CHAPTER 3
Helisa’s POV:
I leaned my forearms against the cool, dark glass of the balcony railing, swirling the pale gold liquid in my crystal glass. A crisp, expensive Sauvignon Blanc. Crisp like my morning suits. Expensive like my time.
I took a slow, deliberate sip, letting the tart, cold acidity bite at my tongue as I stared down at the rooftops. Up here, forty stories above the block where I used to skip rope on the cracked concrete, the air was different. It was thin. It was cold.
And it was devastatingly lonely.
People look at Helisa Smith and they see an unassailable fortress.
They see the headlines in Forbes and Black Enterprise, the multi-billion-dollar valuation of E-Tech Corp, the flawless bespoke tailoring, the razor-sharp posture that commands an entire boardroom without a single word being spoken.
They call me the Ice Empress of Harlem. They say I have veins filled with liquid nitrogen and a heart forged in a tech lab.
They think I’m pompous. They think I’m bossy.
They don't know shit.
The exterior shell—the Great White shark persona—was an armor I had to build piece by bloody piece, because the world outside this tower will chew you up, crush your bones, and spit you out into the gutter the very second they realize you have a soft, fragile center.
This world, especially the upper echelons of the tech and venture capital landscape, is a feeding frenzy of predators.
White men in Patagonia vests who thought a young black girl from uptown couldn't comprehend high-level algorithms or global infrastructure logistics. Shrewd investors who looked at my skin and my gender and figured I’d be an easy mark to out-maneuver.
To survive among sharks, I had to become the apex predator.
I had to become the beast that made them think twice before they opened their jaws.
And today, nobody contested me. I brought the world to its knees with sheer will, raw intellect, and an uncompromising dedication that cost me sleep, sanity, and peace.
I am filthy rich. I am powerful. I am a queen inside my own empire.
But heavy is the head that wears the crown. God, it’s heavy.
A sharp, sudden gust of wind swept across the balcony, catching the hem of my skimpy silk robe and moving it from side to side.
The fabric brushed against my thighs—a fluid, sensual whisper of emerald-green satin that contrasted sharply with the rigid, structured clothes I wore all day.
The robe showcased the thick, sultry, and voluptuous curves of my figure, a body that spent hours in the gym keeping tight, keeping strong, but rarely ever experienced the warmth of another person's touch.
I looked down at the delicate embroidery along the sleeve.
Naomi, my housekeeper—the closest thing I had to family these days—had given me this robe as a birthday gift last month.
"You need to wear something soft when the day is done, Helisa," she had told me, her eyes full of that knowing, older-woman wisdom.
"You can't be a soldier twenty-four hours a day.
Let your skin feel something beautiful."
I loved it. But tonight, even the softest silk felt like a reminder of the emptiness that awaited me inside.
What is wealth without love? What is a billion-dollar valuation when you crawl into a king-sized bed every night and the only heat beside you is the residual warmth of your laptop charger?
My love life was a running joke in the media, a puzzle the tabloids and blogs desperately wanted to solve.
Every interview, every red carpet, some bold reporter would inevitably ask, "Ms. Smith, who is the lucky person capturing the heart of the tech industry's most eligible bachelorette?" And every single time, I’d offer them that same practiced, frosty, media-trained smile and give them my standard line: "I’m currently dating myself. I’m focused on loving Helisa, building my company, and ensuring our community gets a piece of the digital future. "
It was partially true. I did love myself. I had to, because no one else was going to do it for me. But it was a beautiful, gilded lie designed to hide the truth.
The truth was that I was dying for a soul-connection.
I was starving for it. I wanted, with a desperation that sometimes physically ached in my chest, to be wrapped up in the arms of someone who didn't give a damn about my stock options or my corporate titles.
Someone who could look at me past the armor, see the soft, bruised girl inside, and show me true, genuine, uncalculated affection.
A person who would hold me tight enough to let me finally drop the weight of the world off my shoulders, if only for an hour.
A single, hot streak of a tear escaped my eye, tracking slowly down my cheek.
I didn't stop it. Up here, in the dark, with only the wind as my witness, I didn't have to be the CEO.
I could just be Helisa. I raised my hand, my long, perfectly manicured fingers trembling slightly as I wiped the moisture away, staring out into the night.
Growing up in Harlem, nothing had ever been handed to me. My parents were comfortable—well-off by neighborhood standards, successful in their own right—but they weren't wealthy enough to protect me from the harsh realities of grief.
I lost my mother when I was only ten years old.
Cancer. I still remembered the smell of her lavender lotion, the soft, melodious sound of her laughter, and the agonizingly slow way her body withered away until she was nothing but a spirit leaving a quiet room.
It was the first time the world ripped away my safety net.
After she passed, it was just me and my dad.
He became my anchor, my teacher, my fiercest protector.
He was a tough man, an old-school Harlem hustle-and-mindset guy who taught me that the world didn't owe me a damn thing.
"Be tough, Helisa," he used to tell me every single night before I went to sleep, his dark eyes intense.
"Don't ever let them see you cry. If they see the water in your eyes, they’ll think you're drowning, and that’s when they push your head under. "
He taught me the grit. He taught me the strategy.
But the women in my family—my aunts, my mother’s friends—they taught me a different kind of power.
They taught me how to move, how to look, how to use my femininity as a weapon and a shield.
They taught me how to tease, how to command a room with a glance, how to let my confidence be an intoxicating elixir that left people off-balance.
When I entered my twenties, armed with my dad’s toughness and that natural, sultry allure, I felt unstoppable. I was ready to build something legacy-defining with him.
Then, the world shattered a second time.
Cardiac arrest. It happened on a random Tuesday.
No warning. No goodbye. My dad just collapsed, his heart stopping mid-beat, leaving me completely alone at twenty-four.
Luckily, he had been smart with his estate; he left everything in my name—our brownstone, his savings, his small investments.
It wasn't filthy rich money, but it was a foundation.
With his passing, the grief nearly consumed me, but instead of letting it drown me, I channeled that pain into fuel.
I took that foundation, combined it with sheer will, unadulterated smarts, and an obsessive dedication, and built E-Tech Corp from the ground up.
I didn't just build a company; I built a fortress to keep the pain out. I made billions. I became the queen.
But as the breeze shifted, carrying the faint, nostalgic scent of summertime asphalt and late-night food trucks from the avenue below, it brought back memories of today. It brought back the image of a pair of bright, unclouded brown eyes that had stared directly into mine on the 40th floor.
Miley Palmer.
***
I leaned back against the brick pillar of the balcony, taking another sip of wine as her face materialized in my mind.
When I first reviewed her application, I had expected another cookie-cutter resume from some Ivy League graduate who knew how to structure a sentence but didn't know a damn thing about grit. But Miley’s file had caught my eye.
A Harlem girl. Born and raised. Flawless academic credentials, yes, but her writing sample had a pulse.
It had a cadence that felt alive, sharp, and deeply intelligent.
And then she had walked into my office this morning.
I had kept my back turned to her at first, a calculated corporate power move I used to set the tone with new hires.
I was wrapping up the call with Tokyo, maintaining my usual unyielding, icy authority.
But the moment I hung up the phone and turned around to face her, the air in the room had shifted in a way I hadn't anticipated.
She was stunning. Truly, naturally beautiful.
Her rich, brown skin practically glowed against the cream silk blouse she wore, a wardrobe choice that was elegant but couldn't completely hide the magnificent, voluptuous curves of her body.
She had a shape that was undeniably uptown—thick, confident, and captivating—and her abs were so tightly toned beneath that high-waisted skirt I could tell she worked out with an obsessive discipline.
Her box braids were pinned up beautifully, exposing a graceful neck and a jawline that held a striking, defiant strength.
But it was her eyes that had caught me completely off guard.
When I stepped toward her, executing my usual clinical inspection designed to make junior staff shrink, Miley didn't blink. She didn't look down at her shoes. She didn't fidget. She stood her ground, her posture matching my own, and when her eyes locked onto mine, I saw it.
I saw the streets. I saw the fire. I saw that same fierce, spirited, untamed energy that I used to carry in my own chest back when I was a hungry twenty-something trying to prove I belonged in the room. She wasn't just an applicant; she was a fighter.