Page 208 of The Sweetest Return

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.