Page 162 of Tempt Her

Then my peace returns as I inhale and stand up proud, giving her my Miss South Carolina smile with a honey-toned voice. “But now, Phyllis… karma is your bitch.”

CHAPTERFORTY-ONE

Devil Devil by MILCK

I’ve learned so much in almost two years.

How you’re stronger when you let people help you. How women who work together can do anything. How you always have hope. If you’re breathing, things can change.

My life sure has.

I’ve even learned that if you lick massage oil off of a man’s nipples, it can make your lips go numb.

But mine smile now at the memory as I glance back at Mateo. He’s sitting at a round metal table in the visiting room of the federal prison.

Trick #FinalOne: Don’t judge. Make friends everywhere.

This trick worked out perfectly. Like an angel is smiling upon us. I had to figure out a way to get my men into the prison’s visitors’ room with me, and it was too easy.

Mateo is on the visitor’s list for a man he befriended while in here. His friend is about to be released, and he’s gotten close to Ford and Luke. They’re on his visitor’s list, too. Ford’s offering the man a job, a second chance after he committed insurance fraud. He faked a car accident to get money to pay for rent for his young family.

He seems like a nice guy, and I don’t judge him.

The things I did to take care of my dad? We all do what we have to for the ones we love.

Is that what Gentry still thinks we are? In love? I don’t know what delusion he’s under.

I was surprised when I called and discovered my name was still on Gentry’s visitor list. And I’m not pointing out to the Federal Prison System that I’m actually his ex-wife who helped put him in here.

Hell no. I’ve suffered too much not to have this moment.

It makes me remember the day before I married Gentry. My dad had a lucid moment, wishing me goodnight; he said, “You know true love is wanting another person, not needing them. You don’t have to marry him if you don’t want to. You have everything youneedinsideyou.”

If I could go back, did I have a choice?

Maybe.

But I know I’ve chosen myself now. I’ve come so far; I don’t need revenge anymore.

That’s when you know you’re truly free from someone. They can’t hold your feelings, even the darkest ones, hostage anymore.

Watching Gentry shuffle into the room with his feet and hands chained, I taste freedom.

Hell, even ice cream with potato chips ain’t this sweet.

I even barely fucking smile at him because prison orange reallydoessuit him. I’ve never seen him look so manly.

Well, manly for a man who used to think pink crabs on a shirt was sexy or that a bowtie with whales on it wets a pussy.

When his eyes land on me, they comb my body for changes and find a million. I still have my stilettos and leather pants on. But I threw a burgundy velvet blazer on because it is nipply in here, and I’m saving that for the big reveal.

But as he nears, my heart rate doesn’t even climb. Maybe I don’t even want revenge nowormy big reveal. My phone is cued up to the video Ford made. It only took a hundred-dollar bribe for a guard to let me bring it in with me.

Still, I have something priceless—power.

I don’t need a damn thing from Gentry Evans.

Maybe, I’ll say, “Bye-bye, asshole,” and leave it at that.

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