Keyshia 

After Sydney was out the door to go to school, I began reflecting on the estranged relationship between Jason and I. Every day, without fail, my heart broke all over again. I hated living without him being present in my life. Of course he took care of me like he promised (although I refused the assistance) and he made sure Sydney got whatever her heart desired…but that wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to mend things. 

The first ten years of our marriage was solid as a rock. No relationship is perfect, but ours damn near was. Especially when you take into account all of the stuff we’d been through. After living in Brazil for five years, we were sort of forced to move back to my hometown of New York City. 

Because I had devastatingly lost two children to miscarriages, Jason felt more comfortable going back home to figure out what the hell was going on with me. Unfortunately, I was diagnosed with endometriosis. Carrying children was never going to be the same for me again. As if that weren’t bad enough, Jason and I were stubborn about having kids. We wanted more! So we kept trying..and trying…and trying. Up until I was on my fourth miscarriage. I couldn’t do it anymore. Each one tore me to pieces and I was tired of it by the time we were eleven years into our marriage. Jason had gotten busier with work, meaning I got just as busy. Adoption became an option but it had went on the back burner for a while.

Anyways, Alessandra had already beat us to New York once we decided to move back. His mother admittedly fell back under Jack’s spell so it made the move that much easier. Sydney loved her vovó and didn’t want anything less than to see her everyday. 

No more than a month of being back in the states, not only did Jason and his father work out their differences…Jack and Alessandra got married. I could not believe it. I still thought she was too good for him and it was baffling that she allowed herself to be another one of Jack’s wives. I couldn’t hate too much though— they looked ridiculously happy and stupidly in love. She managed to turn Jack Jameson into someone I’d never met before. He was no longer Jack “The Asshole” Jameson. He was a tolerant, charismatic, generous businessman who was ready to retire and leave everything to his trustworthy son. 

Jack even asked Jason at some point to start training our daughter on the ins and outs of the hospitality business; insinuating that he was okay with Syd running things some day. I didn’t mind him teaching her some things since it was basically in her blood to do something along those lines. I had already stripped her of being a child heiress. Her and Jason needed to bond and him showing her the works wouldn’t hurt. 

As far as privacy and being seen out in public goes, that continued being a feat for us. Jason wanted to take Sydney out to the park and other places a father would normally take their daughter…as well as vacations. It may seem absurd but the only way I felt comfortable with him doing that was if he told everyone that she was his goddaughter when questioned about it. Which, of course, bought up a huge fight when I first suggested it. He claimed that I was ashamed of him and that it didn’t feel right..

But he eventually did it. 

Thinking back on all of this stuff saddened me. I was the reason things ended. I was an awful wife who made life so much harder than it needed to be. Instead of going on “family” vacations, I stayed behind. Instead of going with them to the park, I stayed behind. So on, and so forth. It was crazy!! I hated myself for that. 

Once Sydney was in middle school, things took a slow turn for the worst. 

_____________________________________________________________________

*****The day that started the gradual decline was the night I agreed to go with Jason to a black and white gala that was being hosted by another A-list celebrity****

 I remember him showing up to my Manhattan townhome with a gorgeous white lace dress and a pair of designer pumps that were to die for.  

God, how could I forget that cheeky smile when he saw how over it I was. Without officially inviting him in, he ecstatically walked past me into the home and continued smiling at me as he held up the outfit. Dressed in a casual pair of light blue jeans and a tan henley tee, Jason easily fit in with the rest of of the pedestrians on the street.

“Jason…”

“Baby you haven’t gone to an event with me since my dad’s retirement party. So I think you owe me this. C’mon..we’ll have loads of fun” he tried to convince me before I had the chance to protest. 

“Where’s Sydney?” It was the summertime and she usually spent the whole summer living at his condo whenever he wasn’t working. Of course she liked his place better. 

“With Bernie..she’s in good hands” he quickly replied, referring to our babysitter. “So what do ya say??”

I looked at his sexy little smirk with an unenthusiastic facial expression. He knew I’d give in after a few seconds but I still liked to make him sweat. 

“Ughhhh..ok! But you already know the rules.”

And by rules I meant: no getting drunk, no taking tons of pictures together, no obvious public displays of affection, no mentions of our private life, and no loving stares from across the room. 

“Yeah yeah…now start getting ready. I’m way too anxious to see you in this dress” Jason grinned.

Before I took the dress from him, I leaned in and placed a nice lengthy kiss on his awaiting lips. “It’s hard to resist you Jason”

He pulled me back as I started to retreat, grabbing me into a more sensual kiss. Which, in turn, forced him to gently place the expensive dress’ garment bag on the foyer table. Jason wrapped his arm around my lower back and pulled me even closer to him. 

Next thing I know, he picked me up and carefully walked with me into the neighboring living room area. 

First my soft v-neck shirt was skillfully taken off and tossed to the side…then my comfy grey Soffe shorts. They found themselves on the hardwood floor next to the couch after Jason finally laid me down and positioned himself on top of me.

Of course one thing led to another and we made hot, passionate, sweaty love for the next thirty minutes or so. Like I stated before, it was hard resisting this man. And it was also nice to have time to ourselves without our sweetheart of an eleven-year-old being anywhere near us. 

The next hour was spent getting ready. It didn’t really take much of an effort for Jason to be fully ready. After countless events, he’d drop by my house afterwards…leaving plenty of suits and tuxedos behind. As any other great assistant would do, I dry-cleaned all of them out of habit; meaning there was a black tuxedo readily available for him in his closet. 

Being the perfect man he is, he summoned our makeup artist at the last minute and gave her a healthy tip for her services. Since I was wearing white, I went for a very soft look with nude glossy lips and barely noticeable lash definition. Natalie doubled as a hair stylist so putting my hair up into an elegant updo with tousled bangs wasn’t too much to ask for from her. The both of us cleaned up so nicely that I couldn’t help but to wonder how great of a couple we’d be if I actually wanted to be about that celebrity life.  

I stared in the full length mirror at my final look with a grin as wide as the Cheshire Cat’s. 

“You look drop-dead gorgeous” Jason said, voicing my own thoughts. He came up behind me smelling divine and making eye contact with me through the mirror. “I need you to know that I’m going to be spending the rest of my night holding myself back from ripping this dress right off of you.”

“Ditto, baby” He looked like a model straight off the cover of GQ with that tux on and freshly shaven face. Careful not to mess up any of my makeup, Jason softly placed a kiss on the back of my neck; inhaling my Dior perfume in the same breath. With a quick groan, he backed away from me and started heading towards the door. Keys in hand. But before he did that, he playfully slapped and grabbed my ass…making me yelp and shoo him away. 

Thankfully there weren’t too many people out there on the sidewalk so our transition from the house to the awaiting town car was effortless.

Arriving to the event center was another story. As soon as we pulled up, there were so many flashes from cameras that I found it hard to see exactly where we were. 

“Alright…you know the drill. I’ll go out there, show my face on the red carpet for a little bit, then I’ll meet you at the bar in fifteen minutes. Okay?” Jason turned to me to see how I felt about that, knowing full well he wanted me to go out on the carpet with him. 

I nervously squeezed his hand and breathed in a deep breath. “Yeah, sounds great.”

“Look at me” he took ahold of my chin and guided my head towards him. “We’re gonna have fun tonight. After the red carpet, no one gives a shit who you are, who you came with..any of that. Everyone is here for a good time.”

“If you say so, Jason.” 

“Alright, my beautiful wife. I love you” he reassured, placing a quick peck on my lips afterwards. In a matter of less than thirty seconds, our driver had came around to open Jason’s door and he was gone. Just like that. 

Once Gerard got back in the car, he obediently drove to the side entrance of the building and opened the door for me. One of the employees who— no doubt, spoke to Jason—met me almost immediately. The short middle-eastern woman confirmed my identity; then she grabbed my hand and led me into the building. 

Oh man, the setting was perfectly extravagant. Dimly lit chandeliers dangled from the highly-arched ceilings. Jazz music caressed my eardrums with its relaxing tones and chords. I peeped the pianist, harpist, and saxophonist from the corner of my eye doing their best to provide a great musical setting. Caterers smoothly walked around with their white tuxedos and dresses, making sure each guest was satisfied with their hors d’oeuvres. 

High profile celebrities and other well-known millionaires walked around, socializing and mingling in the process. While taking all of these surreal sites in, I made my way over to the rather large bar area and waited for Jason. I didn’t see him yet, letting me know he was probably still caught up with the paparazzi. Only thing left to do was to sit down and order something. Didn’t want to look too suspicious. 

After sitting down on the velvet coated barstool, I placed my clutch purse in front of me and got the bartender’s attention. She quickly took my order of a dirty martini and got back to making the drinks of other guests that got there before me. 

It wasn’t too long after I sat down that I heard the voice of another female calling my name. 

And what do you know? Alyssa Cambridge, ex-girlfriend of Jason, stood not even ten inches from me. I thought I’d never see her again. By now, she should be a washed up Victoria’s Secret model at her age. 

“Alyssa?”

“Yeah…wow, us running into each other is so crazy to me. I was just thinking about Jason not too long ago” she said. I couldn’t really tell if she was being shady or not but I wondered what the hell she was thinking about Jason for. Their relationship barely survived its first month!

Alyssa looked okay for her age. She still looked to be a size four but other than that, she looked pretty basic. She chose to wear a long black below-the-knee silk dress to this event. It was tight and hugged whatever curves she think she had. 

“How is he?” She interrupted my thoughts and sat beside me on an open stool.

“He’s doing great” Jason suddenly appeared, answering for me. I looked up at him and nearly broke my own rule of showcasing a loving gaze. Jason never failed to always be right on time for me. 

“Jason!” Alyssa exclaimed. “My god, I thought I’d never see you again! May I?” 

The nerve of her to ask me can she hug my husband, I thought as the bartender sat my drink in front of me. If I didn’t think she was being shady before, I definitely thought so now. 

“I don’t own him” I shrugged, displaying a fake ass smile and taking a sip of the delicious martini. 

It was like I could barely get my sentence out before she threw herself into Jason’s arms. Although he was caught off guard, he gave her a pity pat on the back. He certainly looked annoyed by her. 

Alyssa could see that she wasn’t very welcome in our presence so she took her cocktail and excused herself soon after. Jason sat beside me, slowly easing his wandering hand down the length of my thigh. 

“I checked in on Sydney…Bernie set up a movie night sleepover thing for her and her friends. So she’ll be busy until tomorrow morning.” 

“Sounds good” I nodded. “You look really handsome, Jason. Thanks for bringing me. No one seems to care we’re here together. I love it.”

“Told you” he smirked. He then took my hand and playfully did one of those Pepé Le Pew moves where he kissed all the way from my hand up to my neck. Laughing out loud, I flirtatiously pushed him away. 

“Wanna dance?” 

Of course I did. In the rare instance that Jason and I could openly be a couple, my heart was filled with joy. I was in no way ashamed of him, our relationship, or our little family. I loved him and Sydney more than myself. God I hated hurting them with my anxieties and fears. In a perfect world, I’d woman the fuck up and tell the world the truth! 

Jason took my hand in his and guided me towards the ballroom. Another, more lively, jazz ensemble played an upbeat song that had the couples on the dance floor dancing with lots of pep in their steps. I followed Jason to the middle of the floor and started moving along to the beat. Halfway into the song, a colleague of his spotted him and basically stole him from me. Tended to happen whenever we came to these kinds of events. As if he were on cue, Jason mouthed “i’ll be back” before being dragged over to the other side of the room.

In the meantime, I awkwardly stood there with folded arms. But after five minutes of turning down dance requests, I found myself grabbing a fluke of champagne from a waiter. About to walk over to an empty table to seat myself, a familiar voice appearance once again.

“Alone?” 

I gave Alyssa a look of annoyance. “For a few minutes, yes.”

She followed me over to the empty table I spotted and sat down without an invitation. 

“Suuuure. I’ve been to plenty of these events with different men and let me tell you, Keyshia, they all do the same thing. He doesn’t mean to, but Jason is as high-profile as they come. Everyone wants the chance to talk to him. So he’ll probably be gone for a bit if we’re being honest with ourselves.” She glanced at him talking on the other side of the beautifully decorated room.

“What do you want Alyssa?”

“I don’t want anything except to let bygones be bygones between us. I mean, it’s clear that you don’t like me for some reason…when in reality I should be the one not liking you.”

“Excuse me??” I was taken aback. Seriously girl?

“And before you bite my head off…please hear me out. When I was dating Jason, I kidded myself into believing that I wasn’t just a rebound. Man, he was such a nice guy. I knew he didn’t intentionally want to hurt me, but he broke my heart believe it or not. He never confirmed it, Keyshia, but I could tell he was in love with you. Especially after seeing you in his apartment that night. I went home crying my eyeballs out. It hit me like a ton of bricks knowing that me and him could never have a future.”

Hearing her side of the story was…unexpected. All I saw her as was not only a rebound…but a roadblock in our story. Now knowing that she had actual feelings for him and felt like that was hard to hear. Damn.

“I never told anyone about you guys’ relationship by the way. I liked the two of you. You never did anything malicious towards me and I’m a good enough person to not do that type of exposure. Also, your story is not mines to tell.” She looked down at the huge ring on my finger, making me self-consciously cover it up. “Congrats on your marriage. Your daughter is beautiful.”

Speechless, the only words I could mutter out of my mouth were “thank you”. 

“No problem, girl.” She smiled. “Now that that’s out of the way, I’m extending an invite to get you loosened up and to have some fucking fun for once. Sitting here waiting for him to come over is boring. Me and a bunch of other girls are gonna make use of the open bar and then head to an afterparty once we’re done.”

“Oh…” I focused my attention on Jason chatting it all the way up with yet another douche in a suit. “I don’t know”

“When was the last time you truly had fun?” Alyssa pressed. 

Biting my lip, I took a few seconds to come up with a decision. “Yeah, ok. Alright. But I’m leaving whenever I want to. Don’t even bother trying to stop me. This was supposed to be a night reserved for me and him.”

“Understood…now, let’s go!”