“I know,” he said. “Doesn’t bother me a bit, love.”
It wasn’t entirely true. He wondered if, in fact, it would be possible for her to love a man she deemed an asshole?
Chapter Twenty-Six
The alarm went off, and Kimani leaped out of bed, thinking that she was going to be late for work, then realizing she didn’t have a job to go to anymore.
And that was because of Ben.
A man who had devastated her body last night. She was sore in a lot of places, especially between her legs, the interior parts that his cock had decimated. Yet she relished the sensation. Though she was glad he would be out of country, giving her a reprieve, she did look forward to his return.
“Your Asian hottie must be back in the picture,” Keisha remarked after Kimani agreed to Fulani braids.
“Just for three days,” Kimani admitted as she leaned back over a sink for Keisha to wash her hair. “This is more of an I’m-starting-a-new-chapter-in-my-life hairdo.”
“Yeah? What’s the new chapter?”
“Unemployment.”
“Oh no. You serious?”
“I’ve got a severance package, so I’m good for a while,” Kimani replied. Though I should probably be saving my money instead of blowing it on fancy braids.
“You’ll find a new job. Maybe better than the one you had.”
“Maybe.”
“I’m sorry, girl. My uncle works for the waste management company. Maybe they have an opening in their office.”
“Thanks. I’m sure I’ll find something.”
“That’s right. You got those degrees from Stanford and Cal.”
Wanting to keep the conversation on the lighter side, Kimani didn’t tell Keisha that the field of journalism wasn’t easy, no matter what schools one went to. She did, however, feel the need to confide her conflicting emotions to someone, and Keisha wouldn’t let her get away with anything.
“I knew my position at the Tribune probably wasn’t going to last,” Kimani said. “The paper was probably going to close regardless, so it shouldn’t matter that I lost my job because of him.”
“Who?”
“Ben. The ‘Asian hottie.’”
Keisha, working in the leave-in conditioner, stopped. “How’s that?”
“He bought the Tribune and shut it down. I guess I shouldn’t be mad because I got a more generous severance package, when I could have gotten nothing if the paper had simply run out of money.”
“He know you were working there?”
“He did.”
“Is he helping you find a new job?”
“No.” But I did get a childcare center and new basketball courts out of him.
“Then why are you seeing the guy?”
“Because I lost a game of twenty-one.”
Keisha raised an eyebrow. “What now?”