Page 71 of Full Circle

“Hi, Rainbow,” I murmured back, smoothing her blonde hair away from her face. “You have a good dance class, m’kay? I love you.”

“Come on, we don’t have all day!” Desiree snapped. She waved impatiently towards the door. “Go get your leotard on this instant!”

Iris flashed me an apologetic smile as she pulled away. “I’ll show you my report later, okay? You’re gonna be proud of me.”

It was Maggie who chimed in. “We’re always proud of you, pipsqueak. Now go break a leg!”

Waving, Iris dashed back towards the office to change into her dance clothes. Desiree huffed impatiently again. “I’ll be waiting in the car,” she informed us. “Make sure you get this place cleaned up, Celeste. It looks more like a barn than a restaurant.”

Maggie’s jaw dropped. “That woman is the devil incarnate. How you still put up with it is beyond me.”

I shrugged. “She does right by Iris. That’s all that matters.”

My best friend bit her lip, a tell that she was holding back on saying more. It was a topic of conversation we had exhausted too many times.

“I’m so glad you’re here.” I reached across the counter to clasp her hands in mine. “How long are you planning on staying?”

She shrugged. “We’ll see how things go with my mom. She’s between boyfriends again, so she’s back to being Mom of the Year. I can only handle that for so long.” We both chuckled. Her mom was constantly cycling through relationships.

Just then, Bob from the garage down the street burst through the front door. “Poor Miss Shirley died!” he announced to The Comfy Cushion patrons.

As the few people in the dining room tittered over the new gossip, I tried to mask the pain creeping up my spine. I hadn’t seen Wesley’s great aunt since Iris was born. Her health took a turn and she was confined to bed most days, with a live in nurse caring for her round the clock. Most of the town had forgotten all about her. I felt instantly guilty that I hadn’t checked on her in all these years. I was too afraid she would see Iris and make the connection to Wesley.

Because one thing was certain. Not a day had passed in over ten years where my dreams weren’t filled with shaggy haired, blonde boys and megawatt smiles.

CHAPTER 31

THE PAST ALWAYS CATCHES UP WITH YOU

WESLEY

SLAM!

My right fist connected with the bag.

PFFT!

My left fist sent an upper cut to match the first.

It didn’t matter how many times in how many ways I beat the punching bag. Rage was my natural state and had been for years. Visualizing my father’s smug face on the center of the bag always took the edge off, though not enough to fully make the anger go away. I had often wondered if competing in an MMA tournament would finally make the hatred dissipate, but unfortunately, all of my contracts prohibited me from doing anything that might mar my face.

And by contracts I meant the numerous modeling gigs my agent booked. So far I had done ad campaigns for Calvin Klein, Dolce & Gabbana, Tom Ford, and Betsey Johnson. If I wanted to venture out, I could have my pick of runway shows to model in, but I found fashion shows tacky. Hell, I found all of it weird, but if someone wanted to pay me $8 million to snap some photos of me in funny clothes, I would be an idiot to pass that up.

Modeling helped me earn my own money, which had more than paid my way through college and paid my father back all the money from my Emory Episode. Now I was on the verge of joining Madden Enterprises as assistant general counsel in our legal department. My bar exam results were still pending, but I felt confident that I passed. Studying came easy for me, thanks to Celeste.

“No, not Celeste!” I muttered under my breath. If I started thinking about her now, my day would be ruined.

“Talking to yourself is a sure sign of madness,” Phillip said, breezing into the room with a tablet in hand and an Airpod clipped to his ear. He had been my official assistant since I started college. It was difficult to manage accelerated classes on top of modeling gigs and the never ending social functions my father required me to attend as his consort. Tabloids loved me because I often had other hot, young models on my arm. The girls liked the exposure. I liked that it gave old Benny boy the impression that I had moved on.

Moving on was impossible, though. Celeste’s ghost had become my shadow, haunting my every waking moment and encompassing all of my dreams at night. She was never going to be someone I got over because soul mates weren’t meant to pass you by. Nothing was ever going to convince my father otherwise, however.

Once, after I started my Bachelor’s program at Princeton, I found Maggie on Facebook and begged her to tell me how Celeste was doing. She read the message, then blocked me, thereby further breaking my heart. If Maggie wasn’t willing to give me the time of day, there was no way Celeste was ready to. They were two peas in a pod, and as much as it killed, I had to accept that I had essentially disappeared right at the moment Celeste needed me most. My final words to her still lived rent free in my head, the guilt often constricting the oxygen in my lungs.

So I did the only thing I could do: I focused on working hard to be a man that would be worthy of her whenever I had the chance to win her back. Double majoring in business and economics at Princeton, I managed to graduate suma cum laude in only three years. Then it was on to law school at Harvard. Combined with the international photo shoots and the charity I anonymously founded for neurological cancer research, life kept me busy enough that I appeared on the outside as a functioning human being.

Inside, I was anything but.

“What’s on the agenda today, Phillip?” I asked with a sigh.

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