Queen of His Heart

by Adrianne Byrd

  Woof!

  “Anyway…I know I said last week that I was just going to embrace my singlehood and be happy. Hell, I even treated myself to a dinner and a movie Wednesday night. Turns out I’m not exactly a cheap date.” She winked. “But that’s not the point. Look, I know that women can do a lot for themselves. We have careers and our own money. But like Billie Dee Williams said in Mahogany, ‘Success means nothing without someone you love to share it with,’ and he ain’t never lied.”

  Jalila rolled over onto her belly and panned the camera around the bedroom. “I’m tired of the other side of the bed being empty. I want to cook for more than one person. I even want to argue with someone to take the garbage out.” She turned the camera back on herself. “Ladies, I have to believe that my soul mate is out there. He just has to be.”

  “True love,” Keenan mumbled as he strode through the door of his homey Beverly Hills mansion. What the heck did he know about love? Yeah, he loved his small close-knit family, his best friend Nitara and of course his nine-year-old dog, Chips. But that other stuff—that deep, cosmic soul-mate stuff—he was just as lost as the average Joe.

  That sounded bad since he’d been married once. Looking back on it now, one could say that he’d married Tenetria more out of loyalty than anything else. And, quite frankly, he wasn’t too keen about ever doing it again. In college, Tenetria had been the perfect girlfriend—pretty and fun-loving. She’d stuck by him while he struggled to make a name for himself in this crazy town. However, it was during the transition from kids to grown-ups that their problems came to light. Suddenly, Keenan didn’t know the woman who carried his last name. With new eyes, he saw that his wife was petty and spoiled. And when he caught her cheating…it destroyed him.

  Despite being in business with his ex-sister-in-law, Keenan didn’t know what Tenetria was doing now. He never asked and was thankful that Nitara never mentioned it. He’d dated from time to time in the five years since his divorce. Nothing serious, mainly because L.A. seemed to produce only petty and spoiled women, code for aspiring actresses and singers.

  No, thank you.

  So how was he going to come up with an idea for a reality show about true love?

  For the past two days Nitara had hounded him about going into reality television. She’d covered his desk with budgets, profit margins, focus groups—anything and everything she could get her hands on to convince him.

  In the office, he resisted the whole idea, but during his drives home and while pacing his bedroom floor, he was actually caving in to the whole idea. They could just give it a try this one season—see if they liked it. Tonight, he’d come home with his arms full of DVDs—footage of different reality shows over the past ten years. That’s why he had in his other arm a cold six-pack.

  Woof! From his comfortable spot on a red velveteen doggy pillow in the den, Chips, Keenan’s Great Dane, raced to the door to greet him.

  “Hey, Chips.” He shifted the DVDs and gave his best friend an awkward pat on the head. “You’ve been good, boy?”

  Woof! Chips pivoted in a quick circle and sat back on his haunches in hopes of a quick rub behind the ears. Of course, he got his wish.

  In the kitchen, Keenan dumped the DVDs on the kitchen counter, stashed the beer in the refrigerator and poured some dog food into Chips’s bowl. Without preamble, Chips attacked the food like he hadn’t eaten in a week. A few times, he sounded as if he was choking.

  “Slow down,” Keenan warned with a stern frown. “The food isn’t going anywhere.”

  Chips ignored him.

  “Fine. Suit yourself.” Keenan stood and washed his hands at the sink before looking into the fridge to see what Jenny, his personal chef, had prepared for him for dinner. He was in luck: fried chicken, whipped potatoes and green beans. The first time Jenny had made him fried chicken, he’d thought he’d died and gone to heaven. The old wives’ tale was true when it came to him. The fastest way to his heart was through his stomach.

  Before he kicked back and did his “research,” Keenan washed away the day’s stress with a scorching-hot shower. He had been teased before about how he could stand such hot water, but he found it soothing.

  When he shut off the water, thick clouds of steam rose out of the shower stall as he exited. In the distance, he could just barely hear the phone ringing in the bedroom. He rushed out of the bathroom, wrapping his bath towel around his hips.

  “Hello?”

  “Well, if it isn’t the world’s most elusive Hollywood producer.”

  Keenan smiled. “Keisha, I’ve been meaning to call.”

  “And I still believe in Santa Claus.”

  “You never believed in Santa Claus,” he reminded her as he headed back to the bathroom for his robe.

  “No thanks to you.” She chuckled. “When I was little you told me that someone shot Santa because they thought he was a burglar coming into the house.”

  Keenan rocked back, laughing at the memory. “Oh, God. I can’t believe you fell for that.”

  “I was five…and foolishly looked up to my big brother.”

  He refused to feel guilty. “I remember you running into Mom and Dad’s room, yelling for them to call the police.”

  “I was hysterical, you jerk.”

  “You were adorable.” His laugh deepened.

  “I swear. Sometimes I don’t know why I bother calling you.”

  “C’mon, you know you love me,” he coaxed.

  “You’ll do.” Keisha sighed.

  “So what are you doing calling me on a Friday night?” He glanced around for a clock. “Shouldn’t you be out on a hot date or something?”

  Keisha clucked her tongue. “Please. I’m giving up on men.”

  “You decided to come out of the closet over the phone?” Keenan laughed and shook his head. “Tacky. And you can forget about me telling Mom and Dad. You’ll have to do that on your own.”

  “You’re not funny,” Keisha deadpanned. “And I’m not coming out of a closet. I’m just not having any luck finding a man that’s worth my time. Most of these knuckleheads out here either wanna turn me into their mommas or their checkbook, and I ain’t havin’ it.”

  Keenan rolled his eyes as he pulled on a pair of black silk pajamas and headed back downstairs. “Is this going to be another man-bashing phone call? You do realize that I’m the so-called enemy?”

  “Then you need to get your team to act right,” she sassed.

  Keenan had no trouble picturing his sister rolling her eyes and swiveling her neck, which she was prone to do whenever she got pissed off. Still he couldn’t resist goading her. “Have you ever considered that maybe your team is the problem?”

  Her voice jumped an octave. “Do what?”

  He snatched the phone from his ear and then gave Chips a conspiratorial wink. When he felt it was safe, he put the phone back up to his ear. His sister was still going off.

  “And another thing,” she ranted. “If I can invest in myself—a good education, a good job—and take care of myself, then why can’t a brother? I’m supposed to give him the bizness just because…what? He looks aight?”

  Keenan just smiled as he held the phone. It was an older brother’s birth right to push his baby sister’s easily accessible buttons.

  “Humph. Please,” Keisha said. “I’d rather curl up in my bed with a bowl of popcorn and make it a Netflix night.”

  “Sounds like fun.”

  “And what about you?” she challenged. “What makes you any different than me?”

  She did have a point. “I’m not the one perched on a soapbox.” He removed his dinner from the microwave and grabbed a beer. But before he headed out of the kitchen, his eyes landed on the DVDs on top of the counter. If he needed some type of show about true love or romance, then maybe he had the perfect person on the phone.

  “Keisha, do you watch any reality shows?”

  “Now, you know I do.” Her tone instantly turned more cheerful. “I don’t miss an episode of The Bache
lor, The Bachelorette, Rock of Love, Flava of Love…”

  Keenan frowned. “All right. I get the picture.”

  “Why do you ask?”

  He huffed as he tucked a few DVDs under his arms. “Nitara thinks it’s the way to go for next season. I have my doubts.”

  Keisha squealed and Keenan almost dropped the phone. “Oh, this is great. What are you going to do? Are you going to do something with millionaires? Can I be on the show?”

  “Calm down. Calm down.” He chuckled. “I haven’t agreed to anything yet.”

  “Yet?” she repeated and then squealed again. “When you say yet that means a yes is just around the corner.”

  “Since when?” He set his plate and beer down on the coffee table and went to his sixty-inch flat-screen and DVD player.

  “Since forever.” She laughed. “Do you need any help vetting the applicants?”

  “Didn’t you just say that you were giving up on men?”

  “That was so twenty minutes ago.”

  Laughing, Keenan turned around and caught Chips devouring his dinner. “Hey! Get away from there.”

  Chips grabbed the chicken leg and took off running.

  “Scoot—aw, man.” Keenan huffed at the sight of his nearly empty plate. Why on earth had he set his food down like that?

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” He returned to the kitchen. Looked like it was going to be another night of sandwiches and chips.

  “You know that I’m not the only woman that feels this way about this shortage of good men. My girl, JalilaG1000, is constantly talking about the real state of the black union on a weekly basis.”

  “Jalila—who?”

  “Oh, it’s this chick I subscribe to on YouTube. She’s hilarious. Whenever I watch her weekly vlog, I feel like I’m sitting in church.”

  Keenan laughed. “Oookay.”

  “Naw, I’m serious. You should check her out. It’s JalilaG1000.”

  “Yeah, I’ll put it on the top of my to-do list.”

  Keisha instantly caught an attitude. “Fine. Whatever. I was just trying to help you out.”

  He put his foot in this time. “I’ll check it out.”

  “Naw, naw. Don’t do me any favors.”

  Frustrated, but also knowing just how long his sister could balance a chip on her shoulder, Keenan abandoned the contents for the sub he was making on the counter and left the kitchen. “I’ll do it now,” he told her.

  “Well, don’t do it for me.”

  “Keisha, I’m two seconds from hanging this phone up,” he warned. “I said I was going to check it out so that’s what I’m doing.”

  She didn’t respond, but Keenan knew that she was wearing a smile as big as Texas. In his home office, he quickly booted up his computer and zipped over to YouTube. “Now what was her name again?”

  “JalilaG1000.” Excitement crept back into Keisha’s voice. “My girl be spitting the truth about these men running around here in Cali.”

  Keenan rolled his eyes.

  “And stop rolling your eyes at me.”

  “Then stop trying to sound like you’re straight out of Oakland when you were born and raised in the suburbs.”

  “Whatever.”

  He chuckled as he clicked onto JalilaG1000’s YouTube channel. The beautiful woman who popped up on his screen was definitely a stunning surprise. “Hey, I know her.”

  “You do?” Keisha asked, surprised.

  “Well, kind of.” He stared into those hypnotizing deep-brown eyes that were surrounded by a fan of long, curly lashes. Her flawless, oval chocolate face and full, plump and kissable lips caused something to stir within him.

  “Keenan! Are you still there?” Keisha barked.

  He blinked and successfully broke the strange spell he’d fallen under. “Uh, yeah. Who is she—some kind of actress?” Even as he asked the question, his eyes scanned the left column for her stats. There wasn’t much there. Her name, of course, and age. She warned viewers that this was the space where she’d like to opine about life and love as a single woman in L.A.

  “I don’t think so. From time to time, she talks about owning some spa.”

  Keenan stared at her picture again and couldn’t stop the soft smile that crept across his lips. The camera loved her. He clicked the play button on her recent vlog.

  “Ladies, where have all the good men gone?” she asked in a soft, honeyed voice.

  Keenan’s smile inched higher. He found this Jalila woman adorable in her pink, flannel pajamas with her black hair pulled back in a ponytail. “Did she just say some guy was sniffing her shoes?” he asked, certain he’d heard wrong.

  Keisha cracked up. “Ain’t that some crazy mess? Ha! You should watch some of her other videos. One time she was set up on a blind date with a guy who showed up with boobs. Boobs! Ha! He was taking hormones and was three months away from having a sex-change operation.”

  “Say what?” His eyes remained locked on the beauty before him. He couldn’t believe that someone as beautiful as she was would have problems in the men department.

  “That’s not all. Here was a guy wanting to become a woman, but not because he wanted to date men. He still wanted to date women—but as a lesbian. Ha!”

  Keenan laughed as well. “And here I thought you were the only magnet for losers.”

  “Now I’m about to hang up on you.”

  On the screen, Jalila rolled over onto her belly and panned the camera around the bedroom. “I’m tired of the other side of the bed being empty. I want to cook for more than one person. I even want to argue with someone to take the garbage out.” She turned the camera back on herself. “Ladies, I have to believe that my soul mate is out there. He just has to be.”

  The footage stopped, freezing Jalila’s solemn but angelic face on his computer. “Keisha, let me call you back.” He didn’t wait for an answer and hit the end button on his cordless phone. He replayed the video.

  “Ladies, I have to believe that my soul mate is out there. He just has to be.”

  An idea began to form, and Keenan spent the rest of the night watching every video JalilaG1000 had uploaded to her channel. They weren’t all about the trials of dating. Her best friend Martina, her father, James, and her beloved dog, Cujo, made frequent cameo appearances.

  She openly shared her opinions about politics, books and movies. She was an intelligent woman who knew what she wanted—all that was missing was her Mr. Right, and Keenan was just the man to help her out.

  Chapter 5

  Rodeo Drive had long been the premier shopping area for the Hollywood elite. It was one of the few places where old and new money mingled. Despite the shaky economy there were still plenty of Mercedeses and Bentleys lining the sidewalks. All along the pearly, pristine strip a fresh batch of starry-eyed actresses wandered, with their traveling posses and paparazzi.

  Keenan pulled up to Body by Jalila shortly after eleven. He had called earlier and spoken with the receptionist and had been told that the best time to catch the owner was between the hours of eleven and three. Now that he was here, he wasn’t quite sure just how to go about doing this. First of all, there was no reason in the world this Jalila would accept his offer this time either, and second, he hadn’t run his idea by Nitara. He was flying solo on this one.

  Keenan killed the engine and hopped out of his cobalt-blue Bentley Continental GTC. A group of leggy women strolled toward him. Each lowered her shades and flashed him a flirtatious smile.

  “Ladies,” he greeted them, tilting his head in a slight nod. After their smattering of giggles, Keenan smiled and slid on his Hugo Boss sunglasses. He loved this town.

  The moment he entered the day spa he was instantly greeted by the welcoming scent of jasmine and orange blossoms. He smiled, drew in a deep breath and immediately relaxed. The place was much bigger than it looked from the outside. The décor of white and silver gave the place a modern chic feel, while the music pouring through the speakers
was an odd combination of nature sounds and classical piano.

  “Good morning.”

  Keenan glanced toward the receptionist’s desk and smiled at a beautiful, full-figured woman with a mammoth afro. He approached the desk and read her name tag. “Good morning, Tracee.”

  “Welcome to Body by Jalila,” she chirped. “May I help you?”

  Removing his shades, Keenan flashed his best smile. “Yes. I’m here to see Jalila Goodwyn.”

  She frowned and glanced down at the calendar in front of her. “Do you have an appointment?”

  “Uh, no. Not exactly,” he admitted, still trying to charm her with his smile.

  Tracee smiled back. “Your name?”

  He hesitated. It wasn’t like Jalila was going to recognize the name unless she’d actually read his business card.

  Tracee arched a pencil-thin brow at him. “Sir?”

  “Uh, it’s Keenan Armstrong,” he answered, taking a chance.

  “And is this personal or business?” she queried.

  “It’s personal…no, it’s business—make that personal.”

  Tracee’s expression turned dubious. “Well, which one is it?”

  “Both.” He chuckled. “It’s complicated.”

  The receptionist looked him up and down, probably trying to decide whether to call her boss or 911.

  “Look, I promise you. I’m on the up-and-up.”

  Tracee picked up the phone. “Ms. Goodwyn, there is a gentleman here to see you.” Pause. “A Keenan Armstrong.” Pause. “He said it was both.”

  Keenan smiled. He was getting closer to his goal. He thought about the beauty whose videos he’d spent all night watching and felt a little flutter in the pit of his stomach.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll tell him,” Tracee said and then hung up the phone.

  “Ms. Goodwyn is in a meeting but she’ll be right out in a few minutes.”

  “Thank you.” He rewarded Tracee with another smile and then turned away from her. He faced a long display wall with neatly arranged lemon-colored bottles. He leaned in and read the labels on the different bottles of cleansers, lotions and moisturizers.