Read Mistress No More Online

Authors: Niobia Bryant

Mistress No More (23 page)

“Of course not. Of course not. Let’s officially acknowledge that. But was it right for these men to have sex with a minor? To abuse you. To use you just as much as you thought you were using them.”
Aria’s eyes dulled at the thought of all the men. Faces she remembered. The many more she’d forgotten. “No,” she answered.
Dr. Kellee pressed a board eraser into Aria’s hand. “Erase the men. Erase them. Erase them, Aria.”
If only it was that easy,
she thought, accepting the eraser and cleaning the mirror with circular motions.
“Who do you see?” Dr. Kellee asked.
Aria started to be flip and answer, “Me,” but she didn’t. “I see an educated, attractive woman.”
“Look deeper,” Dr. Kellee nudged softly but firmly.
Aria studied her reflection. Her asymmetrical hair that she was growing out, her pretty summer dress and pale gold heels. Her bronzed brown complexion. Her sheer makeup. Her wedding ring.
“Beyond the physical, Aria.”
Aria looked into her own eyes in the reflection. They mirrored her soul. Her emotions. Her being. Her fears. Her everything.
Emotions swelled up.
“I am . . . am afraid that I will never outrun my past,” she admitted.
“Good. Keep going,” Dr. Kellee urged, stepping back from the mirror and Aria’s moment in time.
Aria opened and closed her hands at her sides. “I am scared that I am still
that
person.”
“Yes.”
“I am afraid to fail.”
“Yes, Aria. Speak what you feel,” Dr Kellee urged from somewhere in the distance, her voice an urgent whisper.
“I don’t feel I deserve to be loved.” Her lip quivered and she bit it deeply as her shoulders slumped under the truth of her words.
“Why, Aria? Why?”
“I hate myself,” she admitted with an emotional gasp as she covered her mouth with her quivering hands. Her knees weakened and she stumbled back.
Dr. Kellee stepped forward and caught her, pushing her upright. “Stand up, Aria,” she urged. “Stand up.”
Aria did, wrapping her arms around herself, her emotions running on high. She felt drained.
“They took from you, from your foundation. Just as much as you took from them.” Dr. Kellee stepped forward and embraced Aria tightly, massaging her back like a true nurturer.
“We will work on rebuilding that foundation, Aria. You and I. Okay?”
Aria nodded, glad for the comfort, the compassion, and the support. Even glad for the truth. A little piece of her felt just a tiny bit freer.
“We will work through it all so that you can forgive the most important person of all in this, Aria,” she said, rocking her back and forth like she was soothing a baby.
She looked up over Dr. Kellee’s rounded shoulder, knowing the answer before she even said it.
“You, Aria. You have to forgive and love yourself.”
Chapter 12
T
he ties binding Jaime felt more restrictive than all of the years with Eric. She felt strangled by her mother’s whims and weighed down by her father’s restrictions. She felt like a child.
The last week had been filled with soirees, charity functions, and the like. Jaime was tired of smiling and nodding. Tired of endless chatter. Tired of being her mother’s puppet.
But what choice did she have?
Money makes the world go around and her parents held the purse strings. It was them or Eric. Either way she wasn’t in charge of her own life.
She raked her manicured fingers through the layers of her hair and then straightened the row of cultured pearls she wore around her neck. The jewelry perfectly suited the pink short-sleeve cardigan she wore over a crisp white Ann Taylor sheath dress. Soft perfume. Neutral makeup. Kitten heels.
The perfect socialite costume.
“Hmph.” Jaime bit off a bit of her pale pink lip gloss as she studied herself.
This woman in the mirror was Jamison “Goody-Two-Shoes” Pine who became Jaime “Mrs. Stepford Wife” Livewell. Neither one fit her.
Turning away from the reflection, Jaime grabbed her Coach straw purse and keys, leaving her bedroom. It was time to go and get some Jesus, and Virginia Osten-Pine didn’t like to be late. It was the first time Jaime would walk into a church since she’d left Eric.
And with everything going on among their circle of friends, Jaime could honestly say she needed to talk long and hard to God.
Her kitten heels clicked against the floor as she made her way out the front door. She paused and looked up and down the quiet street. She hated that she felt like she was being watched. Her life tracked. Her movements monitored. Eric was controlling her life from a distance by fear of her own actions.
She hated it.
As Jaime made her way to the Honda Accord, she spotted Lucas walking along the side of his house into his backyard. He turned, spotted her, and instantly turned away. No wave. No friendly smile. Nothing.
It had been that way since that night in her car. The night she’d let hurt pride and horniness push her into a one-night stand with her neighbor. They hadn’t exchanged words or even a direct look since that night.
I wanted to take you out to dinner and get to know you better. I wanted to build on the attraction I had for you. My plan damn sure wasn’t to screw you in a parking lot, but I took what
you
offered. ”
“Lucas,” she called out, following an impulse, walking across her lawn to reach his.
He stopped and looked at her over his shoulder. She gave him a hesitant smile and a wave.
His round, boyishly handsome face showed his surprise for a quick second before he threw his hand up quickly and then continued on his way.
She started to go behind him but stopped herself, instead turning to walk to the car. She eyed the cars parked or passing by on the street. She hadn’t seen Eric in days but he’d called. He’d taunted her. He’d tried to lure her to come back with threats and bullying tactics.
No romance. No words of apology. No wooing.
Just get your slave behind back to the plantation. That’s how it felt.
Jaime had even considered it for a hot second, but good sense prevailed and she was moving on. “I can’t go back,” she said, climbing into the car and then reversing down the drive. “I’m not going back.”
If Eric was having her followed then she was leading her shadows straight to the doors of church. She even listened to gospel music to help her get her mind focused.
To not think too heavily on Eric. Or Jessa. Or Lucas. Or . . . or . . . Renee.
She was even glad to pull the Honda into the fenced parking of the Church of Distinction. As soon as she’d grabbed her embossed, leather-bound Bible and stepped out of the car she saw her mother walking away from a crowd to approach her in a peach silk suit with matching shoes, purse, and wide-brimmed hat. Pulling from endless years of fronting, Jaime plastered her pageant smile on her face. “Morning, Mother,” she said, hating that she wondered if her outfit would get a thumbs-up.
It didn’t.
“Jaime, you really should have on hosiery.”
“Of course,” Jaime answered, feeling twelve years old and ready to scream and throw something like a two-year-old might.
“And the car could use a good washing, Jamison.”
“I’ll have it detailed first thing tomorrow,” she replied, her voice monotone.
“I hope you will heed everything we said about your friendship with Renee,” her mother said, as they crossed the parking lot.
Jaime’s anger sparked and she literally had to bite her bottom lip to stop herself from telling her own mother—on church grounds—to shut the hell up.
“Remember, Jaime, people think birds of feather flock together. Do you understand that a woman’s reputation is everything?”
She eyed her mother and damn near rubbed her hands raw.
See, this shit right here is not working,
Jaime thought, the whole time she gave her mother a smile more fake than gold-plated jewelry sold at one of those dollar stores.
“Hi, Baby Girl,” her father said, snapping his cell phone closed before giving her a close hug and then holding her close to his side with one solid arm around her shoulders.
“Eric denied the settlement offer,” he said to her as they walked toward the front of the large brick church that was just as much a high-society gathering as a place of worship.
“What settlement offer?” she asked, wishing she had her shades to block the sun from her eyes.
“The attorney made a reasonable offer to your husband—”
Jaime paused in her steps. “But I haven’t spoken to an attorney,” she protested, looking at her father’s profile.
“Oh, there’s no need,” he scoffed, waving his free hand dismissively. “You let me and Cole Jennings take care of it.”
What the fuck?
Jaime reached up and squeezed the bridge of her nose and forced herself to count to ten—three times.
Do something, Jaime. Say something.
“Daddy, can I use your cell phone?” she asked. “I left mine home and I need to check on something really quickly.”
I’ll just add lying on church grounds to my other sins.
He handed her the phone and Jaime walked away from him, scrolled to recent calls, and dialed back the last number on the list.
“Yes, Mr. Pine.”
Jaime paused at the deep voice. A brotha. “Actually, this is his daughter, Jamison. Are you Cole Jennings . . . my attorney,” she asked, glancing over her shoulder to be sure her father was preoccupied.
“Yes, I am. I wasn’t expecting to speak to you today.”
Jaime smirked. “You probably weren’t expecting to speak to me at all,” she quipped.
He chuckled.
“Listen, I need you to e-mail me a settlement arrangement and let me approve them or make suggestions . . . because no one knows what I want or deserve like me.”
“Okay, anything else?”
Jaime felt stronger, mentally and physically.
Life is what you make it, Jaime, so fuck it; make it about you.
“Yes, from now on my father is out of my business and out of the loop,” she told him, feeling like she could tear off her going-to-church cardigan and burn it.
“Should I send you my bill then?”
Jaime arched a brow. “No,” she stressed. “Now, my degree isn’t pre-law
but
—true or not true—your expenses can be covered as part of the settlement arrangement?”
He sighed. Jaime’s frown deepened.
“Your father and I have a lot of business ties outside of your divorce matter. Let me speak to him first and then—”
“Oh hell no,” Jaime snapped.
“Oh my word.”
She whirled around as an older woman made a face and hurried past her. “Sorry,” she said even though she turned her back on the woman.
“Mrs. Livewell, let’s make an appointment for you and your father to come in to my office tomorrow morning?” he offered.
Jaime rolled her eyes. “I’ll call you back,” she said, watching her father motioning to her that it was time to go inside.
She snapped the phone closed and made her way to them. “Bathroom break. I’ll see you inside,” she said, turning to walk up the driveway and into the side entrance to the church.
Once she married Eric she attended his church, but she was baptized and reared in the Church of Distinction. The minister of the last three years was new to her but the church was not. She was grateful for the air-conditioning as she made her way down the stairs to the basement and turned the corner leading to the ladies’ room.
The sounds of the organ music filled the church as Jaime used the facilities and then washed her hands. She studied her reflection in the mirror.
Not to fluff her hair or arrange her clothing or even to check her makeup.
“Who are you?” she asked her reflection softly, tapping her hand against the vanity as she crossed one slender ankle over the other.
Her parents’ daughter. Eric’s wife. Pleasure’s trick. Jessa’s fool. Lucas’s one-night stand. And now her parents’ charity case.
Every step of the time line of her life was about somebody else. She’d thought her “relationship” with Pleasure was empowering her when in truth she’d let his dick whip her into submission. She paid but
he
controlled.
Jaime left the restroom and climbed the stairs to the main church. She joined the line of people entering the church, seeing her mother turned around in the pew and looking for her. She was just sitting down next to her mother when her cell phone vibrated.
Jaime looked down inside her pocketbook as she opened an incoming text. The sight of a glistening wet and hard as steel dick made her jump in her seat.
Several people looked around at her. She ignored them, looking back down in her purse at the words below the pic.
Cum and get it?
Pleasure.
Sunday was usually their day and she would work him and his dick for every red cent she paid him.
Even as her pussy throbbed and she crossed her legs to press down on it, she snapped the phone closed, resolving to kick her addiction. She hadn’t called him since he left her pussy high and dry in the strip club that night.
She paid, but he controlled.
Jaime knew that in all aspects of her life, she had to get like Janet and get some more control.
ASAP.
Richmond Hills’s Architectural and Landscaping Committee didn’t play around. Nothing about the stately entrance showed evidence that Renee had crashed into the front exit gate. Everything was back in place. The gate repaired. The once-missing landscape replaced. And she knew the bill had been promptly sent to Renee and if she’d failed to pay the bill, the fines would accrue, and the committee had every right to place a levy against her home.
As Jaime pulled up to the control box and entered her passcode, she made a mental note to talk to Aria about that.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Hall, but your passcode no longer works,” Lucky said through the window of the security booth.
I really hate Eric,
she thought. “Of course. I’m sorry. Just call Mrs. Livewell,” she said in an authoritative tone, slightly embarrassed.
“Right away.”
Soon the gates of Richmond Hills opened and Jaime cruised through, ignoring Lucky’s wave. She still had plenty bougie in her.
As she drove to Aria and Kingston’s home she avoided looking at her old house or Jessa Bell’s up the street. Now her husband and friend could really get it on. They did as much under everyone’s noses.
Aria walked out onto the porch as Jaime parked in the drive behind her SUV. “Oh Lord, Pollyanna’s back,” she teased.

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