Dennis’s povMy face felt hot. “You know that’s not true.”“Do we?” Julian sais sharply. “Let’s be real, Denny. Can I call you Denny? Let’s be real. You come from what, a two-bedroom split-level in… where was it again? Someplace with a lot of chain restaurants. And now you’re here. It doesn’t exactly take a genius to connect the dots.”“I’m not married to him for his money.”“Right. Of course you didn’t. And I suppose you just accidentally fell in love with a billionaire. Happens to the best of us. Tripped over your own feet and landed right at the altar.”“We love each other.”“Of course he does,” Julian sais as he laughed with his brother. “We are not here to cause trouble. We’re just… concerned. For the family. For the business. You have to understand, you’re… well, you’re a variable we didn’t account for. A bit of bad luck.”“Bad luck?” The words were like a physical punch.“Well, think about it,” Marcus said, ticking points off on his fingers. “Since you two got… involved, there
Alex’s povThe heavy oak door swung inward, and the wave of sound hit us first. Not loud, exactly, but dense. I walked in to hear a murmur of conversation with smooth jazz playing in the background.I looked behind me to see Dennis was tense but he tried his best to hide it. It was failing.My family would eat him alive if they sensed any kind of weakness within him. I had to protect him from that happening.We crossed the marble foyer, our footsteps echoing way too loud. The living room, or the ‘main reception salon,’ as my mother called it; was through the wide archway. The moment we got there we saw a lot of people having a cocktail party. They were all smiling and dancing and having so much fun with each other as I noticed they were all family. Extended and nuclear.Right in the center of that attention seeking Larry were my parents. Having so much fun.Lyon Taylor had a way of standing that made everyone around him seem like they were leaning in. My mother, Leticia, was laughin
Alex’s povThis was not how I planned the night to go. I had waited for him to come back so we could have a romantic date. But here we were and I hated everything.I started to feel guilty for how things were turning out. It didn’t take long before he joined me to pack up a few things as we both zipped up our things and he sat down on the bed with a sad aura around him.“We really need to be on our way,” I said in a calm manner.“How long will we stay in the family house?” He asked as I sighed.“Dennis…”“How long?”I sighed. “A few weeks.”“So we’ll live there for the three weeks we will be there?”“The place is a big place. I doubt they’d notice anything.”He stood up to face me. “We’d be the only gay couple there. God knows what they’ll say to us.”Before I could say anything he carried his bags and walked out of the room as I started to dress up for the outing.***The limo was too quiet. That was the first thing that got to me.The hum of the cars engine as it purred through the
Alex’s povI looked at Dennis and then the phone as I sighed. “I have to pick it up,” was all I could say as I frowned. My romantic time was ruined thanks to whatever call was there. The person calling better be important or I would lose my mind and make sure the person paid for this interruption.I went there and picked up my phone to see it was a name I didn’t know would call me. At least not now. I mean… I wasn’t in trouble was I?“Are you gonna get that?” Dennis asked me while I looked at the phone.“Dad,” I said, because saying his name was answer enough. The ringing stopped and then started again right away. Lyon Taylor didn’t like to be ignored. I thought that was a trait we shared, one of the reasons I butted heads with him more often than not. Groaning from within my throat, I sighed and nodded.“Hello?”"Alexander,” his voice broke out as I held my breath. “I was beginning to think you were going to avoid me. What were you doing that you made the phone ring for that long?”
Dennis’ povThe key turned in the lock as I got into the house. The drive home had been all about shaking off the… the weirdness of the hotel. Lydia’s face, all desperate and hopeful in that expensive room that smelled like bleach and mistakes.She just didn’t get it.What part of ‘I’m married’ is wrong? And not just married. Married to him. Alex.I pushed the door open and the first thing I felt was cold. Not broken air conditioner cold or anything like that but… on purpose cold. Crisp night kind of chilly but inside the house. And smell? Flowers. I looked to the fooor and saw rose petals, fanned out across the dark floor from the front door and leading into the stairs. Red ones. Dark red. It was then that a sound got to my ear. Music. The kind of music that’s all bass and no vocals.“Um,” I said in shock, “what?”I wasn’t planning to come back to this but to be honest there was only one person that could do this and that was none other but the great Alex.It was then that I notice
Sophia’s povStanding before her door was something I didn’t plan to do today or ever but now I was here I had no idea what to do.I had run out of options so being here to beg her to come back to me was all I could do at this time.With a deep sigh, I knocked on the door and waited as I heard a clatter inside before it opened for me to see her.“Oh. It’s you,” she said as I sighed and looked around the hallway before looking at her. “Well you can go back to your fancy house because I’m kind busy.”She tried to slam the door but I rolled up some cash from my purse and used it to block the door from slamming shut.The door stopped dead. There was just this… silence. The only sound was the rustle of the money against the cheap metal of the door frame. I could see one of her eyes through the crack, wide and furious, fixed not on me but on the cash. The anger in it was a live wire, but the money was a bucket of water.“You have some nerve,” she said while opening the door. “You think this