Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“So what I’m hearing,” Camille said, “is Andre Jones chartered you across the country, put you in a luxury hotel by the water, kept his hands off your work, and somehow you are still sitting here looking like YSL sold out of their newest bag.”
I stirred my soup and wished I had ordered something I could stab.
“That is not what I said.”
Although, to be clear, YSL selling out of a new bag would have been a professional emergency.
That was exactly why I had kept a good relationship with the PR sample team, especially the people who controlled which pieces went out to stylists in the U.S.
I was not a stylist, but I knew the sample economy like one.
Who got early access. Which assistants returned pieces on time.
Which celebrity team could turn one photograph into six screenshots, a waiting list, and a bag every woman suddenly swore she needed.
A sellout was rarely an accident.
It was timing, access, scarcity, and somebody behind the scenes making sure the right woman was photographed carrying the right thing before the rest of the world knew to want it.
Camille snapped her fingers in front of my face. “See? There you go thinking in campaign strategy. I asked about that man.”
I looked up. “Unfortunately, the answer is still productive.”
“Imani.”
“Fine. It was beautiful.”
We were tucked into a small restaurant between a florist and a stationery shop, the kind of place with dark wood tables, good soup, and waiters who knew when to vanish.
Camille sat across from me in a camel coat, pointed black boots, and the expression of a woman prepared to love me and aggravate me in equal measure.
She was excellent at both.
“Malibu was productive,” I said.
“That is a press release.”
“It was beautiful. The placement went better than expected. Laila wore the bracelet and pear drops, the photos hit immediately, and Marisol said they’ve been fielding questions since the first image posted.”
Camille leaned back. “That sounds expensive.”
“It was.”
“For Saint Aurelia or for Andre?”
I gave her a look.
She lifted both hands. “I’m only asking because private planes don’t usually appear because a woman manifested really hard in a conference room.”
“He chartered it.”
“Mmhmm.”
“I did not ask him to.”
“Mmhmm.”
“Camille.”
“I believe you. I also believe that man heard you had a problem and turned into Black Bruce Wayne with better thighs.”
I laughed before I could stop myself.
The laugh felt good.
So did the fact that I could laugh about most of the nonsense surrounding Dre now.
Crown Weekend had apparently introduced the internet to the question of who, exactly, Imani Elise Bennett thought she was to walk back into Andre Jones’ life and look comfortable there.
Since then, I had been the subject of more posts than I cared to count.
Old photos pulled from my public pages. Screenshots from Saint Aurelia events.
Pictures from New York, vacations, birthdays, dinners, and at least one photograph from six years ago that made me wonder how far down somebody had scrolled before deciding they had done enough investigative journalism for the day.
Fortunately for them, my archives were excellent.
I had never believed in leaving photographic evidence of myself looking unfortunate if I could help it. Even my questionable fashion years had been questionable with commitment.
Still, people studied those pictures like Andre Jones had announced a national search for a woman and somehow I had won.
They wanted to know what I did, where I had worked, how long Dre and I had known each other, whether my diamonds were mine, whether I came from money, whether I had always been this fine.
That last question was ridiculous.
Obviously.
I was the specimen.
What amused me most were the people determined to establish that I had somehow earned the right to be with him.
Someone had put together an entire thread about my career, complete with Tiffany, YSL, Saint Aurelia, and photographs from campaigns I had worked on.
Another woman posted a carousel of me with the caption OH, SHE HAS HER OWN MONEY, as though Andre’s net worth required any woman approaching him to arrive with audited financial statements.
Which, considering that man probably had enough money to put a respectable dent in Pittsburgh hunger, maybe people thought due diligence was appropriate.
The old me would have hated all of it.
Or, if I was being more truthful, she would have hated needing the flattering parts of it.
I would have told myself the attention did not matter while quietly feeling relieved every time somebody mentioned my career, my education, my success, my face, my body, my clothes.
Every comment that said she’s accomplished too or he didn’t just pick anybody would have soothed the part of me still afraid the world could look at us and see Andre Jones first and somebody’s pretty girlfriend second.
I understood that woman.
I just wasn’t her anymore.
People could think I was gorgeous. They were correct. They could admire my career, investigate my résumé, debate my wardrobe, or decide I had somehow accomplished the impossible by “snagging” THEE Andre Jones, as one post insisted on spelling it.
None of it changed what I knew.
I loved myself. I loved the life I had built.
“It was a lot,” I admitted.
“The plane?”
“The ease.”
Camille’s expression softened. That was why I loved her. She could clown me for ten minutes straight and still find the tender place without needing directions.
“But he didn’t make you feel small,” she said.
“No.” I looked down at my hands. “That’s the thing. He didn’t. He made sure everybody knew I was the point. He got me there, then stepped back and let me do my job.”
“Good.”
“It was.”
“And now?”
I exhaled and looked toward the window. Outside, a woman crossed the street carrying flowers wrapped in brown paper, laughing into her phone like her day had never considered turning complicated.
“Now Cleo wants me to travel more.”
“For Saint Aurelia?”
“Yes. After Malibu, the feedback got back to her and the board. Laila’s placement was supposed to be next month, then it turned into a last-minute press-preview situation with more eyes on it, more pressure, and no room for us to stumble.
I didn’t just get the jewelry there. I sold the experience.
The house. The story. Why those diamonds needed to be on that woman at that exact moment. ”
Camille picked up her fork. “So you did exactly what they hired you to do.”
“I did.”
“And did it well.”
“Yes.”
“And this is bad because…?”
I moved a piece of grilled salmon around my plate. “Because Dre is about to step back into football.”
Camille stilled.
“Officially?”
“Maybe. Coach Price called on the flight back from Malibu. Running backs coach.”
“Oh.”
“Exactly.”
“That’s big.”
“It is.”
“And you’re happy for him.”
“I am.” I set my fork down. “I watched him watch the Forge. I heard him when he said it hurt not being able to help. He needs this, or something like it. Somewhere to put what he knows.”
“But?”
“But we just found each other again. Now his world might get bigger at the same time mine does.” I met her eyes. “I know travel is normal. I know people manage it. I know I’m allowed to have a career and a man.”
“Are you telling me or yourself?”
“Both.”
Camille’s face gentled.
“I left him once for a job,” I said.
“You left Pittsburgh for yourself.”
“I know. And I don’t regret choosing myself.
I needed New York. I needed Tiffany. I needed to know who I was without everybody already making me Andre Jones’ forever.
But the result was still me gone and him here, and I don’t want to look up six months from now and realize we recreated the same distance with better luggage. ”
Camille reached across the table and touched my wrist.
“The difference now is you know how to talk, and Dre knows how to stay.”
My chest warmed, then tightened.
“That was rude.”
“That was wisdom.”
“It was both.”
“Good. Multifunctional.”
The laugh came easier this time, and the worry loosened a little.
It did not leave.
But it gave me room to breathe around it.
Camille leaned back, studying me over her tea. That was when I noticed the glow on her face.
I narrowed my eyes.
“What?” she asked.
“You have sex face.”
She choked on air. “Excuse me?”
“You do.”
“I have successful-real-estate-professional face.”
“No. That was before you sat down. This is different.”
“You are projecting because Andre Jones has you being flown across the country and properly handled.”
“Properly handled is not the allegation on the table.”
Camille picked up her napkin and pressed it to her mouth like manners could hide her expression.
My eyes widened. “Oh my God.”
“Lower your voice.”
“Camille.”
“Imani.”
“With who?”
She looked away.
I sat back slowly.
“Oh.”
“Do not oh me.”
“Malcolm?”
She sighed so deeply it came from her ancestors.
I covered my mouth with both hands. “You and Malcolm Reed?”
“It is not a thing.”
“That is exactly what women say when it is a thing and you know it.”
“It is casual.”
“Since when?”
“Crown Weekend.”
“Camille.”
“Close your mouth before your salmon gets cold.”
“You have been hooking up with Malcolm this whole time and did not tell me?”
“It has not been the whole time.”
“How many times?”
“That is personal.”
“So more than twice.”
She looked down at her plate.
“Camille.”
“It is not serious.”
“You are glowing like a woman who has been moisturized from the inside.”
She gave me a look. “That is vulgar.”
“That is friendship.”
“It is sex.”
“With Malcolm.”
“With Malcolm.”
“The man you used to argue with so hard I thought one of you might bite the other.”
Her lips pressed together.
“Oh,” I said again, softer this time.
“No.”
“You like him.”
“I like the sex.”
“You like him too.”
Camille reached for her tea, then set it down without drinking.
For once, she did not have a quick answer.
That told me everything.
“It’s okay to really like him, girl.”
Her shoulders lowered.