad thing? You’re not thinking about ending things with her, are you?”
“Absolutely not! That woman is the best thing God has ever given me. I want you to hold the ring so I won’t propose prematurely, because after she did that shit, I was about to do it then. You think I’m about to let her do that shit to another man?Hellthe fuck no!”
The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. I had always been territorial, but the way I felt for Venus took that shit to another level.
“Aight, aight, man, damn. Calm down.” Kaos laughed with a shake of his head as we entered the café. “I just wanted to make sure you hadn’t gone crazy for a second. I’on blame you though. If my princess said some shit like that to me while we were fucking, she’d get pregnant again.”
We both laughed, gaining Tristan and Zander’s attention.
“What y’all laughing at?” Zander asked, and Kaos looked at me to see if I wanted him to say anything.
I shook my head no because him laughing at me was enough. I didn’t need them laughing at my ass too. All I knew was, ifVenus thought I was crazy and didn’t play about her before, it was definitely up behind her now.
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
Venus
“Can we talk?”
The soft tone and puppy dog eyes were different. I hadn’t seen this version of Trevor ever. When Carson told me not to engage with him during the mediation, I agreed but thought that would be hard to do. I thought I’d want to yell at him and question why he’d treated me the way he had. I figured I’d want to ask him why he chose me to use to cover up his lifestyle. The moment I sat across from him at the conference table, answers meant nothing. Neither did closure. I wanted nothing more than to have him out of my life completely.
Asia had stuck to her promise and took down the videos. She hadn’t mentioned Carson again and didn’t even reach out when the DNA test results came back showing that Carson was not the father of her baby. In an unexpected plot twist, I’d looked her up on Facebook over the weekend and found out Dru wasn’t either.
