Sunday, when my mother and I went to brunch, she told me that her and Stanley wanted to get married as soon as possible. The planning was giving us all a headache when realistically, there would only be a handful of people there. They decided to have a very small and intimate ceremony along the lake behind my house tomorrow, and that was more than okay with me.
Monday, I met with the lawyer Ishmael recommended. I started to have him to meet me at a restaurant or something for lunch, but if JD was in fact having me followed, I was sure the guy would just take pictures of him and his tags and track him down at a later date. So I ended up going to his office just to get everything over with. He told me about all of the things that could go wrong and the chances I had of getting partial or full custody of Willow.
I’d never wanted full custody or to take her away from her father, so that wasn’t even on the table. All I wanted to do was make sure that he couldn’t snatch her away from me and leave town so I would never be able to see her again.
Tuesday, I went dress shopping with my mother, and since they were having a small wedding now, it was a lot easier for her to find something. At this point, I was really starting to miss my baby. My big baby. But we both held firm and kept our distance even though it was super hard.
Wednesday, I delivered seven orders to clients. One of them was a soccer mom who linked me with the other mothers on the team. Quite a few of them wanted to use my services, and I was also able to send some of them Shara and Rhyan’s way for their closet organizing business.
Thursday, I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed a release. All those toys me and Ishmael bought came in handy. We ended up having the wildest phone sex I’d ever had in my life. It was good, really good, but nothing compared to the real thing with Ishmael.
Friday, I met up with Candy to finalize everything. She’d already gotten the funds together and transferred them to three of my accounts, but my lawyer didn’t have any space on his calendar to get us in until the end of the week to go over the contract.
And today, I spent all day playing nice with JD to convince him to let Willow stay the night with me. He agreed since the wedding was tomorrow. We spent hours shopping for a bed, bedding, décor, and clothes for her room at my place. The whole time, Jeremy was saying little slick flirtatious shit, but all I’d do was smile. He seemed to not care about me not wanting to be with him in this moment since his competition was gone – but he had no freaking idea.
Even if Ishmael and I were broken up for real, he had me so sprung sexually that another man trying to please me at this point would be a total joke!
Willow and I made it in around seven p.m., and even though I was tired and my feet were killing me, I wanted to make her a homecooked meal. She asked for chicken nuggets, so I ended up cutting up some chicken breasts and frying and grilling us a platter of them with fruit salad and French fries as well. After we finished eating, I got her cleaned up and into bed. Then I showered and FaceTimed Ishmael. About ten minutes into our call, Willow was knocking on my door.
I thought she wanted to sleep with me because she wasn’t comfortable in her room, but she told me that it was because she just wanted to be close to me. Lord knows I had to keep myself from turning into a puddle of tears at the sound of that. Ishmael let me go, and we cuddled up. Willow fell asleep almost instantly – mumbling and snoring lightly just like I did. Unable to resist, I took a picture of us and sent it to my mother and Ishmael before posting it on my social media.
As many pictures of her as I’d had at this point, this was the first time I’d ever posted her on my social media. The picture I chose didn’t show her face, just her body molded against mine. So many people were liking the post, but I turned the commenting option off because I didn’t want to deal with the people who were going to be saying stupid shit like they didn’t know I had a child.
My body began to relax even more as my eyes closed. A small smile crept across my face as I thought of the turn my life had taken. The only thing that would make this better was getting partial custody of my princess and an engagement ring from Ishmael.
Chapter 16
Ishmael
There was a difference between me and Rosalyn that was so potent in this moment everyone around us could feel it radiating off us. She was seething mad, pacing and yelling, causing a scene. I was calm and cool, loading my glock ready to make my next move. She probably felt like I was half listening to her, and honestly, I was. The moment she asked for my location so she could pull up I knew something was wrong because we both understood how important it was for us to lay low until Jeremy had been served.
Even if he tried to leave afterwards, she could file a kidnapping charge against him at that point.
When she first started I was listening intently. I ended up going to the wedding as a guest of Stanley but I kept my distance from Rosalyn, Willow, and Jeremy’s bitch ass. He showed up, walking around like he owned shit. Out of respect for Stanley and Cherise, I let that shit ride. The wedding was beautiful, and as they read their vows to each other, I couldn’t help but stare at Rosalyn and think about the moment I would make her my wife.
And Willow my stepdaughter.
That vision and version of life was enough to keep me from getting irritated by Jeremy’s presence. After the wedding was over, the reception was in Rosalyn’s home. I behaved, still, even though I wanted to take her sexy ass to an empty room and fuck the shit out of her. Instead of wanting to have a traditional honeymoon, the newlyweds announced that they wanted to spend the week with Rosalyn and Willow. I already knew about it through Stanley and he’d invited me to come too. That was a major solid for me, because it would give us the week before court to spend some time together.
Jeremy said he would need to think about it before leaving and I ended up heading out around the same time as he did too. Had I not had to take care of some business, I would have made the most out of the moment and tried to have Rosalyn to myself.
When she pulled up on me, she started telling me about how Jeremy was summoned when he made it home for court. Apparently he went back to Rosalyn’s house and showed his ass. He was yelling about how she would never see Willow again. Baby girl didn’t want to leave her mother, so she was holding on to her leg as Jeremy tried to pull her away. When Jeremy got her, Willow started having an even bigger fit, so Rosalyn was pulling on her trying to get her back.
At that point, Stanley and his brother stepped in, and they made Jeremy leave.
She was still going on and on, but at this point, no more words needed to be said as far as I was concerned. “Paradise,” I called, voice firm enough to make her stop talking and pacing immediately and look at me. “Do you want me to kill this nigga?” Her head shook as I added, “You won’t have to worry about court or none of that shit, love. Let me handle it.” Her head shook again. “Do you want me to beat his ass?” With a smile and more relaxed stance, she shook her head again. “Tell me what you want me to do.”
Rosalyn sighed and ran her hands down her face. “I want you to take me home and hold me and rub my feet. Because at this point, that’s literally all I can do. As much as I would love to have you serve his head to me on a platter, he has a P.I. and family members that know what’s going on between us. If anything happens to him, we will be the prime suspects and I may lose the option to have any type of custody forever.”