Chapter 13
DESIREE
By four o’clock, my office looks more put together than I feel.
Which offends me, honestly, because I have spent good money making sure this space knows how to behave.
The cream chairs. The glass desk. The framed certifications.
The gold tray with my favorite pens lined up beside the appointment tablet.
Everything in here says calm, capable, expensive, and in charge.
Meanwhile, I am sitting behind my desk with my heels kicked off, one hand pressed to my forehead, and Lizzie on speaker asking me why I’ve been acting funny since Creek Wall. The tiny speaker on my desk rattles with the vibration of her voice.
“I have not been acting funny,” I inform.
“You absolutely have.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“You own a clinic, Desi. You’re always busy. That has never stopped you from calling me to talk about a client who asked if Botox could fix her husband’s personality.”
“That was a valid discussion.”
“It was, but that is not the point.”
Looking at the clock on my wall tells me my next client is in twelve minutes.
I know damn well twelve minutes isn’t enough time to tell Lizzie the man she’s been seeing for months is connected to a private part of my life with Theodore.
Not enough time to explain how he used a different name with her, and sat across from me like my silence was something he could count on.
There’s no clean way to say that.
There may not even be a kind way to say it.
But, shit. I gotta figure something out.
“Lizzie,” I start, then stop because my office phone lights up with Jetta’s extension.
“Hold on,” I tell her, tapping the receiver. “What is it?”
“Boss, you have a delivery at the front.”
“Sign for it.”
“That’s the thing.” Jetta pauses, and that pause puts my back up immediately. “He said he needs to hand it directly to you.”
I sit up straighter. “He?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What kind of delivery?”
“Flowers. A lot of them.”
Lizzie laughs through my cell phone. “Ooooh, Theodore sending flowers from across the world?”
I don’t even respond to her.
“Tell him I’ll be right there,” I say to Jetta, then pick up my cell. “Lizzie, I need to call you back.”
“Wait girl, what happened?”
“I’ll call you right back.”
“Desi.”
“Lizzie. Later. I love you. Gotta go,” I say, and end the call before she can pull more out of me than I have room to give.
I slide my feet back into my heels and step out of my office with my face a little scrunched.
Jetta stands behind the front desk with her headset around her neck and her eyes far too damn wide to be professional.
Two clients sit in the waiting area, pretending to scroll their phones while being nosy in the way women with fresh filler and money are always nosy.
I’ll be damned, in the middle of my clinic, stands Bryce low-down-dirty Kinsley with four dozen colorful roses in his hands.
The roses smell expensive, but his cologne is stronger, because apparently the flowers weren’t doing enough for his little show.
Bright. Expensive. Coral, oranges, yellows, creams, and deep purples, all arranged so beautifully I know he paid too much and is enjoying every second of this little disrespectful performance.
He looks nothing like a delivery man, but because of his clean, pressed button-down shirt, tailored pants, and that thirty-two teeth light-bright white ass smile, any front desk would wave him through.
He really could make any woman’s heart stop.
Well, the ones that don’t know any better.
Jetta looks from him to me, and I can see the question forming on her face.
“Can I help you, sir?” I ask.
“Ms. Perkins.” Bryce lifts the arrangement slightly. “I was told to make sure these got to the most beautiful woman in the sender’s life.”
He does this in my clinic. In front of my staff. In front of two clients pretending their phones are suddenly fascinating.
Because Bryce knows exactly where he is.
That’s the thing about men who pass every check. Paperwork can verify identity, testing, and discretion. It can’t measure what a man starts believing he’s owed.
He knows I can’t drag the truth into the middle of my waiting room without dragging my name, Theodore’s name, and my business right along with it.
Here we fucking go.
To anyone else, this looks like my man hired somebody fine as the fuck to deliver flowers to me. Why? Because that’s considered normal. A thought process any sane person would have.
But I know better. This isn’t my man’s doing. This is a man who’s overstepping his boundaries in every sense of the meaning. A man who clearly doesn’t know when to leave well enough alone.
I walk toward him without rushing. “How thoughtful.”
His mouth shifts like he expected more. “Any words or gestures you’d like me to pass to the sender, Ms. Perkins?”
I take the arrangement because I don’t want him here any longer than necessary. “Thank you.”
His fingers brush mine as he’s letting go of the roses. “Yes, ma’am.”
Jetta’s smiling now, trying to be subtle and failing. “You want me to put those in your office, boss?”
“No. I’ll handle them.”
I look at him. “You can go now.”
That gets through the performance. Not enough for anybody else to see, but enough for me.
“I was asked to make sure you received them.”
“Okay. And you’ve done that.”
He tilts his head slightly. “And the message?”
I lift the flowers a little. “Received that too.”
I could wring this nigga’s neck for this shit.
Jetta’s desk phone rings, and the sound brings the room back.
I turn away from Bryce first because dismissing him feels better than giving his ass anything else. “Jetta, please walk this gentleman out after you answer that.”
“Of course, Boss lady.”
Not moving right away, his focus travels up and down my body, undressing me in front of everybody, daring me to stand there and take it because he knows I won’t make a scene.
The nerve of it makes my damn skin crawl, but I’m not giving him the satisfaction of turning all the way around.
I only look at him over my shoulder. “Was there something else?”
He smiles again for the clients. “No ma’am.”
He leaves with Jetta trailing behind him after she ends her call, and I carry the roses into my office like they have a disease. The second my door closes, I set them on the floor beside the trash can and search the arrangement.
Of course. No card.
Bryce is smoother than that.
He came here to make me look crazy if I called him what he was.
Walk in, hand me something everybody would swear came from Theodore, and leave me with nothing solid to use against him.
No card. No company name. No delivery record I could trust. Just witnesses, flowers, and a room full of women assuming my man was being romantic while Bryce stood there enjoying the lie.
I stand over the arrangement, breathing through my nose until the part of me that wants to march back through the lobby and drag him in by that expensive collar remembers I have a license, a business, and cameras.
My next client knocks five minutes later.
I take the appointment.
Because I’m Desiree Perkins, and I do not let men with borrowed nerves stop my money.
When the day finally ends, I leave the clinic through the back with the flowers still in my office and steam damn near coming out of my ears like a damn Looney Tunes cartoon. I call Lizzie from the parking lot before I can talk myself into waiting.
She answers fast. “You hung up on me.”
“I really need you to come over tonight.”
Silence.
Then, “Um. Everything okay?”
I don’t want to lie to her but I also don’t want her panicking. “I just need to talk. Please.”
“Okay. What time?” she asks.
“Seven.”
“I’ll be there.”
“And Lizzie?”
“Yeah?”
There’s this quick beat of silence and I hate Bryce for that. For making things feel heavy between me and my best friend.
“Desi,” she says slowly, “what is going on?”
“I’ll tell you when you get there.”
“You’re scaring me.”
“I don’t want you to be scared.”
That’s the truth.
After ending the call, I drive home with my phone on the passenger seat and Theodore somewhere between meetings and deals. I want to call him so bad. But I can’t. He needs to close and handle his business deals, and I need to deal with whatever this shit is, going on here.
At seven-fourteen, Lizzie pulls into the driveway.
Thank God.
I meet her at the door, and one look at her face tells me she’s already been thinking too hard. Her hair is pulled high tonight, showing off those high cheekbones and the deep berry gloss on her full lips. Bryce’s lying ass doesn’t deserve to see any of her up close.
She steps inside in a low-cut hunter-green maxi dress that looks good as hell against her dark skin, the fabric falling clean over the fullness of her frame when she turns to look around like my house has suddenly become evidence.
“Okay,” she says. “Start talking.”
“Damn, can you at least have a seat first?”
“Now, Desi.”
I close the door and turn the lock. “I need you to hear me before you react.”
“It’s that kind of sentence that makes people react.”
“You’re right. Let me start again.”
She crosses her arms, pushing the low neckline higher against her bulging cleavage, but there is fear behind it. Hurt too. I see both, and it makes me want to take Bryce’s entire life apart one expensive piece at a time.
“I’m just going to come right out and say it. Girl, Fredrick is not new to me.”
Lizzie just stands there.
“And honestly. He’s not Fredrick to me either.”
Her attitude slips, but she stays where she is. “What the shit does that even mean, Desi?”
“It means I know him as Bryce.”
She stares at me like the words are in a language she understands but refuses to accept.
“Okay, but let’s start with you know him how?”
I knew that question was coming.
“He has a connection to a private part of my life with Theodore.”