“Everything else will catch his attention,” the woman said quietly as she worked, “but this will be his undoing.”
Lola wanted to explain that she didn’t care if Beau was undone or not but her lips were occupied. Beau was never far away, and now he watched her in the mirror. There was no question he liked what he saw. And she liked that he liked it.
Maybe Lola did care if he was undone. After all, no matter how hard she fought her attraction, he was still a man and she was still a woman.
A fact she was reminded of with every movement. The corset Beau had picked out was not just an undergarment—it was a promise of things to come. The stiff, black lace kept her nipples at attention. It straightened her back, bared her while concealing her. It said, Always be delectable for whoever might look.
Underneath, black stockings, trimmed also with lace, stopped at the tops of her legs. When she rubbed her thighs together in the chair, the sheer parts felt silky, the lace parts coarse.
She hadn’t shown this much cleavage in years, and she found it ironic that even then it had been a form of survival.
When Beau approached the chair, everyone else faded instantly away.
“People have a habit of disappearing around you,” she said.
“They know what I want.”
Lola looked at his reflection. “And what’s that?”
“Privacy.” He frowned. “I told them to leave your hair down.”
“I told them to put it up.” She uncrossed her legs. “It suits the dress.”
“I don’t care about the dress. I only care what suits me.”
“You don’t like it?” she asked.
“I suppose.” He took one of the loose strands that framed her face between his fingers. “There’ll be plenty of time for me to do what I want with it later.”
Seated, Lola came up to Beau’s chest. The mirror framed them like a photograph. All made up, Lola finally looked as though she belonged by his side. “Beau,” she said, “there are things you don’t know about me.”
“I imagine quite a few.”
“It’s not just that Rodeo Drive isn’t my taste. I also don’t belong here.”
“Says who?”
“You think I do?” she asked, mostly to hear what he’d say.
He was no longer looking in her eyes. She followed his gaze to her mouth. “I think you should only care about one person’s opinion,” he said. “Mine. I don’t know who belongs where, but in my eyes, you’re a queen among peasants wherever you go.”
Lola stammered for a response. It shouldn’t have surprised her that Beau was attracted to her—he’d made himself clear on that point—but he still hadn’t given her a reason she could grasp. “Thank you,” she said lamely.
He looked up again. “In my office, you made a speech about how we have similar pasts, but now we’re on different sides. When you grow up on one side, though, you can never really cross over to the other. If you don’t belong here, neither do I.”
“Don’t you ever feel out of place?”
“If I do, I don’t let it show. I fake it. People will believe anything if you do it with confidence.” He checked his watch. “Come. It’s time to go.”
The limo idled out front. Her personal effects were taken from her. She didn’t care. Nothing had ever felt as good on her body as the things Beau had bought her.
“The rules apply even more so in public,” Beau said as they drove away from the salon. “You’re with me. Only me. Act as though it were true.”
“Will there be press there?”
“Yes. Let them speculate. A beautiful woman like you won’t go unnoticed, and I don’t want you to.”
Lola had the looks to back up her swagger, but Los Angeles was a hub for beautiful people. She doubted she’d get much attention amongst its upper crust. “Why not?” she asked.
“There are people who doubt my business practices because I’m…how do I put it? Social.”
“You sleep around.”
He gave her a sidelong glance. “Actually, no.”
She pushed his shoulder with her fingertips. “You’re such a liar. You must think I’m dense or blind. Women probably trip over themselves for a shot with you.”
Beau raised one eyebrow. “You didn’t. If you tripped at all, it was while running in the opposite direction.”
She lowered her head a little as she smiled. “That’s because I have a—” She stopped herself.
“So if you didn’t have a—”
“You’re trying to change the subject.” Beau was undoubtedly a catch, enough to make Lola wonder why he was still single. He had to have known things would be different between them without Johnny in the picture. It was one of those things better left unsaid, though. “Anyway, you were lying about how women aren’t all over you.”
“I didn’t say that at all.” He winked playfully. “But just because a woman wants me doesn’t mean she gets me. I’m selective. First, I choose the woman.”
“That’s it?” she asked.
“Of course not. I have to get her to choose me back.”
“Who wouldn’t choose you back?” Lola hadn’t thought before she spoke, which meant she was becoming too comfortable. She sat up straighter, leaning slightly back from him.
Beau tilted his head, studying her as if she were a science project. “In my experience, not many,” he said. “In any case, I don’t sleep with every woman I’m photographed with. Sometimes a photo is just a photo.”
“It doesn’t matter either way to me,” she said quickly. She changed the subject. “I’m not one of those girls, so I don’t think I understand my role tonight.”
“My being unmarried doesn’t make me more of a risk, but some people see it that way. I don’t make a habit of kowtowing to that kind of thing unless it affects my business, which it’s beginning to. It’s been four months since I’ve been in public with anyone. There’s speculation I’ve settled down. Might as well let them think you’re the reason for that.”
“So I’m the one you’ve ‘settled down’ with?” He was asking her to be herself. Instead of his sex object, now she was a person. It wasn’t quite what she’d expected from the night. “How do I be that if we’ve only just met?”
“Only give them your first name. A little mystery is good. Don’t answer anything personal. I don’t want your bar, your past or your partner associated with me.”
Lola’s confidence took a hit. “If I embarrass you, why even bring me at all?”
“Ah,” he said softly, as if comforting her. “It takes a great deal to embarrass me, Lola. I said that for your protection. The press has no regard for anyone. If they see you with me, then suddenly what I do affects you. Best if we can limit that to one night.”
He wanted to protect her? More and more he was uncharacteristically gentlemanly. There was a very small possibility her assumptions about a man who offered money for sex were wrong. Maybe he wasn’t completely soulless. Maybe there was more to him than money and expensive suits. Lola thawed. She couldn’t think of anything to add, so she just said, “He has a name, you know.”
“Who?”
“Johnny. The way you say partner sounds sterile.”
Beau didn’t respond. He seemed more interested in what was out the window.
* * * * *
Beau’s limo door opened, and camera flashes blinded Lola. He offered her his hand. She only took it to be polite, but the noise, the brightness, the desperation crowding in on them—they were the reasons she didn’t let go.
Photographers called for him. They called for them together. They ordered her out of the picture, and Beau’s grip on her hand became crushing.
She smiled in every direction. The rolled-out carpet matched her nail polish. Behind them, a vinyl wall advertised the L.A. Philharmonic and the event’s sponsor, Rolex. At one point, there were A-list celebrities to her left and right. When she got her bearings navigating both the carpet and the press in towering shoes, she tried to pull he
r hand away. Beau kept it tightly in his. “Don’t,” he whispered and kissed her cheek. “I’m the one holding on to you.”
Whether he’d meant it or it was for show, hearing that made her a tinge protective of him. The media was made up of too many toothy smiles to count, and in the glaring lights, they became a unit. A snarling beast, hungry for Beau.
An entertainment channel reporter had caught his kiss. “Beau? Beau!” she cried from the other side of the velvet rope. Even with her teased, platinum hair that added a couple inches, she barely came up to Lola’s shoulder. In a leopard-print dress, the woman was about as opposite of Lola as it came. “Kissing in public?” She gasped. “Does this mean it’s serious?”
Beau slid his arm around Lola’s waist. She had to give him credit. There were practically stars in his eyes when he turned to her and said, “Very.”
The reporter’s gaze flickered over Lola without touching her face. “Who is she?”
Suddenly, Lola and Beau were no longer on different sides. Beau wasn’t these people. He looked her in the eye when he spoke to her. He didn’t talk over her or tell her to move out of the way. She craned her head to the microphone in Beau’s face. “She is Lola.”
The reporter pouted, touching Beau’s forearm. “Oh, dear. Hearts are breaking around the nation. Does this mean the chance to snag the handsome Beau Olivier has passed?”
Something flared in Lola seeing the woman’s long red fingernails on him. Beau had chosen Lola tonight, not whoever was under the putrid cloud of hairspray and perfume in front of them. “That’s exactly what it means,” Lola said. “So kindly remove your claw from my man.”
The reporter finally looked at Lola with such lit-up indignation, Lola had to suck in her cheeks to keep from laughing.
“Lola,” Beau said.
She swallowed her laugh. She’d had no right to say it. Beau didn’t belong to her. It shouldn’t bother Lola that the woman looked and acted cheap, thinking that did anything for Beau. Maybe it did do something for him.
Lola was appropriately sheepish as she looked up and met his glinting eyes. When he spoke, it was for her and no one else. “Patience has never been my strong suit,” he said, drawing her front flush against his, “but I do take credit for resisting this long.”
He caught her mouth with his. Their lips pressed together hard, the way his hand pressed the nape of her neck. Her palm went automatically to his chest. He was solid under her hand, just as his arm was solid around her. Camera flashes exploded like fireworks. When his fingers coiled into her neck and her hip, her body stirred, prickling with warmth, as if waking up from a long sleep. She was acutely aware of being so tightly against the hard length of him. She angled her head up to deepen the kiss right before he pulled back.
His expression almost seemed to ask permission, overdue though it was. People shouted at them, but it quickly became white noise.
“Your lips are red,” she said.
“So are yours.”
Deliriously, she laughed at the thought that they wore the same lipstick. She placed her hands on his cheeks and wiped the red away with her thumbs.
“I have a handkerchief,” he said.
“We don’t use handkerchiefs where I come from.”
“That’s okay. I think I like your way better.”
She ended up smearing it over her hands and his face. “I’m making it worse.”
He laughed. “Not for me. How about we clean up and get a drink?”
The reporter studiously avoided them by trying to get someone else’s attention. “You read my mind,” Lola said.
Getting anywhere proved difficult. People stopped Beau every few steps. They each patted their mouths with Beau’s handkerchief as a temporary fix. He held her hand. She let him. What choice did she have? Her hand, and all her other parts, belonged to him in that moment. When Beau turned away from her, Lola touched her fingertips to her lips. She doubted a single camera had missed their display. Johnny might see it.
“You okay?” Beau looked at her hand at her mouth.
“Your scruff tingles,” she said. “You’d think someone going on a million-dollar date would have the decency to shave.”
“I’ll shave tonight if you want. Before bed.”
Before bed. As if they were an old married couple who never spent a night apart. The tingling became stronger as she thought about the fact that his mouth would be on her again and soon—before bed. “I didn’t say I minded,” she said softly, her face upturned to him.
He grunted or something, a deep noise of approval as his eyes jumped between her lips and eyes. “You know just the right things to say, don’t you? I have unfairly high expectations of people, yet somehow you continue to exceed them.”
“And here I was trying to be less than expected,” she said, but she was teasing him. The gap she’d insisted on keeping between them was closing the more comfortable she became. “You do put on a pretty good show.”
He shook his head slowly. “What show?”
“Holding my hand, kissing me for the cameras? You’re sending a message all right.”
“If I am, that doesn’t have to mean it’s a show. I believe you’re mine and no one else’s. I meant what I said to that reporter—tonight, it’s very serious.”
Lola wanted to stay skeptical. It was easier that way. Beau didn’t have her completely convinced there was good somewhere underneath his suit, but she was beginning to doubt it was all bad.
“What are you having tonight?” he asked.
Well vodka with club soda was her go-to drink, but she stopped her automatic response just in time. She wasn’t that girl tonight. “Dirty martini,” she said. “Grey Goose, please.”
Beau ordered for them. She no sooner took the drink than Beau was approached once again, this time by a sturdy, red-cheeked man just as tall as Beau but many years older. “Evening, Olivier,” he said, shaking Beau’s hand. “Nice to see you.”
“You as well, sir.” Beau turned slightly. “This is Lola, my date for the evening—”
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I haven’t seen you at one of these things with anyone lately.”
“I wish I could say your concern with my personal life is flattering.”
“Oh, you know I’m messing with you,” he said, slapping Beau on the back. “You can’t expect an old, married guy like me not to want to live vicariously. You always have a beautiful woman on your arm.”
Lola hadn’t been ignored by any man this much since she’d grown breasts. Even Beau had turned away from her. “I prefer you don’t talk about me as if I’m not standing right here,” she said.
Beau smiled a little and shook his head, but the man turned to face her completely. “Well, shoot. I’m sorry, darling. Where are my manners?”
“I was wondering the same thing about everyone here,” Lola said.
His laugh was more of a guffaw. “Well, aren’t you a breath of fresh air from Beau’s usual type?”
Beau frowned. “Excuse me?”
“She’s the first—” He stopped to address Lola. “You might be the first of Beau’s dates I’ve ever heard speak.”
“Perhaps you should be thankful for that,” she said.
More merry laughing—the man was quickly becoming besotted with her. “I am. I certainly am.”
Beau, on the other hand, narrowed his eyes. “Come on, now. What’d those girls ever do to you two?”
“They had something that was mine,” Lola practically cooed, batting her lashes with exaggeration. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m very possessive of my things.”
Beau smoothed his hand down his tuxedo shirt. “I hadn’t, actually.”
Lola raised one eyebrow, waiting for Beau’s bantering response, but nothing came.
“Lola,” the man said, calling her attention away, “are you as good at keeping Olivier in line as you are me?”
She turned away from Beau and winked. “Better.”
He nodded high with his chin
in the air. “I’m impressed.”
“Does this mean you’ll take the meeting?” Beau asked, his wits seemingly recovered.
“Let’s not worry about business right now. Listen, a spot opened up at my table—why don’t you two join me there tonight?”
“We’d be honored, Mayor Churchill,” Beau said. “Table one, is it?”
“That’s right. See you there.”
“Mayor?” Lola asked, gaping as he walked away.
Beau smiled. “Did I not mention that?”
“Oh, God. I didn’t recognize him.” Lola covered her face. “I was just incredibly rude to the mayor of Los Angeles.”
Beau laughed, pulling her hands away. “He was incredibly rude to you, but that’s my fault. I bring it out in him.”
She shook her head. “I need to learn to keep my big mouth shut.”
“Please don’t,” he said. “I love not knowing what will come out of it next. Such as the charming way you called me a thing after the fit you threw over my buffet comment.”
“I said what?” Lola asked.
“Just now you said you were very possessive of your things.”
“That’s hardly the same. You referred to women as something you can pick up next to a tub of fried chicken,” Lola said. “I was just playing nice for your friend like you wanted. Has he ever invited you to his table before?”
Beau pursed his lips. “No.”
“Then I must’ve done something right.”
“You did something to me, at least.” He scanned her face. “I like you being possessive over me.”
“I’m not. I was just doing what you asked.”
He sipped something dark from his glass and surveyed the room. “I’m not sure why you continue to fight this. The deal’s been made, but truth be told, I think you want to be here. You just won’t admit it.”
She studied his profile. There was a disconnect in his eyes, as if not looking at her meant she wasn’t there. It made him darker. It occurred to her just how much power he had tonight. He’d treated her like glass so far, but he could still shatter her with a flick of his wrist. “Beau? What if I decide not to go through with this?”
Night Fever Page 10
