“Hey, honey bunch. I don’t think I will be able to come home tonight. Be safe and don’t miss me too much. Kisses.” I sit on the bench outside St. José as I listen to Monique’s voicemail that she’d left on my phone when I was working.I roll my eyes at the voice note she’d left and smile. Monique had told me she’d met a guy at the gym a few weeks ago. She thought the guy was hot, she showed me his picture and I felt like he was okay. Maybe a Casanova, I didn’t tell her that actually. He was too good-looking for his own sake. I think he’d ask her out last week and she gladly accepted.It’s not in my shoes to tell her Mr. Hot and Gorgeous is not the one, she’s going to have to find out sooner. I assured myself that. Monique believes in love, in fact, she’d always wanted to find the right guy, the perfect one for her. But the men she’s been dating are the opposite of what she wants for herself.There was a time I told her to take a break from relationships and their drama, she’d told me s

DOMINIQUE“Aren’t we gonna address the elephant in the room?” Camilla asks, turning around in her seat with her judgmental look.“And if I may ask, what elephant is that?”“Dom, you know what I’m talking about.”Oh, I know what she’s talking about, I’m just not willing to talk about it with her.I turn to look at her, eyebrows furrowing as I run my gaze over my sister. Camilla takes after our mother, brown eyes, olive skin, chestnut brown hair, and she’s petite just like our mother.“You two seemed like you were having a heated argument.”“Are you gonna drop it or should I be forced to ignore you?”“God, you’re an asshole,” Camilla says, shaking her head as she crosses her arms against her chest.“Why exactly are you in New York anyway? Shouldn’t you be back in LA preparing for your wedding?” I ask.It was a shocker when Camilla visited New York a few months ago with a diamond ring on her finger and a man by her side. We all thought Camilla was never going to get married, at least any

“Robbie? We’re waiting for deets.” Monique says, snapping her fingers in my face. I slap her fingers away, playfully glaring at her.“There are no fun deets. Nothing happened, really. I just had dinner with Richard.”“Richard? Who is Richard?” Tiwa asks, with Monique staring at me with a small smirk playing on her lips.“Doctor Sanders.”“Ooh.” They both say together, both girls wiggling their eyebrows and Monique going as far as biting her bottom lip.“Y’all are pervs.”“Oh, come on. He’s hot.” Tiwa points put.“Especially with that accent,” Monique says, air-quoting the word accent.I roll my eyes. “It was a friendly dinner. We talked mostly about work. Then Dominique Gray showed up and fucked shit up with his masculinity and dominance. Fucking asshole.” I mumble the last part.“Dominique showed up?” Tiwa asks.“Fucked shit up, how?” Monique asks.“You know? Inquiring if we were dating and then it felt like he was threatening me that he would report us if we were actually dating.”“

DOMINIQUE“Who knew refurbishing and reopening Club Rogue for the public would be this successful on our first night,” My younger brother, Leo, says as he stands next to me, arms on the glass panel as we stare at the down level.“There’s nothing like putting men, women, and alcohol in one room. People like shit like that.” I say, slipping a Cuban cigar in between my lips.Leo brings out a lighter from his suit jacket and lights the end of the cigar for me.“Thanks,” I say to him, eyes not leaving the people beneath us.Club Rogue is my brother’s second establishment. When he came to me five years ago with the idea of opening a club, a sex club actually, and asked me to invest in his idea with assurance I was going to get one-third of his income, I didn’t like the idea. I like to spend my money on things that matter, not things like nightclubs and kink clubs.My brother and my closest friend think it is weird. They believe since I like to spend most of my weekends in places like Club R

I slowly peel my eyes open, squinting and groaning as I place my hand on my forehead. God, my head hurts so bad, it feels like a party is going on in my head.How much did I drink last night?I peel my eyes wide open, coming face to face with the darkness in my room. But there’s something strange about this room, this doesn’t look like my room even though the room is a little dark. Even the sheets don't feel like mine. I run my fingers over the sheets and it’s silk. I don’t have silk sheets.“What’s going on? Where am I?” I groan, slowly sitting up.God, my mouth tastes like acid and my voice is a little hoarse.Fuck.The door at the corner of the room opens and someone walks in. I squint my eyes, trying to make out the person as this person pushes something apart, a ray of sunshine pours into the room.I shut my eyes at once, the sunlight burning my eyes.“Fuck.” I groan.“So sorry about that, ma’am.” A voice says and it’s a woman with a Spanish accent.I slowly open my eyes again as