Mine (Real, #2)(62)
However, I did show the note to Melanie.
“What the f*ck does this even mean?” Melanie demands when I show it to her the next day.
She looks at me in complete bewilderment. “I don’t know.”
“I’ll tell you what it means. It means ‘I’m a little shit, just like you’ve always known I am but refuse to believe it. I’ll be back once I f*ck up you and your boyfriend’s life again. Don’t try to stop me.’ That,” Melanie says angrily, “is what it means.”
Yet again, I remember what she told me about Scorpion, and I wish I’d paid a bit more attention.
“If she went back to Scorpion, then Scorpion is what she deserves,” Mel huffs.
Feeling as confused about the note as the first moment I read it, I sigh and address the other woman in the room. “Josephine, do you want something?” I offer my in-building bodyguard, the “she-male” Melanie had said had been following us previously at the fight. I hadn’t even known Remington—the adorable possessive jerk—had already hired someone to protect me. And Josephine is actually a very sweet, but clearly big and dangerous, woman.
“No thanks, Miss Tate,” she says in her rather gruff voice from the corner, where she’s keeping one eye out the window and the other on a magazine.
Melanie brings her hand up to stifle a giggle. “Do you call Riptide ‘Mister Tate’?” she asks her.
Josephine nods politely. “Of course, Miss Melanie.”
“Brookey, I can’t believe anyone would call your guy ‘mister’ in any way. ‘Mister’ is for dudes in suits. Do the other two female guards call him ‘mister’ too?”
Josephine nods, and Melanie continues giggling delightedly.
Kendra and Chantelle are my other two bodyguards, purposely female because Remy would not have a male around me, but they’re always doing rounds outside my building or around the elevators. Remington left in an extremely restless state because of Scorpion and Nora—damn them.
Pete assured him, “They got her sister now. They don’t need Brooke to f*ck you anymore—they’ll do it through Nora again.”
“No. No, I won’t let it!” I promised. But I have heard nothing, nothing, from Nora—nothing but this stupid note.
“The anger I feel is beyond words, Melanie, beyond description,” I tell her as I tuck the note into my pocket again.
“Chicken, I’d be f*cking fuming. She does not. Deserve. A hero. Like Remy to save her. PERIOD! She wants Scorpion? Scorpion is what she deserves!”
“Mel, just thinking about what he did last year because of us makes me sick. I won’t let him hurt himself for me or for anything of mine. Anything. Not even for this baby!”
Melanie hugs me. “I know, just don’t work yourself up for the baby.”
“Mister Tate is a very lucky man,” Josephine blurts out from her chair, nodding.
“Oh, Josephine, there should be a new word for love between these two,” Melanie says, pushing her blond hair back and tapping a manicured nail to her lips as she narrows her eyes thoughtfully. “Josephine, we should give them a name like Bennifer and all those famous couples. Help me think of one now that you’re into all those gossip magazines. How about ‘Bremy’?”
“Why don’t I invent ‘Miley’? For you and Riley?” I shoot back.
Melanie grins and plops down closer to me. “I do like his friendly little visits. He came over every night, and we had a blast. But he’s got a good thing going, Brooke. He’s loyal to Remy in an incredible way. He’d never leave what he has for me, and I’d never leave my life for him.” She sighs and drops her head back to stare at the ceiling. “So I guess we’re friends.”
“With benefits.”
She smirks cheekily. “Yeah.” Then she grabs my hand. “But I want what you have. I’ve fallen in love a hundred times in my life! But never like you. So I wonder if I really fell or just tripped, you know?”
Smiling, I cup the tiny bulge in my stomach and grab her hand with the other. “Here. Feel this. This is the little bubble I told you about . . .” And even Josephine comes over.
“Is that the baby moving?” Josephine asks.
I nod and take her hand and put it next to Melanie’s. “I think he’s already starting to learn how to hook. But don’t tell Mister Tate yet.” I tease her with the Mr. part. “I want him to feel it when I know it’s the baby for sure.”
? ? ?
THE EIGHTEENTH DAY arrives tomorrow.
The eighteenth day arrives tomorrow.
I have not died. No tragedy occurred. Nora did not try to make contact and put me in an awful position. Remy did not go black. My penance has been lifted and I. Am. Going. HOME. To Remy. TOMORROW!
With my beautiful baby safe in my womb, exactly twelve weeks old today.
I feel a thousand and one tingles inside me as I pack my stuff. And there’s quite a lot of stuff to pack. So, yes, ultimately, I was given a platinum credit card and was feeling a little sad missing my man. And with the devil called Melanie perched on my shoulder as we goofed around on the Internet, I caved in and bought a lot of baby things and a couple of pregnancy things for myself too. It seemed that the more I bought, the more I was telling the energies around me—this baby is happening.