Page 38 of The Sweetest Return

The dress skimmed my body, left my back bare nearly to my waist, and made my skin look rich beneath the lights. The bracelet was Saint Aurelia, one of our newest prototypes, still months away from production. Graduated emerald-cut diamonds wrapped my wrist in an almost continuous line, each stone set east-west, with three pear-shaped diamonds at the center.

The bracelet was work.

The perfume was between me, God, and whatever foolish part of me still cared what Andre might think when he saw me.

Camille noticed, of course.

“You smell expensive too,” she said, leaning toward my neck in the back of the Cadillac AWU had sent to take us from The Nocturne to Royal House.

“I am deeply committed to Crown Weekend.”

“To Crown Weekend?”

“Yes.”

She stared at me.

I stared back.

“Okay, girl.”

“Please look out the window.”

Her laugh followed me all the way downtown.

Royal House was already crowded when we entered, and for a while, I let Crown Weekend be the part I had missed. Old classmates. Faculty members. Women I remembered from student orgs, business workshops, late-night study sessions, and parties where everybody swore they were only stopping by for an hour.

They were founders now, executives, attorneys, doctors, stylists, consultants. Women with money, taste, opinions, and stories that deserved more than whatever luxury houses had decided Black aspiration was supposed to look like.

The Saint Aurelia part of me woke up easily.

I noticed who reached for my wrist first. Who asked whether the bracelet was vintage. Who clocked the emerald cuts from three feet away and leaned closer when I said the piece was ours. I took names, made mental notes, promised private previews, and told one woman she had exactly the right hand for a ring we had not released yet.

Niko Harris caught my wrist near the bar. “You cannot show me diamonds I cannot buy.”

“That reaction is exactly why I’m wearing it.”

“When can I buy it?”

“Soon. And when you can, I expect you to remember how badly you wanted it tonight.”

She laughed and made me promise to text her when it released.

I was still smiling when Camille returned with two glasses of champagne and enough information to ruin several lives.

“I have seen three people who owe me money, one marriage that will not survive the weekend, and a man who still thinks an undergraduate party trick is a personality.”

I took the champagne. “Only three people owe you money?”

“It’s early.”

Then her attention shifted over my shoulder.

My body knew before she said a word.

“I still want to fight Milan.”

I closed my eyes briefly. “Why would you tell me that before I even turned around?”