Her Assistant ✓

Chapter Twenty

Beyoncé
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Beyoncé offered to drop Nicki and Blue off after work, because she was apparently a fucking masochist.

Blue was singing and skipping, Onika looked like she was on cloud nine, too—and she managed to fake it until she'd waved goodbye.

Then, she turned into a grumpy git. So much, in fact, that she admitted to deserving Ebenezer nickname. She was pretty sure she grumbled something close to "Bah Humbug" a time or two since her mother served dinner.

She'd gone to see her parents, somehow thinking that having some company might lift her mood—total fail.

Why the hell had she given Onika and Blue tickets to go as far as possible to New York?

She was stupid.

"Daughter, if you don't stop grumbling, I'm going to have to call Lauren over and check if there's something wrong with you," her father told her between entrees.

"I'm perfectly fine," she lied.

She wasn't—but Lauren couldn't fix her problem. No one could.

"Come on, Bey. Spit it out. You wouldn't have come here unless you want to talk about whatever's itching your ass crack." Matthew Knowles always had a way with words.

"It's about Onika," her mother said. "She called to say she was going away, remember? Well, I think your daughter isn't happy about the prospect of spending Christmas without her—and baby Blue, of course."

"How do you fuckin do it!" she almost shouted, flabbergasted. "You always know everything."

"Well, for one, I raised you. Secondly, you think like a man—that makes you easy to read, and a little predictable, too."

Oh, well then.

"Wait a minute," Matthew interrupted, turning to her, "You like Onika?"

Beyoncé nodded; might as well admit to it.

Her old man broke into a grin that made it all the way to his eyes. "Good taste! She likes you right?"

"Well, I'm not certain…"

"Nonsense," Tina snorted.

"She's smitten, I can hear it in her voice."

"Good, good. You treat that girl right! She's a good woman—hard working, and pretty as a button. And she's had a rough time, with her parents being complete idiots."

That surprised her.

"I thought Robert Maraj was a friend of yours?"

"Until he cast out his pregnant daughter. You really think I'd stayed friends with a man capable of doing that? If he cares about image more than family, I'm well rid of him."

Beyoncé didn't think it was possible for her to admire her boisterous, larger-than-life father—a man of seventy, who still looked handsome and much younger than he was—more than she already did, but she went and did just that.