"Don't go there, Montie," I said, looking into his eyes briefly before walking away from both men.
"You slept with this fool?" Jacob asked. He pulled me to face him, while Montie stood there with a vindicated expression. “Look at me. I want to see your face. You slept with him?” Jacob asked again.
I protectively folded my arms across my chest and dropped my head. My silence was loud and clear.
“What do you think?” Montie was mumbling along with talking about how no good Jacob was and claiming he was the better man for me.
“Destiny, answer me!” Jacob said, ignoring Montie. “I've been calling you, worrying about you nonstop, and you were over here fucking Montie?"
"Don't act like you were concerned about me. I was in the hospital an entire week and you didn't come see me, didn’t even send a postcard. I've been home for over a week and you haven't called, come to see me…nothing. All things considered, I can sleep with who I want to, when I want to!”
“No, you can’t,” Jacob said, taking me by the hand and damn near dragging me into the house.
“Jacob, don’t pull me like that,” I said. I was glad he was holding my uninjured arm. However, I knew a headache would be coming on if all of this arguing didn’t stop. I suddenly felt tired, like I needed to lay down.
“Montie’s been scheming the whole time, trying to make it look like I don’t care about you,” Jacob said once we were alone in my bedroom. He’d closed the door and locked it in Montie’s face as he was trying to enter behind us.
“You can’t blame what you didn’t do on Montie.”
“Destiny, recognize who you are talking to. When I asked you to marry me and you accepted, did you know who I was?”
I looked into his eyes and I was furious. “You are not the man I fell in love with. You are a stranger.”
“I’m the very same man. After we’ve had a chance to talk, and you still feel the same way, I will take the ring and walk out without another word.”
“Fine. Come back tomorrow and we’ll talk,” I said, crawling into the bed. “I’m not feeling too hot.”
“Do you have something to take?” he said as he rummaged through the different medicine bottles on my dresser.
“Yeah, give me two of the pills out of the small bottle.” A sharp pain shot through my head and I couldn’t resist his help. He handed me the pills and the bottle of water that as on my nightstand. “Thank you,” I said before throwing the pills into my mouth and gulping down the water.
“I will wait until you feel better, but we are going to talk tonight. Either you’re going with me to my hotel or we’re going to sit here and talk,” Jacob said as he stood beside my bed. I closed my eyes and wished he would leave, but I also knew after seeing Montie step up to defend my honor, Jacob was hell bent on outlasting Montie.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jacob
I’ll Wait
At Destiny’s insistence, I sat in her room waiting for her to get things squared away with Montie. I could hear him arguing about her decision to let me stay so we could talk. I didn’t expect him to give up easy, but he was a pain in my ass.
I was seething when I heard Destiny say, “Montie, I just need about an hour to talk to Jacob. I need to close one door before I open another one.”
“So that’s how you’re going to play me? Everything has been alright until he shows up with flowers and an attitude, and now you’re kicking me out?”
“I’m not kicking you out. I’m asking you to give me some space for a while.”
“It’s the same thing, Destiny. Hell, if I knew that’s all it took to wow you, I would have sent you flowers every day when we were married,” I heard Montie say, as he stalked up the hall. I got up and went to stand in the doorway to watch their exchange.
“Montie, don’t make this harder than it has to be,” Destiny said touching his shoulder.
“You’re the one making it hard. I ain’t leaving, so you might as well go on back there and talk to him now. Me and the kids will be up here until you finish.”
“This is my house and I am asking you to give me some space,” Destiny stood firm.
“Dang Destiny, what could you possibly have to say to him? Where he stands should be blatantly obvious to you.”
“I have to get closure, Montie. You should understand that.”