Blissfully Yours. Velvet Carter

      Chapter 1

      Ayana awoke to a gentle breeze flowing through the screened French doors of her parents’ Jamaican hillside home. The delicious smell of ackee and saltfish tickled her nose as she stirred underneath the white cotton sheet. She yawned wide and stretched her long limbs before climbing out of bed. Today was her last full day in Negril and she planned to make the most of her time before heading back to her hectic New York life.

      She showered and dressed in cutoff blue jean shorts, a T-shirt and flip-flops. Ana—as she was known in Jamaica—pulled her long raven hair into a ponytail before trotting down the small back staircase that led to the kitchen.

      “Hmm, something sure smells good,” Ana said to her mother, who was laboring over the stove.

      “I made ya favorite—ackee and saltfish, callaloo and johnnycakes,” her mother answered in a thick Jamaican accent.

      Ayana looked at the plate of food that her mother had dished up. “Ma, I can’t eat all of that.” Having lived in New York for more than ten years, Ayana had adjusted her eating habits and now ate mostly salads, fish and very few carbs.

      “Ya too skinny, gurl. Gotta fatten ya up.” Mrs. Tosh was a traditional Jamaican mother who believed in eating heartily at every meal.

      “I’m not skinny, Ma. I still have plenty of thighs and a butt,” she said, looking over her shoulder at her full rear end.

      “Yeah, ya are. Don’t argue wit me, gurl. Sit down and eat.”

      Ayana didn’t say another word. There was no use in debating. Her domineering mother always got the last word, so Ayana sat at the wooden kitchen table and ate every morsel. She then polished off her mega breakfast with a cup of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee. She had to admit that eating some of her favorite childhood dishes felt good and satisfying.

      “Ma, do you wanna go with me over to New Beginnings?” New Beginnings was a local women’s and children’s shelter that Ayana helped support with generous donations of her time and money.

      “Me got no time to go to the shelter today. Got too much housework to do,” she said, taking Ayana’s plate and rinsing it off.

      “Ma, I bought you a dishwasher so you wouldn’t have to stand there and hand wash every dish. Where is the dishwasher, anyway?”

      “Why ya waste ya money?”

      Ayana just shook her head. She never stopped trying to spoil her parents, but they were simple people and didn’t want the modern gifts she bought. “I don’t consider buying my parents gifts a waste of money. Ma, you and Dad struggled for so long. Now that I’m in a position to make your lives a little easier, that’s what I’m going to do.” Ayana had her own stubborn streak, a trait she’d inherited from her mother.

      “Go on, gurl.” Her mother waved her away and continued washing dishes.

      Ayana kissed her mother goodbye, went to the living room, grabbed her sunglasses and keys off the parson’s table near the front door and left. She hopped on her canary-yellow Vespa and took off down the winding road. The lush hillside, dotted with hibiscus and white bougainvillea, whizzed by. Ayana loved jetting around Negril on her scooter. She had driven one ever since she was a teenager. The open air was refreshing and helped to clear her mind. This was where she’d fled to two years ago after her nasty, well-publicized divorce. Ayana thought back to that time.

      * * *

      “If you walk out on me, you’re not getting one red cent!” Those were the last words her ex-husband, millionaire Benjamin Lewis, the founder and CEO of BL Industries, had said as Ayana left their sprawling Long Island mansion. The estate was set on three manicured acres, complete with a pool, tennis court and guest house.

      Although Benjamin ran one of the world’s leading electronic manufacturing companies, making millions in the process, he was a tightwad. After three years of marriage, Ayana had become sick and tired of adhering to his strict budget. He had given her a weekly allowance of two hundred dollars, much less than she had made when she was his secretary. He only increased her allowance when he wanted her to buy expensive outfits for their black-tie affairs. Benjamin loved parading her around. To him she had been nothing more than a trophy wife.

      Ayana had become tired of being treated like one of his prized possessions. She couldn’t take any more of his selfish ways and filed for divorce, citing cruel and unusual punishment. While the proceedings wore on, Ayana had spent her days in a tiny studio apartment on the Lower East Side, sparsely furnished with a futon, throw rug and nine-inch television.

      A few days after she’d moved there, the phone rang, startling her out of her sleep. She’d reached for the cell and pressed Talk. “Hello?”

      “You are still asleep? It’s eleven-thirty,” Reese, Ayana’s best friend, had said.

      “What’s up?”

      “You need to get out of that apartment. It’s a beautiful sunny day, so let’s go to lunch at that new restaurant in the Village.”

      “I don’t have money to waste on lunch. All my cash is going toward attorney fees.”

      “What happened to all that jewelry Ben gave you?”

      “I have a few pieces here. But the rest is in my safe-deposit box. Why do you ask?”

      “You need money, right?”

      “Of course I need money. You of all people know how stingy Ben was,” Ayana had said, sounding irritated.

      “Instead of sounding like a wounded victim, you should sell some of that ice.”

      “I’m not selling my

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