King's Promise Read online

  That stopped the argument long enough for them to flash him a get-over-yourself look.

  “What? That is why we came here, isn’t it? To celebrate my genius?”

  “Frankly, I just tagged along for the free meal,” Jeremy said.

  “Free?” Q frowned. “The only thing free, cuz, was the ride over here. That fancy new renovation job is coming out of my pocket.”

  Xavier shrugged. “You’re the one that wrecked the place.”

  “When I said I would pay for the damages, I was thinking a few tables and chairs. I didn’t think that you’d go buck-wild and gut the place.”

  “Maybe next time you’ll be a little more specific,” Xavier said with absolutely no remorse.

  “Does that mean you’ll pay for renovations in the Los Angeles club?” Jeremy asked, since he managed that location.

  “Hell to the no!” Quentin said, twisting his face. “What do you think I am—First National Bank?” Then, suddenly, he closed his eyes and groaned.

  Xavier frowned. “What’s up with you?”

  Q shook his head. “I sounded like my father just now.”

  Xavier and Jeremy exchanged looks and busted out laughing.

  Quentin and his father’s contentious relationship had been gossip fodder for family members over the years. Roger Hinton, perhaps the most successful man in the family tree, built his fortune in commercial real estate and computer technology in the early eighties, and was one of only a handful of African-American billionaires. Brilliant in business, he’d raised two sons who were equally ambitious and nearly as successful in their own right. Then there was his third son, Quentin, who by all accounts until recently showed an almost violent allergic reaction to the very thought of holding a job.

  After much back and forth, disinheritance, bribery and being swept back into the family’s good graces, the one business that Q invested in—The Dollhouse—had made him rich in his own right. Brilliant or lucky? Most of the family decided it was luck. Xavier thought it had more to do with his own brilliance.

  True, his older brother Eamon already owned The Dollhouse in Atlanta and he was content to keep it a small club while he fiddled with the idea of opening a restaurant until Xavier saw its true potential, and expanded the operation by capitalizing on a niche market—bachelor-party planning—and launched Bachelors Adventures. The concept was simple, and Xavier saw an opportunity to capitalize on an underserved market. Sure, any strip club could host a bachelor party. But not many catered to fantasy-driven bachelor parties, complete with themes and costumes—if that’s what you wanted.

  A bachelor party was a rite of passage. It was a big deal, and since it would be in poor taste to have a wake the night before a wedding, most men felt they deserved to party one last time like a rock star. There was no event too small or too big that Bachelors Adventures couldn’t make happen. That simple business concept and the power of an influential word-of-mouth campaign is what really put The Dollhouse on the map, and not only made them serious contenders in their industry but solidified their reputation as Kings.

  “Hello, gentlemen. My name is Sasha and I’ll be your waitress for the evening. Are you ready for me to take your drink orders?”

  They quickly put their conversation on pause and turned their attention to an extremely petite red-bone sporting short, natural hair in spiral twists. Her black-rimmed glasses gave her a studious look and her bright-white smile was warm and inviting.

  “Three Heinekens,” Xavier ordered for everyone.

  Sasha quickly scribbled it down and then asked whether they were ready to order food. Once they’d selected their entrées, she took their menus and promised that everything would be ready in a few minutes. Of course, when she walked away, they gave her retreating figure another look.

  “How about double or nothing,” Quentin asked.

  Xavier rolled his eyes. “I think you need to put your dick on a shorter leash.”

  Q’s face twisted in horror. “Why in the hell would I want to do that? The happier he is, the happier I am.”

  Xavier’s brows lifted. “Have you forgotten who you’re talking to?”

  Clearly, Q had because he immediately started shifting around in his chair.

  Sasha proved to be good at her job and quickly returned with their beers, setting their bottles down in front of them. “Your food will be right up.”

  The men flashed her quick smiles as they reached for their beers and returned to their conversation.

  “So what do you think of the spanking-new bartender you hired today?” Quentin asked, seemingly having tired of arguing with Jeremy.

  Xavier leaned back in his chair and gave the question some serious thought. “She’ll certainly make things interesting.”

  “I’ll say,” Q responded, reaching for his beer. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you cock-block so hard in my life.”

  “Please.” Xavier gave a halfhearted laugh and rolled his eyes. “If anything, I was trying to prevent you guys from embarrassing yourselves and scaring the woman.”

  Neither his brother nor his cousin looked like they bought that load of crap.

  Jeremy was the first to call him on it. “Please. You were throwing so much shade that I thought we were in the middle of a cave. But that’s all right. I’m gonna let it go. But only because I’m heading back to Los Angeles tomorrow and you know how I feel about long-distance relationships.”

  Quentin laughed. “Yeah. The same way you feel about all relationships. You don’t do them.”

  Jeremy bobbed his head along with the joke, mainly because it was true—for all of them. In their world, marriage was a dying institution. Who needed a piece of paper? Life was meant to be lived and enjoyed—the less drama, the better. And if there was one thing that all three men at the table agreed upon, it was that relationships ultimately involved a whole lot of drama.

  “Frankly,” Jeremy said. “Business has more than doubled at our L.A. club, so we might want to look into expanding some more.”

  “In a down economy?” Xavier asked.

  Quentin laughed. “Our business is recession-proof.”

  Xavier conceded the point. “Maybe I’m not feeling it because I’ve been renovating for a hot minute. All I’ve been doing is writing checks.”

  “There’s still revenue from Bachelors Adventures coming in,” Q reminded him. “You’ve been on top of your game keeping those parties going at local hotels and other venues.”

  “True that.” Xavier nodded. “I have this Lawrence of Arabia one coming up with this big-wig CEO out of New York. We’re blowing up off word of mouth.”

  Q shrugged. “The old-fashioned way of doing business.”

  “We may have to look into expanding into New York, too,” Jeremy interjected.

  Q and Xavier frowned.

  “What?” Jeremy shrugged. “If there’s money to be made and our hustle is strong, what’s the problem?”

  “There is such a thing as growing too fast, you know?” Quentin warned.

  “Just like there’s such a thing as striking while the iron is still hot,” Jeremy volleyed, unfazed.

  Xavier smiled at the raw, unadulterated ambition gleaming in his brother’s eyes. Jeremy made no bones about the fact that he was out to make his paper. Ambition was great. It would probably take his brother a long way. At least, Xavier hoped it would—unlike his own.

  A wave of disappointment and regret started rolling inside him again, but he ignored it and plastered on another smile. Somehow, over the years, he’d become the brother that everyone brought their problems to without anyone ever really asking whether he had any of his own.

  For the record, he had quite a few of them.

  He suspected that most people thought that because he could take and land a hard punch, and that he could handle just about anything. For the most part, they were right. He knew how to duck and dodge most of life’s problems. But the death of a dream…is something very few ever get over.

  In 200
2, he was on top of the world after becoming a national Golden Gloves champion with his eye toward the Olympics, the International Boxing Federation, the World Boxing Association and the World Boxing Council heavyweight titles. He wanted it all, like his heroes Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson, who once had the world at their feet. He wasn’t inspired so much because of the money and endorsements—though those were nice, too—but it was the recognition that came with being the best, being number one.

  Then came the fight that changed everything…

  “Hello.” Quentin snapped his fingers in front of Xavier’s face and brought him back from his ruminations. “There he is.” Q smiled as their plates were being set on the table. “Still thinking about that hot bartender?”

  Xavier rolled his eyes. “No.”

  “Riiiight.” Quentin picked up his fork and knife and started cutting his steak. “The only time a man drifts off like that is because he’s thinking about a woman.”

  Xavier laughed as he unrolled his linen napkin and started in on his baked potato. “Believe it or not, not all men spend their every waking moment thinking about women.”

  Jeremy and Quentin stopped eating and looked at him. “They don’t?” they said in unison.

  “Since when?” Jeremy added.

  Xavier’s laughter deepened. “You two aren’t serious, are you?”

  They looked at each other and then back at Xavier, their expressions unchanged.

  “You both need psychiatric help,” he said, and took the first bite of his steak. He immediately moaned as he savored the cut of meat.

  “Well, since you’re not interested in Ms. Got Milk, then you won’t mind if I stick around and see what the deal is with her. Hell, I can give her a run for her money behind the bar.” Quentin smirked.

  Xavier’s frown returned. “Weren’t you just betting on who would get our hostess in bed a few minutes ago? Now you want to try to move in on my new bartender?”

  “What? A man can’t multitask?”

  Xavier shook his head. “I hope that you’re donating your brain to science because something is seriously wrong with you.”

  “What? Aren’t you at least happy that I’m not drinking myself to death and getting into bar fights anymore?”

  “Newsflash—you’re not going to be able to screw Alyssa out of your system, either,” Xavier schooled.

  “Ouch. Harsh,” Jeremy mumbled under his breath.

  Q nodded. “I wasn’t ready for that sucker punch.”

  “Sorry,” Xavier said, and meant it. “That was uncalled for.”

  “No. But it’s probably true, too,” Quentin said.

  Xavier’s brows rose in surprise. “It was?”

  Quentin shrugged as he pretended to think about it. “I said probably. I’ll get back to you with my findings.”

  Xavier and Jeremy had to laugh. At the end of the day, Q was doing whatever he had or needed to do to get over his broken heart. The only thing was, Xavier questioned who really broke it—Alyssa or Q’s older brother Sterling.

  Xavier counted himself lucky for never having gone through anything remotely similar—since he’d never been in love.

  And God willing, he never would be.

  Chapter 4

  As her first day at The Dollhouse approached, Cheryl delved deeper and deeper into Xavier King’s background, almost to the point of making it a miniobsession. Her eyes pored over his family’s history like it was the latest Dennis Lehane bestseller. On paper, the King brothers’ parents struggled to raise them on a city bus driver and substitute teacher’s salary in a low-income section of Atlanta. There was no record of any of the brothers getting into any real trouble growing up—just a single missing person’s report for Jeremy King when he was six years old. Apparently, the kid had run away from home after finding a box of puppies in the woods and had become upset when his father told him that they couldn’t afford to keep them and would have to take them to the pound. Two days later, Jeremy’s childhood friend broke down and confessed that Jeremy was living in their backyard in his tree house.

  Cheryl smiled every time she read the old newspaper story. Not to mention, Jeremy was an adorable kid. But even looking at those old articles, her eyes would eventually drift to a frowning Xavier standing in the background. The other material Cheryl dug up on Xavier included spelling-bee championships, high school football accolades and scholarships. At nineteen, the football accolades turned to success in the boxing ring. Xavier won the national Golden Gloves heavyweight championship in ’02 and ’03 and even made the Olympic team in ’04. But his career abruptly ended with a near-perfect 21-1 record without any real explanation as to why he left boxing.

  He just stopped fighting.

  As far as Cheryl could tell, Xavier just disappeared from the spotlight for two years and then reappeared as a gentlemen’s club owner, where accusations and suspicions of drug trafficking continued to swirl.

  Cheryl’s gaze settled once again on the department’s black-and-white photographs of the sexy club owners. And try as she might, she just didn’t or couldn’t see them as criminals. Maybe it was something about Xavier’s dark soulful eyes. They struck her as being too honest…and playful. Now since she’d had the pleasure of being in the same room with the man, she would testify on a stack of Bibles that Xavier King did indeed dominate a room. The power of his gaze, the line of his shoulders and the unmistakable strength in his bulging arms… “Whew!” She reached for her cold bottled water and downed most of its twenty ounces, trying to put out the fire of her own making.

  Something creaked and Cheryl’s head whipped around to her bedroom door. There standing at the threshold, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, was her six-year-old nephew, Thaddeus. A smile spread across her face again. “Heeey, li’l man. Whatcha doin’ up?”

  “There’s a monster in my closet,” he whined. His footed pajamas shuffled across the hardwood floor of her bedroom as he made his way over to her.

  “A monster?” she responded with wide-eyed shock. She circled her arm around his tiny shoulders. “Are you sure?”

  Thaddeus poked out his bottom lip and nodded.

  “Oh, no. That just won’t do.”

  “Will you come in my room and shoot it with your police gun?” he asked hopefully.

  “How about I just go in there and check it out for myself?” she suggested. “I’m tough. I’m sure that I’ll be able to handle that monster with my bare hands.”

  Her bravery made his eyes grow wider. “You sure? What if it hurts you?”

  “Are you kidding me?” Cheryl curled her right arm. “Check out these muscles,” she said, and waited for her nephew to give her Michelle Obama–like arms a good squeeze.

  “Wow. You are strong,” he said, awestruck.

  “I sure am.” She winked at him and stood. “Now let me at that monster hiding in that closet. We don’t have time for none of this foolishness, do we?”

  Thaddeus shook his head and then fell in line behind his aunt as she strolled out of her bedroom and headed into his room. “That monster is going to get it,” he declared confidently.

  “He sure is,” Cheryl agreed. “Just let me at him.”

  They stormed into his Spider-Man–themed bedroom together. Cheryl flipped on the light switch and made a beeline to the closet. At the last second before touching the doorknob, Thaddeus gave her a quick last warning, “Be careful, Aunt Cheryl.”

  She tossed him a confident wink and then threw open the door.

  Thaddeus gasped and covered his eyes. But when he didn’t hear any hissing, growling or Lord knows what else his active imagination had anticipated, he slowly peeked through his small fingers.

  “Huh.” Cheryl settled her hands onto her hips and looked around. “There’s no monster in here.”

  Frowning, Thaddeus raced over to the closet and mimicked his aunt’s stance. “Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know.” Cheryl pretended to be dumbfounded before suggesting, “Maybe he heard you going
to get me and he got scared?”

  Her nephew nodded at the explanation. “Yeah.”

  “Well, he better run. I was really going to put a hurting on him,” Cheryl bragged as she dusted off her hands.

  “Were you going to use karate on him?” He shifted his gaze from the monsterless closet and stared up at her.

  “You know it.” She tried to run her fingers through his thick blondish-brown hair, but as usual it was a bit tangled with its wayward curls. “When is your mother going to fix your hair?”

  “She was supposed to do it tonight, but she fell asleep.”

  Cheryl shook her head. “All right. Back in the bed you go, li’l man. You have school in the morning.”

  Thaddeus poked out his bottom lip, but shuffled his way over to his twin-size bed where Cheryl peeled back the top sheet and waited for him. When he got close to the bed, he launched himself onto the mattress and laid his head on his cartoon-character pillow.

  Cheryl couldn’t resist tickling his side to elicit one of his hilarious, funny-sounding giggles. Once she got it, she leaned down and planted a wet kiss on his chubby cheek. “Good night, li’l man.”

  “Night, Auntie. When I grow up, I’m going to be a police officer just like you.”

  Cheryl’s heart squeezed as tears quickly flooded her eyes. “And I’m sure that you’ll make an excellent police officer.” She stole another kiss and then tucked him into bed. “Sweet dreams,” she said at the door before turning off the light switch.

  Her smile was still stretched across her lips as she walked from her nephew’s bedroom and headed toward the kitchen. There, her younger sister, Larissa, was slumped over her biology textbook and snoring softly into the pages.

  Cheryl stopped at the entry to the kitchen and shook her head. She couldn’t help but be sympathetic to her sister’s hectic schedule. She worked full-time in a clothing store, while juggling being a single mom and going to college at night to become a nurse. It was a lot, and Cheryl was extremely proud of her sister. Because Larissa had her son so young, she could’ve continued her life making bad decisions. But when Thaddeus’s father decided not to be a part of his biracial son’s life—along with his well-to-do family—Larissa didn’t fall apart. She picked herself up, dusted herself off and got busy trying to ensure a better life for her and her son. A lot of times that meant having to lean on family members, but everyone in the Grier family was more than willing to help as long as Larissa was committed to doing what was right.