For his final series, New York Times bestselling author E. Lynn Harris introduced Bentley L. Dean, owner of the hottest modeling agency in Miami’s sexy South Beach.
Only the world’s most beautiful models make the roster of Picture Perfect Modeling agency, and they only do shoots for the most elite photographers and magazines. They are fashionista royalty—and the owners, Bentley L. Dean and his beautiful partner Alexandra, know it. But even Picture Perfect isn’t immune from hard times; so when Sterling Sneed, a rich, celebrity party planner promises to pay a ridiculously high fee for some models, Bentley finds he can’t refuse. Even though the job is not exactly a photo shoot, Bentley agrees to supply fifteen gorgeous models as eye candy for an “A” list party—to look good, be charming and, well, entertain the guests. They don’t have to do anything they don’t want to, but…
His models are pros, and he figures they can handle the pressure—until one drops out and Bentley asks his protégé Jah, a beautiful kid who Bentley treats as if he were his own son, to substitute. Suddenly, the stakes are much higher, particularly when Jah falls in love with the hottest African American movie star in America. Seth Sinclair is very handsome, very famous, and very married—and his closeted gay life makes him very dangerous as well. Can Bentley’s fatherly guidance save Jah from making a fatal mistake?
Release date:
June 22, 2010
Publisher:
St. Martin's Publishing Group
Print pages:
304
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If I had kept a journal of my love life five years ago it would have read something like this:
Under the soothing pattern of rain I’m in the middle of a crazy, convoluted daydream. Maybe because I could hear the strains of Aretha Franklin crooning “day dreamin’ and thinkin’ of you” or maybe because I had a big decision to make about my love life.
You see I’m in love with two people.
She. Her kisses are soothing. Sometimes I sank my mouth into the naked warmth of her, a body that was firm and soft at the same time. So warm and velvety that I think heaven couldn’t be better.
He. Six feet two of steely muscles, two hundred and ten pounds, with gravy biscuit brown skin who dishes out a dizzying force of manhood, sending pleasure chills throughout my body. Sometimes I crave him more than my next breath.
She. An undeniably sexy woman who has been preparing her entire life to become the perfect wife and mother.
He. Has a sexual swagger who delivers pulse-pounding sex that makes me feel like my ass is on fire.
She loves colorful lingerie, blush-colored wines, and her family and friends.
He loves black sweats, sneakers, and my scent.
She loves me. I love her.
He loves me. I love him.
Love can sometimes be like running from a storm, when all I really need to do is learn how to dance in the rain.
It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Just be honest, Bentley, my inner voice said.
So I told the truth for once in my life—in the place where I’d been perpetrating one of the biggest lies. In bed with my fiancée, Kim. I had just made love to her, and she was curled up around my bare body, purring like a kitten. With her damp cheek pressed to my chest, she cast big brown eyes at me with an expression that would make any man melt and want to stay in bed with her all day. There have been many days when I’ve done just that and enjoyed every minute of it. Kim, when she’s not worrying about her social station in life, is really a fun lady to be around.
But my brain was trying to storm up a scheme to get her out of my high-rise condo as soon as possible. So I could enjoy something and someone even bigger and better.
I glanced at the huge rectangular mirror that sat on the floor, angled longways against the wall. It reflected a picture-perfect couple in a nest of white sheets on my brown leather sleigh bed. With my roasted cashew complexion and black hair, parted on the side and brushed close to my head in tiny waves, I was long and lean.
Kim’s black Beyoncé hairstyle fanned over my chest; her skin color blended with mine, as did her slim arms and legs. I could smell the too sweet fragrance coming off her skin. The wall of windows overlooking the bright blue Detroit River and downtown skyline let in sunshine so bright that her four-carat diamond ring glowed as if someone had placed a star on her left hand. Kim was gorgeous, professional, and just bourgeoisie enough to please my parents.
Pleasing me, on the other hand, was the problem. The bottom line was she just didn’t have what it took to make me happy or keep me satisfied for a lifetime. I didn’t want to be one of those handsome newlywed couples in Jet magazine and have former lovers unable to contain their laughter while muttering, “Child, pleeze.”
So when she asked a seemingly simple question, the kind that would normally elicit an automatic answer from a man in the afterglow of making love, it had the opposite effect on me. In fact, her question hit me like a truth serum about who I really am. Sadly for her, “husband” is not the answer.
“Will we always be this happy, Bentley L. Dean?” Kim asked with her soft, after-sex voice. As she gazed at me, the black makeup smudged around her eyes intensified her pouty, sexy gaze that demanded an answer. Now.
“Probably not,” I replied quickly. The Musiq Soulchild CD had long since ended, so my voice echoed off the cream-colored walls and floor-to-ceiling windows. My words, sounding flat and listless, seemed to hang in the silence. Because I had no more energy to waste on trying to please everyone. It was time to please Bentley L. Dean III. And I refused to live like so many men I’d seen who were married and getting their gay groove on by creepin’ on the down low. Damn, I was sick of those two words. My father told us to always be proud of who we are no matter what people think. Maybe he said that because he was convinced that our family were descendants of the talented tenth if ever there were.
No, this is me. And the world needs to accept me as I am. I can’t live a lie.
But Kim wasn’t ready to hear that. I once heard my father say that sometimes the truth becomes the lie everyone agrees upon.
She raised her head as quickly as if the fire alarm were going off, as if she were trying to determine if yes, the alarm was ringing. And yes, it was time to leave immediately.
My cheek felt cool in the spot where her cheek had been.
“What?” The word shot from her full, heart-shaped lips like a bullet. Her gaze probed my face for signs of a joke. I felt a mixture of heartache and relief. Kim didn’t deserve someone like me.
But I stared back, dead serious. And just plain tired of the charade. You see, at the time, I was thinking that I had a few hours to get Kim out of here before Warren, my boo, landed at Detroit Metro Airport and drove the thirty or forty minutes to my twenty-eighth-floor luxury love nest. As soon as she was gone, I would change the sheets, shower, shave, soften my skin with shea butter, and put on the black warm-up pants and tank top that showed off my toned shoulders and chest, my tapered waist, and my muscular ass.
Then I’d be ready for Warren to replace Kim here in my bed. That’s when my craving would be quenched. I could hear the message he’d left on my cell phone earlier in the day when in a lazy voice he said, “I’m going to tear that ass down, boi.”
That was the truth. And right now, I had just come to the point where I was tired of lying and trying to scheme up new ways to hide my secret from Kim.
“Bentley L. Dean, what in the world did you just say?”
Her eyes grew huge with shock. She looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. Actually, I felt like I’d found it. She and the rest of the world—including my father—would just have to deal with it. Still, I knew dealing with Kim was like petting a kitten where my father would be akin to a tangle with a pit bull. Somebody would come out bloodied.
“Bentley, you’re kidding me, right?”
“Kim, I wish I was.” My words came out like a sigh of exhaustion. I liked Kim, at times even loved her. But the truth was that I was getting married to please Mother and Father. They are “old black money” rich. As third-generation wealth, they reign from the top tier of Detroit’s black bourgeoisie of doctors, lawyers, politicians, and business moguls.
Needless to say, my parents believe very much in tradition. So I was expected to attend Morehouse College and Michigan Law, marry, and have two kids. So the life of Bentley L. Dean III would be a mirror image of the life of Bentley L. Dean II.
That flattery by imitation was my ticket to a seven-figure inheritance. You see, I was born into the black aristocracy. My grandfather, the first Bentley L. Dean, had made his fortune by becoming the first black man to own multiple car dealerships in the state of Michigan. Father expanded the automobile trade, acquired a lucrative soft drink franchise, and purchased several rent houses. The sports lover in him expanded his empire to own an Arena Football League team in Flint. A team I might one day hope to own. Of course, when it was time to marry, he chose a debutante diva with similar status, as my mother’s grandfather was one of the first black surgeons in Michigan.
Inheriting the wealth and privilege of their pedigree meant that my sister, Anna, and I would have to become clones of Mother and Father. They expected great things from us, and we both knew better than to disappoint.
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