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

by Jessica Hawkins

  “Who was that?”

  “Nobody.” Beau opened a bill and tossed it aside, having already paid it online. He made a note to switch it over to e-mail and picked up another envelope, avoiding Brigitte’s penetrating stare, her loud silence. Finally, he sighed and looked up. “What?”

  “It’s about her, isn’t it?”

  “Who?”

  “Come on, Beau. You know who. There’s something going on with Lola.”

  “I hardly think of her.”

  “You must think I’m blind. Tell me.”

  Beau slid his mail away and set his elbows on the counter, rubbing his face. He wasn’t as annoyed with Brigitte as he tried to be. Bragg had been his only confidante in over a week, and all the detective cared about was facts. Those sporadic, nonsensical facts were insignificant compared to how Lola’s void actually made him feel.

  “I found her,” he said.

  Brigitte’s back straightened. “I didn’t even know you were looking for her.”

  “I wasn’t. Detective Bragg was. I hired him when she left.” He shut his eyes and shook his head. “Says she’s in Missouri.”

  “Missouri?” Brigitte asked. “What the hell is she doing there?”

  “I have no idea. Other than one hotel charge, there’s no other activity on her credit card.”

  Slowly, Brigitte’s eyes widened as she inclined her head toward him. “You tracked her credit card?”

  Beau nodded. That was minor in comparison to interrogating Lola’s closest friends and family, but he decided to keep that to himself—Brigitte’s eyebrows were already halfway up her forehead. “Yes, but there were no charges over the last eight days. Now there’s one pending.”

  “Oh.” She crossed her arms, curling her nails into her biceps. “So you’re going to go find her?”

  “No,” Beau said immediately. “I sent Bragg.”

  Brigitte tilted her head fractionally. “How come?”

  Beau didn’t know how to answer that. He knew he should just leave her alone, for both their sakes. He didn’t want to, though. He was hurt. He still loved her. But above all, he was angry with her. He couldn’t walk away, and he couldn’t go after her himself. That would tell her she was worth something to him. She was, but Beau wanted to smother that feeling, not nurture it.

  Money gave Beau the gift to waste someone else’s time instead of his. Bragg would handle everything. He’d bring Lola back kicking and screaming if Beau asked him to. Throw her at his feet. And Beau would get his answers.

  “I have to stay close to the office,” he said. “I don’t have time to chase her down. I just want to know where she is before I decide…”

  Their eyes met. Brigitte turned her back to him and put on her oven mitts, but she didn’t move beyond that. “What’ll you do if you find her?”

  “I don’t know. But I can’t let her get away with this.”

  Brigitte looked over her shoulder at him. “Then why not go yourself?”

  “I told you—I have a company to run. That’s why I have people like Bragg.”

  She faced him again, her mitted hands at her sides. “Why waste Bragg’s time if Lola isn’t worth enough for you to go yourself? Time is your most valuable resource, but your money and energy are equally precious. She’s bleeding you out, Beau. Jesus. Warner says he’s never seen you this distracted. Just let this thing go.”

  Lola had been a strain on him one way or another since he’d found her again—yet knowing her had been rewarding in ways he hadn’t anticipated. After his proposition to her to spend the night with him, he’d returned home to Brigitte, who hadn’t thought it was a waste of anything then.

  “You were always on board with my plan,” he said. “You even said a million was a small price to pay for what I wanted in return.”

  “Because it was a game, and you needed that win. Her rejection had been a weak spot for you all those years, and you’re the strongest person I know. It was never about getting laid.” She shook her head. “This isn’t a game anymore, Beau. Part of your success has come from your ability to cut deadweight loose the way most people can’t. The moment hesitation or indecision creeps in, you’re letting emotion get in the way of your sense. She’s offered you an exit, and you need to take it.”

  Beau asked himself if he could go upstairs, go to bed and never think of Lola again. Bragg wouldn’t care either way. He’d walk out of the airport right now, so long as he got paid. Lola and Beau had both hurt each other, but the score would never feel even. How long could it go on? He didn’t know, but he couldn’t forget her. He hadn’t in ten years, and he wouldn’t ten years from now. He had to confront her. A small part of him wondered if she wanted him to find her. If she’d made that one credit card charge hoping he’d follow it.

  “Can we drop this already and eat some lasagna?” Brigitte asked, sighing as she pulled the oven open.

  “Why?”

  She slid the dish out and set it on the stove. “Because I’m hungry, and this discussion isn’t—”

  “No,” he interrupted. “Why do I need to take this exit she’s given me?”

  Brigitte rolled her eyes, removing the oven mitts. “I don’t want to see you get hurt yet again. She’s put you through enough, and she isn’t worth it. Clearly, she doesn’t even want to be around you.”

  Beau folded his arms against his chest and leaned back on the counter. Brigitte never wanted to see him get hurt, and that was why she’d hated Lola from day one. Brigitte and Beau had always decided who got close enough to find their well-hidden weak spots. They’d only been teenagers when the car accident had killed their parents. With his dad’s death came the news of his affair with Brigitte’s mom. It’d been a day—a lifetime—of struggling with hurt and anger, loss and betrayal. Beau didn’t think of it much anymore, but it affected how he dealt with others. Until Lola, he hadn’t had a good enough reason to let anyone close.

  “Maybe it’s time we start living in the real world again, Brigitte. Where people get hurt and they fuck up. Then they come out stronger. Didn’t we come out stronger after what we went through?”

  “Yes, you and I—”

  “I mean as individuals,” Beau clarified. “Not as a unit. Maybe it made us too strong.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” She waved a spatula in his direction. “Who are you right now? You sound like a therapist.”

  Beau didn’t have to be a therapist to see she was deflecting. He wasn’t ready to change the topic, though, and that was unlike him when it came to Brigitte and serious issues. Ever since his breakfast-dinner with Dina Winters, he’d been wondering when he’d become so disconnected from people.

  “Let me ask you something,” he said. “When’s the last time you went on a date?”

  She looked over at him, her eyes huge. “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Since when do you care?”

  “Answer the question. Or are you afraid to?”

  “I got out with men all the time.”

  “I mean someone who actually interests you. Not a potential investor or a business contact.”

  She twisted her lips. “Don’t turn this conversation on me. This is about you and your control issues. Letting go of Lola is the best thing—”

  “I see.” Beau was annoyed with her as usual, but he couldn’t help a small smile. “So everything’s about you except what you don’t feel like talking about?”

  “Everything is not about me. You’re frustrated with yourself, and you’re taking it out on me so you don’t have to deal with it.” She dug the spatula into the lasagna. “Let’s just have a nice dinner and forget the rest until tomorrow morning. After some good food and rest, you’ll see I’m right as usual.”

  Beau’s smiled eased. He’d been supporting Brigitte financially for a long time, but she was the one who took care of him. He’d never asked for it—he didn’t even need it. Because it wasn’t for him. She did it for herself. “I’m not enough for you, Brigitte. This, us—i
t’s not enough.”

  She cut squares into the lasagna, the utensil methodically hitting the bottom of the glass dish. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You just want me to leave you alone.”

  “You could be happy, but you choose not to be. You’re afraid if you lose me, you won’t have anything at all.”

  She stopped moving, kept her profile to him. “And you’re an expert on what I need? You wouldn’t even know me if I didn’t force you to all the time. You think money is the answer to everything, including me. I’d bet you were the same with Lola. If a problem can’t be fixed with a check, all of us are shit out of luck where you’re concerned.”

  Anger surged through Beau, but it died out just as quickly, as if it’d been a conditioned response. He didn’t like Brigitte’s assumption he valued his money more than Lola, but that didn’t mean it had no merit. “I’m not claiming I’ve been good at any of this. Boyfriend, brother or even friend. Yes, sometimes I send Warner in my place—because I trust him to give you what I can’t.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t even know why you’re bringing him into this.”

  “Yes, you do. You’re only blind or stupid when you want to be.” Beau looked hard at her, the only person he’d ever felt really close to before Lola. Brigitte was more family to him than his own mother. Even with her avoiding his eyes, he could sense her terror. Any time Beau had to leave, whether it was for a business trip or when he moved to the hotel to get some space from her, she got this way. She didn’t think she could do it on her own, but once she stopped clinging to Beau, she’d see that wasn’t true. “If you knew what would make me happy, wouldn’t you want me to have it?” he asked.

  After a moment of silence, she said, “Yes.”

  “I want the same for you. Look who’s standing right in front of you, who’s there for you whenever you or I call. It isn’t me.”

  “That’s what he gets paid to do. I’m just a nuisance to his boss. He gets stuck dealing with me.”

  “Maybe in the beginning, but much of the time he spends with you isn’t because I send him. He wants to do it.”

  Brigitte stayed quiet. He didn’t believe it’d never occurred to her that Warner loved her or that she could have him if she let herself. But Beau obviously knew less about the women in his life than he realized, especially when it came to love.

  When it was clear she had nothing to add, Beau went to leave the room.

  “Lola,” she said suddenly.

  He turned around. “What?”

  She looked at him finally. “You said if I know what would make you happy, I should tell you. That’s what love is, right? Your happiness over my own?”

  “Neither of us is happy, Brigitte. Can you honestly tell me this is the life you want? You living here, keeping house, while I work myself to death?”

  She shuddered, but her expression didn’t change. “You’re the only person I have.” Her voice was soft. “I don’t know how to be without you.”

  “Warner could be the best thing that’s ever happened to you, but you’ll never know if I’m in the way.”

  “And what about Lola? You’re going to send a complete stranger after her when she’s alone in the middle of the country? I don’t understand your fascination with her, but I don’t need to. I see you’re going crazy without her.” She took a deep breath as if it’d required effort to speak that much.

  Beau’s eyes were dry. He blinked, the first time since she’d started talking. It was the last thing he’d expected to hear from her, but if one thing had always remained true, it was that she loved him even more than she did herself. She just rarely showed it in a non-destructive way.

  “You think I should go after her,” Beau stated.

  “I don’t want you to.” She held his gaze, also unblinking. “That’s how I know you have to.”

  Chapter 58

  Beau pulled into a parking spot and rubbed his eyes with tense fingers. After a sleepless night at LAX and hours of flying and driving, he still didn’t know what the fuck he was going to say to get the information he needed. He got out and shut the door behind him. It’d been daylight when he’d left Los Angeles, but it was almost evening now. The parking lot was dark with storm clouds. The Moose Lodge’s exterior could almost pass for a cozy hotel, except that the buzzy glare of its neon sign gave it away as something seedier. The word Vacancy was lit underneath it. He hated to think of Lola here by herself, in this slow-life Missouri town, where there was an unwelcome chill in the air.

  Across the street, a man in hunter-green camo pants leaned against the wall of a liquor store, watching Beau. A cigarette dangled from his lips. He could’ve easily been one of Hey Joe’s beer guzzlers, the ones Beau’d seen leering at Lola as she’d wound through two-top tables, her effortless confidence drawing eyes.

  Men like that and places like this had gone round and round in Beau’s mind the last nine days, a haunted carousel with Lola trapped in the center. The homeless man from the gas station was always on it, and the guy across the street looked eerily similar to him. Him, with his hands on Lola while Beau had stood there, helpless.

  Through the gas station’s glass door, Beau watched Lola approach, her purse swinging in her hand. The corners of her pressed-together lips curved slightly upward, as if it was a real effort not to smile. In the split second before she pulled open the door, her movements were airy and light, like a woman—he hoped—in love.

  Beau would’ve shouted at her to run if he hadn’t thought startling the cagey man who held a gun to Beau’s head would earn one of them a bullet.

  She breezed in and stopped dead.

  “I told you, there isn’t a single thing in my car.” Beau had been trying to convince the man to stay inside with him instead of going out there, where Lola was. She’d come to them anyway. Beau attempted a discreet but firm jerk of his hand in her direction.

  He pleaded with her however he could—with a quick glance, with a stiffening of his body. She should’ve been far away from there. Leave. Go.

  She didn’t move an inch. Beau sent the man on a hunt for his wallet as a distraction.

  Leave. Get the fuck out of here.

  She didn’t budge, but cried out, “I have it,” and the gun was no longer on Beau.

  Beau’d barely slept on his one-way flight out of LAX. After talking to Brigitte, he’d called Bragg to stop him from getting on a plane, but the Midwest storm had done it for him. The detective’d been at the airport for two hours trying to get to Missouri. Beau took his place, waiting out the snow, every passing hour another chance for Lola to slip back into the night. When he couldn’t take another minute of that, he demanded a flight that would get him closest to this little lodge in the Missouri mountains. He’d flown into Dallas and driven his rental car eight hours. In the meantime, the storm had mostly passed.

  Beau walked up to the front office’s glass door and stood just outside of view. That memory of the gas station was always too ready, too easy to call up. Beau still hadn’t figured out why he was there. He’d know when he saw her. He just needed to lay his eyes on her again—that was step one.

  A potbellied, balding man sat at the check-in desk, a phone lodged between his ruddy cheek and his shoulder while he pounded on a computer keyboard. He said something into the receiver and slammed it down.

  Almost immediately, a girl came out of the back, her blonde ponytail swinging. She furrowed her eyebrows, put a slender hand on his shoulder and pointed to something on the screen. The lines in his forehead eased as the splotches on his cheeks became less angry. They smiled at each other, and he stood and left the room.

  Enter Beau. He straightened his suit jacket and smoothed his palm over his styled hair. He still needed a haircut, but at least he looked presentable today. Bells chirped against the glass door when he walked in, a jingle to announce him. The girl, no older than eighteen or nineteen, looked up and froze.

  “Hi.” Beau forced a smile and leaned an elbow on the counter. �
�How are you?”

  “Fine.” The word barely disturbed her parted lips.

  Neither of them spoke a moment. He didn’t get this kind of thing much anymore—the curious, innocent-lust look she was giving him. The women he spent time with had already had their rose-colored glasses removed by someone. He glanced at the monitor and back at her.

  “Oh.” She jumped into action, clasping the computer mouse in her hand. “You need a room?”

  “Actually, no,” Beau said, still smiling, still leaning.

  She looked up. “No?”

  “Well, sort of. I’m hoping you can help me out—what’s your name?”

  “Uh.” She checked over her shoulder. “Matilda?”

  “Nice to meet you, Matilda. I’m Beau.” He should’ve been an actor. Or a detective. A story was already brewing inside him, a warm stew to go down easy. “My wife is staying here on business.” He declared it—no question about it. Men in bespoke suits did not just wander into motel lobbies and tell lies. “Tonight’s our anniversary. She thought she’d have to spend it alone.”

  “That’s strange,” the girl said. “We don’t get a lot of business types out here, not like Springfield or Harrison. Even then, companies usually book at the Best Western in town.” She pointed behind Beau as if he could see from where he stood.

  Beau glanced over her head at the backdoor and absentmindedly straightened his tie. “Well, the point is—I drove a long way to see her. To surprise her.”

  Matilda beat her palm once against her chest. “Really?” she crooned. “That is so romantic.”

  “I know.” Beau kept a smirk from his face. “Here’s the thing, Matilda. I don’t know which room she’s in.”

  Her face fell except for one blonde eyebrow, which rose. “Oh?”

  Beau could almost taste his anticipation. Within moments, he’d be standing in front of Lola’s door, and she wouldn’t even know it. He’d worried, as he’d driven, that she wouldn’t be there anymore, that she’d only stayed one night. But his doubts were gone now. He could sense her there, nearby, unprotected, unsuspecting. Caught in her own trap. “If you could just get me a key to her room—”