Everyone I’ve known from childhood comes. Friends and family, neighbors and cousins, filling the large back yard to celebrate Gran.
There’s laughter and music, and the company of friends, as Katie joins me at a little table in the far back under a string of white lights. She wears a pale yellow dress, her hair in curls. She looks so at home here, like she belongs. Gazing at her here in the Georgia sunset makes me long for this again. A simpler life. The comforts of home.
Only this time, there’s a beautiful, brilliant woman who sits by my side and truly enjoys my company, not just the zeroes attached to my name.
“It’s so lovely,” Katie says, her eyes dancing. She frowns. “It’s just… well, sorry to say, but I like it better than your fancy penthouse.”
I chuckle at that, lean over and tickle her side. “Oh you do, do you?”
She giggles. “I do,” she says. “It must get kind of lonely in the penthouse. Doesn’t it?”
Lonely? She has no idea.
I feel myself hardening at the thought of revealing too much, of getting too personal. Katie goes home soon, and I won’t send a part of my heart with her.
Too late, I think. Too fucking late.
“Lonely?” I say with a forced laugh. “In the city that never sleeps? With thousands of people in and out of my hotel every day?”
Katie grows quiet. “You can be lonely in a crowded room.” She sighs. “Ask me how I know.”
I take her hand and give her a little squeeze.
She sighs and rests her head on my shoulder. “Will you tell me why you left?”
A muscle clenches in my jaw, and I open my mouth to tell her, ‘not today.’ But something comes over me, then, and for some reason, maybe because I’m bewitched by the evening or her soft, unpretentious voice, or the fact that I’m home again, I tell her.
“I lost my family in a car accident when I was just eight years old, and Rawley was six. Gran took us in and raised us.”
“Ohh,” she says in a sad voice. “Darius.”
I push on, wanting this to be pragmatic and brief, ignoring the catch in my voice. “She raised us like we were her own. Taught us to work hard, educate ourselves, and how to be real men. But I wanted more than this. I wanted to prove myself. We didn’t have any money, and my dreams and aspirations of playing professional football went to hell when I was injured.”
She listens quietly, and I rub my thumb over the top of her hand. “I still wanted more and to prove myself. So I struck out on my own. And I did.”
“You did,” she says softly. “And you did an amazing job. Look how far you’ve come.”
I lean over and kiss her temple. She didn’t judge or question or criticize. She just listened and understood. And maybe sometimes that’s all that you need. To be heard and understood.
“You’re a good girl, Katie Kat,” I whisper in her ear, but she doesn’t respond. Her eyes are narrowed, and her body’s gone still. I look on instinct to where she does, and feel my own body tighten, prepared to defend her. To protect her. To do whatever it takes, for that quickly I know that something’s gone afoul.
Tiffany stands only a few feet apart from us, waving her phone at Rawley and stabbing her finger at Katie. Oh no. Jesus. What’s she doing?
I’m on my feet before I know it, when Tiffany stalks over to us with narrowed eyes and a smirk.
“Well would you look at that,” she says, tipping her head to the side, her voice loud and magnified. “Seems someone got in trouble for hiring an escort. Seems your publicist did her level best to hide such a story, yet there it is, for anyone to see.”
More and more of the guests are paying attention now. Rawley looks from me to Tiffany. His eyes go wide, then he takes a step toward her.
“Put it away, Tiff,” he says, but she predictably ignores him.
“Are you that desperate?” Tiffany says with a loud cackle. “You couldn’t even get a real date, you had to use your billions of dollars to buy one?”
“Tiffany,” Rawley says. He swipes at her phone, but she stalks away.
Katie’s on her feet, her hands balled into fists. “How dare you say that about him! How dare you?”
“Now don’t make a scene, little escort,” Tiffany says in a sickening tone. “Or I will find that pen name you so carefully hide.” She shakes her head. “I will find it and I will ruin you. I have an army of social media followers and I am not afraid to use them.”
I take Katie by the hand and pull her over to me. I wrap my arm around her, holding her close by my side. “We had an agreement, alright—”