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  “I’ve got this,” Malik said, his voice thick with meaning.

  Malcolm studied his brother’s calm face for a moment, the seriousness of his intentions evident. From the moment his little brother was born, Malcolm had felt responsible for him. Malcolm knew that as a role model, he had not done a very good job of teaching Malik right from wrong. He had made his share of mistakes and was certain that he would make a few more before all was said and done. What he couldn’t give his brother by way of example, he gave in support. He didn’t care what Malik needed; if he had it to give, he gave it. It didn’t matter what conflict or problem Malik faced. Malcolm would be at his side at a moment’s notice to face it with him. During these recent months when he had been so down on his luck, in need of a place to stay and, at times, in need of financial help, Malik had been there for him. That was the type of relationship they shared.

  Right now, it appeared that it was his turn to have his brother’s back. Standing up to an uppity, pompous jerk was chump change in comparison to the debt he owed. However, he had to respect the fact that his brother was no longer a little boy caught in a street fight who needed protecting. His brother was a man who needed to deal with his problem. He nodded slowly, folded his arms and leaned back.

  “Mr. Daniels, I’m going to walk you down to your car,” Malik said.

  He slipped his feet into the flip-flops that he’d left in the corner of the living room and moved, shirtless, toward the door. Joseph followed him out of the apartment and down the four short flights of stairs. They exited the building from a side door that lead directly into the parking lot. Malik spotted Joseph Daniels’s sedan parked illegally in a handicapped spot. He stopped walking right beside it.

  “Look, Malik. I know you’re a hardworking man who could use a break. I’m going to give it to you,” Joseph said.

  He reached into the inside breast pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out an envelope. He extended in front of him toward Malik. Malik looked from his self-assured, smug face down to his hand several times. The rage that had been swimming within him for the past five days intensified, boiling beneath the surface of his skin. He had never felt the amount of pure scorn he now held for another person in his entire life. Suddenly, he also felt a debilitating weakness that deflated his pride. He realized that no matter how hard he worked or how clean of a life he led, no matter how good he was to people or how much he loved, there were those in this world who would never believe that he was worthy.

  When he first reached out his hand to clasp the envelope, his intention was to take it and throw it back into Joseph Daniels’s smug face. But once both men’s hands were on the envelope, Joseph leaned in close and spoke.

  “You and my daughter are done,” he commanded.

  Malik stared into his eyes, expecting to see the same coldness that lived in the man’s words and actions, but what he saw instead was fear.

  Malik saw through the tough exterior and the superiority complex and spied a man who was so afraid of losing his own foothold on the milk and honey of America’s promised dream that he had no choice but to beat down those who were right behind him, also reaching up for better. When Joseph released the envelope and stepped away, Malik held on to it. It occurred to him that men like Joseph Daniels owed a debt and up until that moment, no one had made him pay. He lowered his hand to his side, envelope clenched tightly in his palm, and turned to walk away.

  “I knew eventually you’d come to see things my way. It takes a smart man to recognize when he is out of his league,” Joseph said to Malik’s back.

  Malik spun around.

  “How long are you going to live in your land of make believe, Mr. Daniels? How long are you going to pretend that your money, your education and your luxurious lifestyle negates your blackness?”

  “How dare you?”

  “No, how dare you? How dare you insult our ancestors by stepping on their backs to get where you and your family are and then acting like you did it all by yourself? Now you disassociate yourself with the very poor, uneducated, working-class black people that paved the way for you.

  “Ha.” Malik laughed sardonically. “I feel sorry for you, Mr. Daniels, because with all that you have, you are still missing so much. You have one daughter who is doing everything in her powers not to be like you…” Malik’s voiced trailed off, the thought of Kennedy still causing him pain.

  “Kennedy has more character and integrity in her little finger than you have in your entire self-righteous, shallow body.”

  “Now that is laughable. You have the nerve to speak to me about integrity,” Joseph said.

  He glanced down at the manila envelope that Malik clutched in his hands.

  Joseph’s glare was full of contempt as he looked at Malik for a moment longer, before turning on his heel and walking away. He climbed into his car and drove away, gravel spitting from beneath his tires. It was unclear to either man whether the hatred they felt at that moment was directed toward each other or at themselves.

  Chapter 21

  The sun caressed Kennedy’s face, neck and extremities as she lay on a chaise on the balcony of a suite at Magen’s Point Resort on the enchanting island of St. Croix in the Virgin Islands. The sounds of the water lapping against the shoreline soothed her ears and restless heart. The previous night had been a long one, as she tossed and turned on an unfamiliar mattress. She didn’t attempt to trick herself into believing that being away from home was the only reason why she was restless. It had been almost two weeks since her breakup with Malik, and with the passing of each day came an even heavier weight on her heart. She had not believed that she would miss him as much as she did, and no amount of fun in the sun was going to fix that.

  Coming to the Virgin Islands had been Madison’s idea. Having been absolutely desperate to get out from under her mother’s watch, Madison had hopped in her car and popped up on Kennedy’s doorstep. One look at her sister, who at four o’clock in the afternoon was still lounging in her pajamas, hair a mess and face stained with tears, and Madison realized that whatever she was going through could wait. In a rare show of selflessness, Madison held her sister’s hand while she cried. They lay in Kennedy’s bed together, talking and crying, and for the first time in a very long time they commiserated over Kennedy’s drama as opposed to Madison’s.

  “Girl, you know how critical Mommy and Daddy are. You could have brought home Jesus Christ himself and they’d have something to say about his sandals or his long hair,” Madison lamented.

  “That’s just it, Maddie. I’m tired of trying to please them. What are we supposed to do? Spend our entire lives living up to their demands?”

  “I think that’s what they expect, but I for one will be the first to burst their bubble. I’m my own person, and I am not going to allow them to bully me,” Madison stated emphatically.

  “It’s not that easy for me, Maddie. I don’t know how to not do what they want me to do,” Kennedy said.

  “Well, maybe you’re looking at things the wrong way. Instead trying to not do what they want you to do, how about just doing what you want to do, feel me? Now, for starters, why don’t you tell me about this guy that’s got Mommy and Daddy all worked up?”

  Kennedy attempted to talk about Malik. She wanted to explain to her sister how he had ever so gently slipped into her life and her heart, soothing her fears and helping her chart a new course for her life. Unfortunately, she was unable to put those thoughts into words before she was overcome with heartbreaking grief.

  “All right, that’s it,” Madison said, jumping up from the bed. It was well into the middle of the night and they had made their way through a half a gallon of Chunky Chocolate ice cream and a box of macadamia-nut cookies. She padded in bare feet across the bedroom and out into the hallway.

  “Where are you going?” Kennedy called after her.

  “Just trust me,” Madison called back.

  Kennedy remained in bed, her eyes suddenly growing heavy from all of the crying
she’d done and the lack of sleep. As she lay there, wondering what Madison was up to and reflecting on how good it felt to have her sister there with her, even if it didn’t change one thing in her life, she began dozing off. It was only a matter of minutes after her last coherent thought that Madison burst back into the bedroom.

  “All right, I’m setting your alarm for eight o’clock in the morning. We’ve got a twelve noon flight to catch,” she announced.

  Kennedy kept her eyes closed, certain that she hadn’t heard what she thought she’d heard her sister saying. But sure enough, when the alarm began to buzz, Madison ushered her out of bed, helped her gather the bare essentials and a few articles of clothing. Before Kennedy could wrap her brain around what was happening, Muppet had been hustled off to a kennel and they were on a plane to St. Croix.

  “Oh, just relax and go along for the ride,” Madison said in answer to Kennedy’s protests.

  Two days later, Kennedy had finally begun to relax and enjoy the hot sand in her toes and the warm waves that crashed against her body. Two beautiful, apparently single women like Kennedy and Madison received a lot of attention on the beach, and, of course, Madison ate it up. Kennedy, while polite, remained reserved, her heart and mind still on Malik.

  “This brother must have really put it on you, huh?” Madison remarked after Kennedy turned down a dinner invitation from the frat brothers who were staying at the same resort. “You are whipped.”

  “Just because I’m not interested in some buff, beach boys doesn’t mean that I’m whipped, Madison,” Kennedy retorted.

  “Mmm, hmm, whatever. I just hope you and this dude get back together so I can get a chance to meet him. I need to see for myself what the brother’s working with.” Madison laughed.

  “Stop being so nasty, Maddie. I swear, you can be so crass sometimes. Besides, it doesn’t really look like there’s a chance in hell that Malik and I are going to get back together. Mommy and Daddy would go berserk, anyway.”

  “Kennedy, would you please grow the hell up and stop running around here trying to be Little Miss Perfect. I mean, damn, at some point Mommy and Daddy are going to be two old geezers who barely remember their own names. What are you going to do then? I’ll tell you what, you’ll be sitting around on a park bench somewhere feeding the pigeons because you let them stop you from having a shot at a life of your own.”

  Kennedy shook her head from side to side.

  “I’m sure somewhere in that twisted brain of yours, you thought that you were saying something uplifting to me just now, don’t you?”

  “I’m just telling you like it is. If that man means half as much to you as you say he does, I just don’t understand what the problem is. But, hey, you’re a grown woman. Do what you want. I know what I’m going to do,” Madison said, her eyes and attention trained on a tall, dark-haired man who was standing near the shoreline holding a surfboard.

  “I’m going to go over there and get surfing lessons. Hmph, be still my heart,” she said as she dusted the sand off the butt of her skimpy bikini bottom and switched her way down to the water’s edge.

  There was some merit in what Madison had said. Kennedy could not deny that. She wrestled with the resentment she felt toward Malik and his unwillingness to fight for her. If he loved her, wouldn’t he have hung in there despite the resistance from her parents? Wasn’t endurance through trials and tribulations a test of love? These questions burned inside of Kennedy and even though she tried to hold on to the anger she felt toward Malik, it was impossible to do. She loved the man and she was just not ready to give up on him. That day Kennedy vowed she would wait for Malik to come to his senses.

  Chapter 22

  Madison and her surfer dude hit it off famously, so much so that she failed to return to the room she was sharing with Kennedy until the next morning. Kennedy restrained herself from scolding Madison. After all, Madison was over the age of consent. She held her tongue as her sister slipped into the room and headed straight for the shower. When she climbed into the king-size bed next to Kennedy a few minutes later, Kennedy pretended to be asleep.

  “Kennedy, are you asleep?” Madison asked after a few moments.

  “Yes, why?”

  “Nothing. Forget it,” Madison said.

  Kennedy rolled over to face her sister.

  “What’s the matter Maddie?” Kennedy asked.

  “Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to talk, but if you’re asleep—”

  “For the love of God, Maddie, spit it out already.”

  “All right, keep your shirt on. I just wanted to ask you something.”

  Madison sighed and Kennedy waited patiently in the early morning for her sister to unburden herself.

  “How do you know that this Malik guy really loves you? I mean, how do you know when a guy really means it when he says he loves you and is not just running game?”

  Kennedy considered her sister’s question for a moment.

  “I think you know because it’s not just about what he says or how or when he says it. Love is something you feel in your spirit. You feel it when a man loves you because it shows in his touch and in his actions. Long before Malik ever said the words to me, I felt it,” Kennedy answered.

  Madison lay silent for so long that Kennedy thought she had fallen asleep.

  “I wonder if that will ever happen for me,” Madison said after a long while.

  “Oh, it will, Maddie. It will. You just have to be patient and wait on it. It’s not something you can plan for or set up. The right man is going to come along and find you. He’ll be all yours and when he says he loves you, you’ll believe it.”

  Kennedy moved closer to her sister, pulling her into her arms. She wished that she could take some of the confusion her sister was going through away, but she knew that Madison had to walk her own path through life. Unlike their parents, Kennedy knew that no amount of forced guidance and demands would force Madison to live the life they wanted her to live. She would have to learn for herself that whatever she was looking for would not be found through casual flings with unworthy men. In the meantime, all anyone could do was support her and love her.

  Chapter 23

  Back in D.C., two relatively uneventful weeks passed as Kennedy attempted to restructure her life without Malik. Kennedy began and ended each day with a prayer hoping that Malik was at peace and asking that, if in God’s wisdom he saw fit to bring them back together, neither of them did anything to stand in the way of that.

  After days of working on herself, inside and out, she decided it was time to go back to work again because sitting around her apartment licking her wounds was futile. The idea of returning to Morgan Stanley, however, was a bitter pill for her to swallow because in the months since the accident and her departure from the company, she’d come to realize that while she was proud of her success, it had come at a very high cost.

  Kennedy had devoted so much of her time and daily energies to becoming a forceful cookie-cut copy of the perfect junior executive that she had sacrificed the simple pleasures in life. It took losing her eyesight for her to see that there was more to life than climbing the corporate ladder and making a name for yourself. It took nearly losing her life to learn that there were more important things to accomplish in one’s lifetime than million-dollar corporate mergers. What’s more, it was through meeting Malik that she came to understand that at the end of the day, none of those things mattered if you didn’t have someone at home who loved you just because.

  Right before she called in to make plans to return, be it through divine intervention or fate, she was called upon to put her plans aside and to assist with performing damage control to the Daniels family name…again.

  Kennedy received the news that her reckless little sister was in some sort of crisis and her parents were worried sick—both about her and about what people would think of them. Once again, Kennedy got the phone call and was expected to come home without delay. Kennedy responded, as she always did, but this time thing
s were different. This time she went home with her own agenda. It was time to set the record straight with her parents for once and for all.

  Madison had left a cryptic note and disappeared for four days, without so much as a phone call. When she’d stumbled home at the end of that period, it was clear to her parents that she’d been binge drinking, again. According to Madison, she was not an alcoholic, and she’d stand up and shout that to anyone who thought otherwise. As far as Kennedy was concerned, that wasn’t really even the issue. Madison’s major problem was the fact that she was a confused, spoiled little rich girl who’d try anything with anyone, at least once, just for the heck of it. Madison was so caught up in her own turmoil, she had no regard for how her actions would affect those around her, or how they would impact her own life in the long run. Kennedy did not know what it would take for Madison to get her life together and frankly, she was quite tired of even thinking about it. The one thing Kennedy did know, however, was that if her parents stopped smothering Madison, perhaps she would have a chance to come into her own.

  Madison needed to take responsibility for her own life and actions, and she could not do that with Mommy and Daddy constantly on her back.

  Kennedy was plagued by these thoughts when she arrived at her parents’ home. Elmira, never one to let any grass grow under her feet, called Madison down for a family meeting five minutes after Kennedy’s car pulled into the driveway. Five minutes after that, sparks were flying and tempers were flaring. Unwilling to fight, Madison tore out of the living room.

  “Madison Alexandra Daniels, get back here this instant,” Elmira demanded to her retreating back.

  “Mother, just leave her alone. God, can’t you just back off for five minutes and let her breathe,” Kennedy snapped.

  “Well, excuse me for caring about my daughters. I thought that was a mother’s right,” Elmira retorted, her cheeks flushed.