Prince's POV
I dress quickly and walk into the hallway where I see her peering into a room down the hall.
"What the fuck is all this?" She yells as soon as she sees me. I walk up to her, look into the room and smile. It Genevieve's room, her new one at least. I had it renovated to include the bathroom and extend into the other room. I thought she might like the extra space to lay out on floor or dance if she was already in her room and didn't want to walk all the way to her studio. I thought it would be a hard renovation but, they just took down one wall and added another.
"It's a bed room. I've got a lot of those, remember?"
"Does she live here?" Mayte asks crossing her arms.
"No but she's here enough. Thought she would want a room of her own."
"Is this all her stuff?" Mayte scoffs walking looking at the various art, clothing, and jewelry around the room. "Her taste is so tacky."
"She only really keeps dance clothes here. Most of her clothes are still at her place."
"Even her dance clothes are tacky, what a shame. You remember all the little outfits I used to wear on stage with you?" She smirks walking up to me, placing her hands on my chest.
"Mayte, why are you here? You aren't my wife and you aren't in the band. I don't even know how you keep getting in here!" I push her away and put some distance between us.
"I didn't give up all of my keys just the one to front door." She smirks walking into the closet.
"Would you look at this?" She says pulling things out of the closet. One by one different pieces of fabric fly across the room. "These don't look like costumes at all! I wonder where she's going in a dress like this." Mayte holds up the blue dress Genevieve made before tossing it too.
"Mayte, why are you here?"
"Because I miss you, baby and you stopped answering my phone calls." She wraps her arms around me the way she used to when we first started dating. Before the lies and the treachery and the cheating and the babies, I did love her. I loved more than I thought anyone should love a person. She would hold me like this when I was close to my deadlines and my head was so full of music, I couldn't think anymore or after long calls with the record company when I was so angry I wanted to rip my head off.
I close my eye sfor a moment and feel the piece I felt in those moments again. It all ends when her lips touch mine. My eyes open wide and I try to push her away but she's holding my arms together. Moving backwards she pushes me into the wall further enforcing my inability to move.
"Oh so dis is what ya meant?" I don't even have to move to know who that is. Mayte smirks releasing me and stands tall in front of Genevieve.
"You can take your things back to your little shack. He's done with you."
"I'll believe dat wen him gives yuh an otha wedding ring." Genevieve walks up to her with charcoal irises and punches her square in the eye. I watch as Mayte rocks around on her feet like bowling pin that may or may not fall. Without hesitation or much effort Genevieve grips Mayte's hair and begins to pull her through the house.
I follow them, the screams filling the hallway. Genevieve intentionally takes the stairs and makes sharp turns around corners forcing Mayte to get knocked around. She drags her down the steps before pausing and leading her down a hallway. When she finds a security guard. Genevieve throws Mayte on the ground.
"tek har tuh har car. Eff mi eva si har here again that's yuh ass." Mayte too beat up to protest stumbles away with the security guard. "Shi yuh girlfriend now or am mi losing mi mind?" Genevieve yells turning to face me.
"It's not what you think!"
"It nuh wah mi think? Wah it den or am mi blind too? Mi imagine yuh kiss her?"
"She kissed me! She started holding me and it made me remember how things used to be. When I stopped paying attention she kissed me and I pushed her away!" The tension in her body shrinks her as her shoulders and knees curl in. It's almost like she's bracing...or charging up.
"Show mi! Show mi pan di cameras!" Before I can respond she walks toward the door. Following close behind her, we make our way to the elevator. We stand far apart in the elevator, her foot tapping frantically. She waits for me to get out of the elevator and follows down the hall to the surveillance room. We installed all this stuff after the first time she broke in and have been adjusting it ever since. Every room has some sort of monitoring whether it's audio or visual or both. Half of Genevieve's room used to be a storage closet and they forgot to remove the camera in the renovations. She doesn't walk around without clothes on so I wasn't in a rush to remove it. I'm glad I didn't.
When we open the door the security guards immediately turn to look at us. Between my worried expression and Genevieve's look of destruction they weren't sure what to do.
"I want you to pull all the footage for today from the residential hallway especially her room. Pull anything you have of Mayte sneaking around too."
"Yes sir."
"How long will it take?"
"Worst case scenario 6 hours but we'll bring it to you as soon as it's ready."
"Thank you." I lead her out to the hallway and she just walks off. I hate when she's mad at me. I won't lie and say she doesn't have a reason to. I just wish she didn't. "Genevieve, wait." She stops in the middle of the hallway, slowly turning to face me.
"What?" She mutters looking down at the floor.
"Mama, please don't sit here and be mad at me for the next 6 hours."
"I'm not. I'm going home."
"Genevieve, I didn't kiss her! I didn't want to kiss her and I don't want to kiss her now!"
"I don't care! She shouldn't have been holding you in the first place! You said you would handle it and I come out to find you wrapped in her arms like you miss her!"
"Genevieve, I..."
"I'm going to lay down. I'll meet you upstairs in 6 hours." She turns and walks away and I can feel my heart shattering.
This can't be it. I've worked so hard to get her. I'm not losing her over this. I just have to wait 6 hours. Then, she'll see what actually happened. She is right though. What will she think of us holding each other? I wonder what it looked like when I disappeared down memory lane.
Do I still love Mayte?
Did I move on too fast?
I let out a deep sigh.
What did I just do? What does this all mean?
I walk quickly to my study locking the door behind me. Picking up the phone I dial a familiar number.
"Hello?"
"Andre, I..."
"You messed up with G. What you do now?" He cuts me off before I can finish.
"This time it's bad, man. You gotta come over."
"Come over?? Fine, I'm on my way." He sighs hanging up.
Several minutes go by and there's a knock on the door to the study. I open it, knowing it's him. He walks in and sits down before putting a bottle on the table.
"What the fuck is that for?"
"You wanna be stressed and sober?"
"Andre, I shouldn't."
"Why don't you tell me what you did and I'll decide."
"Mayte broke in again and she kissed me." His eyes go wide in disbelief.
"And she saw it?"
"Yea." I say rubbing my temple. The room goes silent for a while until Andre pulls out two cups.
"If I knew I'd be planning your funeral I would've brought another bottle." He shakes his head pouring the drinks. Andre's a party animal but when it's time to be serious he only drinks one thing, aged cognac straight, and he always knows when to bring it. I take a sip needing the liquid courage to get through this again.
"There's more to this story." He takes a sip, nodding at his selection then leans back in his chair. "She walked into Genevieve's room. You know the one I set up for her? Well, she started throwing around Genevieve's things calling them tacky and all that. Then, she walked up to me and started talking about all the stuff she used to wear for me. I asked her why she was here and she said it was because she missed me. She wrapped her arms around me like she used to and I felt something. It was like I disappeared for a moment and things were like they used to be but then she kissed me and her lips tasted like poison." I take a long sip of my drink. "When she touched me I almost forgave her but her lips reminded me why I never could. So, I pushed her away and that's when Genevieve came in. Mayte tried to play it off, she said I was taking her back. Genevieve said she'd believe it when I gave Mayte a wedding ring and decked Mayte in the face. Her eyes turned black like she was possessed or something, man. She grabbed Mayte by her hair and dragged her all through the house. She even took the stairs just to hit her head and scrape up her knees. I followed them. Genevieve tossed her on the floor and told a body guard to take her away." Another long sip. "I tried to explain myself but she wouldn't let me."
"After that?"
"She had me pull the tapes from today and stormed off."
"Where was she when Mayte was trashing her room?"
"In my room... getting dressed." I wrinkle my face in embarrassment. It sounds even worse when I say it out loud.
"Don't tell me. This all happened after y'all had one of y'all little moments? This really is your funeral." We down the last of our cups together and I push mine closer to him for a refill.
"I know. I'm...Im just confused. Why did holding her feel so good?"
"P, it's because she's evil! She wants you confused so she can manipulate you all over again. She wants G mad and you alone." I swallow half my glass as the realization hits me.
"Even when she sees I pushed her away she'll never forgive me for that hug."
"You got a lot of kissing ass to do and she got a lot of ass."
"Watch it."
"How long has it been?" I look down at my watch before taking another sip.
"An hour and fifteen minutes."
"You know where she went?"
"She said she was leaving and then she said she was going to lay down and to meet her upstairs when the tape is ready."
"So what do we do now?"
"We wait."