22. Serena
Serena
“C’mon on, please!” Gigi said through the phone.
“I barely like you, why would I want your geriatric ass dog over here?”
I stared at the front of Mrs. Fontaine’s property. Workers were already moving in and out, hauling materials and shouting over the noise.
“Walter is a distinguished senior citizen, and I have a date tonight.”
“Haven’t you dated every man in the state already? This sounds like a you problem.”
“Don’t be a bitch,” Gigi said.
My thighs ached. A dull, traitorous throb. I shifted in my seat, as if that would erase the memory of him. Of his fingers. Of my shameful gasp.
God. Focus.
But why did I like it? Why couldn’t I sleep for hours after that, listening for every creak in the house to think he might come back to finish what he started?
It had been a while since I’d been with anyone, and that wasn’t anything long-term.
But nobody was better than him. The feeling of his hands on my skin was uniquely intense, a sensation no one else could ever match.
“Helllloo?” Gigi yelled into the phone. “Do you hear me talkin’ to you, heifer?”
I snapped. “I don’t want your dog in my condo! It’s bad enough Miles got a freaking mammoth of a cat?—”
Gigi gasped indignantly. “You let Miles bring his cat? A stranger? But you can’t let your own nephew come over?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Walter is not my nephew.”
I opened my Notes app and typed as Gigi yapped about bullshit:
Inspect renovation budget.
Confirm permits pulled for electrical.
Do NOT think about Miles.
Three actionable tasks. Two professional. One impossible.
I told myself it was a lapse. A biological event. Like hiccups. Meaningless.
“He is my child ,” she shot back, offended, like I’d just disrespected a blood relative. “I carried that dog in my purse for years! You will show some respect.”
“He’s half-blind, deaf, and has more arthritis than a nursing home. No. If anything, he’s a liability I don’t have homeowner’s insurance for.”
“You know Laurene won’t watch him since he made her fall down that ditch, and she’s pregnant now so she can’t stand his smell anyway. Erik’s had a ban on him for years since he peed on his Star Wars figurine collection. I’m running out of options.”
“Too bad for you.”
I spent all morning buried in paperwork and meetings. Anything to stay busy.
“I can’t leave my baby unattended,” Gigi whined.
“Why not ask Mama or Daddy?”
Her voice got huffy like always when she got an attitude. “Mama and I aren’t speaking.”
“Again? Why?”
“I told her I wanted to start my own boutique, and she all but laughed in my face.”
I rubbed my temple. “You’re still on this?”
Gigi gasped. “Excuse me? I was serious. I’m starting my own business.”
“G, you change career paths more than you change your wigs. Last month, it was candle making. Before that, you were gonna be a model. And let’s not forget the infamous ‘I’m moving to LA to be a celebrity stylist’ phase.”
“That was a valid career path until I got blackballed.”
“But how long before you quit? Three weeks? A month?”
Silence.
“You’re such a bitch sometimes, you know that?”
I blinked. “I’m trying to help you have realistic expectations?—”
“You and Mama,” she snapped. “Y’all sit up on your damn high horses, acting like I’m some failure because I don’t wanna work myself to death in a damn office or force myself to kiss ass. We’re the top of the motherfuckin’ food chain here! Why am I a second-class citizen?”
“This isn’t about?—”
“Yes, it is.” Her voice crackled with anger. “Y’all respect Laurene because she was the graceful, elegant one. Y’all respect Erik because he’s the leader, and you, Miss Perfect Serena, are the businesswoman. Me? I’m the joke, huh? The mistake ’cause Daddy forgot to wear a condom?”
“You are doing too much. It’s not that serious,” I told her.
“Keep your negativity. I’m gonna do this, whether y’all support me or not. I’m gonna open my boutique, and when I do, don’t even bother stepping your uptight ass through my doors.”
“Gigi—”
“Oh, by the way, Mama is summoning you and Miles to dinner tomorrow.”
“Wait—”
She hung up on me. I stared at my phone, then I closed my eyes. I’d deal with Gigi and her drama later. I had to focus on work.
Stepping out of my truck, I was happy to see some progress was starting to be made. Several of the workers turned to look at me as I approached.
An older man stepped in front of me. “So this is the wife?” he said in a Haitian accent.
“Excuse me, who are you and why are you on my property?” I asked, my voice clipped and cool. I didn’t recognize him. And I didn’t like not recognizing him. Not here. Not on my site.
The front door opened, and Miles stepped out.
And just for a second, I forgot how to breathe.
He wasn’t in a suit. No pressed collar. No shiny cuff links catching the light.
Just a worn black T-shirt clinging to his chest, the fabric damp at the collar and stretching over muscle like it belonged there. His jeans hung low on his hips, faded in all the right places, and his boots were scuffed and dirty like he’d just stepped out of trouble.
His forearms flexed as he wiped his hands on a grease-stained rag—slow and deliberate.
He looked like sin.
Like sweat and sex and the kind of mistake you don’t regret until your legs are shaking and your heart’s in your throat.
The heat between us curled low in my stomach, and I hated how easily he still did this to me—just by standing there, all golden skin and grit and that mouth that drove me up the fucking wall.
“This man was not approved in hiring,” I told Miles as I glared at the man.
“Carlus has been with my company for almost ten years. He ain’t going nowhere, and I trust him more than anyone here. Do I need to remind you we’re both the bosses here?”
“Renovations are supposed to have a full crew . Where is everyone?”
Miles looked annoyed, and didn’t bother hiding it.
“We’re still in a middle of scandal, remember? We gotta work with what we got.”
I had to count back from five. I was used to people doing what I wanted when I demanded. This partnership… It was gonna take some getting used to.
“Besides, I think we have more important things to worry about,” he continued. Miles and Carlus looked at one another before Miles swept his hands toward the house. “After you.”
I stepped inside. The place looked exactly how it did when we walked through with Mrs. Fontaine.
“Looks okay.”
“Walk with me.” Miles motioned for me to follow.
I trailed behind him through a set of wide French doors into the formal living room. The moment I crossed the threshold, I was hit with a smell. Damp. Musty. Almost metallic. I wrinkled my nose.
“Was that smell here before?” I asked tightly.
“Nope.”
“We’ve got wood rot in the walls,” Carlus added, voice calm, like he was reading me a bedtime story. “Water damage too. Roof’s leaking in at least three places.”
“I don’t—” I blinked, trying to smooth over the confusion cracking through my mask.
“You bypassed the inspection. An inspector would have caught this.” The disappointment on his face actually had me feeling a tiny bit bad.
“Fontaine gave you a curated tour,” Carlus told me. “Didn’t think the old woman had it in her to be a snake.”
I stared at the bubbling paint on the corner of the ceiling. My throat tightened. “It shouldn’t be too hard to fix.” I was determined to make this work. Jenese couldn’t take this from me too.
But Miles was watching me. “Serena, how the hell have you been in business making wild decisions like this?”
I flinched at his scolding tone.
Carlus motioned with his head, subtle but tight. “Follow me.”
We ducked around a stack of drywall and stepped into the dining room. The space had been gutted down to the studs, one whole wall stripped open. Light spilled in through the broken windows, casting stripes over the dusty floors.
He pointed to the far wall. The wiring snaking through the beams looked like it hadn’t been touched since the fifties. Old cloth-covered wires, frayed at the edges. Burn marks traced a jagged scar up one of the studs.
“Old wiring,” Carlus said. “Almost sparked a fire. We shut it off before anything caught.”
I stepped toward the scorched stud—heels crunching on loose debris—and reached out to it.
“Don’t—” Miles caught my wrist.
A sudden whooshing sound filled the air, like a gust of wind. The sound of a sharp crack, like flint striking steel, reverberated through the room, making the old wood tremble.
The exposed panel was suddenly illuminated by a violent arc of searing blue light, the intense heat making the metal sing with a high-pitched whine. A snake-like hiss preceded a blinding flash of white-hot light from the wires, showering the air with glowing embers.
Miles yanked me back from the exposed wall, just as another shower of fiery sparks, sizzling and spitting, filled the air. I stumbled into him, and he wrapped both arms around me, shielding me.
“Shit!” Carlus cursed, already rushing toward the panel. “Thought it was off—guess we missed a breaker and someone plugged something up. Y’all okay?”
All I could hear was the blood pounding in my ears and Miles’s breath, fast and shaky, brushing the collar of my shirt.
His arms were still locked around me, his body flush against mine.
“I’m not dumb,” I said quietly.
“No one said you were.”
“I’m not going to stand here and let you talk down to me like I’m some rookie.”
His eyes narrowed. “Then don’t act like one.”
That cut, because he wasn’t wrong. And I hated that he wasn’t wrong.
My jaw tensed, but the silence between us stretched—too long, too loud. I could feel it building in my throat, a confession I didn’t want to say out loud, but it was already there.
“I didn’t vet it properly,” I admitted finally, the words tight and bitter. “Not the way I usually would.”
Miles blinked, surprised, maybe, that I admitted it. Or maybe that I sounded like I hated myself more than he ever could.
“I was rushed,” I continued. “Pushed into making a move before I was ready. I needed something— anything —to replace the Harrington estate. You were right, I lost it.”
I didn’t say Jenese’s name. I didn’t tell him how I’d truly lost that bid. How I’d been blackmailed and boxed in. How desperate I’d been to cover the loss before anyone noticed the crown jewel of King Developments was gone.
“So you panicked,” he said.
“No,” I snapped, but then sighed. “Yes. Maybe. I don’t panic, I just—” I exhaled sharply. “I don’t sit and cry about what I’ve lost—I replace it. I win something else.”
He tilted his head. “Even if it’s the wrong thing?”
I hated how that question hit. I hated that he asked it so softly. I hated how much it made me feel .
“Go ahead—gloat. You want to rub my face in it? Say it.”
He was quiet for a beat.
“We’re partners, Serena. I don’t know how many times I have to say that.
When you win, I win. When you hurt, so do I.
We might not like our arrangement, but I’m not gonna sit here and bask in the fact that you made a mistake.
I know it’s going to take some getting used to, but you can trust and depend on me. ”
He stepped closer. “You’re brilliant. You’re cutthroat. I admire the hell out of that. But you don’t get to treat me like I’m an employee. Like I don’t matter.”
My gaze slipped from his, landing on the cracked floorboards.
“I don’t treat you like an employee,” I murmured.
Miles chuckled. “You’re gonna fight me to the end?”
“No. I…agree. With everything you’ve said.”
Miles nodded. “I think we need to make a decision right here, right now how we’re gonna work.”
“You hate meetings.”
He blinked. “I do.”
“And I hate sweating in jeans.”
That made him smile, just a little. “So?”
“So I’ll handle the logistics. Permits, paperwork, scheduling, meetings with city officials, supply tracking—all of it.”
“And I’ll run the crew,” he said. “Keep construction moving. I’ll bring you in when we hit milestones.”
“You’ll give me progress reports?”
He stepped even closer, eyes dipping to my mouth. “Only if you say please.”
I hated that he made me smile.
“Fine… I guess we can work together.”
“That’s my girl,” Miles murmured.
We finished the rest of the walkthrough in near silence, save for the creaking floors and my internal monologue screaming bloody murder.
Mrs. Fontaine really had played me.
By the time we stepped back outside, I was vibrating with rage. The kind that made me dangerous. A table had been set up outside, and we walked over and spread out the floor plan.
“Well, let’s make it worth it,” Miles said, and I watched as he looked over the blueprints in front of us. He seemed…excited.
He pointed at the current kitchen layout. “We knock this wall out, expand the space, add an island. Flow matters. If it’s gonna be used for events, we need functionality over fluff.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Fluff? You mean style. Aesthetics. Charm. The things people remember.”
“No one remembers a backsplash. They remember if there was nowhere to put their wine.” He rolled his eyes.
“Shows what kind of parties you throw.”
“Shows what kind of kitchens you build.”
We leaned in at the same time, reaching for the same section of the layout. My fingers brushed his. I didn’t move them.
He didn’t either.
“Okay,” I murmured, “we compromise. We open up the space, but we do custom cabinetry—white oak, something elegant. And the wine station stays.”
He arched a brow. “You need a whole station for that?”
“It’s Lush. People drink like it’s a competitive sport.”
His gaze dropped to my lips. Briefly. Barely. But I saw it.
I swallowed. “We also move the powder room. Right now, it’s too close to the dining room. No one wants to hear someone pee while they’re eating.”
He smirked. “Speak for yourself. I love ambiance.”
I elbowed him. “You play too damn much.”
His hand slid forward on the table, palm brushing mine.
“I still think you’re wrong about the backsplash,” I murmured, because I had to say something or I was going to lose the last of my resolve.
The sudden, insistent ringing of my phone jolted me, and my body froze. I dug my phone out of my purse.
Unknown Number
I stepped away from the table, turning away from Miles as I pressed the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
“I need you at the cigar lounge,” Jenese’s voice snapped, cold and sharp as ever. “Thirty minutes. Don’t be late.”
The line went dead.
When I turned back around, Miles was watching me.
“I’ve got to go,” I said, trying to keep my tone neutral.
“You heading back to the office?”
“Yes,” I lied, already grabbing my purse. “I’ll be home late.”