Love Redeemed, Book 4 (36 page)

“I’m in a meeting. Is everything okay?” his voice
is hard, terse even.

I guess there’s nothing to do but get right to it. “
Azmir, do you know our wedding pictures are on the Internet?”

“What?” he grates
so coldly that I can’t decide if he’s angry at the news or annoyed with hearing from me.

I swallow hard
. “Yes. I’ve been on Sandra Rose and The YBF, but haven’t made it to Bossip or the others yet.”

“Fuck!” he whisper
s on an exhale.

“Someone snuck on the yacht to steal these pictures, Azmir. Someone who knew we…I didn’t want them public…” I end tentatively.

“Sound
s like you have someone specific in mind,” he somewhat snorts.

“Azmir, Tessie told me Dawn was there. She gave Tessie some bogus excuse for arriving, flashing her PR title for entry,” I sp
eak through gritted teeth, growing angrier by the word. “She wasn’t invited.”

“Are you suggesting that someone that’s contracted with me would risk their reputation
and job to get a few shots for what…a few bucks?”

My eyes f
all in annoyance. Already he’s ready to disprove my theory. To defend Devious Dawn. “Azmir—”

“
Someone who, by the way, is paid to quell bullshit like this? C’mon, Rayna. That’s like having security orchestrate an attack. It’s possible, but not all that plausible for a simple businessman like me. I’m not the fucking ruler of the free world.”

Him putting it that way not only reduce
s me to a child with a hyper-imagination, but it pisses me off, too. I don’t know where to go from here. When Azmir’s Brooklyn-block-boy persona is out, I don’t have any wins.

“Look, I’ll look into this right away. I promise, I’ll find who’s resp
onsible for this, I know this is exactly what you were trying to avoid. I have to go. I love you,” he murmurs softly.

Although our conversation end
s on a placated note, I’m embarrassed and can’t shake my suspicions of Dawn’s trickery. But what can I do now? He has to go back to his meeting.

“Love you, too,” I return, just above a whisper.

I stay, stuck in place at my desk, still chewing on Azmir’s words. I even hold the phone to my head, enduring the blaring disconnect alarm. His analogy of the type of status he holds rings in my head. Though I still have yet to understand Azmir’s rise, I have to admit that I signed up for it when I agreed to marry him. I don’t want the fanfare, the constant fissures in our bubble, the sharing of traditional personal events with people I don’t know
. But I’ve chosen him. I’ve relented to his chase.
That’s what I meditate on while going about the remainder of my day.

It’
s well after six p.m. I’m sitting in my office, going over x-ray films, when I get a text from Azmir:

Sorry for being so short earlier. It’s been a stressful few days returning to work. Facetime tonite
@ 9. Grab your iPad.

iPad? I have
n’t thought of that thing since our breakup, last year. I have to think of where it is. After a few beats, I recall Azmir having it delivered here and me tossing it in an underused drawer. I turn to open it, and sure enough, it’s here. Nice and dead, but here after months of abandonment. I text Azmir back, agreeing to it and then make my way home. After locating and plugging the device into the charger, I go into my regular night regime.

Finding time to kill before he call
s, I start to reacquaint myself with the iPad. I didn’t set up much in it before my breakup with Azmir, but I recall feeling it was such a cool device. When I unlock it, I immediately see a picture of Azmir and me at the charity he invited me to right after our blow up about him paying Sebastian off. We were seated at our assigned table, leaned into each other for the camera. My smile was barely stifled and the look in Azmir’s eyes was soft…peaceful-like. I know I didn’t set the picture on here, so my curiosity carries me over to the photo app to see what else I can discover.

My breath cat
ches when I see there’s actually an album, created at some point. I start sliding through at least two dozen pictures of me, and others of Azmir and me. Many of them were taken while I was asleep, a few when I was gazing introspectively out at the water in his cabin cruiser, some of the two of us at social events, and a handful of me laughing away from the camera. What amazes me are the ones of me naked from the shoulders up with a flushed face and glistening skin, hair damp and stuck to my face, lips swollen and parted, dozing, clearly after having just made love. All of these pictures capture me in delicate states. I’m not angry, sheepish—or fleeting in the pictures. I’m very much happy and in love. I’m soft, feminine, and valued. I’m his to adore. To love. Azmir had loved me, even back then.

The emotion that lance
s through my belly can’t be explained. I never knew these photos even existed. I had no idea Azmir is the memorabilia keeping type. They are intimate photographs of shared experiences by us, revealing a sentimental side of him. Now it makes sense why he had the iPad delivered to me out of all my other belongings. Maybe I’m reaching, but I believe Azmir wanted me to see myself through his eyes. He wanted me to capture his love for me at a time when I didn’t think it existed.

I must
run the slideshow of the collection of photo ten times, losing myself in the message of it. When the iPad trills, I look at the time on the nightstand and note Azmir is six minutes early.

My heart pound
s like elephants in a safari while I wait for his image to appear. When we’re connected, I notice the weariness in his eyes. As beautiful as he is encased in dark chocolate, I know Azmir is overworked. He’s lying against a headboard, wearing a tank T-shirt that exposes his bubbled arms and the lumps of his carved chest muscles. I swallow deep in fortitude. For the first few seconds after being connected, he doesn’t speak, just studies my appearance in the box contemplatively. I attempt to break the awkwardness that it causes me to feel.

“Quiet much? This feels a little stalkerish instead of communicative
,” I jeer on shaky vocals.

Azmir cock
s his head to the side, bringing that tongue to his molars. “You don’t usually stalk something that belongs to you.”

Awwww…Azmir…
I fight through my cheeks heating.

“How have you been?” he ask
s softly, in clear contrast to our previous exchange.

“Lonely, angry
…down right miserable without you,” I easily admit.

Azmir nod
s solemnly. Though he doesn’t offer words of comfort, I somehow sense his regrets through that simple act of nodding as if he’s somehow slips his long, capable arms through the screen and wraps them around me. Suddenly, I feel overwhelmed with emotions that need to escape my tormented heart.

“Clear your weekend schedule for me?”

“Always,” I almost cry. Even over the telephone, Azmir breaks down walls inside of me.

There
’s a pause before he murmurs, “Richard has been bouncing off the walls with proposals, trying to take over the world and drag my black ass with him. The
Mauve
project has been hugely successful, but demanding seeing that I’m the front marketing man for the US, South America, and Canadian markets. Brett has been out sick…some flu-like bug.” He lets out a long and deep breath. “And when my ever-efficient executive assistant is away, the mice play. I have very small eyes and limited vision on the home-front.” Then his eyes land on my breasts that are clad in one of his worn tank T-shirts. My nipples immediately tauten. “And—”

“…when you have a new wife
, at home, causing more grief than relief—emotionally…physically—it makes for a tight Azmir Jacobs.” My eyes slam shut as my exasperation for myself stirs.

First Lady
Twanece’s voice pops into my head when she heeded during one of our premarital counseling sessions, “
Men of leadership and those that govern others have a short attention span for complaints. They are solution-driven and can quickly become dismayed by cries of discontentment, even from the home. As his wife, it is your job to filter complaints, and what little you do bring to him, be sure it’s accompanied by solutions. Minimize those concerns that are not
.”

Discovering those pictures has
tipped me over the ledge. I feel aroused and guilt-ridden simultaneously. I don’t have a solution, or proof that it’s Dawn who leaked the pictures. All I have is gut intuition. I don’t want to be that type of partner to him.

“Azmir, I’m sorry…for everything. Sorry for not telling you about my past—the shooting
s, the money, the murders, the secrets…the demons. I’m sorry for the nagging, the pushbacks, the pouting, the neediness. I’m sorry for trying to turn the blame on you for going the lengths you did to learn about my demons. It’s all still tender, but I’m glad you’re now in the know. I have nothing else to hide.” I exhale. “I just want to try to give you what you give me every day.”

He nods
again, seemingly taking in my words. There’s a peaceful stretch of silence for a while. Then his telephone rings.

“Shit,” he sw
ears underneath his breath after checking the caller’s I.D. “I gotta take this, Mrs. J.”

I nod, not feeling as sad as I did before unloading on h
im, but disappointed that he has to go.

“Since Brett is out, I’ll have Dawn forward
the details to his temp that will, in turn, forward you an itinerary for this weekend; I’ll be doing
Mauve
promos.”

I
steel against the plush pillows of the bed at the mention of her name. I haven’t forgotten my suspicions of what she’s done, but momentarily escaped them to reconnect with my husband. I don’t want any dealings with Dawn, don’t even want her name pouring from his delicious lips.

“Aye,” Azmir call
s my attention back to him. “Don’t pack panties, you won’t be needing them.”

My mouth waters
at his carnal promise, “O-okay,” I squeal and readjust myself in my seat, feeling all of a sudden liquidated that quickly.

T
onight, I dream my favorite dreams: those of six feet and four inches of dark chocolate blanketing my needy body.

Time sp
eeds up considerably after that soul cleansing conversation with Azmir. I attend my counseling session, Bible study, and dance class for the week. My travel itinerary arrives the following day via email, detailing my flight plan and car travel to the hotel where Azmir will be staying in Washington. Overlaying my disdain from Dawn having a hand in this wonderful information is my excitement of seeing Azmir. I’m looking forward to doing absolutely nothing with him, but raise his heart rate and race his breathing with varied parts of my anatomy. I also have an evening with Erin to look forward to.

While on our way to the restaurant, I g
et a call from April, reminding me that I never followed up on her voice message to me a few days earlier. Certainly, nothing April has to offer is a topic I want to hash out in front of Erin, so I let the call go to voicemail. After listening to it, I tell myself not to forget to contact her next week sometime, seeing I’ll be leaving for Washington Friday morning and won’t return until late Sunday.

Over dinner and while delighting in Erin’s imaginary play with chopsticks, I decide to check my
calendar to mentally prepare for my weekend. I know I have a light schedule at work tomorrow, which is great. I want to preserve all my energy for the big guy. Other than picking up my birth control pills, I have very little else to do before my flight. I’m slightly annoyed that I punked out of getting the birth control shot after Azmir’s reaction to my mention of it to him that day in his office when Dawn and Shayna were meeting with him.

He predictably brought it up later when we were alone. He was extremely gentle in his approach, but it annoyed me that I had to make a production out of choosing
my
birth control. I want the convenience of a one application method; he doesn’t want the long-term commitment.
It’s my body!
For every argument Azmir presented as to why I should continue with my current regimen, I gave him pushback. I fought him on it simply because I felt it was not his decision. But I digressed remembering First Lady Twanece’s heeding:
You don’t argue just to have a voice in a fight, you fight for a resolution. Love is yielding
.

Still partially listening to Erin’s pretend chat,
I then move on to glance at my email. We’re waiting on dessert and I want to be sure that Jim Katz has responded to a report I sent him this morning. In search of it, I see Sharon sent me an e-mail about thirty minutes after I left the office. It’s a forwarded email from Brett: Azmir’s itinerary. It’s strange getting it on a Thursday; they typically arrived on Mondays.

“Let’s go on the boat and fly kites,” Erin trill
s, totally engaged in play. I snicker, knowing she’s referring to Azmir’s cabin cruiser when we took her sailing and Azmir taught her how to fly a kite while we cruised against the mild winds.

I absentmindedly open
the email out of pure idleness while we wait. I see the itinerary is from last week, stretched into this week. My concentration lands on this weekend’s schedule, hoping that my lazy plans won’t interfere too much with his promos. That’s when I discover that Azmir is due to appear, two hours, at a function at
The George
in Georgetown.
If my geographical logic is working, Georgetown is not in the state of Washington where Dawn has set my itinerary.
No. In fact, my itinerary from Dawn is set across the country from where Azmir scheduled to be in less than twenty-four hours.