Chapter 2
DESIREE
The third client of the day tries her best not to ask me if forty-eight is too late to start caring about herself again.
She doesn’t say it like that, of course. Most women don’t. They dress the question up in skincare concerns, stubborn dark spots, fine lines around the mouth, weight that stopped feeling familiar, and mirrors they’ve been side-eyeing for years. But I hear the real question every time.
“Is it too late for me?”
I set my tablet on the counter and look at her through the mirror, letting her see my face when I answer. “You’re not too late for anything. You’re here now.”
The treatment light catches the side of her face, bright but not cruel, and I tilt the mirror so she has to look at herself instead of around herself.
She stares at her reflection like she’s waiting for it to disagree with me.
I know that look. Hope can make a woman feel foolish when life has already embarrassed her enough.
“So what would you recommend?” she asks.
“For what you actually need or for what you think you need because the internet got in your head?” I ask.
She laughs then, and her shoulders stop trying to live up under her ears.
“What I actually need,” she says.
“Good answer.” I grab my tablet off the counter and pull up her chart. “So look, we’re not chasing twenty-five. Twenty-five didn’t even know what moisturizer was. We’re working with the face you have now and making sure you stop treating it like it betrayed you.”
That’s the whole point of Enhancing Desire. Correct what bothers you. Maintain what’s already yours. Leave looking like yourself on purpose.
From the front desk, Jetta makes a sound like she’s trying not to laugh and failing miserably. That woman is barely over five feet, thick in every place she swears she’s about to start working on, and pretty in a way that makes clients start talking to her like they’ve known her for years.
I don’t look her way. “And for whoever’s listening, they need to finish checking in my eleven o’clock.”
“Yes, Boss lady,” she calls back, still amused.
My client smiles harder this time, and these are the moments I enjoy.
Not the Hydrafacials, not the lasers, not the brightening treatments, not even the memberships women sign up for and swear they’re going to keep this time.
It's the moment I get a woman to stop apologizing for wanting to feel good in her own damn body.
I understand the feeling personally. Not that I’ve ever hated mine, because that’s never been the case.
My body and I have had our disagreements, but hate has never been one of them.
I know what looks good on me and to me. I know how to dress what I have, how rooms react when I walk in, and how people study confidence when they’re still trying to figure out if they’re allowed to have some too.
They absolutely are.
And I can help them get close enough to recognize it when it shows up.
I’m explaining aftercare when the front door opens and the whole clinic apparently forgets how to mind their business.
Not all at once. That would be too obvious, and my staff has more sense than that most days.
It happens in pieces. The client waiting by the product wall stops pretending to read the label on a serum she already bought last month.
Jetta’s greeting comes out a little slower than usual, and that tells me everything I need to know because Jetta has never successfully played it cool a day in her life.
I don’t stop working because Theodore walks in. He knows better than to expect that from me, and I love him more for never asking.
“Use the cleanser I wrote down for you,” I tell my client, handing her the aftercare card. “Not the scrub your cousin sells out of her kitchen. I’m not arguing with anybody named JuJu about your barrier repair.”
She covers her mouth, laughing. “You’re serious.”
“Very.”
“I like you.”
“As you should. I’m saving you from yourself.”
We both laugh as I walk her toward the front. I already know what I’m about to see. That still doesn’t prepare me for Theodore standing near the desk with flowers taking up one arm, looking entirely too comfortable at the opportunity to disrupt my workday.
The arrangement is completely absurd in the best way.
Deep red, cream, and blush roses fill most of it, with a few stems in that burnt-orange shade he knows I like.
Baby’s breath is tucked through the blooms, and dark leaves spill around the edges like whoever made it had both time and taste.
It’s not cute. Cute is for grocery store bundles wrapped in plastic and panic.
The aroma gives roses, cedar, and restraint, like the florist knew Theodore hated anything too sweet.
This is intentional.
And baby Theodore Kelly does intentional better than most men do breathing.
He’s near the front, one hand in his pocket, the other holding those flowers like they’re nothing, a cream-colored tailored suit fitted close enough to remind you what’s under it without giving it away.
Shades still on, and that jawline so defined it shows God clearly had His favorites.
This man will have you looking twice without realizing you did.
And the way he’s looking at me? Like last night didn’t end. Like he’s remembering exactly how I sounded and how I took every way he fucked me. This man turned me every which-a-way but loose.
Great.
Now, I need to change my panties because apparently my fat ass thunder cat doesn’t give two shits about me being in front of people and trying to run a business.
“Desiree,” he says.
Behind the desk, Jetta whispers, “Father God.”
I shoot her a glaring look.
She presses her lips together and suddenly finds the appointment calendar fascinating.
Theodore sees it, but of course he sees everything I do. The corner of his mouth moves like he has the nerve to be entertained.
“Mr. Kelly,” I say, walking to him like I don’t feel every eye in the clinic keyed in on us.
“Honey.”
A name he gave me, meant for only him, and that makes all the difference.
“Are you lost, sir?” I ask, taking my time getting to him.
“I don’t believe I am, no.”
“You have an appointment?” I shift the flowers after taking them from his hand, not making it easy on him. “We’re completely booked today.”
His eyes drop to my mouth, then back up. “Are we?”
I tilt my head. “Depends. What is it that you need, sir?”
“My woman.”
“Looks like you’re out of luck. The schedule is too tight to squeeze you in for what you want.”
His expression doesn’t change much, but I see it—that small shift in his gaze that tells me I just earned something later.
Jetta makes another sound, and I don’t bother looking at her this time because I already know her face is doing too much.
“Finish your day,” he says, like I didn’t just test him. “I’ll deal with you tonight.”
“Wait. You did all this in the middle of a workday?”
“I was in the area.”
“No, you weren’t.”
“No,” he says. “I wasn’t.”
“You could’ve just had these delivered.”
“I could’ve.”
“But you came here instead.”
“I wanted to see you. I know that’s not a problem, now is it?”
The room gets entirely too invested in his response.
I keep my face together because I’m a business owner, a grown woman, and not some giggling fool over flowers and a fine man showing up in the middle of my day.
Unfortunately…
I’m also human.
So when he leans in, I let him kiss me long past what professionalism would recommend. Every woman in that lobby suddenly develops a personal interest in my relationship. He pulls back before I’m ready, which is rude, but very him.
“I’ll see you at home tonight,” he says.
I almost say something smart. I really do. But he’s standing there with flowers still in my hands and last night still somewhere in my thighs, so I give myself the grace of shutting up for once.
He turns toward the front desk, perfectly calm, perfectly polished, like he didn’t just walk in here and make every woman in the building reassess her standards.
“Have a great day, ladies.”
Jetta damn near melts into the keyboard. “You too, Mr. Kelly.”
The door closes behind him, and nobody says a word.
Well, for about three seconds they don’t.
And here is Jetta with her antics. She drops her pen on the desk and leans back in her chair. “I know you saw that man walk in here like the final answer to a prayer.”
I set the flowers on the counter and start adjusting stems because I need something to do with my hands before they embarrass me. “Girl. Please do not start.”
“Oh, I’m starting. I’m absolutely starting.” She points toward the door. “Are there more of him somewhere? A brother? A cousin? A business partner with good cholesterol?”
My client, who should be minding her invoice, chimes in like she works here. “Baby, he was wearing the hell out of that suit.”
“The suit?” Jetta turns to her. “Ma’am, the suit was the least of it.”
I look between both of them. “Y’all are way too comfortable.”
“We’re inspired,” Jetta says.
“You’re nosy.”
“I mean, yeah, that too.” She eyes the flowers. “On a regular weekday, Desi? No birthday? No apology? No holiday?”
“Nope.”
“So he just does that?”
I pick up the card tucked between two cream roses. Honey is written across the envelope, and of course even his handwriting looks expensive.
“Sometimes.”
Jetta repeats, offended. “Listen to you. Sometimes. Like that’s normal.”
“It is for us.”
And that’s one hundred percent true.
They don’t know I met Theodore in a room full of men who thought money made them interesting.
A private donor reception in Phoenix. Too many suits, too much ego, not enough substance.
Men talking over each other, women pretending not to notice who was looking at them and how.
I had gone because Lizzie said I needed to stop acting like my business could grow on excellence alone and start letting people with money see my face.
She was right, which irritated me then and still irritates me now.