Jason

I glared up at my egotistical father and pressed my lips together. He had just stormed into my office and slammed a magazine article onto my desk.

“What hell is this?” he barked.

With a calm and collected voice, I continued to stare up at him and responded by saying, “What is what?”

“Look at it, Jason.” He paused and actually waited for me to look down at the cover of the implausible source of a magazine. “Do you need a quick reminder to what I told you about seeing this woman?”

“I think you’re confused. First of all, that woman is my assistant…-“ I began to say, attempting  to save my ass. But then I quickly thought about it. I claimed to be in love with her. And I also claimed to do anything for her so why was I sitting here practically lying to my dad’s face about seeing her? Honestly, I don’t understand how he hasn’t quite figured it out yet.

 “And I uh…I love her. She’s amazing.”

His immediate reaction was camera worthy. “Love? Son, you know nothing about love! Especially with her kind! They’re all nothing but gold-diggers looking for an idiot like you to ball up at their knees! You’re not in love with her. You don’t love her-“

“As if I haven’t already lost all respect for you…” I started after standing up to get face to face with him. “You come into my office with even more of your idiotic racist bullshit and expect me to listen to you and follow behind you like I’m some naive little sheep. I love her, I love her, I love her. And I will continue to repeat it as many times as I feel necessary until you get it locked inside your head that I am not going to be a pussy like you and risk the chance at being with the love of my life because of something my dad says.”

Jack Jameson stared at me as if he had just realized that he has completely lost his one and only son. For a second, I saw a glimpse of sadness cross his eyes. “You’re not to talk to me like this” was all he could sputter out.

“You think I’m not supposed to stand up to you? It’s 2012. You have hundreds of people of color working for you, yet you continue to act like you give no fucks about them. I see right behind that stupid façade of yours. You’re afraid that I’m going to make the same mistake you made with my mother. And I refuse to keep acting like this shit is okay…”

A couple of seconds passed before the either of us made a sound. I knew what was inevitable though. “I’m keeping my promise, son. This ‘relationship’ is unacceptable and in my eyes it will always be unacceptable. Until you come to your senses that I’m only trying to do what’s for the best of you, I’ll have to essentially…-“

“Fire me from the business?” I cut him off and finished the sentence he seemed to be having a little trouble with.

If I didn’t know any better, I could have sworn the man looked a little pained to do what he was doing. “Jason, believe me. It’s not something I take pride in doing. You’re outstanding at what you do and you’re carrying the family name well, but…this. This is just unacceptable. I cannot allow this. Your grandfather will not allow this. If I let this happen, I could potentially get cut off as well and-“

“Alright. I get it. Please. Leave. I’ll have my shit out of this office by the end of the month” I responded with a nonchalant demeanor. He needed to know that I was in no way fazed by the mess he was pulling.

Jack nodded his head and slowly ambled towards the door.

“By the way…dad?”

He turned around slightly so that only his head was facing me.

“You’re a shitty father. You do know that, right?”

All I got in response was a crooked smile and a “You did just fine without me, son. And I’m sure you’ll do even better outside of this business.”

Before I had the opportunity to ask him a certain question that sprang to my mind, he closed the door and proceeded to leave the building.

Keyshia knocked on the door seconds later. “Come in” I answered, sitting down in my chair.

“Everything okay? Your dad left here looking pretty upset. Did you tell him off?” she beamed.

I took a moment to admire the sheer beauty of my nosey girlfriend. She was dressed in a form fitting teal knee-length dress with the diamonds I recently purchased for her wrapped around her neck. Ever since the night of the ball we went to, she started to wear her hair all different types of ways. Today, she had her long brown locks styled into a sexy updo with loose strands falling past the front of her ears.

“Jason…babe, snap out of it. I think I just saw drool” she giggled flirtatiously.

Just to make sure, I pressed my thumb against the corner of my mouth and smudged off any sign of saliva. “You might wanna sit down.”

“Okay…” Keyshia muttered before sitting down and crossing her left leg over the right.

I sighed and looked lovingly into her brown eyes. “My dad ‘fired’ me-“

“Is it because of me?” She started to panic with a pair of wide eyes. “He found out about us? I told you not to take me to that stupid event!!”

“Keyshia!  Sweetheart. Calm down!” I leaped out the chair and sat on the large desk, directly across from her. “Never mind that, okay? I get to have the chance at a new beginning. I have a five-star top notch hotel being built, hundreds of millions saved up, and numerous endorsements that will keep me living comfortably. I’m free from the pressure of having to be perfect in my family’s eyes. Don’t you see? I’m going to be doing so much better than I previously was.”

She stared up at me still showing signs of feeling guilty. “C’mere” I whispered, holding my arms out for her. Keyshia lifted herself out of the seat and positioned herself between my legs. I wrapped her smooth chocolate arms around my neck and pressed my forehead against hers.

“I would give everything up for you, you know that. I’m begging you not to feel guilty about this. My dad has no idea how much this will backfire on him. Hear me out, alright?”

She responded by pulling herself closer to me and placing soft pecks on my lips. Taking complete control, I drew her bottom lip in and started to slowly devour the sweet taste of her mouth. Keyshia let out a soft low moan and hesitatingly ended the kiss. “I love you Jason. I mean it.”

“I know.”

Keyshia

Two weeks after Jason was fired from his family’s company, my life got exponentially busier. I had to single-handedly send emails to every employee of Jameson Suites about what happened. Some of them-okay, actually hundreds of them-up and quit right on the spot. It seemed as if people were only working for Jameson Suites because Jason was running it. Even though it wouldn’t be much of a change (since there were tons of managers that did their jobs extremely well) people took it hard. I also had to start helping to clean his office out.

Nancy, his publicist, put out a solid press release about him leaving the company and of course everyone had something to say about it. No one could believe it. After the press release, the office got flooded with tons of more resignation letters asking to work for Jason wherever he was going to next.

There were two parts to the news coverage. The part that was strictly based on the future of Jameson Suites and the other part which was focused on what scandal made him want to leave. I tried my hardest not to pay attention to the different ideas each magazine came up with…but I soon found out that every single one of them was wrong about what could have happened. Even People Magazine. You would not believe who was actually right.

The dumbass editors at Enquiror.

But since they’re notorious for being completely and utterly wrong, I thanked God that it turned out like that.

At around four in the morning on a Saturday, the sound of some idiot knocking on my door had the audacity to disrupt my much needed sleep. Instead of waking all the way up, I groaned, slapped my arm across Jason’s bare chest, and told him to get it.

“Are you expecting anyone?” I could feel his breath on my neck. He was tired as well and I felt a little bad for asking him to get the door. This was his way of trying to get out of doing it.

I turned to look at him and gave him the irresistible puppy dog face. “Pleeease? I don’t have any clothes on and it’ll take less time if you just hop up and see who it is” I stuck my bottom lip out and blinked a few times.

“Alright” he sighed, giving in. “Don’t be alarmed if I wake you up to make love…” he trailed off before removing the covers and hopping out of the warm bed.

I sat up with the cover remaining loosely wrapped around me. “Promise?”

“Cute” Jason replied. “I’ll be right back.”

Jason

As I yawned and stretched, I prepared myself to cuss out whoever was on the other side of that door. Who the hell would make a trip to someone’s house at the crack of dawn?

Without taking precautions-looking into the peephole-I swung the wooden door open. Two pairs of hazel eyes greeted me with a look of pure shock.

“Oh gracious god…” the elderly lady breathed out, with a hand on her chest. Her mouth remained agape at my bare chest, making me feel suddenly uncomfortable. “I’ll be damned…” she continued to say.

“May I help you?” I asked, noticing the strong resemblance between them and Keyshia.

“Yes, Mr. Jason Jameson…by the way, you’re my favorite celebrity…my granddaughter lives here and we just got in town. Is she here?”

I stared down at her and a short flashback came to my memory. Keyshia had said something about her family basically disowning her because of her skin tone.

“Babe!”

“What?!” she loudly moaned back. “Who is it?”

“Your family.”

Keyshia

Everything in my body froze at Jason’s last sentence. If this was a cruel joke he was playing, I would cut his balls straight off. If it wasn’t a cruel joke…

Damn.

Shit.

Motherfuckers.

How many people decided to come? Which ones? Why the hell were they here?!

I tossed the covers off of me, rolled out of the bed, and slipped on my lavender silk robe. Before leaving the room, I grabbed Jason’s shirt. None of their grimy asses needed to be looking at him with lustful eyes.

My heart raced as I turned the corner into my living room. And sure enough, two of my so called family members were standing there. Jason let them in and closed the door behind him.

He didn’t know how much I hated them, but if he did and still let them in, I would choke the shit out of him for doing this to me.

My eyes met his and he immediately took notice of the fire burning in them. “Cynthia, what the hell are you doing here? Jasmine, I can't believe you let her come knocking on my door at this time of night!” I all but yelled, handing Jason his shirt. 

“Tomorrow’s the 10th anniversary of your parents’ death…”

“Yeah. And?” I said with maybe a little too much attitude. “You haven’t come by in the past ten years. So what makes this one special?”

“We saw you on TV and-“

“Hold up.” Everything in the room instantly got quiet. You could probably hear someone blink. “Are you fucking serious? Really?”

Jason looked at me, eyes full of confusion. “I’m guessing I wasn’t supposed to let them in?”

I ignored him and stepped closer to my grandmother and lameass follower of a cousin. “You used my parents’ death as a reason to get closer to him?!” I started to cry, pointing at Jason. “How low? Seriously. How fucking low of you? How DARE you?!”

“Keyshia…” Jasmine finally started to speak in a soft tone. “Calm down. We just-“

“Oh shut the hell up! You don’t know what it feels like to be kicked out of your biological family because of some type of racist bullshit! You’re literally perfect for Cynthia! She adores you. So please shut. up!”

The two of them glared at me with their mouths damn near touching my hardwood floor, so I continued on with my rant. “You probably thought I was the same nice little girl you left ten years ago. Well think again…granny. I’m not an idiot and I am not going to welcome you with open arms. I despise you. If Grandma Alice didn’t take me in, I would have been homeless! You promised my dad that you were going to take care of me and let me tell you…I bet he’s turning in his grave right now because the one person he thought would take care of his only little girl turned out to be the biggest…most heartless…bitch that ever stepped foot on the face of this earth.”

Cynthia’s eyes began to water but I didn’t feel an ounce of pity for her old ass. “Keyshia…I’m begging you for your forgiveness. Please.”

I had the sudden urge to burst out in laughter, but I bit it back. “It’s not that easy. I don’t think I can ever forgive you for treating me like I wasn’t my father’s daughter. He loved me more than anything, maybe even my own mother. I was his little angel” The last part of my sentence came out as no more than a whisper.

All of the flashbacks, even the hurt and pain I felt, stabbed me like a sharp knife. By this time, I was so overwhelmed with emotion that I couldn’t speak. I was choked up. My eyes were burning from the lack of sleep combined with the tears flowing down my checks. I hadn’t noticed that Jason’s arms were wrapped tightly around me until he whispered in my ear.

“Should I tell them to leave?”

“It’s alright. We’ll let ourselves out”

Moments passed before I heard the door open. “By the way, I didn’t actually want your forgiveness. We already got what we came for” she spat.

She looked up at Jason and smiled. “It was nice meeting you.”

The rest of the night was spent practically wailing in Jason’s arms. As he rocked me back and forth, I couldn’t help but to think about how dirty my family treated me. My stomach turned every time I thought about the actual reason she came to my apartment. In the back of my mind, I knew it was possible…but for some odd reason, I thought the woman still had an ounce of dignity left in her.

How much more fucked up in the mind could she get?

What real woman would leave their thirteen year old granddaughter hangin? Yes, there is a fine line between love and hate…but I know for sure that I absolutely detest that woman.

“Hey” Jason softly whispered, still caressing my hair. “Try to get some rest. I’ll have a cup of tea waiting for you when you get up and you can tell me everything that’s on your mind. Okay?”

I nodded my head and fluttered my puffy red eyes shut.

Over the last two weeks of the month, I struggled to push what happened to the back of mind and allowed myself to focus on cleaning out the rest of Jason’s office and looking for another job behind his back. I knew he had plans on me being his assistant at the hotel in Rio, but that’s almost like asking me to move with him there and I wasn’t ready for that type of commitment.

Commitment meaning living together without knowing exactly where or relationship was headed. Sure, I know the man’s head over heels for me, but did he want to marry me? He’s considered one of “America’s Top Most Wanted Bachelors”. Why would he want to change that over me? Some hooker look-a-like he met in a club who’s from the poorest borough in New York City.

“You alright?” Jason asked, tearing me out of my thoughts. We were on a commercial flight halfway to Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. I had already gotten sick three times and we hadn’t even reached South America yet.

“Yeah. I’m good. I'm sure it’s just motion sickness.”

I knew it was much more to it though. He had no idea about my sore boobs or me throwing up way before we caught the flight.

And sometimes during the night, I would have to get up and pee like ten times before the sun rose. Good thing I scheduled a doctor’s appointment as soon as I got back to the states. Jason would have my head if he found out something was going on with me before I actually let him know what was up.