Page 14 of Mahogany 2
I’d been in and dealt business with a lot of women. But none of them were like her. Poised, polished…. Refined. Theywantedto stand out. Wore their masculinity on top of their femininity. Shit was unattractive. Because they figured business was a man’s world, they walked around head high, invisible nuts swinging instead of handling shit like a woman. To me, femininity would get them a lot further than chugging beers at the bar, acting like one of the men. Mahogany was a breath of fresh air, for sure. Nothing like what I expected.
Did I want her? Bad. Since I met her. I couldn’t get the thought of her eyes out of my mind. Couldn’t get the scent of her perfume out of my nostrils. I didn’t have to be here. Could have sent one of my niggas to meet with her on site. Could have treated her like any other contractor, but I couldn’t. Ithadto be me. Yeah, it had to be me because the project was personal, but ithadto be me for other reasons too. I didn’t want them niggas anywhere near her. They were under the shit too. Her spell. Enamored. Niggas wouldn’t shut the fuck up about ‘brown skin’ after the meeting. I had to reiterate the companies policy a few times. Had to recite it for my own good too.
Mahogany was off limits.
To my dick she was at least. Like this? Face to face… exchanging energy? She wasn’t. I was bound by no limits as long as my clothes stayed on and my dick behaved. Could get as hard as it wanted to… could think about her as much as I wanted to. As long as I kept my hands, my tongue, and my dick to myself, it was cool. I could do that. Could bathe in her scent. Could be enchanted by her energy. Dick could brick the minute I laid eyes on her. But… I could behave. I had control. An immense amount of self-control. Mahogany, as beautiful and captivating as she was, was of no exception to that.
“Blackissophisticated,” Mahogany said with a polite smile. “But we’re going for something different with this location, right? Softer. Neutral. Inviting. You might have to put black on consignment for a while.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I can do that.”
She cut her eyes at me. “You sure? I took a look at the portfolio and…”
Laughing, I interrupted. “Yeah, I’m sure. Whatever you think is best. I trust you.”
Silence lingered for a good five seconds before the tension in the area was split by the sound of louder construction equipment. Glancing over my shoulder and then back at her, I asked, “You’ve seen what you needed to see here, right?”
“Not exactly but if now’s not a good time we can reschedule for a quieter time of week!” She yelled over the noise.
“Right now, is perfect,” I told her, stepping closer into her space. “We can go over blueprints at the brunch spot around the corner if that’s okay with you Ms. Mills.”
Initially, she didn’t want to go over blueprints. Said for first look, she had to be on-site. Her creativity spoke to her best that way. So, despite the construction, I let her have her way, knowing fully that it wouldn’t work out the way she thought it would. I was like that. Bent the rules a little bit, complied… for a pretty woman I was at least… just to seem flexible and to prove a point.
She laughed with a hint of annoyance but failed to correct her name. “Yeah, we can do that.”
I knew her name. Knew it before the first meeting. After skimming through her social media accounts, I decided I would only address her as misses during the initial meeting. Just to be polite. Just to show a bit of respect. But to me her name wasn’t hyphenated. She didn’t have a husband. Whenever she was with me, she would be Ms. Mills, despite how disrespectfulit might’ve been. I didn’t want her as a misses—I wanted her as a miss. Didn’t want her as my designer neither. Wanted her on my dick. The second I saw her smiling in one of her pictures. Not the one that spread across her lips—the one I saw in her eyes. He wasn’t in it. The pictures with him were lifeless. The smile on her face, spread across her full lips, bright. The one in her eyes? Missing. She wasn’t happy. She was lacking. And I wanted to compensate. Hated Nina for finding her. Appreciated her too because Mahogany was brilliant. Her eye for design, immaculate. But shit… why couldn’t I had found her sooner, on my own? Separate from business?
The desire for more jumped off the screen the second Nina showed me her page. Couture Interiors run and operated by business mogul Mahogany Mills-Morris. Linked her personal page to her business page which to me… was a no go. I wasn’t attached to Skylight Industries. I kept the two separate. I had a page, but I didn’t fuck around with social media for real. Hadn’t logged on in months. Regardless of if I thought it was a bad business move or not, I appreciated the misstep. It gave me a little glimpse into her life. I wasn’t the social media stalking type, but her eyes called me. Urged me to dig deeper. Begged me to find the emptiness behind a set of slanted brown eyes that only lit up when she was around friends, with her kids, or talking about anything design related.
So, fuck no, I wouldn’t call herMrs. Mahogany Mills-Morris. Not again. Because despite her correcting me, she didn’t want to be called that shit neither.
“That’s a beautiful name,”Mahogany complimented. “How’d you come up with it?”
“The House of Nova Ray?” I checked. She nodded. “Nova Ray is my daughter.”
With raised brows she said, “Oh how cute! I know she must be excited. How old is she?”
I ran my tongue over my bottom lip and scratched at the top of my head. “My bad. Was… is… I get mixed up. She was almost two before she passed away.”
As expected, the mood shifted. For me too. I didn’t talk about my daughter much for that reason specifically. She was and always would be a soft spot for me. She was my only weakness. The only thing on earth that made me both human and animal. Softened and hardened me with her first and last breath. Losing her broke me in unimaginable ways. The short period of time in which I had her both shaped and broke me at once. Nova was… she did and still played a pivotal role in my life. Experiencing her was a double entendre.
“Oh, no… I’m—I’m so sorry for your loss,” Mahogany struggled to say.
I nodded, said nothing, and picked my cup of coffee up. I never responded when people said that to me because what the fuck were you sorry about? I was the sorry one. Sorry because I didn’t protect her. Sorry because time wasn’t on our side. Sorry because… hell, sorry about a bunch of shit.
“How long have you been passionate about design?” I asked, changing the subject.
She smiled. “For as long as I can remember, really. When I was a kid, I stayed going through my momma’s Home and Garden magazines just…” She shrugged. “Dreaming.”
Nodding, I said, “That’s wassup. Business has been going very well for you.”
“You know a little something, huh?” She asked, wearing a smirk.
I locked eyes with her, nodded and said, “I know a lot.”
She shied away as expected and went for that mimosa she needed a refill on. “But yeah,” she paused, ran a hand down the back of her neck and said, “Things have been going pretty good. You’re my first major, mainstream client though.”
“Is that right?” I asked, feigning ignorance, surveying her, watching as she toyed with her hair, smiled, looked away and shifted around in her chair.
