Queen Move

“Adding personal accounts from my family will elevate your book from being an unauthorized biography, something we publicly condemned and tore apart, to one that has our full support. Also, delaying publication makes sense so we can dovetail the release with the dedication of the new Joseph Allen Atlanta History Museum. I’m assuring you a New York Times bestseller.”

I give her a Queen Bee smile, sweet as honeycomb, but with a little sting. “This is the part where you thank me, by the way.”

“Thank you,” Serena says wryly. “You’ve got it all figured out, huh?”

I’m not sure if it’s resentment or admiration in her voice. She’s free to feel either. I don’t care what she feels. I care what she does. And now I’ve got her in check.

Checkmate.

I’ll never hear that word without thinking of Ezra, without seeing two kids in his living room with a big board and heavy pieces, ebony and ivory, between us.

“I need to go.” I smile and start down the steps. “But we’ll be in touch.”

Once in Mama’s Benz, I call Ezra through the car’s elaborate dashboard.

“Tru?”

The hope in his voice breaks my heart because I know I’m probably going to break his, too. Unless… I’ve only allowed myself to consider the possibility that it’s not Ezra’s child a few times. All the maneuvers I’ve had to make over the last day—the conversations with Governor Rafferty, threatening the publisher, persuading and putting Serena in her place under my thumb—every move I made was carefully calculated, a bet I couldn’t afford to lose. This game required my complete focus. I couldn’t let myself consider what was happening with Ezra, but hearing his voice, it all falls on my heart at once, a stratum of hope and hurt and dread and fear.

And love.

“Yeah, hey.” I heave a tired sigh. “I have good news.”

“You do?”

“Serena is removing the lies about our parents from her book.”

His silence surprises me. I expected instant jubilation, triumph. Not this waiting silence, like he’s not sure what to celebrate.

“This is good news, Ezra,” I tell him unnecessarily.

“Of course it is. I was just thrown off because I didn’t expect it to be this easy.”

“Easy it was not.”

“I can imagine,” he says. “Can we talk? I mean about us? Not all of this?”

He’d said Aiko was trying to get a doctor’s appointment. Does he know yet?

“Ez, what—”

“Face-to-face,” he says, his voice as level as screed concrete and giving less away.

It can’t be good. If it wasn’t his baby, wouldn’t he just tell me now? Or maybe she didn’t have the appointment yet. Or maybe they found out it was a false alarm. Anything good he’d tell me right away, but he wants to see me—wants to convince me, persuade me. Love me into doing something stupid. I’m so weak for this man, but that I will not let him do. I draw the lines clearly for myself. If the baby is his, I won’t stay. My heart will break every step away from him, but it would be an act of self-preservation. If the baby is not his…

It hurts to hope this much. Hope is a bird that can soar or be shot down mid-flight.

I pull into my mother’s driveway. “I’m at home. We could meet here.”

He pauses, and when he speaks again, his voice has deepened, has heated. “I’ve missed you, Tru.”

I’ve missed you, too rides the tip of my tongue, but I bite it, let the silence after his words stretch out.

“We’ve had some developments here, too,” he says when it’s obvious I’m not going to respond in kind.

“You spoke to your mom?”

Another silence. Me making sure what was written in that biography never makes it to the shelves is different than confirming that it wasn’t true.