Be Bad For Me
Princess Black
Twenty-two year old Annette is a good girl who loves being bad. She's well-educated and has her own everything. What she doesn't have, but wants … she gets. But she doesn't rely on any man to provide for her. When Annette's long term rap artist boyfriend commits the ultimate betrayal, she must decide if she'll stay true to her first love or walk away.
Jordan, aka. Jaguar, isn't an average bachelor. He's bold, sexy, and everything about him screams ruthless swagger. He rides women the same way he rides his motorcycle-rough and thorough. He grew up in the projects, but his circumstances hasn't stopped him from becoming a self-made millionaire. When he runs into Annette after she separates from her boyfriend, he falls hard for her, but he'll have to work hard to keep her. She's a woman who has everything going for herself.
Both Annette and Jordan bring past baggage to the table that could hinder any chance of a meaningful relationship. Annette is sick and tired of getting burned. After all the pain and betrayal, will an innocent good girl turn into a bad bitch? And will the power of love be able to convince a street player to settle down?
Chapter 1
Annette's friend, Bianca, was being way too loud for speakerphone. Annette connected the Bluetooth headset for more privacy. Anthony could walk in at any moment and Bianca was known for spilling secrets.
"Where is he taking you tonight, girl?" Bianca asked her, excitedly.
"I don't know," Annette said. "He said something about the mall and then maybe somewhere to eat afterwards. He said he had a surprise for me too."
Anthony, Annette's long time boyfriend, was taking her out tonight. They didn't get to go out as often anymore over the past year because he was always in the studio or out promoting his demo albums. When he wasn't promoting his music, he was forced between choosing to hang out with his boys or taking her out. Sometimes, she felt that she could never win over his boys, so she stopped whining a long time ago and accepted time with him whenever she could get it.
"A surprise?" Bianca blasted out, sucking her teeth. "That boy knows he needs to quit. The last time he said something about a surprise, y'all ended up at the movies."
Leave it to Bianca to bad mouth Anthony. Ever since Anthony put Bianca in her place a year ago for calling him out in front of a bunch of people, Bianca had taken every opportunity since then to bash him. Bianca was always trying to cause conflict between them. When Bianca called Anthony out for lying to Annette about where he had been and who he was with, that was the last stray for Anthony. At the time, Annette was so embarrassed that her best friend of just three years could check her boyfriend better than she could. Not so much know. She knew Bianca and her take-absolutely-no-shit personality a little better. Anthony had asked her not to hang with Bianca anymore, but she refused to let a man come between a good friendship. Besides, Bianca had been her best friend before she met Anthony. As time went by, Bianca and Anthony learned to live with each other, or so it appeared.
"Well, he does try."
She pouted my lips and outlined them with MAC lipliner.
"Mm-hmm."
Bianca had been trying to warn Annette that Anthony was wasting her time. Annette had to admit that after two years of a relationship with Anthony that they still had not moved to the next level. Anthony always introduced her to everyone as his "homegirl". Never his girl, or his woman, or his girlfriend, just homegirl. Annette was tired of being Anthony's homegirl. She had all her heart into this relationship and she was getting tired of playing wifey only when it was convenient for him. She loved Anthony and Anthony knew that, but he never reciprocated his feelings. Anthony's idea of love was showering her with expensive gifts and money.
"What are you doing tonight?" Annette asked Bianca, as she applied the MAC lipgloss in Ornamental to her lips.
"I met this guy at the club last night named TJ. We supposed to meet up out there again."
"Good for you. It's time you got a man so you can see what I'm going through, and then maybe you'd understand."
"Girl, I'm not looking for no man to tie me down. I just get my time in when I can, reap whatever they workin' with and exit stage left. Besides, it's too many trifling ass fools out there."
Annette and Bianca were recent college graduates. They met in college when they were both in the same Business Economics class their last year of school. They shared many of the same hobbies, habits, and the same attraction to certain type of men. Or, maybe certain types of men were attracted to them.
Annette pouted her full set of lips and looked at her reflection in the mirror. She was dark caramel complexion with pretty brown almond shaped eyes, defined cheekbones, lips almost as full as Angelina Jolie's, and had an oval face. Everyone she met always complimented her on her good looks and asked if she was a model. The fact was Annette didn't like to bring too much attention to herself. She liked attention, just not too much.
There was a beep on her cell phone letting her know that she had another call coming in. She looked down at the lighted screen and saw that it was Anthony.
"Girl, I gotta go. That's him."
"Call me tomorrow." Bianca hung up.
She switched over to the other line. "Hey, you."
"Hey, baby. I just pulled into your apartment complex. You gonna let me in?" His voice was so smooth and sexy and she was all smiles every time she heard it.
"You know you got a key, baby. Where is it?" She got up and wrapped a pink terry cotta robe around her naked body.
"I left those keys at the house. Let me in."
"Then, how did you get in the gate without the key card?" she asked. She lived in a gated apartment community and residents used a remote key for entry.
"It's easy to tailgate in that slow ass gate, baby. Come open the door."
She slipped her freshly manicured feet into matching bedroom slippers and hurried toward the door. Anthony was a little early. He wasn't supposed to be here for another thirty minutes. This was a first. Half of the time, he was at least thirty minutes late. When she opened the door, she immediately remembered why she loved him so much in the first place. Anthony Wright was fine as hell. Even though he only stood five feet nine inches tall, he was all muscles beneath his baggy jeans and collared shirt. He took off an Atlanta Braves baseball cap with the letter A in the front center revealing his black silk do-rag.
"You look good, baby," she said, pulling him into her apartment.
"You look good, too, but, I know you aren't gonna wear what you got on," he said, standing back to look at her after closing the door behind him.
"No, silly … I didn't have to time to change. Aren't you a little early?" she asked, turning around and walked back to her bedroom.
"It's already five forty five. I told you to be ready at six." He followed me into the bedroom.
"All I have to do is slip in my dress. That's all," she said, walking back over to the vanity and pulling four big rollers from the top of her head. Her hair fell down, framing her face, and she blended her tresses in with her fingers, careful not to mess up the volume that the rollers had created at the top. Her long straight jet-black hair fell about two or three inches below her shoulders. She liked to wear it straight, like tonight, with blunt cut bangs in the front, which Annette claimed to be her signature look.
Anthony walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. "You know I miss you, baby. I was thinking about your fine ass those whole two days that I was in Miami." Anthony had been in Miami for the past two days promoting his demo music and a record label with one of his other friends.
"I missed you, too," she said. She turned around and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Oh, and thanks for paying my rent. You really didn't have to do that."
The other day when she went to go pay her rent, the property manager informed her that the balance was zero and that someone had called in a payment that afternoon. She had told Anthony that she could afford her own rent for the past few months, but he had been ignoring her and making the payment before she could.
"You know I like taking care of you, baby. You my homegirl. Imma always come through for you."
She wondered if he thought that she didn't have any money of her own. Even though she wasn't working at the moment, Annette had enough money in her banking accounts to remain unemployed for a very long time if she wanted to, thanks to the trust fund that was released to her on her graduation courtesy of her deceased parents. When she was just four years old, her parents died in a terrible car accident while they were returning from vacation. The accident had involved an eighteen-wheeler, and the sports car that they were driving in got lodged up in some pine trees lining the interstate and burst into flames. Her aunt, who never married and could not have kids, took her in. Both of her parents had careers in the finance and investment industry and were not extremely wealthy, but still "well-to-do". However, they always lived the life as a normal middle class family. No family member knew how wealthy they had become until their financial records were released after their deaths. Just eight months before the accident, her parents were lucky enough to have established a living will, which included a trust fund in her name. While a good portion of the insurance and investment money went to her aunt for the purposes of raising her, a big portion was also reinvested year after year and her parent's lawyer followed their wishes of not releasing the remainder of the money until the day she graduated college. So, on her graduation day she inherited a huge lump sum. No one knew about the inheritance but her aunt and she wanted to keep it that way. She had meant to tell Anthony so many times about the inheritance, but figured that he would still want to take care of her anyway.