Chapter 1
Amara Kevins
OVER A DECADE LATER…
“I was the one who made him look good.”
This night was different than other nights I spent with Ares. This night was a celebration for him, and I was glad to be a part of it and glad I was able to bring his vision to life.
The LA skyline glowed beneath a midnight-blue sky, rose-scented candles flickering across the rooftop restaurant I had transformed for him. R&B floated over the crowd, champagne flowed like rain, and every camera in the room was turned toward one man.
On a nearby screen, a headline rolled in bold gold letters with deep red trimming like blood:
“Ares Delacroix-Jackson: Forbes’ First Black Billionaire from Compton.”
Social media was on fire. Paparazzi swarmed outside. Industry execs whispered. Rivals watched from their phones. Haters calculated his downfall, even though he was too far up the ladder. Everyone wanted to know how a label owner who only signed women was outpacing every man in the game.
I spotted Ares. My client. My… something more, and it had been a year.
He sat back on a red velvet couch, dressed in a custom black-on-black Prada suit, gold jewelry layered perfectly.
He didn’t look nervous or overdone like half the room.
He looked unbothered, confident, and calm in a way that demanded attention.
To Ares, Forbes headlines and boardrooms were boring, but he was all about his image, so he didn’t mind being seen.
Ares was French and Black, but his African American side dominated. Tall, smooth light brown skin, natural wavey fade, thick eye brows, and full ass lips that I loved to suck on.
Let them watch my man, I thought.
My eyes kept finding him before I even realized it.
And eventually, he found mine.
I froze mid-step, adjusting a rose arrangement that didn’t need fixing. When his gaze locked on me, my stomach fluttered. His smirk was deliberate, like he knew exactly what he was doing to me.
“Come here,” he mouthed.
I hesitated, smoothing my white pencil skirt before walking over. My Chanel heels clicked against the stone, and I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear out of nervousness.
“You should be working, not staring at me,” he teased.
“I am working,” I said with a smile, trying to sound steady.
“No,” he whispered, eyes flicking over me. “You’re looking too good for these people. That’s too much for a nigga like me.”
Heat rushed to my cheeks as I laughed. “Stop it, Ares.”
He slipped into French, knowing I didn’t understand a word. “Tu n’as aucune idée de ce que je pourrais te faire si on était seuls, hein?”
(You have no idea what I could do to you if we were alone, huh?)
My brows pulled together. “You always do that. Talk like I’m supposed to know what you’re saying.”
His smile curved, low and knowing.
“Maybe I like knowing things you don’t. Keeps you curious.”
I shook my head, but my cheeks warmed even more. He leaned back, studying me with that unreadable gaze.
“You did good tonight,” he said finally. “Everything about this screams luxury. Like I like it.”
I tilted my head. “You mean just like you.”
He grinned, dimples flashing. “Same thing.”
I stayed close to him as he moved through the rooftop, shaking hands, smiling for photos. He didn’t need to tell me where to stand or how to move. I knew how to blend into power without demanding to hold it. And he… he liked that.
A Forbes exec stopped him for a toast, and cameras flashed. Ares raised his cognac glass, voice smooth as he slipped into French again.
“Le monde ne respecte pas les héritiers. Il respecte les conquérants.”
Everyone laughed like they understood.
But he didn’t laugh or translate. He never did.
Because whatever he said, I knew he meant it.
Later, when the noise faded and the party shifted inside, it was just the two of us left standing on the balcony.
He leaned against the glass railing, eyes on the horizon.
“You see all this?” he asked, voice low. “It started with my momma being shot and a will I knew nothing about. But I turned blood into gold.”
I turned my head toward him, brows furrowing. “What do you mean?”
He smiled, sipping his drink.
“You’ll understand one day.”
I searched his eyes for answers, but he’d already turned back to the skyline.
This was his city.
His empire.
And standing beside him, I felt something I shouldn’t have.
The pull of a man I could never quite figure out, but wanted to.
Later, he drove me home in his blood red Bugatti, the kind of car that turned heads even through limo-tinted windows. Bulletproof, built for a king.
We didn’t talk much. We didn’t need to. The silence between us was its own language, stretched from the penthouse suite downtown where we’d spent the whole afternoon in bed. His mouth, his hands, his body, making sure I remembered him everywhere—before the rooftop celebration.
When he pulled up outside my condo, he leaned across the console, fingers brushing my chin before pressing his lips to mine.
He pulled back with that smirk I’d already learned to crave. “Next Sunday is yours.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a promise.
I smiled, even though my heart raced. “I know. There always mine, baby.”
We hugged, kissed once more, and then I slipped out of the car. I watched him pull off, taillights bleeding into the night, before I forced myself upstairs.
By the time I’d showered, poured myself a glass of wine, and opened my laptop, it was past midnight.
My living room was quiet except for lo-fi music from my speakers.
I sat at my dining table, working on floor plans for another client’s gala, notes scribbled across my planner in neat, perfect lines.
School and event planning had saved me.
It was the only thing that ever made sense.
I grew up in a very put-together home. My mother ran the house like a corporation. Every towel folded the same way, every cabinet labeled, every holiday dinner set like a magazine spread. Order was her love language, and eventually it became mine too.
That structured life shaped me.
If my environment was neat and controlled, then I was neat and controlled.
Event planning wasn’t just a job for me. It was the one place I felt powerful, calm, and needed.
If everything around me looked beautiful and balanced, maybe the world couldn’t collapse around me.
And then there was Ares, who came years later, when I didn’t even know I needed a man like him in my life.
I’d met him two years ago, when a record label called Phantom League hired me to organize one of their wild label parties.
A room full of rich rappers, killers, execs, and groupies, and somehow, I’d made it all look like a movie without anyone getting shot.
He’d noticed me then, his eyes tracking me the way they had tonight.
Asked me to host his upcoming birthday, offered a million dollars, and it was history after that.
At first, I told myself it was business. That I wouldn’t mix work with… whatever he was.
But Ares wasn’t like anyone else.
He didn’t bring me drama. He didn’t play games. He didn’t even hide the fact that he had other women. I’d seen the pictures on the blogs, the gossip about his girlfriends. He never denied them, never pretended I was the only one.
That was what made me hesitate. It took almost two years of stolen moments, flirtation, and quiet Sundays before I finally agreed. Six months ago, I said yes. Yes to being his. Yes to being the fifth girlfriend of a man who never promised me exclusivity, only intensity.
And I stayed because being with him felt… different.
I told him I needed peace and to focus on work, and he gave me that.
Did I like seeing the blogs? No. The photos of him on red carpets with Leona, the whispers about Naomi being “the original,” the clips of Lyric acting like she was already married to him? No woman wanted to swallow that.
But he didn’t hide them, and he didn’t hide me either. I was on his arm tonight. The world saw me on his biggest night. The world knew.
And maybe that was enough for me.
I closed my laptop eventually, wine glass half-empty, and leaned back in my chair.
I wasn’t stupid. I knew Ares was more than what the world saw. I knew there were darker layers I hadn’t touched yet.
But I also knew something else.
For two years, I’d been orbiting his world. Six months official. And in that short time, I had felt more alive than I had my entire life.
So maybe I was the fifth girlfriend. Maybe I was one of many.
But I was also Amara Kevins.