Free and Bound (A Club Volare New Orleans Novel)

by Chloe Cox

  She was pretty lucky, in a lot of ways. And she was going to cling to any silver lining she could.

  “Well, there’s no way they’re gonna catch me,” Charlene was saying. She took another sharp turn, and looked at Olivia out of the corner of her eye. “So now that I have you trapped in a speeding car, why don’t you tell me how you’re doing today.”

  Now Olivia winced, and not just because Charlene was bearing down on a yellow light at what appeared to be warp speed.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Because here’s what I thought was interesting about last night,” Charlene went on. Olivia held on while Charlene took another surprise turn. Maybe she’d tell Gavin that Charlene had been the one driving yesterday, and he’d blame her for the state of his car.

  “What I found interesting was that after like the third glass of wine you started talking about Gavin Colson, as opposed to, say, Brandon Greer. Which was not what I expected, given the day you’d had.”

  “Oh God, I wish I’d never told you any of that,” Olivia said. She could have convinced herself that it was just the adrenaline if she hadn’t also told Charlene that Gavin was the only guy she knew in real life to ever show up in her sex dreams. Or that she’d never stopped thinking about him since they’d slept together, because he was the only man to ever make her come. Or that seeing him again was…

  It was too much.

  But it had been a lot more fun to talk about Gavin than it was to talk about Brandon, so she’d rolled with it. Now, in the clear light of day, Olivia had some regrets.

  “You know, when you let yourself enjoy your crush, it’s a whole lot more fun,” Charlene said.

  Olivia laughed bitterly.

  “I don’t have that luxury.”

  That came harsher than she meant it. Charlene looked at her, but didn’t say anything.

  “I’m sorry,” Olivia said finally. “I just have to make it through this, keep my head down, be professional and focused, and I think it will be ok eventually. Maybe. But Gavin is…distracting. It just unsettles me.”

  Charlene checked her blind spot and stole another glance at Olivia in the process. Her look said volumes.

  “You deserve to have something good in your life, Liv. So, I’m sorry, but I’m gonna keep—oh what the hell is that now?”

  Olivia laughed again. She’d changed her agent’s ringtone to a klaxon alarm to give herself a warning every time he called. It was currently warning her at top volume.

  “It’s my agent. Hey, Sonny,” she said, and immediately held the phone far away from her ear.

  “Olivia, what the hell, you don’t answer your damn phone all day yesterday? What’s wrong with you?”

  Olivia closed her eyes.

  “Sonny, I—”

  “Listen, I am done fucking around,” Sonny barked. “You hear me? You have to fix this, and you have to fix it now, or you are going to be fucking unemployable. Do you get that?”

  Olivia flinched. She’d never gotten used to the way some industry people talked.

  “I know,” Olivia said, turning towards her window. “Have you talked to him?”

  “I don’t need to talk to him. His fucking publicist released a statement.”

  She was speechless.

  Brandon hadn’t called her, but he’d called his publicist?

  “What did it say?”

  “What do you think it said? It said Brandon Greer is proud to come out as a gay man, and it should have been his decision in 2016, yada yada yada. Who cares?”

  “It said ‘gay man’? Not like…not bi? Or, I don’t know, something…”

  She trailed off.

  “Jesus,” Sonny said after a moment. It was as close as he got to compassion. “You still haven’t talked to him?”

  “No.”

  “Well, listen to me, and listen very carefully. I need you to understand this.” Sonny paused. “You have not made it yet. There are literally thousands of girls just like you who want the jobs that you want, and all of you are equally forgettable. What made you different was Brandon Greer. And now your sweetheart personal brand is fucked. People think you were the one to out him for a paycheck from The Daily Z.”

  “Sonny,” she said, her voice completely flat and devoid of anger. She was an actress, after all. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Listen to me: that role you were counting on, the one in the Critical Vengeance sequel? That’s not locked down yet. You need to do what I told you to do from the beginning. If you can’t find a normal guy who will date you and make you look like a red-blooded American woman instead of some freakish predatory fembot, I will find one for you, I swear to God. Don’t fuck this up again, or you can kiss that paycheck, and probably all future paychecks, goodbye.”

  He hung up.

  Olivia stared at the phone. She had been counting on that money. She was so close to paying off the last of the debt on the family business.

  Oh God, and her brother…

  “So…?”

  Olivia looked up to find Charlene watching her. She’d clearly overheard the entire conversation; it was basically impossible not to at that volume.

  “So your agent is terrible, and I think maybe a little bit sexist?” Charlene finally said. She’d slowed to a non-crazy speed, and the sudden relative tranquility seemed to add weight to her words. “And I’d personally like to kick his ass for talking to you that way. But if he thinks this whole boyfriend scheme will help…”

  “I’m not doing it,” Olivia said.

  “Why on Earth not?”

  “Because it’s lying!”

  “It’s entertainment for magazines. And you’re an actress.”

  Olivia leaned back in her seat and locked her eyes on the heavy, wet-looking clouds forming over Lake Pontchartain. Somehow it was satisfying to see the weather agree with how she was feeling.

  “You know…” Charlene said.

  “Don’t say it.”

  Charlene ignored her.

  “Well, who’s more red-blooded than Gavin Colson?” she asked.

  Yeah, that’s the freaking problem.

  By the time they got to Charlie’s there were already a few photographers loitering around just out of range of the valet. Charlene didn’t even slow down. She just drove around the corner and down a side street until she got to a staff entrance, where she parked at what could only be called a creative angle and hustled Olivia out of the car.

  “I’m gonna send someone back out, don’t worry,” Charlene said as she led Olivia through the winding staff hallways of what Olivia guessed was the world-class kitchen version of backstage. The staff laughed and clapped as their boss ran through the kitchens to make it to her own party on time, and one of them threw her what looked like meat tenderizer-turned-gavel that someone had spray painted gold before giving her a high five, as if Olivia needed another reminder that they were about to step into the weirdest party she’d ever been to. Then Charlene paused, right by the door to the dining room, and looked back.

  “You know I’m here if you need me,” she said, completely serious. “I will kick people out of this party so damn fast they’ll think they invented time travel.”

  “I keep my promises, Char.”

  Charlene sighed. “I know you do, honey, that’s your problem.”

  Olivia stuck out her tongue, and they both laughed a bit too hard, still riding high on the flight-or-fight energy from that photographer who managed to find Charlene’s house. They tried to keep it together while Charlene cracked the door open to take a look at her own party, and Olivia peeked over her shoulder.

  It was…a sight.

  Charlene’s restaurant was closed off to the public and mostly covered in clear plastic. It made clean up easier. And it was full with lots of people, already drinking and dancing to the live band, all while dressed in…things. Charlene and Olivia were positively conservative in their shower curtain ensembles.

  “Have you ever
seen anything like it?” Charlene asked.

  “Emphatically no.”

  “My mother used to tell me the point of getting dressed in the morning was not to be funny, but I think she was missing out.”

  “It’s like a bunch of parrots dressed by the garden section of a home improvement store.”

  “I thought of another problem,” Charlene said, suddenly coy. “The issue of the fling you should absolutely, one hundred percent be having with Gavin aside, have you thought about how you’re gonna tell him about what you did to his car? I can maybe think of a few ways to make that easier—ha!”

  Charlene dodged Olivia’s half-hearted pinch and capered out in the main dining room, laughing as she waved at friends and donors on her way to the temporary stage. Charlene’s joy was always infectious, but Olivia knew this was no accident. She was setting a tone that would make it weird for people to ask Olivia anything about her disastrous personal life outright, at least until they got a few drinks in them. It felt good to have someone in her corner like that.

  And if she were honest, it had felt even better to have Gavin in her corner yesterday.

  Not helpful, Cress.

  She knew what would happen when she saw him: she’d want him. She’d want to feel the way she felt when she was with him. It was like a happy drug, and the rest of her life sucked, and it would be so tempting to just…give up and give in.

  If nothing else goes wrong, you’ll be fine. Gird your loins, woman, and get out there.

  So she opened the door and stepped through, only to see an unforgivably handsome Gavin Colson in actual black-tie with a young, leggy blonde woman being literally dragged off of him.

  Gavin watched Blue help Simone Delavigne to the bathroom, and knew Blue would take care of her. Nothing Gavin could do would help. Simone had been so drunk she must have been drinking before she ever got to the restaurant. And practiced at it—she could hold herself like someone who knew how to drink, unless you looked too closely or pissed her off. And as it happened, just Gavin’s existence pissed her off.

  He didn’t like how things had panned out for Simone in the last ten years. He didn’t like that at all. But the crowd had started to notice his presence. Enough people remembered, or had heard about his past, or were hearing it now for the first time. Saving Volare would be more difficult than he thought, and for a beat he felt the pull of the past.

  Until she crossed his field of vision.

  Olivia.

  He’d started moving without even realizing it. She was wearing something plastic and shiny, hugging the wall, her head bent towards her phone. Otherwise people would have spotted her. Some of these people had arrived an hour early for the drinks and to see if Charlene won her yearly bet, and the crowd felt loose. And after yesterday, he wasn’t going to let anyone harass Olivia any further.

  Besides, he needed to know if Olivia could help the club. It was go time.

  “Liv,” he said.

  She tore her eyes up from her phone and quickly put it away in her bag, then smiled a beat too late. Trying to hide something.

  “More good news?” he deadpanned.

  Now her smile was genuine. “Just my little brother,” she said, and the smile faded a bit, giving way to worry lines.

  He was already treating her like a sub. Analyzing. Watching. Reading her.

  Let’s see if she can handle it.

  “Tell me,” he ordered.

  Immediately she said, “His tuition is due, and I forgot about it.”

  Olivia was surprised that she’d told him. Gavin wasn’t. She still had stress lines around her mouth.

  “Well, and he wants to know if I’m ok, of course,” she went on, and tucked a nonexistent misplaced strand of hair behind her ear.

  For some reason it made him want to solve all of her problems.

  “It’s because I haven’t called him yet,” Olivia said, looking up. “I mean, the thing is, he was really close with Brandon, and I haven’t wanted him to lose that. So I didn’t want to drag him into the middle of this whole mess, but now…”

  They looked at each other.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m babbling. You don’t care about any of this.”

  “I was about to tear this place apart looking for you,” he said.

  She blinked.

  Gavin wanted her closer to the wall, where she’d be less of a spectacle. The whole room hadn’t spotted her yet and he wanted to keep it that way. He took her hand.

  She shivered when he touched her, and then shook her head, like she had meant to do that.

  Focus, Colson. Is she ready?

  Too loudly, she said, “So how does this work again? People compete against the chefs here?”

  “It’s an open tournament with no rules where you get to eat the food and Charlene gets to run odds,” Gavin said, grinning. “She makes a killing for those kids at Bastien House.”

  Olivia grinned back. “You gonna enter?”

  It took him off guard, that question.

  “What, you’re not going to conquer the crap out of the kitchen?” Olivia said. “Just leave a trail of your defeated enemies’ plates behind you? Become the alpha cook?”

  Gavin stopped.

  It took him a moment to rein it all in. To suppress the memories, the tide of emotional bullshit that came with it, and to remember he was in the present, with someone who didn’t know what she was teasing him about.

  “I don’t cook,” he said finally.

  Her expression changed. Olivia was a terrible liar for an actress, or maybe just with him. She painted him a mural with her face whenever she felt anything at all. But now she was watching him. She had seen the reaction he’d tried to hide.

  That was new.

  “You’re not happy to be here,” he said, changing the subject. “You’re stressed.”

  “Can you blame me?”

  “Why didn’t you cancel?” he asked gruffly.

  “Because I made a promise,” she said. “That’s why.”

  Stubborn.

  “There were some paps outside,” she said. “But we snuck in the back door.”

  Then there was a chance there were some paps inside, too. He did another scan of the room—people were clearly watching them, talking about them, but nobody had a phone out that he could see. Instead most eyes were on Charlene, struggling with Luke to set up a microphone in the middle of the four cook stations she had set up in the middle of the dining room, Iron Chef-style.

  He looked back at Olivia and caught her in an unguarded moment. Goddamn, he loved looking at her.

  “Listen, Gavin…”

  Then a flash of red caught Gavin’s attention. Behind Olivia was the red-haired Trucker Hat paparazzo from yesterday, dressed like a waiter, and on the prowl.

  Six

  Olivia would swear up and down she’d been just about to tell Gavin, the world’s sexiest Dom, about what she’d done to his poor car. But then life happened.

  She’d basically tempted fate; she knew that now. You don’t say things like “if nothing else goes wrong” to yourself if you don’t want the universe to mess with you a little. She’d said it and the next second her phone had buzzed with a text from her brother.

  Olivia couldn’t believe she’d forgotten Jake’s tuition. She was normally so on top of things, especially this time of year, and she’d just dropped the ball completely because she’d been so wrapped up in her own stuff.

  And then she realized she was still doing it. Charlene was right—Gavin had protected her from the press, and more, the first time he’d met her back in LA. He was probably the only guy in the universe she trusted enough to ask to be her fake public relations boyfriend. And it would help her career, which meant it would help her family.

  So why was it so damn hard?

  Because he turned your life upside down in less than a week.

  Olivia felt her gaze drawing upwards, and stopped fighting it. Gavin was, to her, the perfect physical manifestation of every
thing masculine. She let her eyes linger on the perfectly fitted dress shirt, the way his tux looked molded to his muscular body. On his large, calloused hands. On his Adam’s apple, already showing a little stubble. It was just enough to make her think of what he’d looked like naked, that first time they’d been together, and her breath caught in her throat.

  She’d started that magical sex week thinking she already knew herself pretty well, as a grown woman of almost thirty. Then Gavin had turned her inside out, made her scream his name, and shown her she knew nothing. What would he do to her if they had to pretend to be together for any length of time?

  Olivia was scared. Not of Gavin, but of herself. After all of this stuff with Brandon, she honestly didn’t know if she could handle any other personal revelations.

  But she was totally, one hundred percent going to ask Gavin to be her fake boyfriend.

  She really was.

  Until he suddenly surged towards her, his strong arm wrapping around her waist, his big body covering hers as he practically lifted her in the air, pushing her into…

  An alcove?

  “What the heck is this?” she said, looking around at the high, wallpapered walls of what looked like a recessed alcove off the main dining room. She hadn’t know it was there at all, but it was maybe five feet wide, and deep enough for both of them to disappear from view of the rest of the party. Olivia herself could barely see any of the dining room with Gavin standing in front of her.

  “It’s a staging area for serving big parties,” Gavin said. “You still don’t want me to crack heads, right?”

  “What?” she said, super confused. Then she remembered: she’d made him promise not to “Godzilla” any paparazzi. “Um, yes. Please don’t kill anyone.”

  There was the clanging of metal trays and a muffled exclamation of shock from just beyond their little alcove, like someone had crashed into a waiter. Gavin suddenly leaned in, pushing her back against the wall, as far as she could go. He put his hands flat on either side of her, and her breath hitched. Then he bent his head, his mouth hovering, for a moment, right above hers.