Vengeance

She shrugged. “You have a dilemma, one that I anticipated would come up. How much have you told him?”

“Depends on if we are talking about lies or the truth.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to tell him that you’re Caprice Tatum?”

Marcella finally put the SUV in gear and pulled out of the lot as we continued talking.

I shook my head. “I don’t see how anything positive can come from that. And there’s a trust factor. I can’t risk him telling someone else. Caprice is dead. She died in 1987 and she’s not coming back. Nor do I want her to come back. It’s hard enough being Ladonna and Wicket.”

“I understand. You’re going to have to either get some closure with him before you leave, or figure out if you want to take it further.”

“I’m leaving and he has his father. He can’t uproot him like that, and we’re not even at that point yet.”

“I’m not sure what to tell you about trying to take on a serious relationship right now. I’m honestly on the fence. You deserve to be loved, but we still need to work on loving yourself. On the other hand, Jonovan might be able to make you want to do that very thing.”

“Then I guess I need to discuss it with him.”

“We’re both on the same page with that one.”

We rode in silence the rest of the way. Marcella must have realized that I needed to do some serious thinking, and that’s exactly what I did.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Friday, February 8, 2013

8:36 p.m.

Miami, Florida

Here we go,” I said as I cut the ribbon in front of Wicket’s Thicket for the grand opening. All

the who’s who of Miami were there, along with a lot of New York– and Los Angeles–based celebrities. I wouldn’t call any of them my friends; I would say that I was friendly with them. “Welcome to Wicket’s Thicket Miami!”

I had tagged the Miami part on because I already had plans to make it a chain. In fact, Daddy and I had either broken ground or started renovating buildings in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas already. No Atlanta for obvious reasons.

Jonovan was standing right by my side. I had decided that I simply couldn’t walk away from him. He meant too much to me, and he’d made it clear that I also meant too much to him. The grand opening was an opportunity to introduce him to a lot of people he could interview for G-Clef. An intro from me went a long way in convincing people to grant him interviews.

There was a level of comfort for me with Jonovan from the start. Before there was ever a Wicket, or even a Ladonna, Jonovan had genuinely cared for Caprice. No, we had never hooked up, but he had been my friend. Even though I was far from an expert at relationships—never had a bona fide one—it was embedded in my thought process that your soul mate should also be your best friend. Someone you feel like you can discuss anything with, without believing that they will judge you or throw things back up into your face later on. That was the one true danger of relationships, the way that I saw it. Not being cheated on. Not being ripped off for money. Not being manipulated. The true danger was the possibility of your pillow talk being exposed if things didn’t work out.

Before I left for New York that prior November, I had gone to speak with Jonovan. I went over to his house and asked him to come out onto the porch for a moment. I didn’t want to drag the conversation out. It was going to be difficult enough. It turned into a life-changing experience that I never saw coming.

* * *

“You sure you don’t want to come in?” he asked, pointing at the door. “I was about to make a pot of hot chocolate.”

“Wow, I haven’t had hot chocolate since I was kid.” I shook my head and put my hands in the pockets of my fleece jacket to keep them warm. “But, no, thank you. I can’t stay long.”

He looked around and noticed the CLS550 in the driveway, empty of other people. “No bodyguards? I’m impressed. Usually, they linger outside my house like the secret service when you’re here.”

“I insisted that I do this alone.”

Jonovan looked concerned. “Do what alone?”

I took a deep breath. “Everyone’s back at the house . . . packing.”

“Oh, you’re taking a trip? Concert or something?”

“My tour starts right after the New Year.”