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  On the outside looking in, as long as I was fully covered and my makeup was perfect, I was a beautiful woman. Strangers looked at Derrick and me and wondered how he’d gotten such a gorgeous girl. Yet, he knew the ugliness under my clothes, which kept a distance between us. I knew that we weren’t in love. We were dealing with each other. And, still, we had set the date. I had started trying on dresses.

  But a month ago, I started to feel that he was colder than normal. It was sudden. So sudden that it was heartbreaking.

  And now we’re here…

  “You’ve been acting strange…different,” I told him. “What’s wrong?”

  I felt so much hate from him as he seemed to be slurring angrily. “What are you talking about?”

  I softly set my fork down and leaned in a bit. “Derrick, please don’t insult my intelligence.”

  “I don’t know what you’re—”

  “Derrick!” I gritted.

  I had gotten too forward. White folks started to glance, and that’s always a clue for a black person that they are doing too much.

  “Can you at least respect, if not me, our history enough to be honest?” I asked.

  His broad shoulders slumped so dramatically that I knew the truth before he said it. “I don’t think we should get married.”

  “Wh-what?”

  I must have looked like a stuttering idiot to Derrick, as he sat cockily across from me at the table.

  He started, “I don’t—”

  The waiter appeared at the worst possible moment. “How are you two doing? How are your steaks?”

  “They’re fine,” I spat quickly.

  The waiter, caught off guard by my sudden fiery attitude, hesitated. He then looked at Derrick, who wilted a bit in embarrassment. “The steaks are great. Everything is fine,” he told the waiter.

  The waiter forced a smile, saying, “Great,” and then hurried away, while, I was sure, cursing me out in his head.

  “You don’t what, Derrick?” I urged.

  He avoided my eyes, staring into his creamed spinach. “I don’t think we should get married.”

  My heart rate sped up. “Wh-when did you come to this conclusion?”

  He stared at my shock for just a few seconds before dropping his absent expression. He sat back, away from his medium-rare steak, and spoke to me with such a lack of emotion that I felt like I was sitting across from a stranger, instead of the man that I had been sleeping with for the past nine years. “It's been on my heart for a few weeks.”

  My mouth dropped, my heavier bottom lip dangling ridiculously. “A few weeks?”

  “Yes. We—” A heavy sigh of frustration interrupted him and caused his brow to furrow. “We aren’t in love, Tempest.”

  I wanted to argue with him. I wanted to profess an undying passion and affection for him that would cause me to die without him. I couldn’t, though. The connection and chemistry that I had experienced between my mother and father was not at all present between Derrick and I. We had love for one another, but we weren't in love. But being in like with my fiancé was okay with me because I hadn't even thought my disfigurements would get me that far in my life.

  So, I allowed him to go on without admitting that I knew he had never really been in love with me, that I was willing to marry him out of comfort and desperation.

  “We’re just getting married because it makes sense. We’re both educated. We’re both driven. We’ve been together for years, so our morals are telling us that we have to get married. But our hearts? Are our hearts in this or just our minds? Can you say that you are actually in love with me? Do you have a love for me that will keep you with me even when we’re arguing, when we hate each other, when the sex isn’t good?”

  “Are you seeing someone?” Still, even though I knew I wasn't in love with him, I felt as if there was something else, something more.

  Derrick’s eyes lowered, and he shook his head slightly. “You’re missing the point.”

  My gut began to turn. “You didn’t answer the question.”

  “I…” Then he began to hesitantly speak his next words. So, I held my bated breath, waiting for the heartbreaking truth. “I’ve been dating… no one serious, but a few—”

  My full lashes blinked rapidly again. “A few?”

  “Yea. I’ve been dating, exploring, getting back out there.”

  I began to gnaw on the corner of my bottom lip. “While we’re engaged.”

  “I needed to see if what I was feeling was right, and it is. Even with the women I’ve been seeing, it’s different.”

  All I heard was that these other women were prettier, perfect, with flawless skin; not massive scars that were nauseating to look at.

  I stood, unable to take the conversation anymore.

  “Tempest…” he called for me as I threw my napkin down on the table atop my uneaten entre. “You’re going to just walk away?”

  I had to.

  “That’s immature as hell,” he insulted me.

  And the way that he was looking at me told me that this was indeed over. If his words had not convinced me, his repulsed expression did. He no longer even liked me enough to mask his disdain for me, my presence.

  Without a word, I turned on my heels. I couldn’t say another word without completely losing it, bursting into tears. Instead, I marched out of the restaurant, knowing that Derrick cared too much about appearances to yell or come after me.

  No matter my personal insecurities, my heart was not breaking because I was losing Derrick. As I stormed out, swiping to the Uber app on my phone, I knew I was not losing him. He was losing me. And not only that, little did he know, he had just walked away from a fortune.

  Chapter 2

  Damien Coleman