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 hisblood red Bugatti, the kind of car that turned heads even throughlimo-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.
