Page 2 of Heartbeat

“I don’t know why she’s warning us about weddings. It’s that youngest daughter of hers that she’ll have to worry about,” Robin leans into me with a mischievous smile.

“I know right, that is definitely something baby Dove would do,” I agree with a cheesy smile. “Anyway, I don’t have a man to marry, and your behind will probably elope,” I laugh, but my sister looks away guiltily, not responding to my little jab.

Weird.

***

“I should’ve known after a ceremony like that, the reception wasn’t about to be shit. What an epic let down,” Robin mumbled, guzzling her wine.

I don’t know why my sister is in such a foul mood. She’s getting hit on by almost every man in this place. Her light honey brown skin and bright brown eyes surrounded by thick lashes, a smattering of freckles over her nose, and dimples that pierce both her cheeks have men drooling all over themselves. Robin is tall and thin with a model’s physique that looks good in anything she wears.

My older sister looks just like our mother. Her hair is long and wavy that curls with water, and although I loved my kinky hair… it could never. Our younger sister, Dove, and she could be twins. I look like I’m adopted. If it weren’t for my father’s gray eyes, I would swear they picked me up on the side of the road.

My dark chocolate skin is darker than anyone in our immediate family. My father is half Puerto Rican and Black. He has a lightly toasted almond complexion and the Bishops signature gray eyes. He wears his hair in a low-cut fade with a goatee. Alejandro Bishops is one handsome devil. And he knows it too.

My father’s family always had a thing about making sure the bloodline looked like an advertisement on diversity, but my father was a rebel. He ran off from Founder’s Island and married an African American woman from the South.

Although my mother’s blood is just as mixed as his, she still considers herself black. She is Creole and from Louisiana. Her family heritage is a mixture of the darkest slaves and the whitest of French. Her hair is curly and red. Her eyes are the color of the clearest chestnut brown, and she too is tall and slim.

Me, however, I look like my mother’s grandmother. A beautiful dark-skinned woman with a button nose, high cheekbones, almond-shaped eyes, and big round lips that women these days pay for. I saw a picture of her once, and if it weren’t for my bright gray eyes, I would’ve thought the picture was of me.

I always felt as if my father didn’t like me because I was dark. I hated my beautiful black skin for most of my childhood. It took me a long time to accept myself. I never understood why a man who refused his arranged marriage to a white woman because he wanted to represent his blackness, hated his darkest child. I still don’t understand it, and I’m twenty-six years old.

“I can’t believe Ainslee and Jagger skipped their reception. Who does that?” My mother’s voice breaks through my thoughts.

I simply shrug. Because hell, if I fought my new husband at the altar, I would probably skip the party too. Who wants to dance the night away after coming to blows in front of everybody. I was horrified at the thought, but the couple didn’t seem to give a flying fuck what anybody thought.I only wish I could be that free.

“Robin, I have somebody I would like to introduce you to,” my father walks up, smiling down at my sister with pride written all over his handsome face. I don’t recognize the two men that are trailing him.

They are both tall with dark brown hair and look like a form of the ten-year challenge on social media, except the younger of the two has bright blue eyes instead of green like his older version. I can clearly see the outline of the younger man’s muscles under his clothes, and the swagger he exudes is hard to miss.Damn, he’s wearing the hell out of that suit.

“Robin.” My father snaps her name again when Robin ignores him.

Robin clicked her teeth and rolled her eyes. I shake my head. I don’t know why Daddy insists on introducing men to Robin. She had a long time boyfriend, Quinton, who we all knew she was madly in love with. Nobody would ever make her leave him, especially not Alejandro Bishops.

“I don’t feel like meeting anyone,Father,” Robin responds in exasperation. Her lips held in a pout that is so unlike her.

“Does it look like I care how you feel,Daughter,” my father seethed through clench teeth.

I sat back with wide eyes. My fatherneverspoke to Robin in such a manner. No matter how out of line either one of my sisters got with my father, he saved his wrath for me.

My mother cleared her throat uncomfortably, and my sister sat up in her seat and pasted a smile on her face. I sat watching the spectacle, not uttering a word. I dared not bring any unwelcomed attention to myself. I sank further down in my seat, making myself as small as possible. I hated confrontation, and I had a feeling this was going to be one for the books.

“Josephine, Robin, this is Conrad Nash and his son Dr. Lennox Nash,” my father introduced the two men to my mother and sister, completely ignoring me.

I was used to it. My sister was a Gynecologist at our family’s private hospital, and my mother was his beautiful Creole wife. I was… me.

“Nice to meet you both,” Conrad Nash shook hands with my mother.

“And who is this lovely young woman?” the older Nash questioned my father with a smirk.

I’m not sure why his expression bothered me so much, but it did. I sat up straighter in my chair and smiled with as much genuineness that I could muster. If there was one thing I was good at, it was smiling and nodding when beckoned. My father may not have appreciated my efforts at being a good daughter, but to the outside world looking in, I was a perfect child.

I never stepped out of line, followed every rule, made good grades while I was in school, and had a successful career as an interior designer. However, I was not the doctor that Robin was, or the academic genius like Dove, so I was the daughter that didn’t receive an introduction at parties.

“Oh, that’s just my other daughter, Raven,” my father stated as he waved his hand dismissively. To someone else, his actions may have made their smile falter, but for me, it was a reason to smile. Because he had to do the one thing he hated, which was acknowledge me.

“It’s nice to meet you, just Raven,” the older Nash joked with a charming smile, but his green eyes were insincere and calculating.

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