“Listen, I really don’t mean to be too forward. I want to take my time, get to know you, court you, all that good stuff…but right now, I need you to step into the office and close the door.”

Her eyes widened as she hesitated slightly before moving into the office slowly.

He followed her lead and closed the door behind them. Then, leaning forward, he covered her lips with his own.

Her mouth opened and she sighed. Her sweet mouth felt warm and welcoming. It had the taste of sweet cotton candy hot and fresh from Coney Island. He groaned inwardly, letting his tongue forge deeply into her mouth, twisting and turning, charting its path.

He lifted his arms and let his hands trail her body. She felt so good. Finally he pulled away and took a deep breath. The strong scent of honey, hibiscus and sweet desire assaulted his nostrils.

And then, with everything he had inside of him, he pulled away. Breathing came at great cost because every ounce of the air was laced with her. He couldn’t stop now. He needed more. He needed her.

GWYNETH BOLTON

was born and raised in Paterson, New Jersey. She currently lives in Central New York with her husband, Cedric. When she was twelve years old, she became an avid reader of romance by sneaking books from her mother’s stash of Harlequin and Silhouette novels. In the ’90s she was introduced to African-American and multicultural romance novels and her life hasn’t been the same since. She has a BA and MA in English/Creative Writing and a PhD in English/Composition and Rhetoric. She teaches classes in writing and women’s studies at the college level. She has won several awards for her romance novels, including five Emma Awards and the Romance in Color Reviewers’ Choice award for new author of the year.

When Gwyneth is not teaching or working on her own romance novels, she is curled up with a cup of herbal tea, a warm quilt and a good book. She can be reached via e-mail at gwynethbolton@prodigy.net. And readers can visit her Web site at www.gwynethbolton.com.

Make It Last Forever
Gwyneth Bolton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This novel is dedicated to the editors because they make it possible for us writers to make it do what it do!

To Angelique Justin for taking a chance on a new author and publishing my very first novel

To Mavis Allen for believing that I—with my little one book sold to another publisher—had a story strong enough to be one of the launch books for Kimani Romance

And to Kelli Martin for helping me to continue honing my craft and write better books each and every time and for making “revision hell” a little less hellish…

Dear Reader,

Have you ever felt a sense of déjà vu? Has your soul ever reached out to someone like it knew the person? Have you ever met someone for the first time and knew immediately that person was meant to be in your life forever?

Community activist Karen Williams and rapper and movie star Darius “D-Roc” Rollins experience these feelings when a tragedy brings them together. Their souls seem to speak to one another and call out to one another even as everything in their everyday lives tells them they have absolutely nothing in common.

At its core, this novel flips the script on the old adage that people come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. It gives that idea an extended-play hip-hop remix by asking what happens when the same person comes into your life across several lifetimes. Can we really make love last forever?

I hope you enjoy Darius and Karen’s story. Be sure to let me know what you think of it! And be sure to pick up my November 2010 release, Rivals in Paradise.

Much love and peace,

Gwyneth

Acknowledgments

Trying to carve out a career in romance while also doing everything I need to do in my other career is a juggling act, to say the least. With national conferences to plan, papers to grade, graduate students to advise and deadlines ever looming, sometimes it seems like I will never get everything done! And oftentimes personal relationships get put on the back burner for my work and writing obligations. So I want to thank my family and friends for understanding when duty calls and I have to spend every waking moment in front of the laptop because the book is due. I especially want to thank my husband, Cedric Bolton, my mom, Donna Pough, my sisters Jennifer, Cassandra, Michelle and Tashina, my nieces Ashlee and Zaria and my nephew Michael. And to all the readers, thank you so much for all your e-mails and notes. When I’m writing and thinking about all the other things I want to be doing, it really helps to hear from you and be reminded that people are waiting to read the words I write. Knowing that you enjoy my novels and want to read more from me makes it all worthwhile. Finally, I want to thank the ladies of Live, Love, Laugh and Books for being the coolest Yahoo reading group on the planet! You ladies rock!

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Epilogue

Chapter 1

“Woowee… I haven’t seen this in ages. You couldn’t tell me I wasn’t sharp when I put this on. Girl, you should have seen me back in the day wearing this dress!” Amina Sunyetta held up an African-print micromini dress in front of herself and did a little wiggle.

Karen Williams looked up from the dusty corner of the attic. She had been doing her best not to sneeze as she helped her friend decide what items to take with her when she moved and which items to give to Goodwill. The attic in the Prospect Heights brownstone was cramped and cluttered with so many boxes that she doubted they would be done by nightfall. And with only two people there doing the work, being done by the end of the weekend seemed like wishful thinking, as well.

Amina held up a dress that almost looked like some thing the super-skinny 1960s supermodel Twiggy might have worn, if Twiggy had been a black nationalist, that is.

Amina’s petite frame had clearly picked up a little weight over the years, but it wasn’t too hard to imagine the short, dark-chocolate woman sporting the unique minidress in the past. In fact, from what Karen knew of Amina’s exciting life, Karen would have been hard-pressed to pick anything she couldn’t imagine Amina doing. The term wild child came easily to mind. She envisioned the woman, who now wore a pair of cherry-red sweatpants and a long black T-shirt with red rhinestones, sporting the little minidress.

Karen moved two of her long locs, which kept escaping from the scrunchie meant to hold back her multicolored locs and hopefully keep them from getting too dusty. She didn’t have time to help her friend all weekend and also wash and retwist her hair. There were only so many hours in the day. And it was really important to her to help Amina. So the soothing ritual of washing, oiling and palm rolling would have to wait until next weekend.

Most of her locs—she refused to call them dreadlocks, because there was nothing dreadful about her hair in its natural state—were a deep, rich auburn color. But, mixed in here and there, she had splashes of other brighter, vibrant colors of copper, bronze and even one lone blond loc. Looking at her hair was like looking at fire, an element she felt strangely drawn to, at least figuratively. She didn’t have a desire to be too close to real flames. But she felt like fire was the core of what a person needed to have in order to be able to enact change in the world.

Karen laughed as she stood, stretched and dusted her backside off. She gave Amina a smirk. “You actually fit into that little thing?”

Amina cut her eyes playfully. “I told you I was a stone-cold fox back in the day. Neat, petite and oh-so-sweet! I had all the conscious-’bout-it brothers after me trying to get me to make warriors with them for the revolution.”

“All right now! What did sista Sonia tell us? ‘Fucking is not a revolutionary act,’” Karen playfully recited her favorite phrase from one of her favorite poems, Sonia Sanchez’s “Queen of the Universe.”

She had a deep fondness for sista poets from the 1970s, even though most of that stuff had been published before she was even born. She found the anthology Black Fire back when she was in high school and had searched out more women poets like Sonia Sanchez and Nikki Giovanni, devouring every line they ever wrote and moving on to Mari Evans, Carolyn M. Rodgers, June Jordan, Audre Lorde and countless others. A lot of times she felt like she was born a generation or two too late. At thirty years old, she often felt strangely connected to times that were before she was even born.

Amina guffawed. “And Sonia Sanchez ain’t neva lied!” Amina put the dress down and stared at another box for a long time before she finally moved it over to Karen.

Karen glanced at it and knew that it must have been a box of Shemar’s things. It had been six years since Amina’s son and Karen’s best friend, rapper Shemar Sunyetta, had been gunned down and murdered at the prime of his career. And it was still hard for either of them to deal with. That was part of the reason why Karen was there helping Amina clean out the attic. Amina still couldn’t bring herself to deal with the loss of her only child, and going through his things was difficult.

“Thanks for spending part of your weekend helping me, Karen. I appreciate it. I really needed to get rid of some of this stuff before I move to South Carolina. I think I’m becoming a pack rat in my old age.”

“With all this accumulation, I’m gonna go out on limb here and say you were a pack rat in your younger days, as well.” Karen laughed. “Since I can’t talk you out of moving to Myrtle Beach, I guess I can help you pack.” She tried to keep an upbeat and playful tone.

Amina had always been like a second mother to her growing up, and she knew she would miss her. Since her only family had moved back down South to be closer to her mother’s aging parents in Savannah, Georgia, she didn’t have much family left in Brooklyn. She had lots of friends and a few stray cousins, but when it came to people who knew her in that way that only real family could, Amina was it. So Karen didn’t want Amina to move. But she knew that Amina needed to finally get away from the house and the place that would always remind her of her dead son.

“Think of it this way. You’ll have another fun place to visit. A place on the beach,” Amina offered teasingly as she closed the box she’d been going through and pushed it near the other stacks of boxes she planned on donating to Goodwill.

“I just might take you up on that.” Karen picked up another dusty box and started going through it. It looked like more of Amina’s 1970s gear. There was a black leather jacket and a black beret along with some more funky minidresses and nice black patent-leather platform boots. The clothing appeared to be a few sizes larger than the tiny minidress Amina had been holding up. “I think I found some more of your clothes from back in the day. But they look a lot bigger than that little thing you were holding up before.”

Karen picked up the red minidress with black-and-green zigzag stripes going up and down and around the material. Even though contemporary minidresses weren’t her usual style at all, this retro minidress spoke to her. She could even visualize herself in it. And she had to admit she looked darn good in her head.

“This is cute. And it looks about my size. I could totally rock this! The retro look is back, you know.” The dress had that classic 1970s look with the tapered waist and quarter sleeves that were flared at the end. She loved it.

Amina looked up, and a somewhat sad smile crossed her face. “That was my sister’s. That must be a box of her things.”

Karen picked up the jacket and tried it on along with the beret. “She must have been about my size. Was she a revolutionary back in the day also? What are you going to do with her stuff?”

Amina walked over. “Yes, my big sister was the one who brought me into the Black Liberation Army. I miss Karla something fierce! She passed away many years ago, but sometimes it feels like yesterday.”

“Karla? You mean she didn’t change her name like you did, Becky?” Sensing the sadness creeping into Amina’s voice, Karen teased her friend and playfully ducked the swing of Amina’s arm that she knew was coming.

“My name is Amina. Didn’t nobody get off the boat from the motherland named Becky or Karen for that matter. And no, Karla never changed her name. She kept it in honor of our father. His name was Karl, and she had been named for him.”

Karen noticed the sadness that was starting to overcome Amina and tried to lighten the mood. “I think this minidress would look nice on me.” She held the dress up in front of herself and gave a little shake. She was right. The dress seemed like it was made for her. She had never had one of those experiences her girlfriends talked about where an article of clothing or a fierce pair of shoes supposedly “spoke” to them from a catalog or store window and said “take me home” or “buy me.” But that was the only way she could describe how she felt about the retro minidress. She wanted it. It was hers.

Karen smoothed the material of the dress and smiled. “As a matter of fact, this leather jacket looks nice on me, too, now that I think about it.”

Amina started looking through the box. “You’re welcome to anything you want in here. I still can’t fit in Karla’s clothing. She was always taller and thicker. As a matter of fact, she was about your size. But I have never seen you in a minidress. As a matter of fact, you rarely wear anything short. You wear those long crunchy granola crinkle skirts all the time or jeans and them damn Birkenstocks and those political T-shirts. I swear you must have a T-shirt for every political cause known to man.” Amina rolled her eyes dramatically.

Karen looked down at the black T-shirt she was wearing that had her favorite Rebecca West quote from 1913 on it in purple letters. The T-shirt read “I have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.” She smiled because she was also wearing her favorite purple Converse sneakers, not Birkenstocks.

Karen held up her leg and wiggled her foot.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot to add your collection of colorful Converse sneakers to your wardrobe selections. Oops.” Amina laughed. “This should be good though… Make sure you take a picture of yourself if you ever wear that minidress out someplace. This is something I have to see!” Amina started laughing.

“How you gonna call my clothes crunchy granola, and I’m helping you clean out your attic?” Karen sucked her teeth in feigned outrage as she put the minidress, leather jacket and black beret in her keeper pile along with an old sterling-silver name ring of Shemar’s from back when they were in high school and neither one of them could afford the nice flashy gold ones with diamonds in them. She remembered when she and Shemar purchased the name rings the summer before her freshman year.

She kept digging through the box to see if any of the other clothes caught her eye and pulled out a book wrapped in kente cloth. The cloth was nice and thick and had an authentic feel to it. It felt old, not like the mass-produced stuff she purchased from the Harlem Market when she was feeling particularly ethnic. She unwrapped the cloth and found an old, worn, leather-bound book inside. It seemed to be older than the cloth. She flipped through it and noticed various handwritings throughout. It appeared to be a diary of some sort but one that different people had used.

She ran her hands across the leather. It had that soft, smooth, buttery feel that only really used leather could attain. She wanted to just put it in her keeper pile and not say anything. But something as personal as a diary or journal was probably not something Amina was going to want to get rid of. And it was really too bad because something inside of her was telling her to take the journal, to just put it in her keeper pile and take it home.

“Man, I haven’t seen that thing in years! I remember when my sister, Karla, found that thing at a rummage sale. It was right before she met the man she called the love of her life, her soul mate.” Amina gave a sarcastic chuckle. “As if such a thing even exists. And if they do exist, I’m doubly pissed off because I haven’t found mine yet.”

Karen laughed at Amina’s suddenly disgusted expression. “So this journal belonged to Karla?”

“Yeah, she found it at a rummage sale at one of the churches where we held our free breakfast programs. I can’t remember which one, though. I just know she started writing in it all the time after she met Daniel.” Amina smiled and smacked her lips. “Now that was one fine man! He was one of those hustlers with a heart. Used to give money to the Black Liberation Army, give away turkeys in the hood to needy families during the holidays, toys to kids at Christmas, that kind of thing… Real smooth brother… Used to say he couldn’t get all the way down with the revolution because those berets would cramp his style.”

Karen smiled and tilted her head to the side. “Um, seems like you had a little crush on your sister’s man.”

“Girl, every woman with blood pumping through her body had the hots for that man. But once he met Karla, he only had eyes for her. I’ll tell you what, if soul mates do exist, those two were certainly soul mates. Once they got past their differences, they were inseparable. Heck, they were damn near magical. Made me sick!” Amina started laughing again.

“Sounds romantic. I’d sure like to find me a superfine, supersmooth brother to be my soul mate.” Karen realized that her voice was getting wistful, and she actually meant the words she was saying.

Where the hell did that come from?

She frowned and rubbed her hand across the soft scuffed leather again. The last thing she needed was a soul mate. A soul mate would mean a relationship. And a relationship would mean time away from her beloved youth center. And all her time and energy was wrapped up in her “hood work,” making the neighborhood a safer and more productive place for the youth. She didn’t have time for love or a relationship. And she certainly didn’t have time for any kind of soul mate.

Perish the thought!

So why did she all of a sudden want one more than she wanted the money to buy all new computers for the technology room in the Shemar Sunyetta Youth Center?

She scrunched up her face as she continued to rub the journal and let the leather lull her into thoughts of finding the one. “What are you going to do with her journal?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t seem right to just give it to Goodwill. Karla found her man after she found the journal. I had that thing for years after she and Daniel were killed in that freak automobile accident back in 1980.” Amina shuddered and closed her eyes for a moment. She frowned as she stared at the journal before shrugging and continuing.

“The journal didn’t bring me a soul mate or even a halfway decent man to warm my bed at night.” Amina rested her finger on her chin in contemplation. “In fact, since she died and I took her book, all I got was eight years of Reagan, four years of Bush, the end of the Black Liberation Army, the blissful, almost willful ignorance of the Clinton years, a revolutionary’s worst nightmare in eight years of W and the murder of my only child. That journal has probably been jinxing me! Nothing has gone my way personally or politically since I took it. I don’t know where that journal is going, but it’s not going with me to South Carolina and messing up my new start. Call me superstitious if you want!”

“Hey, but we have change we can believe in now. So maybe the tide is turning, at least politically.” Karen shook her head and laughed. Then she realized that if Amina didn’t want the journal, maybe she’d be willing to let her take it.

“I could take the journal off your hands. I want to read all about your sister’s love affair with her soul mate.” She flipped through the pages, noting the different handwritings and the hearts drawn on some of the pages throughout. “It looks like a lot of different owners have written in it. Maybe I can live vicariously through them, because Lord knows I don’t have time to have a love life.”

“You can have the journal. Maybe it’ll bring you a man.” Amina twisted up her face and stuck out her tongue. “Because Lord knows you need one.” Amina laughed and ducked when Karen threw the kente cloth at her.

“Girl, you better go on and get you some love! Don’t wake up my age and alone. It’s not a fun place to be. Whatever happened to that Saul guy you met in college that used to work with you at the center? Didn’t you and he have something going on? What happened with him?” Amina frowned. “I never really liked him, but he seemed like he was stuck to you like glue.”

“Saul finally saved up enough money to take a trip to the motherland. You know he was Mr. Africa via Alabama.” Karen laughed. “But we weren’t a good match. He needs his African Queen, and I hope he finds her over there. I just miss the fact that I could really count on him to help out at the center. And the sex wasn’t bad when I had an itch that needed scratching. He was all right as an FWB.”

“What the hell is an FWB?”

“A friend with benefits!” Karen chuckled.

Amina paused, and her eyes widened when Karen told her what it meant. “Girl, he was just taking up space and keeping you from finding the man you were supposed to be with. But I might have to look into this FWB thing a little more.” Amina laughed. “You wait and see. I’m gonna call you from my house on the beach and tell you all about the fine young hottie that’s gonna fall in love with me and knock me off my feet. I’m gonna get me a young tender roni.”

“Watch out now, cougar! I see I’m gonna have to keep you away from the youth center. You might start scoping out the youth to give them more than just a little hope and inspiration.”

Amina laughed. “I like them young, but not that young! They have to be at least drinking age. And since I’m a black woman, that would be panther, not cougar. Get it right, girlfriend!”

Both women cracked up then.

“You’re a hot mess, Amina. A hot mess!”

“And don’t you forget it. Come on, girl. I need some lunch if I’m gonna tackle the rest of this. Let’s go downstairs and eat. I know you’ll be talking about how I worked you to death and didn’t feed you.”

Karen got up and followed Amina down the stairs. But their conversation about love struck a chord. She had just turned thirty. Was it time for her to find a man? She shook off the thought.

“You know me so well. I sure will talk about how you worked me like a slave and didn’t offer me a sip of water. Not to mention it’s hotter than hell up in here. You would pick the start of summer to want to clean out your attic and move down South. Only you, Amina, only you!”

“Girl, stop complaining and come on!”

They laughed and continued walking. Karen barely realized that she still had the journal in her hands.

Darius “D-Roc” Rollins stood in the finished basement of the home he’d purchased for his grandmother, not really listening to the chatter that was going on around him. He still couldn’t believe that his younger cousin—his only cousin, who had been just like a little brother to him—was dead.

He had dispensed with his normal entourage for the funeral and was thinking about taking a break from his boys for a little longer. He just needed a change. He needed a break from everything that had kept him away from his family for years.

And the way he was feeling about the loss of his cousin, he really didn’t want a large group of people just hanging around him following his every move. The group mentality had lost its appeal. Most of his core entourage were his homeboys anyway, so they took the respite as a chance to visit with their own families.

He looked around the room. The newly finished room had state-of-the-art electronics, a minitheater, wall-to-wall cream carpet, plush rust-colored sofas and light olive-green paint on the walls. The large mahogany sofa tables, end tables and table and chairs off in the corner tied the entire room together. It was actually his first time seeing the room since it had been remodeled. He was glad that he had surprised his grandmother by paying for it and hiring someone to make sure no detail was left to chance. The large space was now a family recreation room that was perfect for entertaining large groups. He’d had it remodeled a year ago for his grandmother’s birthday, thinking it would keep his cousin home more. He had no idea then that they would be standing in the same room mourning the loss of the boy.

How could you account for an eighteen-year-old college student with his entire life in front of him being gunned down in a neighborhood that he no longer lived in but couldn’t seem to stay away from? How did a person come to grips with the fact that no matter how much money he sent home to get his family out of the hood and keep his cousin out of the streets, the streets still managed to claim his cousin?

He looked around at all the faces standing around the basement, eating the food he’d had catered for the repast. The sad thing was that most of the people there probably couldn’t care less about Frankie. Most of them were only there to get a glimpse of “D-Roc.” Some had even asked for autographs and some had snapped pictures with their cell phones.

Pathetic. He didn’t regret his celebrity by any means. But he did regret the way people behaved because of it.

“It’s good to have you home, son.” His grandmother came and stood by him.

The tall, bronze-complexioned woman with her salt-and-pepper hair curled softly around her face looked older than she ever had. Her eyes were puffy and bloodshot, and he could tell she’d been crying again. It broke his heart to see her so torn apart. She’d raised him after his mother was murdered, and when her youngest daughter had gotten pregnant as a teenager, she’d essentially taken on raising that child, too—Frankie. Burying Frankie probably felt as bad to her as when she’d buried Darius’s mother.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come home more often. Maybe if I had—”

“Don’t you go blaming yourself, Darius! Wasn’t nothing you could do to keep Frankie out of them streets. Lord knows we tried. He just wouldn’t listen. He wouldn’t have listened to you either.”

“How you know that, Mama? He might have. He looked up to Darius.” His aunt Janice was only six years older than him. She’d had Frankie when she was eighteen. She was also tall with a bronze complexion and looked like a younger version of his grandmother. She wore an expensive weave with jet-black hair hanging well down her back. Despite her tears and sorrow at the moment, she was still in her typical perpetually angry state of being.

Unfortunately, this time she had a right to be angry with him.

Darius knew he should have done more to make sure his cousin stayed away from dangerous situations. It took more than buying a nice big house in New Hyde Park and moving the family to the safer Nassau County suburb. It took more than footing the bill for private school and guaranteeing a full ride to college.

Neither he nor Frankie had ever had a father figure—just Grandma and Janice. What Frankie needed—hell, what the little thug who had shot and killed Frankie probably needed, for that matter—was someone there who understood what it meant to be a young man in the hood, someone willing to be there and talk to him and talk him out of foolishness.

All the money in the world didn’t make up for time. It was funny how it took tragedy to bring some lessons home. For the first time in his life, he knew more than ever that nothing beat time. The death of his cousin brought that lesson home with enough poignancy to last several lifetimes.

His chest felt heavy. So much pressure was building up; it felt as if it was going to cave in and all of his insides would be exposed. Something had to give, and he had to let it out or he knew he might just explode.

He tightened up, holding it in. He couldn’t break down. He had to be a rock for his grandmother and aunt. He let out a stuttered breath and then another.

Frankie was dead.

It was his fault, even if he hadn’t held the gun. He needed to own up to that and not cry over it like a little boy.

Man up!

That’s what he needed to do. At thirty years old, he was the man of his family. He needed to start doing more than throw his money around to prove it. He loosened his tie. The central air was blasting, but he still felt closed in wearing the suit and tie he’d worn to the funeral.

“You’re right, Janice. I should have been here for Frankie. He needed me, and I failed him.”

“I’m glad you know it! Too bad it’s too late.” Janice glared at him before cutting her eyes.

“Janice, stop that! This child is grieving just like we are. It’s not fair for us to put this all on him. It’s not fair, and it’s not right. He did all he could for Frankie. We all did.” Grandma’s voice cracked, and she started sobbing again.

Darius wrapped his arms around her and held her as she cried. He held her together and tried to keep everything he felt inside from tumbling out.

He could just see someone with a fancy cell phone or digital camera shooting a video of him breaking down. And he could just see the video showing up on YouTube if he gave in to what he was feeling and cried—if he let the pain take over.

The tenuous street cred he had as a so-called positive rapper-turned-Hollywood-movie-star would be gone if someone caught him slipping and he ended up bawling like a little baby on the Internet.

He shook his head and frowned.

Street cred.

That’s the reason Frankie was dead. He hadn’t wanted to leave the hood behind. He’d wanted to show that he was still down. There had to be a way to be down and not end up in the ground. Hell, he didn’t want to forget where he came from any more than his cousin had. He’d given back financially to lots of good causes and charities in the hood.

He threw money at the hood, the same way he’d thrown money at his cousin.

“Can’t talk now, Frankie, I’m on set about to shoot a scene. I’ll call you later. Hope you like the new wheels.”

“Gotta hit the studio, man. Tell your moms and Grandma I said hi. I’ll try and call y’all this weekend.”

He wasn’t even going to think about all the times he’d let calls from his cousin go straight to voice mail because he was busy with a sexy model or Hollywood starlet. He had dropped the ball, and his cousin had paid the price.

“I’m going to stick around for a little while. I’m between films, and I can put off the studio for a min—”

“Oh, don’t stick around now! We don’t need you now! Go back to Hollywood. Go back to your busy life!” Janice choked out in an angry hiss. “Frankie needed you. You couldn’t make time for him….” Her voice trailed off and she bit back angry tears.

He wasn’t mad at his aunt. She needed someone to blame. Hell, even he blamed himself. So why should he expect any different from her?

“I’m thinking about devoting some time down in the old neighborhood, some time in East New York. There are a couple of youth centers. I could spend some time… I could try and honor Frankie’s memory.”

He had to do something.

“Oh, son, you don’t need to be down there. It’s dangerous. Anything could happen. You should just go on back to your life where it’s safe.” The worried expression on his grandmother’s face tugged at his heart.

He knew the last thing she needed to worry about was the possibility of burying yet another child.

“You don’t have to worry about me, Grandma. I’ll be fine.” He wanted to say that he wouldn’t be involved with the kinds of things that his cousin had been involved in. But he knew that would have set his aunt off unnecessarily.

At the end of the day, it didn’t matter what Frankie had been involved in. Darius had failed him.

“The old neighborhood? Why would you want to be down there? No one wants you down there. Go back to Hollywood, Darius! I can’t believe you’re going to use my child’s death as a part of some bullshit publicity stunt!” The ugliness of his aunt’s voice and the distrusting glare in her eyes shook him to his core.

When had it gotten this bad? When did his own family actually forget who he really was? The fact that his aunt could even accuse him of such a thing let him know that he had really dropped the ball where they were concerned.

“That’s not what I’m doing, Jan… You should know that. In spite of everything… You should know…” He shook his head. The basement was starting to close in on him and that sinking about-to-cave-in feeling in his chest had him thinking if he didn’t get out of there soon he really would end up broken down and sobbing on the floor. He took a deep breath. He needed air, so he walked away from them.

“Son, don’t go. Don’t let Janice upset you like this. We know you, son. We know you! We love you.” His grandmother’s voice trailed off as he walked up the stairs.

Even though he knew he could never make things right for his cousin, the tragic loss demanded that he try, demanded that he do something.

Chapter 2

Two weeks after helping Amina clean out the attic, the woman Karen thought of as her “other mother” moved to Myrtle Beach. Karen had gone out to dinner with Amina the other night and said her tearful goodbye. Even though it felt like her connection to her deceased best friend was gone, she still had the youth center to hold on to.

It was Monday, and Karen walked up to the Shemar Sunyetta Youth Center with the same sense of optimism she started each week with. Her building was two stories of prime Brooklyn real estate—two stories of space, opportunity and possibility.

No matter how things had gone the week before, she started each day of the week with a continued steadfast belief in the change she could evoke in people’s lives. Her mother had always called it her stubborn streak. But Karen thought of it as sheer determination.

She was determined to make a difference all day, every day.

As Karen lifted the gate at the entrance to the youth center, Dicey “Divine” Stamps walked up and lifted the gate to her storefront palm-reading spot, Divine Intuition. It was right next door to Karen’s youth center. Ever since the quirky woman opened up the store a year ago, she had been trying to get Karen to come in for a reading.

Karen always said no. While she might have embraced a sort of eclectic style when it came to hair and clothing, she was really traditional when it came to certain things. She didn’t do the woo-woo stuff! Period.

“My offer to read you still stands. I’ll give you half off my normal rates.” Dicey hefted up her gate with a smile. The tall, almost Amazon-like woman had deep, dark skin and wore her long curly hair in thick goddess braids. The braids were wrapped around her head and had an almost crownlike appearance. She always wore African-print goddess gowns. Today she had on a short-sleeved long dress made of mud cloth.

“Girl, you know I don’t believe in all of that.” For some reason, she thought about the journal that she had taken from Amina’s house and how she had felt so compelled to take it with her. She hadn’t picked up the journal since she took it, so she had no idea why it popped into her head at that moment.

“Don’t you want to know?” Dicey said in a way that almost made Karen think she knew what was going on in Karen’s head.

Confusion crossed her face as she looked at Dicey.

Dicey chuckled as if she were amused with herself. “Don’t you want to know what’s in your future, dear one?”

Karen laughed. “I already know what’s in my future, lots of irritated teens if I don’t get in here and get things ready. The summer is a busy time of year for a youth center.”

“I’m seeing love in your near future. Don’t you want to come and find out when you’re going to meet your soul mate?”

Karen stopped laughing then and stared at Dicey really hard. She thought about the journal again and the story Amina had told her about Karla and Daniel. She shook her head, both to clear it and to say no.

“All right then, but my offer stands whenever you stop being afraid and you’re ready to embrace your destiny, dear one.” Dicey offered a melodious laugh before heading into her shop.

Karen unlocked the door to the center and went about her day.

“If you can’t follow the rules then you won’t be able to come here again.” A familiar sadness began to creep into Karen’s heart as she kept her stern frown focused on Clarence.

She had pulled him into her back office after she caught him trying to sell a marijuana blunt to one of the other young men. She went back and forth in her mind about the right thing to do and decided against calling the police. She hoped she wouldn’t regret that decision.

The boy was only fifteen, and already she sensed it might be too late for him. But she didn’t think being sent back to juvenile detention would have helped him either. She knew that she might have been able to reach him eventually. But if he was bringing drugs into her center, then there was really nothing she could do. She couldn’t condone that.

No way.

She leaned back a little in her rolling office chair. The high-end office chair was one of the items in her office that she had spent a little extra money on. The rest of the furnishings were low-end Office Max cherry-stained plywood. But at least everything matched and looked professional. Her office was the only space in the center that she had cut back on when it came to furniture. She really invested all of her money and her time in making the center a nice, welcoming space for the youth, a space where they could come and get away from the lures of the street.

Allowing Clarence to remain at the center would jeopardize everything she was trying to accomplish. And more than just Clarence’s future was at stake. So many young people needed the space that the center offered. Still, anytime she had to sacrifice one for the whole it hurt. She really wanted to save them all.

“That’s cool. Whatever, yo, whatever.” Clarence shrugged his shoulders and twisted his face in a harsh manner.

The bravado he put up didn’t fool Karen at all. She knew that he cared more than he let on. And if she could give him another chance she would have. But he had a long way to go before he stopped letting the wrong folks influence him.

“I’ll tell your parole officer that it just didn’t work out here. But I’m sure he’ll be able to find another place for you.”

“That’s jacked up, Ms. Williams. You pretend like you care and that you want to give us a chance. But then you just throw us out ’cause we mess up. I said I didn’t mean to—”

“You didn’t mean to get caught. That’s all.” Karen ran her hands through her locs.

Was she being too hard on Clarence? Could she allow him to stick around? She thought about the other young people at the center—the ones Clarence had tried to sell drugs to.

No. No, he had to go.

“Whatever, Ms. Williams. You just like everybody else. You ain’t really trying to give a brother a chance. You just talkin’, you don’t mean that shit you be saying.”

“That’s not true, Clarence! You have to take some responsibility here. That’s the problem. You’re not taking responsibility. You just want to blame others.”

Clarence pushed his chair back harshly and leaped out of his seat, knocking the cherry-stained wooden chair he’d been sitting on to the ground. “This place was wack anyway. I got better stuff to do with my time than waste it here.”

“Clarence, don’t leave mad. Let’s talk about the other options available to you. I can’t let you continue to hang out here. But there are—”

“Man, fuck this! I’m out.” Clarence went bursting out the door.

Torn between following him and hoping that his leaving would help things remain on an even keel, Karen took a deep breath and placed her head on her desk instead. She wondered if she had done him any favors by just barring him from the center and not calling the cops. She told herself it was just weed. But she wondered if calling the cops on him would have ensured that he didn’t move on to other drugs in the future.

As she mentally went over the reasons yet again why Clarence had to go, the phone on her desk rang, jolting her.

She picked up the phone and paused before answering.

“Shemar Sunyetta Youth Center, Karen Williams speaking.” Dragging a halfway pleasant greeting out was easier than making her voice sound like she meant it, so she settled for brevity.

“Hello, Ms. Williams. My name is Cullen Stamps, and I represent Darius Rollins. He’s a rapper. You might have heard of him?”

“Yes, I’ve heard of D-Roc.” Twirling her locs with a pencil, she waited for some sort of explanation.

Who in the world hadn’t heard of hip-hop’s golden boy turned Hollywood movie star? A person would have to live under a rock not to have heard of D-Roc, especially a person in the East New York section of Brooklyn. He was the boy from the hood who had made it out and done good.

“Yes, well. He is interested in devoting some time to your center as a way of giving back. You might have heard that his young cousin was just murdered and—”

Cutting people off was rude, but she didn’t have the patience to let him go on.

“Don’t tell me… He wants to spend a few hours here as a part of some publicity stunt, right? My goodness, what celebrities won’t do for a little bit of attention. Is he really trying to turn his cousin’s death into some kind of image or marketing opportunity? Sheesh.” She clicked her tongue in disgust.

Not that her center couldn’t use a little free publicity, but she was really protective of the kids, and allowing a celebrity—no matter how fine that celebrity was—to use them wasn’t going to happen on her watch.

“Ms. Williams, I know that you are probably overworked, and we certainly appreciate the good work you’re doing with the youth. That’s why Mr. Rollins is determined to volunteer at your center. He has researched several, and he likes what you’ve done in such a short period of time with so few resources. He intends to volunteer a large amount of time while he is between films. He’s even holding off getting right back in the studio for his much-anticipated third album. Against my better judgment, I might add. To be frank, Ms. Williams, you really could stand to gain a lot from his presence at your little center. The publicity would work both ways. He’d put you on the radar, and you might just get more donations for your little cause.”

Each time the man said the word little in reference to her center—her life’s work—her skin crawled. If this was the type of person D-Roc had representing him then she didn’t want any part of him.

“Tell Mr. Rollins thanks, but no, thanks. My little center can get along just fine.”

Something about the manager’s slimy voice made her skin crawl. She didn’t like Cullen Stamps. And no amount of free publicity was worth dealing with the smarmy man. D-Roc clearly surrounded himself with questionable people. And that was all the more reason not to be lulled by a shot at some free publicity.

“Well, now. Ms. Williams—”

“Well, now, what? I’m not interested in helping Mr. Rollins enhance his so-called positive image by letting him waltz through my center and these kids’ lives for his own grandstanding. Goodbye!”

It felt so good to hang up the phone in his face. But as soon as she did it she realized that she might have done so in haste. Free publicity might mean more donations. She really could have used the publicity, because in these economic times the grants weren’t coming in as frequently as they used to.

D-Roc personified the words media darling. Not since Will Smith had a rapper been able to totally enrapture the American public. He certainly was loved, and he might have brought some of that love to her center. But if he hired slime like Stamps, it probably wasn’t worth it. She was right to turn Stamps down.

She was trying to instill values in the youth, not slick Hollywood images and media-induced frenzies. And there was something about the snarky sound of Stamps’s voice that rubbed her the wrong way. After the run-in with Clarence, she just wanted to be able to tear into someone. Stamps just picked the wrong time to call and plead D-Roc’s case.

The rest of the day went on pretty much uneventfully, and Karen couldn’t help but feel glad. Usually running a center and doing “hood work,” as she liked to call her activism in the community, made for more drama-filled days than she desired. But most days, when she could look at the kids and know that she was keeping them off the streets and exposing them to things and ideas that would help them stay off the street, she knew that it was all worth it.

After her very small group of staff and volunteers left and she got the last kid away from a computer and out the door, Karen went over to lock the door so that no one else could come in while she worked on some more grant applications for a little while. Before she could lock the door, it came bursting open, pushing her back. She looked up to tell whoever it was that the center was closed for the day.

Depending on who had so rudely barged in, her tone might have been pleasant or it might have been filled with attitude; she reserved the verdict until she got a good glimpse.

Looking at the muscled form and devil-may-care smirk that crossed a deliciously chocolate-brown face, she realized that she suddenly couldn’t decide. Standing in front of her, in a pair of jeans, polo shirt, expensive sneakers and a fitted New York Yankees cap, was the most gorgeous man she had ever seen.

Stunned, she could not find her words.

D-Roc apparently wasn’t one to give up easily.

Darius Rollins came into the youth center all set to pull every trick in his playbook in order to make this Karen Williams person allow him to volunteer at her youth center. The thought of just finding another youth center in which to volunteer never even crossed his mind. He’d researched the few youth centers around his old neighborhood, and he liked this one. Even though he hadn’t known Shemar Sunyetta personally, he felt that the fact the center was named for the murdered rapper was a sign of some sort.

He honestly didn’t know why he bothered paying Cullen. The man couldn’t get him a volunteer gig! He could only surmise that if it wasn’t something Cullen could make a commission off of, then he wasn’t pressed to work as hard.

Cullen had said that the woman running the center was a bitch, and she wasn’t trying to be helpful at all. Darius just figured Cullen lacked finesse. Darius knew he had to go down to the center and work his magic on the woman. Cullen had said that the woman was probably some uptight, ugly prude with an attitude who hated men. Darius didn’t care what she was or how she looked. He’d have her eating out of his hands in no time, and he’d be able to finally do something to honor his cousin’s memory.

Looking at the brown-skinned beauty with stunning crinkled auburn and copper locs, he had to say Cullen had gotten it all wrong. Yet again! The woman who glanced up at him with large chocolate-brown eyes, flawless toasted-cinnamon skin and lush red lips was—in a word—beautiful. She was of medium height and had a figure that was stacked in all the right places. She wore a pair of jeans with holes in them, and he got the sense that hers weren’t purchased that way. She also wore a black-and-white “No More Prisons” T-shirt and white Converse sneakers. The jeans fit her curves perfectly, and the T-shirt told him a little something about her possible politics.

She intrigued him immensely. At least he wouldn’t have to fake it when he flirted with her. Because—seeing her—he knew exactly which tactic he was going for. Strong-arm tactics were out. Smooth-talking-mack-dropping-game-slinging skills were in and definitely more in line with how he planned to play it.

“Hello” was the extent of what he could manage to utter as he took in her overwhelming beauty. His heart actually felt as if it had stalled and kick-started as he really looked at her this time. Shaking his head in an effort to clear the foggy uneasiness that had started to creep into his being, Darius cleared his throat.

She had glanced up at him when he walked into the center, and she was still looking at him. Her big, brown eyes slightly widened, and she finally blinked several times in rapid succession.

He guessed by her wide-eyed, prolonged stare that she might have been experiencing a reaction very similar to his own. But what would be the best way to find out if she was?

“So, you’re Karen Williams.” He let her name roll off his tongue, and he could have sworn he tasted each syllable.

She blinked and shook her head. The dazed look in her eyes was quickly replaced by a stern expression. “Yes, I am. And we are just about to close, Mr. Rollins. I don’t know why you’re here. I’ve given my answer to your request to your very condescending manager.”

So she knew who he was. That could be a good thing. Maybe she was a fan. However, if she were a fan, she probably wouldn’t have declined his offer to volunteer. He glanced at her and found her lips twisted to the side and her left eye slightly slanted; the entire look was a mixture of incredulity and disgust. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t such a good thing, and she definitely wasn’t a fan. He could deal with that. He firmed his resolve to woo her.

“I apologize for whatever Cullen did or said to turn you off. But I would like to speak with you about me volunteering here. I read about the good work you’re doing, and I really want to help out. In fact, seeing your pretty face is enough to make a brother long for community service.” He gave her his very best Hollywood smile, his most sultry and seductive leading-man smile.

Judging by the extra dose of sour she added to her expression, he probably could have left that last sentence out. But it wasn’t a lie. Seeing her made him want to volunteer there now more than ever.

“Yeah, whatever. Listen, it’s late, and I’ve been here all day. I don’t have time to talk with you now.”

“How about I take you out for a bite to eat, and we can get to know one another. You know you can fill me in on how we can best make use of my very generous offer to volunteer here. And I can fill you in on all my many talents and the amount of publicity and donations I can bring to your center. You know, the perfect win-win situation.”

The beautiful woman arched her left eyebrow and twisted her lips again. “I don’t think so… I don’t know.” She gave him a hesitant once-over, and he let himself hope that she was reconsidering.

“Okay, you can come in tomorrow morning when we open. We can talk about it then. Good night, Mr. Rollins.”

Although the last thing he wanted to do was leave there without making a better connection with the lovely Karen Williams, Darius realized that he probably wasn’t going to get very far with her that evening. Good thing he was so determined to do everything in his power to make her say yes. He’d have plenty of time to get her to think better of him.

“Solid. That’s cool. We’ve got plenty of time to get to know one another and to connect. Plenty of time.”

She stared at him, and he thought he saw a glimmer of something in her eyes. He almost wanted to kick himself for giving up so quickly. He might have had more of a chance than he thought he did at wearing her down that evening. Dang.

Then, just as quickly as the sparkle flashed in her eyes, it was gone and replaced with “sista-tude.”

“Yeah, well, whatever. I’ll see you in the morning. Peace.”

Giving the beautiful and sexy woman one last glance, he begrudgingly turned to leave. It hardly seemed like the right thing to do, and everything inside of him screamed, “Stay until she at least warms up to you!” He hoped that he’d get the opportunity.

One thing he was sure of was that he wouldn’t give up until he accomplished what he wanted. The other thing was that he was no longer sure if exactly what he wanted was a chance to volunteer, a chance to get to know Karen or both.

Chapter 3

Karen leaned back and tried to calm the rapid—almost erratic—beating of her heart. It had been all she could manage just to string words together to speak to D-Roc. While she had never been one to be starstruck or anything like that, she figured that must have been the reason why her skin felt clammy and all the air seemed to be gone. She was damn near hyperventilating because she had seen a rap star.

No, that couldn’t be it. She had been around rappers before. Her now-deceased best friend had been a rapper, and she’d hung out with him and other rappers lots of times. But she had never been around D-Roc. And now she wondered how in the heck she was going to manage being around him if he managed to sweet-talk her into letting him volunteer at the center.

The brother was fine. She had seen his shirtless, perfectly chiseled torso on countless magazine covers, and it always made her stop and gaze longingly. And the photos of the ripples and muscles in his chest and those bulging biceps of his always had a way of making her heart rate rise. But she had no idea that seeing the man in person—fully clothed—would almost send her into heart failure! Good Lord! The man gave new meaning to the phrase “sex appeal.”

But it was more than that. Something deep inside of her was calling out to him. She felt it as sure as she ever felt anything in her life. And that scared her.

Locking up the center, she started off down the block to the bus stop. The evening walk usually gave her a fair amount of time to clear her head, especially in the summer. Yet this evening the only thing her mind wanted to focus on was D-Roc. On second thought, she wished it was only her mind stuck on the rapper and actor.

Seeing him did something weird to her. Her heart felt—funny. Her soul felt—light, almost airy. And the other physical reactions…the dampness that made her wish she’d worn a panty liner and the tight ache in her nipples. She wasn’t even trying to analyze those. She was not some groupie chicken-head, but she swore it took everything inside of her not to run up on the brother and tongue him down.

Not cool.

“I know you not gonna walk home at this hour of the night?” The deep and sexy voice that came from behind her would have made her break off running on any other evening.

She turned and got caught up in the deep brown eyes of Darius Rollins. The lopsided grin that highlighted the dimple in his left cheek didn’t help matters. She made an effort not to look down, because she knew it would only compound matters due to his toned and muscular physique.

“Can I give you a lift?”

“I don’t get into cars with strangers.”

“I’m not a stranger.” He took another step closer, and all semblance of personal space was gone.

His eyes glimmered, and for a brief second he looked different. A person flashed in her mind—another man wearing a 1970s-style polyester suit with a funky print shirt and perfect Afro. The tall man with a lean and muscular build looked different. But she would have put money on the fact that the personality and the cocky smile were one in the same.

Shaking her head in an effort to try and clear her obvious delusion, Karen took a step back.

With his cocksure grin aimed dead at her, Darius took a step forward.

If she had her Mace out she would have considered spraying him with it. She would have considered it, but she never would have done it. The tingling in her gut and the sudden goose pimples popping up on her skin wouldn’t have allowed her to really hurt the pesky man.

“Are you always so annoying?” Dang, her voice sounded husky and wanton even to her own ears. She wondered what it sounded like to him.

Judging by the self-assured glimmer in his eyes and the flash of arrogance in his smile, he had picked up on it all right. Leaning closer, he actually let his hand brush her face.

An electric charge coursed through her body, and a sudden case of dry mouth overwhelmed her.

Are my palms sweating? Sheesh, my freaking palms are sweating!

Swallowing a couple of times and failing at not making it look like she was taking gulps of air in the process, she slanted her eyes.

“I’m not trying to be annoying. I just want to give you a ride home. A pretty woman such as yourself shouldn’t be walking out here alone.”

“It’s summertime, and there’s still a little daylight left. Plus, I’m just walking to the bus stop. I do it all the time.”

“Well, today I would love it if you’d do me the honor of letting me see you safely to your door. A pretty woman like you shouldn’t have to ride public transportation. It’s the least I can do.”

She couldn’t help but cut her eyes. How did he manage to make chauvinism sexy?

Oh, hell, no!

Chauvinism was so not sexy, no matter how much he drank her in with his dark brown bedroom eyes.

Uh-uh. No.

“If I have managed to make it to the bus stop and home by my little lonesome all these years without a big strong man to make sure I got there, then surely I can continue to do so,” she said in an overly sweet voice before flipping back to her normal tone. “Your showing up at my youth center didn’t alter the universe or anything. I’m still the same grown-ass woman I was when I woke up this morning.”

Darius really let his eyes do the talking then. The brown probes gave her an up-and-down appraisal that left her feeling fully and truly exposed. She felt like he could see inside of her, knowing her thoughts, wants and desires.

“You ain’t neva lied about that! But check it, let me just see you home. I’ll sleep so much better knowing that you’re safe. Remember, I just had a cousin killed in this neighborhood. Just let me do this.” He held out his hand, and in a moment of complete and utter craziness that she would have never anticipated in a million years, she took it and followed him to his car. As soon as her hand touched his, a jolt of overwhelming awareness went through her, and she knew that she was in big trouble.

As soon as Karen’s hand touched his, a spark of something Darius couldn’t name ran through him. Trying to ignore the loud, incessant beating of his heart, Darius gave a quick sideways glance to the sexy, vibrant, out-of-this-world dynamic beauty holding his hand. In a matter of a few minutes, he felt like he never wanted to let her go.

And he couldn’t stop staring at her for anything. He actually stood in front of his car for at least a couple of seconds trying to figure out why for a split second she looked like a different woman. He could have sworn her auburn and copper locs morphed into a 1970s Angela Davis Afro for a minute.

Yeah, Karen Williams had him tripping for real. He needed to hurry up and get her home so he could figure out how one look at her made him want to spend all his time getting to know every single thing about her.

Once they were both settled into the car, he turned to her. “So where to, beautiful?”

“You’re going to regret offering me a ride.” She gave him a saucy grin. “I live all the way in South Brooklyn, in the Boerum Hill neighborhood. Betcha now you wish you had let me take the bus.” A lyrical laugh escaped her lips.

He laughed and winked at her. “Actually, my place, when I’m in town, is in South Brooklyn, as well. I have a loft in Cobble Hill. That’s about as close as this Brooklyn boy was going to get to Manhattan. If I’m in the city, I’m in my borough.”

She gave a soft chuckle. “Didn’t want to get a place in money-making Manhattan, huh?”

“Manhattan makes it—” he started.

“—but Brooklyn takes it!” They finished the old party chant together and laughed.

“So see, it’s fate. I was meant to spend more time with you tonight.” He started the car and realized that he actually believed what he just said. He wasn’t running game or anything.

Once Darius had dropped Karen off at her apartment, he still couldn’t get her out of his head. It was almost as if she was on a continuous loop set to repeat indefinitely. Her smile, her luminous eyes, her scent…

Damn, her scent was like honey, hibiscus, dew and a shot of warm desire. He could imagine living the rest of his life with nothing but her scent for nourishment. It almost felt as if something snapped to life in him as soon as he got close enough to get a good whiff. The close quarters in the car had been hell. He’d wanted to pull over and pull her into his arms.

The sharp ring of the phone jolted him out of his reverie. When he made the mad dash to catch it and found that it was his manager, Cullen Stamps, he wished that he had just let it ring.

“So now that that hard-edged bitch has turned you down, are you over your need to spend time at that little youth center and get back in the studio? You don’t have a lot of time to record the album before your next film begins shooting. In this business, you have to strike while you’re hot. You don’t have time to waste at that youth center. Send them a donation in your cousin’s name and call it a day.” No hello or how’re you doing for Cullen. Just straight to business.

Hesitation and hiding never appealed to Darius, so he was up-front about his lack of success. But he also let Cullen know that he didn’t intend to give up. In fact, he was more dedicated than ever to make this happen.

“I really like Karen, and I admire what she’s doing with the youth. I might try and figure out a way to volunteer at her center whenever I have a break in my schedule. You know, set up something ongoing and permanent.”

“What do you mean whenever you have a break in your schedule? There is no such thing as a break. You don’t have a break now! You should be in the studio. Time is money!”

“I mean just what I said. Hey, it’s for a good cause. It’s for my cousin’s memory. It’s the least I can do, and I’m going to do it.” He didn’t even worry about the edge in his voice. Cullen needed to hear that edge and know to back the hell up.

“Do I have to remind you that every minute you spend at that center is time away from the studio? And what about the fact that you running around in the hood without folks to protect you isn’t exactly the smartest idea. You may not be as successful as Will Smith yet, but you’re still a highly recognizable person. You wouldn’t want to end up just like your cousin by trying to do something in his memory.”

Darius could literally feel his face twisting in anger. East New York was his hood. He’d be damned if he started walking around with bodyguards in his own neighborhood. That wasn’t going to happen. And for Cullen to insinuate that he needed bodyguards or a damn entourage? That was the height of disrespect, and he wasn’t having it.

“I can take care of myself.” His tone moved from hard-edged to straight-up harsh. And sometimes with Cullen that was exactly what it took.

“If you say so—”

“I say so.”

“Well, what about recording? We don’t have a lot of—” Cullen’s entire demeanor changed, but it still wasn’t enough for Darius. He had to cut Cullen off and nip it all in the bud.

“It’s all good, Cullen. Chill! I’ll just cut back on the partying.” It struck Darius how much he really meant that only after the words had fallen out of his mouth. The only important thing for him at that moment was honoring his cousin’s memory and being able to spend more time with Karen.

“I guess if you can manage to stay on track with the recording then it should be fine.”

“It’ll be more than fine. Look man, I’m gonna catch some z’s or try to, anyway. I’ll holla later.”

“But—”

Darius just hung up the phone on Cullen. He’d made up his mind to pursue the lovely Ms. Williams. If nothing else, he had to figure out why he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her since he met her. And why he felt as if he’d known her forever when he only met her a few hours ago. Yeah, once he figured all that out, he’d be cool.

Cullen hung up the phone and counted to ten in order to stop himself from throwing the damn thing across the room. He must have underestimated both of them. He just knew that his phone call to the girl had turned her off enough to make her not want to deal with Darius at all. Why did Darius have to go down there and see her?

He sighed. He needed a Plan B in place in case Darius didn’t bend the way he wanted him to. He smiled. He knew just the people to call in order to keep the gravy train moving for everyone. It really paid to have dirt on people. Even the most seemingly insignificant person could come in handy at the right time.

Chapter 4

Two cups of coffee didn’t help and couldn’t halt the constant yawns that made their way through Karen’s mouth. Tired didn’t even come close to describing the way she felt. All of her attempts to go back to sleep were interrupted by dreams—dreams about people in the past, dreams about people that reminded her of herself and D-Roc.

And the words… She couldn’t get those haunting words out of her head. Voices that sounded different but somehow said the same thing. We’ll be together forever… Our souls are connected, and that will last forever…

If she didn’t have the utmost faith in her own sanity, she might have thought she was going crazy. But as long as the voices stayed in her dreams and didn’t start telling her to kill three people or some foolishness like that, she figured she was okay. She was almost tempted to go next door to see Dicey and get that reading she was always trying to tempt her with.

Nah, I don’t believe in that woo-woo stuff. It’s just crazy dreams. Stress or something like that…

“Good morning, Karen.” D-Roc came waltzing in on time with two cups of what looked like far better coffee than the stuff she’d brewed when she came in.

“Morning.” She inhaled. It smelled a whole lot better than her coffee, smelled like it would do a much better job at waking her up than the no-name stuff she had.

“You look like a caramel latte kind of girl.” He leaned over, handing her the fancy cup of java, and she wondered if there was such a thing as “love at first random act of kindness.”

She glanced at him, gave him a slow appraisal and liked what she saw. He was wearing khaki slacks with a short-sleeved red, green and khaki plaid button-up that was unbuttoned with a red T-shirt underneath. He looked good. Really good.

“I had to stop and get some for myself and figured it would be… I mean if you don’t like caramel latte, you can have this. It’s just plain Jamaica Blue Mountain. I did take a few sips already, but…” he rambled.

She realized that she was looking at him with her slanted-eye incredulous expression, and it probably made him more nervous than she wanted him to feel. The guy had just brought her some delicious pricey coffee after all. Karen reached out and took the latte from his hand.

“Thanks, I really appreciate it.”

“Rough night?”

“You could say that. You look like you’ve had a rough night, too. A little too much partying, huh?”

“No. No partying. Just couldn’t sleep. I had some pretty weird dreams, not really nightmares…just weird. The sleep wouldn’t come and stay put. I kept waking up. Finally, I just got up and ah…worked on some lyrics. I was suddenly very inspired to write a song.”

Hearing him describe almost exactly the same lack-of-sleep night she’d had, Karen felt a slight tremor go down her spine.

“So—” he pulled up a chair and camped in front of her desk before continuing “—what does a brother have to do to get you to give him a chance?”

Talk about loaded questions! It was clear to her the brother had other things on his mind besides community service. Or was that just her wishful thinking?

Nah, brother man had an agenda, a panties agenda. She knew a brother on the prowl when she saw one. The only problem was she felt like she wanted to give in to whatever he was gunning for.

She wanted the man.

That was the plain and simple, honest-to-goodness truth.

She let out a short breath and took a sip of her latte. “Why?”

“Why?” he repeated.

“Yeah, why? Why are you so intent on helping out here? As far as rappers go, you certainly don’t need to work on your image. You might even have Will Smith beat when it comes to being hip-hop’s golden boy. And you put out goody-two-shoes feel-good rap music. No gangsta…no politics…just happy-happy—”

He frowned as he interrupted her. “You sound like you have a problem with music that makes people dance and feel good.”

She shrugged. “I don’t have a problem with it. It is what it is. It’s not my particular vibe. I tend to go toward more conscious stuff, political stuff—old-school Public Enemy, new-school Dead Prez…”

She didn’t need to tell him that she also had his CDs in her collection. She certainly didn’t need to tell him that she had purchased them, particularly the one with his shirtless muscled torso, strictly for the covers. And she definitely didn’t have to tell him that she had jokingly told her girlfriends and Amina that he was fine and he was her future husband and baby daddy whenever they were watching music videos or whenever they went to see one of his films. She shook her head. No, she didn’t have to tell him any of that.

“But hey, to each his own… In any case, back to my question. You already have a great public image. Did you do something bad that’s about to come out in the papers or something? Did you get a new movie role that has you playing a character that works in a youth center? Why do you want to volunteer here? What’s your angle?”

She took a sip of her coffee mostly to calm her nerves. She was already leaning toward just telling him yes, he could volunteer there, but she had to be sure. She didn’t want anyone using her kids for a publicity stunt. However, the more she hung around him, the more she started to believe that he wouldn’t do that.

He took a deep breath and just stared at her for a moment. His eyes squinted, and he rubbed his temple before exhaling and leaning back. Weariness seemed to overcome him as his shoulders sort of slouched and his face became drawn.

“I grew up not far from here in the Louis H. Pink Houses Projects—Pink Houses. The East New York neighborhood will always be home. But it’s been a minute since I’ve been back. Once I moved my grandmother, aunt and little cousin out of here, there was really no real reason to come back. Plenty of rappers think they can make it big and still hang out in the same spots they used to and end up getting got.

“Plus, I was actually too busy touring and recording to get back much. And once Hollywood came knocking… Anyway, I’ve always donated money through a foundation I set up. It’s anonymous mostly because I never wanted to draw attention to my giving. Like you so eloquently noted, I don’t exactly need any help in the golden-boy goody-two-shoes department.” He smiled.

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