“No.” I shook my head.
“Why was he fighting with your boyfriend at the restaurant? Are you fucking my husband?” she demanded to know, her nostrils flaring.
I opened my mouth to say something but had a sudden epiphany. I was sitting there having a conversation with what could be some crazy woman. It had been five years since my mother and James’ wedding. How could she have been King’s wife, and nobody ever mentioned her?
I pushed myself from the bed and hopped up.
“Lady, you have to go. If you have a problem, you need to take them up with King.”
“He lets her call him King?” She quietly mumbled then she did a complete 180. She started yelling. “My problem is with you. I want to know all that’s been going on between you and my husband.” She slammed her hand down onto my bed. She eyed me hard, her lip curling in disgust. “Look at you, a fat pig, stretch marks everywhere.”
I did what she said and looked down at myself. I was wearing a cami and underwear. Sure, she was right, my too thick thighs and rounded belly had barely visible stretch marks and I would never fit in a size four. But I thought I looked good with my hourglass shape and fluffiness, so did King. He’d worshipped every part of my body once upon a time, and if I decided I wanted him to again I knew he would.
The petty jealous part of me came to the surface and I told her so. “Your husband doesn’t have a problem with it. He used to try to smother himself between my thighs.” I rolled my hips vulgarly. “Now get out.” I pointed towards the door, then I went to walk past her. She reached out, grabbed my wrist, wrapping her slender fingers around it. Her nails dug into the skin drawing beads of blood. I snatched away and shoved her backwards. She easily steadied herself.
“Bitch, are you fucking crazy? You don’t put your fucking hands on me.” I squared up, raising my fist, ready to defend myself if I had to.
She closed her eyes, then shook her head. When she opened them her green eyes were dark and murky. I took a step, then another away from her until I’d backed into the desk in the corner of my room.
“You’re the reason he wants a divorce. You’re the reason he stays away,” she yelled.
My eyes darted towards the door. I regretted backing myself into a corner. Shit was about to get out of hand.
“King,” I yelled for him knowing that my momma was out trying to drown her sorrows in alcohol. I’d heard King stumble his drunk ass in. He needed to get his bitch. If she was his wife, I didn’t want any smoke with him for beating her ass. We were already on bad terms.
Her eyes darted back and forth between me and the door nervously “Shut the fuck up,” she tried to whisper under her breath.
I opened my mouth to yell for him again and that’s when I saw it. The butcher knife in her hand. Ironically, I knew it was from our kitchen downstairs, probably the sane one I had pulled out the day my momma took Spellman away from me.
My chest constricted. Before I could ask her what she was doing she yelled and lunged towards me. I didn’t think, I just reacted. I picked up the desk lamp beside me and swung. Crack! I heard it connect with her head. Warm liquid sprayed my face.
She fell to the floor and didn’t make another sound.
It took a minute for my brain to catch up to what had happened. When it did, I freaked out. I ran to King’s room to wake him up. I couldn’t even fully explain to him all of what happened.
“I killed her,” I kept screaming while he kneeled over her body.
“Calm the fuck down,” he yelled. I jumped but quieted. He pressed two fingers to the pulse on her neck. “No, you didn’t.” I calmed even more then, but nervously rocked on my heels. I just wanted him to drag her out so I could start to forget what had happened. I made up my mind then I was moving. I would take the help Ellis had offered. I couldn’t stay in that house any longer. My momma was walking around in a funk because James had finally left her a week earlier. She was being a real bitch.
“I didn’t mean for you to find out this way,” he said out of the blue.
So, it was true. I ignored the burning feeling in my chest, I said, “I don’t care, just get her out of my room.”
He sneered up at me. “You honestly expect me to believe that you don’t care?”
I folded my arms across my chest and cocked my hip. “Yes,” I lied. I did care a lot. Sometimes I cared so much it kept me up at night. I didn’t know how to physically stop wanting King. There was no way I’d show it, though.
I could see the hurt that flashed in his eyes when he lifted his head.
His wife whimpered and her hand moved to her head. “What happened?” she moaned as she tried to sit up.
King continued looking at me. His voice got low and ominous.
“I understand. You just don’t think I love you anymore because of this mess with her and the baby.” His voice cracked when he said baby. “I married her because I thought I loved her, then you gave yourself to me and I knew she wasn’t the one meant for me, you were. I forgive you and still love you. I can prove it.”
Before I realized or even imagined what he was about to do he put his hand over his wife’s nose and mouth and pressed down, cutting off her air. She started to fight in earnest. She kicked out and flailed her arm, clawed at his hands.
I was frozen for a half a second. Then I reacted. I had shoved him off her before I even knew I was doing it. He jumped up. He got in my face. We started yelling at each other, neither one of us paying attention to what his wife was doing, which was a big mistake. Somehow, she got up. I watched over King’s shoulder as she stumbled in our direction. I thought she would attack him. She had every right to, but instead she pushed past him.
“Get away from him,” she screamed and lunged for me. He caught her mid-air, but she swung wildly. She was able to slash my face with her fingernails. “He’s my husband,” she kept screaming.
Stupid bitch. I had saved her life and she was still trying to attack me?
When King pulled her off me, I turned away. Unable to watch what would happen next, I left the room. I didn’t care what he did with her.
He came downstairs five minutes later. He sat on the sofa next to me.
I flinched away when he reached out to wipe my tears away. “She won’t try to hurt you ever again.” Roughly he grabbed my face and rasped, “Look at me.” He didn’t force my head around, but his grip on my jaw tightened until I faced him. “I’d never let anyone hurt you, Eden. You never have to worry about her again, ever”
I knew what he meant by ever. I shivered. Just thinking about it caused my heart to speed up. I tried to swallow but found it difficult around the lump that had lodged in my throat.
“Look at what she’s done to your pretty face,” he said. He leaned in to kiss the scratches on my skin. He paused and lingered when he got to my lips. “I have to go, Eden.” Just as he said that the doorbell rang. “Go to the guest bedroom and shower, but before you do that stuff your clothes into one of the trash bags in there. Leave them outside the door. Don’t come out of the guest room until I tell you.”
Everything he said to me went in one ear and out the other. He pecked me on the lips. “Go now, Eden.” He walked over to answer the door. He was talking to two of the guys from the hotel when I slipped out of the side door into the garage. I was barefoot wearing nothing but my cami and panties.