The King of the Loop: The White Brothers Series, #1

THE KING

OF

THE LOOP

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THE WHITE BROTHERS SERIES, BOOK 1

LA VERNAE SIMONE

Copyright © 2022 La Vernae Simone

Published by Calypso Books LLC, Florida

Interior Layout by La Vernae Simone

Cover image design by © Forcoverservice

Photo Credits:

Portrait of a Sexy Man – © kiuikson via Depositphotos.com

All Rights Reserved. Without limiting the rights except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976 reserved below, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher of this book, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews.

This book is a work of parody and fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents and events in this book are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used in parody or fictitiously. Any resemblance or similarity to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is coincidental and is not intended by the author.

The King of the Loop Volume 1/La Vernae Simone — 1st Ed.

ISBN-10: 1959701002

ISBN-13: 978-1-959701-00-2

1. Romance

2. Contemporary

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Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DEDICATION

My writing is my legacy to the three most amazing adult children a woman could have, Britt, Jere & Josh, and my angel, Bridget that I hope to see again someday.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To the readers who read and loved this book when it bore another title. If you’ve read the previous version, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

CHAPTER ONE

C reatives should never masquerade as business executives.  

This is the mantra I, Keisha Anarosa Beale, the quintessential starving artist, have been reciting all day because everything that could have gone wrong with my day in the height of a pandemic has done so.

First, we got a late shipment of new product at Vixen, a swanky women’s intimates boutique in Chicago’s Oak Street District, and the job that pays my meager bills. I had to help unpack and stock said product, even though I’m in the middle of working off my two-week notice. Rumor has it this location is closing permanently, but management hasn’t shared that information with us yet.

Finally, I missed my regular L train, Chicago Transit Authority’s elevated rapid transit system, home on which my cellphone battery promptly died. This made it impossible for me to google The King of The Loop, the venture capitalist my roommate Jada and her father swears can help get our business off the ground despite Covid-19 ravaging the economy. It’s all I can do to get ready as quickly as I can so I won’t miss the meeting that could make or break us altogether.

I attack my hair with a brush as if it has offended me, trying to tame it with the last bit of gel left in the jar. A trip to the beauty supply store is long overdue. My roommate Jada Jameson is on my shit list for leaving me in the lurch to handle the biggest meeting our fledgling business has had to date, while she flitted off to Vegas for a weeklong sorority getaway. I should be getting ready for the opening of our hybrid physical and digital music studio and record store. Instead, I’ve spent all day stealing moments to cram for an investment meeting.

I cast a critical eye at my appearance in the full-length mirror. At least my warm, zit-free, olive complexion, large, greenish-hazel eyes, and sleek, well-toned body might be just enough distraction for Tristan White, the CEO of White Enterprises, Inc., and owner of the largest piece of real estate in Chicago’s central business district to drop some el-primo cheddar into our business coffers.

Fuck it, I say. I add water to the minute amount of gel and brush my hair until it’s finally slick. I don’t have time to wash my hair and wear my natural curl, so I suppose a semi-stiff ponytail will have to do.

Not only am I freaking out that my business partner left me, the artist with the least business acumen, to discuss investing in Kente Studio Records with The King of the Loop, I’m freaking out over my appearance like a middle-schooler.

This is how at the end of a day from hell, I’ll again have to take the ‘L,’ all the way back Downtown to meet the gazillionaire venture capitalist. Tristan White is supposed to be like the Elon Musk of Chicago or some shit—I hope without the desire to spend fuck tons of money launching spaceships that aren’t actually going anywhere, yet. Scoring a meeting with The King of The Loop is like winning the fucking lottery, but he granted Jada one. It just happened to be on the first day of a trip she’d planned for months, and her plane ticket was nonrefundable. Now my head is swimming with numbers I don’t understand... or care to.

After Jada called White’s assistant every week for a couple of months with no success, she finally enlisted her father to secure a definitive hookup. Mr. Jameson is an Illinois state senator, and on one of the many occasions he was required to rub elbows with the rich and powerful, he got his baby girl and her partner an impromptu audience with the elusive Tristan White.

Jada calls to give me a final pep talk by phone as I finish getting dressed, but I’m still not confident going solo.

"Don’t we have enough cash to get by a few months until you’re able to do the pitch?" I ask while zipping up my blue pencil skirt.

As the CFO of this venture, I’m telling you we don’t have the capital to pull this off on our own. The break-even figures don’t lie. You can’t back out on me now.

Even over the phone she’s more charismatic and business articulate than I’ll ever be. Girlfriend is savvy enough to converse with the one percent as if she’s one of them.

I wouldn’t be backing out. We’d just be postponing.

"Yeah, we’d be postponing ourselves right out of this opportunity. Use some of that confidence you have as a musician. I’ve seen it when you’re performing. Draw on that and you’ll have Tristan White eating out of your hand."

I don’t know. Business terms give me the hives. I don’t feel like I know what I’m talking about.

Believe me, the more you use them and put them into practice, they’ll become old hat. For this meeting, though, I want you to recite the information we practiced from the business plan like they’re song lyrics.

I remember song lyrics so easily because that’s what I do.

And before you know it, Chief Operating Officer will be what you do. You can do this. Please, Jada says in the voice she usually reserves for the men she’s trying to charm. I ignore my pang of irrational jealousy and relent.

Okay. You just do your whatever-happens-in-Vegas-stays-there thing, and I’ll handle White. You know what I’m saying?

I knew you’d have my back, Keke. She uses my neighborhood nickname, laying it on real thick. I’ll be thinking of you the whole time.

I roll my eyes. Mmm-hmm.

You’ve got the business plan I prepared, right?

Yeah, but those damn financial statements and break-even analyses are like Greek to me.

Just remember the numbers we went over together. Concentrate on the sales forecasts, marketing information and comparisons of similar businesses in the industry. The business plan will speak for itself. Make sure you’re not late. You should probably take my car.

And get caught up in downtown rush-hour traffic? No, thank you. I cringe when I think of panicking and wrecking her fancy BMW on the Dan Ryan. Death would be more merciful than what Jada would do to me if I survived. I don’t like to drive downtown anyway and she knows this.

Well good luck and thanks again, Keisha. I owe you one.

I slip on my stilettos, grab my bootleg PRADA bag, and depart. I don’t usually do knockoffs, but this bag was the perfect shade of blue to match my suit. Once outside, I don my N95 mask and immediately ruminate on how I let Jada talk me into this shit. She’s a phenomenal woman and my BFF, but she is a manipulator. Jada could convince a drug dealer with his own stash to buy her unique brand of crack. She’ll be a formidable CFO for Kente Studio Records. I only hope I measure up as the COO and creative brain.

After my father died two years ago, the insurance settlement I got burned my pockets. I needed to do something constructive with it. Given the relationship I had with my old man, I might’ve signed it all over to a charity. After my father’s will was executed, Jada and I smoked a bowl of weed on the fire escape until we zoned and had a philosophical conversation about the sluggish economy. We wanted meaningful jobs when we got out of college, not something that barely paid the bills.

Then we brainstormed about what we could do to capitalize on our combined talents. I’m a music aficionado and an accomplished musician. My father’s Brazilian musical background and my mother’s history as a blues singer led me to major in music composition and performance at DePaul. Jada, a numbers girl, got a dual degree in business and accounting.

We conceived Kente Studio Records, a physical and online recording studio, vinyl shop, and music store all rolled into one, thankfully before Covid-19 reared its ugly head, which made starting a business during a pandemic infinitely doable. We wanted an ethnic name that described the various shades of clients to whom we expected to cater. Our music would be for people of all colors and socio-economic backgrounds whether they could walk into our store or interface with us online.

I settle on the ‘L’ and try not to listen to the homeless man reciting the maximum load-bearing weight of the train, what speed we would need to go to get to Waukesha, WI in an hour, and other shit nobody’s even asked him. My own inner voice practicing the business jargon for my meeting has me pre-occupied, so I don’t need his nonsensical ass adding to the mix.

When I take a seat, I rummage for my cellphone and find it’s not in my purse or my jacket pocket. In my effort to charge it as much as I could before my meeting, I left it on the charger after speaking with Jada. Just par for the course on this shitshow of a day.

Before I know it, we’re downtown, and I’m walking up to my destination, White headquarters in the Loop, an imposing high-rise in the middle of the CBD. Thankfully, I remembered the GPS directions on my phone which gets me right to the glass revolving doors. The lobby is decorated in white and black leathers, stones, and chrome contemporary furnishings, which remind me of the yin and yang symbol.

Behind a black marble desk sits an attractive but androgynous man. Guyliner dark as a rock star’s rim his eyes, and his suit fits like he oiled himself and slid into it.

I’m here to see Mr. White. Keisha Beale with Kente Studio Records. Absent one Jada Jameson.

Excuse me one moment, Ms. Beale.

All of a sudden, I feel as if I’m trying to get into a gay nightclub and he’s the bouncer. I don’t feel self-conscious because I’m positive I look dope in my navy power suit. But the pencil skirt hugging my round apple bottom is lost on the receptionist. As he clicks through the files on his white MacBook, the movements of his hands are more graceful than my own.

You’re early, he says, stating the obvious. He brandishes a handheld thermometer like a gun, which he points at my forehead and pulls the trigger. Please sign in using the electronic signature pad. The fourth elevator bank will carry you to the forty-seventh floor. As I sign, he pastes on a friendly yet perfunctory smile. Thank you for sending us your proof of vaccination.

He reaches into a drawer and hands me a white badge that has White Enterprises printed on the front, bearing a single magnetic strip on the back.

I narrow my eyes at him in lieu of an inquiry.

Temporary ID. It provides a single elevator access to the penthouse office suites. It deprograms in 30 minutes.

I thank him and walk over to the elevator bank guarded by security personnel. They resemble Secret Service men, complete with conspicuous communications earpieces.

The elevator teleports me at spore drive speed to the forty-seventh floor and to yet another lobby. I’m greeted there by a different impeccably groomed, effeminate man with an overly manicured goatee who’s sitting behind a granite desk.

Miss Beale, please wait here, he says, orchestrating an elaborate spokes-model-esque sweep of his arm toward a cluster of black leather chairs.

Across from the chairs is a concave window with a view of the Chicago skyline that overlooks the city toward Lake Michigan. I feel as if I’m seated in front of Cloud Gate, the mirrored oblong sculpture in AT&T Plaza which Chicagoans affectionately call The Bean. The view makes me drool. The skyline is so distorted, close, and gorgeous.

So, this is how the one percent lives?

I go over the business plan while I’m waiting and call Jada every kind of bitch in the book for not providing me any additional information on Mr. White. He could look like Charlie Hunnam, that sexy hunk on King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, or Gandalf the Grey from Lord of the Rings. I should’ve checked him out on the internet. I hope like hell he’s good-looking because if I’m going to spend my time trying to impress him, I at least want his ass to be handsome.

Mind you, I’m not shallow. I did date Byron McCaskill, who isn’t handsome in the classical sense of the word. He’s got more of a rough edge to him, and he appealed to me largely due to his music video persona. I’ve always existed, for the most part, in the fantasies I’ve enjoyed in pop culture—living vicariously through music, movie and book characters since I was a child. It’s sort of a coping mechanism. When life throws me curve balls, I have an endless fount of pop culture references to draw from that keep me sane.

My nerves get the better of me, and I chew a piece of gum to calm them. When I forget where I am and pop the gum, it sounds as if I’ve detonated a bomb inside the building. The receptionist glances impassively at me, and I swallow the gum with a gulp I’m sure he hears across the room.

Throughout my life, I’ve never been totally comfortable around business people, not to mention the rich. I grew up on the south side of Chicago, a girl from the block with lofty dreams who prefers chilling with my homies to perpetrating in the business world. To be honest, I’m best alone, listening to tunes on my iPad or better yet, singing and writing my own songs—not sitting in a sterile office building, waiting to ask a rich white man for money to start my dream business.

Stressing, I purse my lips. Stop tripping, Beale. To distract myself, I try to conjure an image of Tristan White. Judging from the aesthetic of the building, I guess that White’s in his sixties, from old Chicago money, a member of an all-white country club, has white-gray hair, and probably as gay as the rest of his personnel.

Another well-dressed dude comes out of the door on my left. What is it with all these men who look as if they get grooming tips from the artist formerly known as Prince, God rest his soul?

I’m Darryl Sykes, Mr. White’s personal assistant. Mr. White will see you momentarily, Ms. Beale. He’s wrapping up a meeting. May I get you anything? We have water, sparkling water, organic coffee, oolong tea—

Um, nothing, thank you.

He retreats from whence he came, and I sing a Maxwell song in my head.

While humming This Woman’s Work, the door opens on my right, and a tall, biracial woman exits. Immediately, I recognize her by the signature blond micro braids even though she’s masked like I am. She’s Princess Danai, the rapper. Thanks for the advice, Tristan, she says and I morph into a star-struck fan girl.

You’re welcome, comes the faint reply in a smooth, surprising baritone.

Princess Danai closes the door and upon seeing me, smiles and strides over to hand me a CD and a sanitary wipe. I’m doing a live show next Friday night at Wicked. You should come.

Without hesitation, I take this opportunity, which I’m hoping will be the first of many, to promote Kente Studio Records. I whip off my mask. I just might, if you’d consider hooking a sistah up with some backstage passes.

Mr. White is ready for you, Ms. Beale, the receptionist says. You may go in now.

I stand. Princess Danai scans me up and down, fishes into the pocket of her low-slung, linen cargo pants, and hands me a lanyard bearing three badges. Yo, what’s your first name?

Keisha.

See you next Friday, Keisha Beale, she says before strolling onto the waiting elevator and winking. I’ve heard she bats for the other team and her scrutiny, topped off by a sexy wink, seals it for me. I manage a nervous half smile as the doors close.

I scoop up my bag, along with the binder that holds our business plan, take a deep breath, open the door... and walk smack into the chest of a man who’s at least a foot taller than I am in my ambitious hooker heels.

Excuse me, sir. I’m so sorry. I hope my apology is heartfelt and profuse enough that he won’t be ticked off that I almost bowled him over. I should’ve knocked first.

No problem, Ms. Beale. He encircles my petite biceps—which I’m proud to say are more toned than Michelle Obama’s—with his brawny hands. Once he’s sure I’m steady, he takes a step back. I’m Tristan White.

My gaze travels up to an undeniably handsome face with sharp blue eyes—all chiseled features, dimpled chin, and sun-drenched blond hair—then down a six-foot-plus body occupying a kick-ass tailored summer suit. Against his tanned skin, a crisp, white shirt is accessorized by a tie in brown multi.

Creatives should most definitely not masquerade as business executives, especially if your forte is writing music and lyrics and you couldn’t identify a balance sheet or income statement to save your life. And most especially if the venture capitalist you’ve been roped into meeting by your business partner looks like he could singlehandedly be the muse for all your songs.

I stare open-mouthed at Tristan White, Chicago’s premiere venture capitalist and CEO of White Enterprises, now standing before me in the flesh, and who possesses some of the finest flesh I’ve had the pleasure of seeing in all my twenty-three years, if the tailored suit he’s wearing like a second skin is any indication of the toned musculature beneath it. In fact, I am dumbstruck by the most delectable specimen of man I’ve ever had the good fortune to encounter.

I take entirely too long to respond.

Are you okay? he asks.

Yes. I’m fine, sir. And so are you! I wave him off and project what I hope is sophisticated nonchalance, but in my mind I’m comparing him to Brad Pitt’s character in Legends of the Fall, the only other Tristan I’ve ever had the pleasure of fantasizing about. I would be his fucking Isabel Two any day of the week.

I grew up kicking it with four brothers who played sports. It would take more than that to put me down for the count. I realize I’m babbling like an idiot, so I offer him my hand to shake. Which is also a faux pas, because Covid.

Damn, he looks so familiar, though!

Surprisingly, he removes his mask, slides it into his jacket pocket, and takes my hand. His touch and the fact that he’s young and handsome unnerve me more than our collision. When his eyes crinkle questioningly, I close my gaping mouth and kick-start my stuttering heart again. Then it hits me. He bears an uncanny resemblance to the point guard of the Chicago Buffaloes, only with shorter hair.

Are you Nathan White’s brother?

Yes, we’re twins.

Oh, that explains it. I decide to play it chill and not act like a rabid fan. Um, Ms. Jameson is out of town, I say. I’m Keisha Beale.

Yes, I was informed. And your role in the business would be? His voice is deep and sonorous, sort of like my dad’s when he wasn’t manic. His implacable expression doesn’t clue me in to what’s going on in his mind and whether he’s pissed Jada isn’t here.

Chief Operating Officer, sir. Well, Jada—I mean, Ms. Jameson—gave us those distinguished titles. We’re partners.

He narrows his eyes. Are you normally so polite, Ms. Beale?

Pardon?

You keep calling me, sir.

Yes, sir. My mother’s family is from the South. She drilled the habit into us.

He angles his head, peruses me through slanted eyes, and gestures toward the binder in my hand. Your business plan, I presume?

Oh, yes, sir, I say and hand it to him. He maneuvers to close the door, and his chin is inches from my line of