Chapter 1

One

P retty

My fingers felt numb going at the chords all day, but this new music just simply had to come. I'd only been back a few weeks since touring, but as an artist, the work from me had never stopped. Music was in my bones, and talent had helped me rise to the top.

It wasn't easy being a Colored composer, especially when you were a woman. I had to work twice as hard to be half as good, but my Bajan mother always ingrained in me wise words.

If greedy wait, hot will cool . Patience was important, and entering the industry more than a decade ago, patience was all I had. Now, I was finally reaping the benefits finding myself into spaces that was rare for a Black woman. Lavish dinner parties, glamorous red-carpet events, but nothing quite felt like home, especially with how much being away affected how I showed up for my family.

This time when I was home, I vowed to be more attentive to my husband, and show up more for my son. Before we had Elijah, my husband and I couldn't keep our hands off each other, and there wasn't anything I'd give to have that version of him back.

I chalked it up to my body, before Elijah. I was definitely more on the slim side, but having a baby added pounds to my frame that I just couldn't get rid of. Going from a size eight to a size eighteen could change the way anyone would feel about themselves.

Thankfully, I hadn't let it affect my confidence. I wasn't going to shrink myself just because of the added weight, and I for one, I had a handful of famous designer friends that had no issue clothing me in sizes their lines didn't carry. Besides, gaining weight didn't take away from my attractiveness.

If I could just remind Vernon that I was still the woman he married, maybe, just maybe, I could keep him from slipping away from me.

I didn't know what was with me today.

Something about these chords just weren't coming. Being at the piano all day, it was times like this where I knew I could use a break. With my career, I'd been fortunate to purchase this lovely home right in the center of Back Bay, a neighborhood I never thought that I would view the inside of unless I was cleaning someone's house.

But here we were, four floors, seven bedrooms and five bathrooms later, living up like no white person believed we should. Times were so hard for me and my mama. She was just seventeen when she left her native Barbados in search of the white man who had left her pregnant on her small, little island while he was on holiday.

For the longest, it was just me and her in a run-down old studio that wasn't fit enough to call it an apartment. But she knew that I had the gift, and that gift had gotten me all this. I wasn't just grateful, I was blessed. Blessed that I'd be able to give my child a better life, and blessed to never have to live in a one room house ever again.

Since Elijah was at school and my husband did a lot of traveling while he managed artists careers, I found myself browsing around his study, questioning why he would spend all his time here instead of spending time with his child. I got it, he worked hard, and I did too. But I still managed with the time that I did have to spend it with my son. So why couldn't he?

There really wasn't much in here that sparked my interest. He set things up to the point that it was very much a man's domain, but my name on a package caught my attention, and because he also ran my fan mail, most things he handed over to me immediately because he knew how much it impacted the way I worked.

Sure, it was nice to win awards sometimes, and it was even more amazing to be recognized in my field, but the thing that meant the most to me was handwritten letters from folks telling me how much they adored my compositions. Why on earth would he hide one from me?

The letter was already open and the parcel it came from was rummaged through, but as I read the words written back to me, it was evident that it was nothing flattering at all, filled with malice and hate for me, I almost threw up over reading the words back.

You fucking fat porky bitch! You don't deserve the life you have. If it were up to me, I'd skin you like the pig that you are.

Fear flooded in my gut as I brought my palm over my mouth, digging in the parcel to further feed my curiosity. There were pictures of me. In candid places, places that I frequented often.

Someone was watching me, and my damn husband was keeping it from me. Before I could put things back where I'd found them, there he was, walking through the door, his shocked expression being everything I expected, seeing me stumbling across the package.

"Pretty, sweetheart, what are you doing with that?" He asked in an accusatory tone. Vernon wasn't what anyone would call traditionally handsome. His skin was too dull, nose too wide and before me, the man could barely dress. But what brought him in my life was that he believed in me.

He believed in my dreams, and he believed in my talent. My mama never liked him. My mama never liked any foreign man for her daughter. If it were up to her, I'd be with a nice Bajan man. But the States is where she raised me, and this was just what I was attracted to. Plus, he wasn't so bad in our early days, he used to make me laugh so hard I would cry.

Now it seemed like all we did was argue. About the touring, about the money, about every single thing we could find to argue about. Hell, if we weren't arguing, half the time we weren't even talking.

"Vernon, when were you going to tell me about this?" I said, waving the words of threats in his face.

"Pretty, the only reason I didn't show you is because it's nothing to worry about." A that, my neck snapped.

"Nothing to worry about? Someone is taking pictures of me! Pictures of me doing everyday things. How the hell am I not supposed to worry? This is my life. This is my safety. This is our son's safety. How the hell am I not supposed to worry?" With a wave in his hand, he dismissed me, chalking up my feelings to simply overreacting, like he always did.

"Because, baby, they're just words. Empty threats. Ain't nobody gonna try anything with you. They'd be stupid to try. What you need to be worried about is them deadlines, something you're never going to meet until you listen to me about hiring a damn nanny."

It was hard for him to understand. Where my mother came from, we didn't hire nannies. We took care of our own damn kids, but the more money we took in, the more money he seemed to spend. With the few people we had hired in for help, I wasn't comfortable with some strange woman being in charge of what my son learned or how he behaved. All I wanted was for Vernon to do his job as his father and step up more.

"Vern, I don't know why it's so difficult for you to just want to take care of your own son. That would solve the problem indefinitely. I'm willing to scale down just to make all this lifestyle work. To make our marriage work." He sighed once again, not taking my feelings seriously about the subject at hand.

"Baby, what do you want from me? Managing people's career is a lot of work. Like you, I don't have time to do everything . We're not going to keep debating this, we're getting a nanny and I don't want to hear another word about it." I rolled my eyes, not feeling fully defeated, but not in the mood to argue either. It would be time to pick up Elijah soon, and I didn't want any time he was home to be subjected to us arguing. If there was anything worse than no father in the home, it was a mother and father who argued all the time.

" Fine . Will you at least be home for dinner then? I was going to make macaroni pie and some fried fish." He rubbed his belly, easing some of the tension, but then that tension came back around when he told me he wouldn't be staying.

"I actually have some things to handle, so just make me a little plate, and I'll eat it when I get home. Besides, the only thing I want you to focus on, is work. Think you could do that for me?" He asked, with a kiss to my forehead and a loveless hug. I nodded and with a quick goodbye, he raced out the door, leaving me yearning for the times where he rushed that fast to make it home back to me.