Naleighna Kai's Literary Cafe Magazine January 2018 New Year, New You | Page 66

they parceled her mother off to a man looking for a bride who would be loyal to him.
This man, who had “courted” her the moment they met in a coffee shop near campus,
had hidden behind a cloak of respectability and seemed to have embraced the fact that
true love travels on a gravel road. This relationship had hit a pothole, and Chicago was
full of them. She knew what it would take to maneuver—a concrete layer of strength
in her heart to fill the empty spaces, a steamroller of courage to lay it flat.
“Evidently, I was wrong about you and I won’t forget it.”
She scanned the document, snatched his pen and crossed out ten children, made it
six, ignoring his grumble of dissent. Then she instructed Tina to add a clause that she
would finish her education on her own time and her own dime.
her.
Yes, she would graduate and have that bachelor’s. He would not take that from
Darek grimaced with all the other changes she slid in, but Tina’s smirk and
admiration weren’t hard to miss. Samara struck down quite a few more unreasonable
demands he had Tina type in at some ungodly hour of the morning.
Only when she was satisfied that what was left on the page meant she wasn’t selling
what was left of her soul, did she place her signature on the bottom. Tina’s hands were
trembling as Samara did so, a sure sign that she still wasn’t comfortable with this either.
Signing a prenup under duress was unethical, and in some cases, might be illegal. But
money did more than talk; it was a whole conversation unto itself.
She left the two of them standing in the foyer, gave Darek a last look over her
shoulder before opening the doors to the ballroom where she gazed at the guests who
were becoming anxious at her disappearance. She took a deep breath and stepped into
the beginning of what would only be termed a hellacious marriage. Fortunately for her,
it ended with a car crash on the Dan Ryan Expressway twenty-seven years later. Her
husband died. His mistress survived. How ironic was that?
* * *
Darek Mandel’s repast was in full swing—food, music, condolences laced with
gossip and hints to the fact that Samara was now a wealthy woman, and so were the
six wonderful children brought into this world—mostly Irish Twins—children born
one right after the other. Ebony, her oldest daughter, stood by her side, watching the
people circling like vultures, eyeing the contents of the house as though pricing the
artwork, furnishings and everything in between. Rumors had spread that Samara was
going to give away everything that her daughters didn’t lay claim to.
Tamika, the mistress whose life had somehow been spared in an accident that took
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