Monroe Residence – Garden District, New Orleans

August had learned long ago that beauty meant nothing without discipline. Even rot could wear a pretty face, and he'd seen enough of both to know the difference.

He leaned against the parlor window, the curtains drawn tight. The house, his house, was all shadows and soft lamplight now. He liked it that way.

The quiet was deceptive. Outside, the Garden District thrummed like a barely beating heart—but in here, it was all stillness. A kind of hush he'd learned to live inside. A kind of grave.

He thought about Serena Carter.
Again.
Too often.

If Clarissa had been the ghost that haunted him, the phantom stitched into his bloodstream, Serena was something else entirely.

Not a ghost.
Not a dream.
A reckoning.

There was something about her—the way her mouth tightened when she was annoyed, the way she wore elegance like armor. Her voice, polished and smooth, could cut a man to ribbons if he wasn't careful. But August wasn't the kind to bleed openly.

He thought about her skin—the smooth caramel brown that had haunted his thoughts since the first time he saw her. She was two shades darker than him, a rich, golden brown that shone like warm honey under the right light. Her skin was perfect. Untouched.

That made him want her more.

Her curves were concealed beneath those professional three-piece suits, but they didn't hide nearly enough. She had the kind of body that made men pause—because something in them remembered what desire without permission felt like. She was dangerous that way. Not because she tried to be, but because she didn't.

He knew too much about her already.

He'd done his research.
He always did.

A preacher's daughter from Ohio. A perfect image—unmarred, respectable. Prim. And yet, there was something underneath. He'd seen it. The cracks. The way her mouth parted ever so slightly when she was caught off guard. The way she blinked once—slow, deliberate—when she was lying.

She was untouched by scandal, but no one lived that clean.
Not really.
He'd find the truth beneath all that polish. He intended to.

And maybe that was what made her so alluring. That restraint. That practiced elegance. He wanted to see it unravel. Slowly.

But want was dangerous in his bloodline.

His father—Monroe by name, Creole by pride—had made damn sure August grew up understanding exactly where the lines were drawn. And exactly what crossing them would cost.

He could hear the old man now, drawling in disgust:
"Don't bring no café au lait girl home, son. You better marry white, or marry rich."

But his mother hadn't been white. Or rich. She was Hakka-Chinese—sharp-featured and cruel as vinegar—and she'd left August before he learned how to spell her name properly.

He remembered her hands. Long fingers. Slaps that left heat in their wake.

He remembered her shame, too. The way she flinched when people asked what he was. What is he, exactly? The way she'd correct strangers too quickly—he's nothing like me, her eyes always said.

She left when he was seven. Packed a red suitcase and slammed the front door like it owed her something.

August never cried for her. Not even once.

So yes, there was anger in him.
And maybe something worse.

A hunger for control. A disdain for pity. An obsession with the things he couldn't quite touch without dirtying his hands.

Serena was one of those things.

The Louisiana sun had kissed her skin a shade that would have made his father roll in his grave. A woman who wasn't blond. Wasn't white. And yet, August couldn't stop circling her. Couldn't stop seeing her in dreams he wasn't ready to name.

She was all wrong.
But he kept watching.
And waiting.