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“Or both. Yes sir.”

William exhaled again. “I’m on my way there now. Try to keep a lid on it.”

“I’ll do my best, sir,” Bobby said, and William ended the call.

But his temperature was rising. Because he told her ass to never go to Bridell or any of those other small hick towns without him, and now she was in jail? And for no other reason than the color of the skin God gave to her?

He angrily took his thick briefing book and threw it across the plane, barely missing one of his flight attendants.

But because it was the boss that was enraged, that same flight attendant began picking up the scattered pages of that briefing book, and other flight crew members assisted her, as if nothing never happened.

CHAPTER TEN

Joy sat in the small cell with two other black girls and five white ones. All of the other girls were joking around, wondering where they could get smokes or dope or both. But Joy couldn’t be so cavalier. All she could think about was William and how pissed he was going to be with her.

Three months. They’d only been married for three months and it wasn’t going great. William was always on the go the way he had always been, and whenever he did run into her at SPR, he treated her as if she was just another worker. The same way he treated her before they were married. She understood why he was behaving that way early on. He never mixed work with pleasure, and allowing his girlfriend to work for him was the ultimate mix. But she thought, after they said I Do, that it would all be so different. . .

“Skeffington?”

Joy quickly stood up as two cops stood at the jail cell. “Yes?”

“Joynetta Skeffington?”

“Yes, that’s me.”

“Let’s go! Charges have miraculously been dropped. I wonder why?”

The other cop opened the cell door and ordered Joy out. Joy gladly hurried out, despite the cop’s snarky remark, but she was also surprised. She had no idea William would send lawyers this fast!

But once she signed out and was given her possessions, and the door opened that led into the police station lobby, she was shocked to see who was sitting there, in his smart business suit, looking so calm and collected.

“William?”

He told her he had to go to Canada to meet with a top-tier client. She thought he was still in Canada.

But when he stood up and she hurried into his arms, and although he embraced her too, she could still tell he was pissed with her. But it wasn’t until they left the jail, got into the waiting SUV where Cory and Max were waiting too, and they were driving away, did he verbalize his displeasure.

“Didn’t I tell you to never go to Bridell without me, Joynetta?”

“Yes, you told me. I know you told me. But---”

“I don’t give a good gotdamn about any buts! I told you not to go, you defied me and went anyway, and look what happened?”

Joy was surprised by his tone. She knew he would be upset. He gave her a direct order and she didn’t obey it. But he didn’t have to be so harsh about it.

“I have shit up to here to deal with,” William said as he lifted his hand upwards, “and here you come with some cockamamie decision to travel to this backwater hellhole when all you had to do was let me handle it.”

“You weren’t in town to handle it.”

“Don’t you dare play in my face,” William said. “You still can phone me if I’m not in town. That’s what you do. And I’ll handle it. Not you!”

And on and on he went.

Although whenever Mr. Skeffington was animated the way he was, Cory found him to be scary as hell. But Cory still didn’t understand Joy’s response to his animation. He was shocked that she wasn’t speaking up for herself. He knew she wanted to please her new husband. He knew she didn’t want him to think she was some immature kid who couldn’t handle a man like him. But damn. She wasn’t saying anything? She was letting him talk to her like she was some child who couldn’t make decisions for herself? That was so not like the Joy he knew and loved. The Joy he knew was fearless.

Joy was the same person she’d always been. But William was the first human being who was unselfishly kind to her. Before William, her life had been filled with nothing but unkindnesses. It changed with him. And she couldn’t take his kindness lightly. He came all the way to Bridell to get her when he was supposed to have been in Canada. When his plate was already too full. The least she could do, she felt, was to let him have his say.

“I’ve lived eighteen years longer than you have,” he continued. “I knew what kind of town this fucker was the first two minutes I stepped foot in it. You spent a lifetime here, and your ass still don’t get it.”