Don't Break This Kiss (Top Shelf Romance Book 5)

by Jessica Hawkins

  “Don’t mention this to him.”

  “I won’t. My loyalty left the building with Lola once I found about Amanda.”

  Lola must not’ve talked to her about Beau, then. Veronica would’ve certainly shared her opinion of him if she had. Beau stopped mid-Boulevard and flipped the car around. “Thanks for your help,” he said and hung up.

  Lola was out there, alone, in the dark. He couldn’t remember if she’d taken her purse inside. He leaned over to the passenger’s side as he drove, feeling around, then did the same in the backseat. No purse. At least she had that, unlike the morning she’d walked home from the Four Seasons. His heart palpitated the same way it had that day, when he’d realized he had no way of getting ahold of her.

  Beau was driving in the direction of his house, but he had no idea if it was the right place to be. His phone rang, and he grabbed it without even checking the screen. “Lola?”

  “Sorry I missed your call, sir.”

  “Warner.” Beau shut his eyes briefly, a current of dread running through him. “Is Lola with you?”

  Warner hesitated. “Is she supposed to be?”

  “I can’t find her. She disappeared in the middle of our date. I was hoping she’d called you to pick her up.”

  “No, sir. I haven’t heard from her. Have you tried the house?”

  Three weeks earlier, when she’d walked out of his life, she’d found him. Maybe she was already at home. He’d heard when it came to a missing person, it was best to stay in one place so they could find you “Not yet.”

  “Maybe she took a—one minute.” His voice went distant. “Yes, it is. Something about Lola going missing. Just let me—”

  “If that’s Brigitte,” Beau said, “I don’t have time. Just let me know if you hear from Lola.” Beau hung up, more confident that he’d walk in the front door and find Lola in the kitchen, eating spoonfuls of Rocky Road from the carton the way she sometimes did.

  He made it home in record time, parking in the driveway and jogging up to the front. He dropped his keys, cursed as he picked them up, and finally got the door open. The house was dark.

  “Lola?” he called out, flipping the switch for the chandelier. He tossed his keys on the table and headed through the house, turning on a light in every room. As he entered the kitchen, he prayed for the glow of the refrigerator, the sound of silverware, anything. There was nothing. He went to stand in the middle of the room. “Hello?”

  He heard footsteps behind him, the click of high heels. Relief spread through him.

  “Beau.”

  He turned around as a light came on above him. Brigitte and Warner stood in the kitchen doorway, as far as they could get from him. “What’re you doing here?”

  “We were concerned,” Brigitte said. “What the hell happened?”

  Beau shook his head, checked his phone and set it on the counter. “Honestly, I don’t even know.”

  “Warner, get him water.” Brigitte crossed the kitchen toward him. “You don’t look good.”

  “I’m fine. I mean—I’m not. I’m fucking worried. But not about myself.”

  Warner opened and closed cabinets.

  Brigitte leaned a hip on the counter. “Start from the beginning.”

  “We went out to dinner. It was a special occasion, and she wanted to plan the evening. She said it was a surprise.”

  “What was the occasion?”

  Beau opened his mouth. The occasion was private, that’s what it was—him, finally getting to show her what love meant to him. Upstairs, in their bedroom, removing her trench coat. Crawling over her body as she breathed heavily on the bed, anticipating his first touch.

  “That’s not important,” Beau said.

  “I don’t understand. What happened at the restaurant?”

  “It wasn’t there.” Beau would’ve rather kept the details to himself, but this whole thing was getting bigger, and he was willing to sacrifice some privacy for answers. Several times over the years, he’d come to Brigitte with a business problem, and she would point out the piece of the puzzle he’d been missing. She had a surprising knack for empathy when she tried, unlike Beau. “We were at Cat Shoppe.”

  “You’re kidding,” Brigitte said, deadpan.

  “I wish I were. Some way of replacing our past, I guess.”

  Brigitte looked at Warner. “What’s taking you so long?”

  “The cups moved again.”

  “I can get my own water.” Beau remembered that Lola’d rearranged things. He wasn’t even thirsty, but he went and got a glass, needing something to do with his hands. “So she had a special dance planned. She warned me not to touch her, but I thought we were playing some kind of game. Because as soon as I put my hands on her—”

  She had begged him with her eyes. Tempted him with each sultry movement. He would’ve done anything for her in those moments, crazy for her.

  “What?” Brigitte prompted. “What happened when you touched her?”

  “She just…disappeared.”

  Chapter 47

  Brigitte and Warner stood side by side in Beau’s kitchen, quieted by the details of Beau’s night. Beau drank the last of his water, set it on the counter, looked at it. Nobody spoke.

  “…I moved the glasses and bowls back into their own cabinet...it’s your kitchen, after all.”

  Lola had come into his home and disrupted his system. During the ten years Brigitte had lived there, she’d tried to do the same, but Beau’d always put up a fight. Not with Lola. He was happy she could make those little changes that made her feel at home.

  Beau’d found her unprompted comments earlier about laundry and dishes adorably amusing, her nerves obviously strung tight. Her behavior had been mildly strange all day, though, up until she’d sat him down in the VIP room. She’d been collected then, as if she’d done that dance a hundred times. She had, but he didn’t want to get that same dance. It should’ve made all the difference that it was him sitting in that seat.

  A pit of doubt formed in his stomach. Perhaps her comments hadn’t been so offhanded. Maybe they were meant to serve as a hint, something more significant than he’d thought.

  He looked up from the glass. “I’m out of options. I have to call the police.”

  “Not yet. Just wait a minute.” Brigitte played with her bottom lip. She’d been staring out the window behind him for a good two minutes, since he’d finished telling them exactly what’d happened. Brigitte went and got the cat ears from the foyer table. Beau didn’t even realize he’d brought them in. “You said these were just hanging on your driver’s side mirror? And her phone’s disconnected?”

  “Yes.”

  Brigitte’s expression changed, her eyebrows angling inward. Beau didn’t get looks of pity often. “Beau…”

  “Never mind.” He picked up his phone again. He had more phone calls to make, starting with the LAPD. If Brigitte was going to tell him this wasn’t an accident, he didn’t want to hear it.

  “I think—”

  “I don’t care what you think.” He focused on scrolling through his contact list. “You don’t know the whole situation.”

  “Warner, give us a minute.” Brigitte waited until Warner had left the room to come over and touch Beau’s forearm. “Come upstairs with me before you call anyone. I want to see one thing.”

  Beau hovered his thumb over the call button.

  “If I’m wrong, we’ll call the police.”

  Beau returned his phone to his pocket. “What’s upstairs?”

  She left the kitchen, and he followed. Before reaching the second floor, she glanced back, as if to make sure he was still there. In his bedroom, she opened the closet’s double doors. She ignored Beau’s side and went to Lola’s dresser. The top drawer was full of lacy undergarments.

  “Is it all there?” Brigitte asked.

  “How should I know? I don’t keep track of her fucking panties.” Beau went deeper into the closet as Brigitte shut the drawer and checked the one underneath i
t. “What are you looking for?”

  She didn’t answer. Beau sifted through Lola’s dresses and touched the peach-colored one he’d bought her for their evening at the ballet. For once, he’d gotten her out of black—her go-to, safety color. She’d looked stunning. Good enough to eat—and he would’ve, had he had the chance. He slid the smooth silk through his hand. Any excuse he could think of to touch her that night, he’d used. She’d let him, up until a certain point, and then she’d politely moved his hand away and said, “Beau, you promised.” He couldn’t count the number of times she’d said that to him. Yes, he’d promised, but he was only a man, not a fucking saint.

  Brigitte was at the bottom drawer now. She slammed it shut, squatted on the floor.

  “Brigitte, I’m wasting time.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong. It looks like all her stuff is here.”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  She didn’t look up at Beau, and that made him nervous. Normally, she delivered any news with a tremor of excitement. “I mean—the cat ears, the lipstick mark, choosing Cat Shoppe for a special occasion…it’s almost like a message. A ‘fuck you.’”

  Beau’s ears static-crackled when he swallowed. It sounded like Brigitte was suggesting Lola’d gone out of her way to hurt him, but that wasn’t possible. He had no doubt Lola loved him. “You think she set me up?”

  Brigitte picked at nothing on the carpet. “I think nobody gets over being hurt that bad as quickly as she did.”

  “She wasn’t over it. We were working on it.”

  “Still.” She looked up. “She moved in here two days later.”

  Beau took a step back. It didn’t sound like Lola. She didn’t lie or manipulate. She wasn’t malicious. She would never do to him what he’d done to her.

  Would she?

  He wiped his temple with his sleeve. “Maybe she’s still angry, and maybe she wants to hurt me. That I can wrap my head around. But not planning it ahead of time to the point you think she would’ve packed a bag.” He shoved a finger toward the dresser. “All her shit’s here.”

  “I don’t see her personal things.”

  “She only came here with one bag,” Beau said. “She left everything else at Johnny’s.”

  Brigitte shook her head slowly. “I’m talking about irreplaceable stuff. Passport, license, social security card, birth certificate. She wouldn’t’ve left those things behind.”

  “She didn’t. I have them. I filed all that in the study when she got here.”

  “Is it locked up?”

  “No. I wanted her to have access to…” Beau narrowed his eyes. His chest was burning, most likely from the steak. That, or his body knew something his mind refused to register.

  “You hate Cat Shoppe. She knows it’s a night you’d prefer to forget, and she made you relive it. That woman—you hurt her. Bad. You didn’t break her heart, Beau—you put it in a goddamn blender.”

  “I’m not denying—”

  “Have you slept with her since then?”

  He paused. Were they clues, her rabid efforts to keep him at arm’s length, the kisses that sometimes felt off? His face heated. Was it possible, after making him wait like a fool, that she’d never planned to sleep with him?

  “Not your business,” Beau said.

  “Fine.” Brigitte stood. “Check the study.”

  “I will. Only to show you you’re wrong.” Beau left the room, went downstairs. Lola wouldn’t do this to him. Not after the progress he’d made the last few weeks. Not after he’d promised her he would do better. Be better. He had a lot of work to do, but it was early. What were a few rocky weeks when they had their whole lives to figure this out? Leaving him when he’d just let her closer than anyone’d ever been—it was unfathomable.

  He opened the door of his study too quickly, accidentally knocking it against a wall. One drawer of the file cabinet sat ajar. He went directly to it, opening it all the way.

  His heart hammered up against his chest. Lola’s folder of paperwork was empty. He pulled it out, dumped it upside down. Nothing. He dropped it. The other files belonged to him, but he proceeded to check each one for something of hers, also tossing them when he found nothing. Anything important to Lola was gone.

  “Gone,” he said.

  “That’s what I thought,” Brigitte said behind him.

  He shoved his hands in his hair, grabbing it in two fists. There were papers everywhere. Lola was gone. She’d pulled the rug out from under him, and this was all she’d left behind—a mess at his feet. Why? To punish him for loving her?

  He yanked the drawer all the way out, scanned it one last time for any stray papers, then threw it on the wood-paneled floor with a deafening clang. “What the fuck?”

  He’d made the grave mistake of underestimating her. He’d thought the game was over. He’d waved his white flag too soon.

  He was losing control. He didn’t care. He wanted to lose it. He was the master—and she’d played him. She’d turned predator into prey. Without thinking, he slammed his fist into the steel cabinet. Satisfied by the throb in his hand, he did it again and again.

  “Beau,” Brigitte cried over the noise, “you have to calm down.”

  He turned on her. She had her palms over her ears. “Calm down? You want me to calm down?” He’d let himself love her. She’d pretended to want that from him. She’d made a fool of him twice, and nobody got away with that. He overturned the entire file cabinet, smashing it on the floor. “Do you have any idea what she’s put me through?”

  Brigitte held her hands out. “It’ll be okay. I’ll get Detective Bragg on the line. He’ll find her—”

  Beau laughed hollowly. “You think I want to find her?” He picked up a Young Entrepreneurs award from his desk and launched it against the wall, shattering it into a million little pieces. “I hope I never see that fucking bitch again.”

  Brigitte covered her mouth. She was trembling. “Beau. Brother. Go upstairs and rest. I’ll bring you ice for your hand. None of this will seem as bad in the morning.”

  Rest? That was the last thing he needed. Maybe an all-night bender, or a grueling session on his treadmill. But it wasn’t his body he wanted to punish.

  “What’s going on?” Warner asked, entering the study.

  Beau went to his bar cart. “Get out. Both of you.”

  “Sir—”

  “We aren’t leaving you,” Brigitte said. “You’re not in the right state to be alone.”

  “Don’t tell me what I am or am not. I’m not your goddamn puppet.” He poured himself a generous helping of Scotch and turned his back to them, wired with adrenaline. “Do me a favor, Brigitte. Get her shit the fuck out of here. By the time I come out of this room, I want Lola completely erased from this house.”

  “Beau—”

  “If I see anything of hers,” he continued, “I will go into a rage like you’ve never seen.” He looked over his shoulder at her. “Is that what you want?”

  Warner moved in front of her, but she stopped him with a hand on his bicep. “No.”

  “Then get rid of her.”

  “I will.” She nodded slowly. “I’ll handle it. The housekeeper will come first thing tomorrow and scrub this place until it’s shining. Just promise me you’ll calm down.”

  “Get out.”

  Beau returned to his alcohol once they’d gone and the door was shut. He finished his drink off in one large gulp and poured another. Lola would’ve needed nerves of steel to pull a stunt like this with someone like him. He’d told Brigitte he never wanted to see Lola again—that wasn’t true. Not by a long shot. Just like anyone who screwed him over, Lola had to pay for this. And he wanted to be there when she did.

  Chapter 48

  Beau wasn’t any calmer by his fourth drink. Slumped in a desk chair in his study, he’d replayed the entire evening twice already, more and more certain he’d been set up.

  Lola had been quiet since they’d left the restaurant, and he could feel her
eyes on him as he drove, even though his were focused out the windshield. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “What?”

  Beau looked over at her. She was fidgeting with the cat ears in her lap. He still wasn’t sure how he felt about this whole thing, but she seemed more excited than he’d seen her in a while. “You’ve been staring at me.”

  “Oh.” She paused. “I was just thinking about how this is our last night like this.”

  “Like what?”

  Beau drank more. She’d never answered him. Or if she had, he couldn’t remember what she’d said. The alcohol was making his brain mercifully fuzzy.

  He’d centered his phone on the desk, staring at it. It never rang. He’d been toying with an idea, one he hadn’t been sure about, but with each drink it sounded better. He couldn’t sit there anymore and do nothing. He wanted to know where Lola was, where exactly she was going to undress, shower, lay her head tonight. It was unclear to him still what he’d do with that information, but at the very least, it would give him some of his power back.

  He dialed a number he hadn’t used in a while. He’d already wasted enough time doing nothing.

  A man answered. “I told you before—”

  “I know what you told me,” Beau said, “but this time it’s personal. I need someone I can trust.” The line was silent. “Are you there?”

  Detective Bragg hacked into the phone. “I’m here. All sixty-eight years of me.”

  “I’ll make it worth your time.”

  He grumbled. “My rate doubles during retirement.”

  “Fine.”

  “Triples when I’m woken up in the middle of the night.”

  “Don’t push it, Bragg. It’s only eleven.”

  “Middle of the night for me. I went to bed hours ago.”

  Beau waited through another coughing spell.

  “That’s what happens when you disturb an old man’s sleep, Olivier. So what’s this personal business? Brigitte? Your mom?”

  Beau stared down into his drink. The policeman-turned-private-detective was the only person he trusted with important matters. “Why do you assume that?”