Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
“Imani.”
Her eyes held mine, deep brown and glistening under Royal House’s lights.
“Andre.”
Her mouth still knew how to make my name sound like it belonged to her.
The sound went through my chest first, then lower, and I had to stand there like Royal House wasn’t full of people with eyes.
Up close, the details hit harder. Long lashes. A careful face. Full lips touched with cherry-colored gloss, the red sitting pretty as hell against her dark skin. She pressed them together after she said my name, like she could pull the sound back if she caught it fast enough.
Too late. I had already felt it.
I had imagined this moment enough times to embarrass myself.
None of those versions had prepared me for her looking back.
Camille lifted her champagne to her mouth and pretended to look somewhere else.
I glanced at her. “You still starting trouble?”
“Only when necessary.”
“So always.”
Her smile came slow. “Good to see you too, Dre.”
“It is good to see you.”
That softened her face before she could stop it.
Camille might have enjoyed mess, but she had loved Imani through the aftermath. A part of her would always look at me like she remembered the damage first.
Fair.
Her gaze shifted past my shoulder, and something in her expression changed.
I didn’t need to turn all the way to know Malcolm and Tee were back there. I felt them watching, especially Malcolm, because he had never minded having front-row seats to somebody else’s consequences.
Camille noticed me noticing and lifted one brow.
“Excuse me,” she said.
Imani’s eyes narrowed. “Where are you going?”
“To speak to someone who is not either of you.”
“Convenient.”
“Very.” Camille smiled into her glass. “Behave, children.”
Then she walked off toward Malcolm and Tee like she had not just abandoned her friend on purpose.
Imani watched her go.
So did I.
Camille said something when she reached them, and Malcolm’s grin shifted in a way that made the history there harder to ignore. Tee looked between them, shook his head, and took a drink like he had decided the safest place to be was outside whatever mess was about to form.
Imani’s gaze came back to mine at the same time mine came back to hers.
We both saw it. Neither of us said a damn thing.
Some things did not need our help to become a problem.
For a second, we just stood there with Camille gone and the room moving around us.
I should have said something easy, but I didn’t.
She was here.
A waiter passed with a tray, and Imani reached for one of those tiny, fussy bites people served when they wanted to pretend an event had food.
Her arm lifted.
The silk shifted.
And the seam that had been covering the edge of her tattoo moved just enough for black ink to show near the place over her heart.
My breath stopped.
The bite paused halfway to her mouth.
Her lashes lowered, following my stare, and when she looked back at me, the question was already in her eyes.
“What is it?”
I moved closer.
No smooth excuse. No polite step to make room for the waiter. Just me closing the space because my body got there before my sense did.
Her chin tilted up.
My hand lifted an inch, then curled at my side because I wanted to touch that spot so bad it made my fingers ache.
I wanted my thumb on the ink. Wanted to feel her heartbeat under it. Wanted to know if my name still had any power there.
Her lips parted. “Andre?”
I leaned down until my mouth was near her ear.
She shivered.
“My name is still branded on you, Imani.”
I heard her take a deep breath.
“It’s mine,” she whispered.
I pulled back just enough to see her face.
Her eyes were on mine now, brown and bright under the lights, lashes low, mouth soft from the breath she had not gotten all the way back.
“It may be on your body,” I said, “but that’s my name there.”
Her throat moved.
“It’s an infinity symbol.”
“With my name in it.”
Her eyes stayed on mine.
The room kept moving around us, but I was back in that tattoo shop with her hand wrapped around mine. She had been twenty-one, nervous and pretending not to be, lying still while the needle worked over the place above her heart. She told me not to get sentimental about it.
I did anyway.
A woman like Imani putting your name on her body was the kind of thing a young man could mistake for forever being easy.
I knew better now.
Seeing it still hit places in me I had not given permission.
“You kept it,” I said.
Her voice came softer. “I told you. It was mine.”
I nodded slowly.
Maybe the tattoo was hers. The body was hers. The life she had built after me belonged to her completely.
But my name was still there, sitting over her heart beneath all that silk, and I did not know how to be casual about that.
“You walked in here with my name showing and expected me to act right?”
A small smile touched her mouth.
“You were doing fine until now.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
Her smile faded, but the heat stayed.
The noise around us seemed to blur at the edges.
I could hear laughter near the bar, music under it, Milan’s voice somewhere behind me, but none of it held my attention.
Not with Imani standing close enough for me to smell her perfume, see the shimmer on her skin, and watch every little change in her eyes.
“What were you doing?” she asked.
“Trying not to stare too hard.”
“At the tattoo?”
“At everything.”
Her lashes lowered again.
That little look did more than it should have.
I leaned in slightly, keeping enough space between us for the room to keep lying about what this was.
“You know what’s messed up?”
“What?”
“I wondered about the men after me.”
Her expression changed.
“Wondered how they handled seeing it. If they asked about it. If they pretended it didn’t bother them.”
Her lips parted.
“And if it did?” she asked.
“Then they had sense.”
Her mouth trembled like she wanted to smile and didn’t want to give me the satisfaction.
I leaned closer, and my voice dropped with me.
“Wondered if they knew the man they came after earned that tattoo.”
Her lips parted.
“If they knew how much work I put into you before you put my name over your heart.”
Her chest rose with the breath she pulled in, slow and unsteady, and I couldn’t even smile because I was too close to ending the torture for both of us.
Women covered names all the time.
Flowers. Clocks. Wings. Anything pretty enough to hide the evidence of being foolishly in love.
Imani could have done that. Shit, she had eight years to do it.
But she hadn’t.
My name was still there, tucked over her heart beneath purple silk, and every selfish part of me wanted to believe she had kept me somewhere else too.
In her memory.
In her body.
In that wet pussy I still remembered too well for my own peace.
I let my gaze touch the edge of the tattoo again, then lifted back to her face.
“I wouldn’t have liked it either.”
“No?”
“No.” My voice stayed low. “Seeing another man’s name over your heart while I had my hands on you? I would’ve hated that.”
Her eyes darkened.
Her fingers moved over the diamonds at her wrist, and I took the opening to shift gears before I forgot where we were.
“That bracelet is serious.”
Her brows lifted, but her voice was not as steady as it had been before. “You noticed?”
“I’d have to be blind not to.”
“Saint Aurelia,” she said, and something in her voice changed. Not enough to erase what had just passed between us, but enough for me to see her reach for ground she trusted. “Prototype for a new collection.”
“You wearing unreleased diamonds to an alumni mixer?”
“I believe in field research.”
“Is that what we calling it?”
“That is exactly what we’re calling it.”
I smiled, but it didn’t come easy. Not with my name showing over her heart and her standing close enough for me to remember what her skin felt like under my hand.
“You always were good at making people want what you believed in.”
Her eyes held mine.
“That’s generous.”
“It’s true.”
“You used to call it bossy.”
“You were bossy.”
Her mouth curved a little.
“You still listened,” she said.
“Most of the time.”
“No. All the time.” Her voice softened. “You just acted like you didn’t.”
I had listened to her in dorm rooms, in my apartment, in the front seat of my car while she talked through ideas with her hands moving and her eyes lit up. Back then, I had been young enough to think listening counted as support all by itself.
I knew better now.
Listening mattered, but so did what a man did with what he heard.
“You back in Pittsburgh for Saint Aurelia?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“For good?”
Her eyes stayed on mine. “For now.”
I nodded slowly.
“What does for now mean?”
Her fingers tightened around the stem of her glass. “It means I’m here.”
“That ain’t what I asked.”
“No,” she said quietly. “It’s all I can answer right now.”
I accepted that, even though every selfish part of me wanted more.
Across the room, Milan laughed at something too loudly. Imani’s eyes moved past my shoulder once, quick enough for her to pretend it had not happened.
I did not let her have the lie.
“She was talking,” I said.
Imani’s gaze returned to mine. “I didn’t ask.”
“I know.”
“I also didn’t care.”
“Mani.”
Her mouth pressed together at the old name.
I leaned in a little, keeping just enough space between us for the room to keep misunderstanding what this was. “She was talking. That’s all.”
Imani looked at me for a long second.
“I don’t have the right to ask about women in your space, Dre.”
“No?”
“No.”
“But you wanted to.”
Her eyes narrowed, but there was heat under it. “You always this sure of yourself?”
“About you?” I let my gaze drop to her mouth before I could stop it. “Not as sure as I used to be.”
That changed her face. The carefulness came back.
So did something softer.
Somebody called my name from near the bar. I ignored it for two seconds longer than politeness allowed, then lifted a hand without looking away from her.
“You’re popular tonight,” she said.
“I’d rather stand here.”
Her lips parted slightly.
Her eyes lowered to my suit, then came back to mine. “You look good, Andre.”
The way she said it did more than the words. Soft. Unwilling. Like she wished it were less true.
“Thank you.”
“No joke?”
“No.”
A faint smile touched her mouth. “Growth.”
“A little.”
“Don’t overdo it.”
“I wouldn’t dare.”
That made her smile for real, but it faded before either of us could get too comfortable.
“You staying all weekend?” I asked.
“Yes. At The Nocturne.”
My chest tightened. “In the hotel?”
“That is usually how staying at a hotel works.”
The edge of humor helped, but not enough to pull us out of the heat we were standing in.
“The gala is there Friday,” she said. “The game is Saturday. It made sense.”
She would be at The Nocturne.
All weekend.
And so would I.
“That does make sense,” I said.
Her gaze sharpened like she heard every thought I kept behind my teeth.
The room stayed crowded around us, but without Camille at her side and without my boys close enough to save me from myself, it felt easier to forget we were not alone.
“So,” she said, taking a small sip from her glass. “You’re being honored tomorrow.”
“That’s what they keep telling me.”
“You don’t sound excited.”
“I’m grateful.”
“That is not the same thing.”
No, it wasn’t.
I looked past her for a second, toward the banners hanging near the far wall. Purple and gold. My name printed beneath words like legacy and excellence like that kind of thing did not still sit strangely on a man who remembered being nineteen and scared beneath all the confidence.
“I came back every year for this part of Homecoming,” I said. “The donor rooms. The awards. The handshakes.”
Her eyes stayed on mine.
“Did you?”
“Yeah.”
“Because you liked it?”
I let out a quiet laugh. “Not that much.”
The corner of her mouth softened, but she waited me out.
I had forgotten how good she was at that. How she could leave space in a conversation until the truth got tired of hiding.
“I kept thinking maybe you’d come back too,” I said.
Her eyes glistened before the rest of her face changed.
There it was.
Surprise first. Then something tender and wounded, something that made her look away for half a second like my hope had touched a place she had been trying to keep covered.
“You looked for me?”
“Every year.”
Her eyes came back to mine.
I stepped closer before I could talk myself out of it. Not enough to make a scene. Enough to put my hand at the small of her back like I had a reason, like I was only guiding her away from the path of a waiter passing behind her.
I did not have a good reason. I just needed to touch her.
The silk was warm beneath my palm. Her back was bare above it, her skin soft and faintly shimmering under the lights, and when my thumb moved once, barely at all, she shuddered.
My jaw tightened.
“Dre,” she said quietly.
I leaned down, my mouth near her ear because anything louder felt like giving the room too much.
“I need to talk to you.”
Her eyes searched mine.
“I owe you an apology,” I said. “For a lot.”
Her cheek nearly brushed mine when she turned her face. Her eyes lifted, brown and wet-looking under the lights, lashes low like she was trying to hold on to herself.
“So do I,” she whispered.
The apology had been mine for years. I had carried it angry first, then guilty, then ashamed enough to avoid touching it for too long. Hearing her claim a piece of it did not make me feel absolved.
It made me feel less alone in the wreckage.
“Not here,” I said.
Her gaze dropped to my mouth. Then lifted again.
“No,” she agreed, voice low. “Not here.”
For a second, the whole room put a different thought between us.
The Nocturne.
Her room.
Somewhere with a door.
She knew it.
I knew she knew it.
And neither one of us said it.
My hand flexed once at her back before I made myself let go. The restraint cost me enough that my jaw ached.
“I was about to leave before you walked in,” I said.
She blinked, like she needed a second to come back to the safer part of the conversation. “Were you?”
“Yeah.”
“And now?”
Now I wanted to follow her anywhere she let me. I wanted every year I missed from her mouth. I wanted to know how many niggas asked about the man behind the tattoo over her heart, and how many lied like it didn’t bother them.
I wanted to know how much of me she remembered.
My hands.
My mouth.
My dick.
The one she used to act like belonged to her because, if I was being honest, it did.
I wanted too much for a man standing in public.
I swallowed the rest.
No sense standing in Royal House telling her my mind had already followed her back to The Nocturne.
So I gave her the truth I could say.
“Now I’m trying not to ask for what I want.”
Her breath shifted.
“And what do you want?”
My jaw tightened.
Wrong question.
Or maybe exactly the right one.
I let my eyes touch her mouth, then the place where my name still sat over her heart.
“Not here.”
Her fingers tightened around her glass, and the heat in her eyes stopped pretending.
“No,” she said quietly. “Not here.”