Free and Bound

by Chloe Cox

  He didn’t much like his tux anyway.

  Besides, that’s not why he was here.

  “You see her?” he said.

  “Olivia or Charlene?” Luke said.

  Gavin shook his head. Luke was a certified genius—give the man a carrot and a toothpick and he could probably build a carburetor out of it—but he was straight simple when it came to people. And he’d had a thing for Charlene for a long time.

  Gavin scanned the room one more time and said, “It’s not Charlie I’m worried about.”

  He didn’t know the details of Olivia’s relationship with her ex, but Gavin did remember, with crystal clarity, what Olivia had said to him the first night she came to him, back in that Los Angeles hotel room. She’d told him she’d never had good sex with another person, and she’d blamed herself for it. Felt broken, somehow. Gavin had made damn sure to show her just how wrong she was about that, but the fact that there was now a real life media circus about her sex life had to be messing with Olivia’s head. Hard.

  What’s more, there shouldn’t be this many people showing up early for a charity fundraiser, especially this one. The restaurant was already at capacity. There were all of these new people milling around the main dining room in fake clothes, pretending not to be excited. Underneath, it was the same energy as at the press conference. Hungry for blood.

  “It ain’t Charlene I’m worried about, either,” Luke said, his eyes flickering past Gavin’s shoulder.

  Gavin knew what he’d see, but that didn’t make it any easier.

  It was Daniel Delavigne, the man who was trying to kill Club Volare New Orleans before it even opened to the public. Daniel had his chin up, and his daughter on his arm. Somehow Simone looked just the same as she had ten years ago—tall, blonde, and very aware of it. But Daniel didn’t. He looked like hell. And he was looking at Gavin.

  Gavin felt the weight of the other man’s stare land on him, slowly at first, then all at once. The two men had an understanding—Delavigne poured out all his rage and pain about the past onto Gavin, and Gavin took it.

  But the club won’t, Gavin thought. I will make damn sure of that. He would take everything else Delavigne threw at him, but not that. Gavin wasn’t going to let anyone else pay for his mistakes, and he already had a plan to save the club, a good one.

  But it all depended on Olivia Cress.

  “You cool?” Luke asked.

  Gavin shook off the memories of the past, the guilt passing through him like a ghost.

  “I’m fine.”

  “And you’re sure she’ll do it?”

  Gavin didn’t answer. His plans for Olivia and Club Volare hadn’t taken into account Olivia becoming part of a tabloid frenzy. He was sure she would do it, but after what he’d seen at the press conference his Dom instincts were taking over, and that meant his priorities shifted.

  “She’ll do what I ask,” he finally said. “Whether I ask depends on whether it’s the right thing to do. Who’s Blue talking to?”

  This damn fundraiser was like an old New Orleans reunion, and that meant most of the people there hated Gavin. When he’d left town, he’d let Delavigne be the one to tell the story of why. It didn’t bother him too much, after all this time, but Blue was one bright spot in the crowd. She had the best live cabaret in the world over at Lady Blue’s House of Ill Repute, but Gavin knew her from the kink scene, all those years ago, and she’d stuck by him even after everything that had happened. And now she was dressed in layers of blue plastic wrap as a dress and talking, charmingly, with a big salt-and-pepper kind of guy in a toga.

  A guy Gavin recognized.

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “I know him.”

  “You do?” Luke looked genuinely surprised. “That could be a help.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s Aaron Black,” Luke said. “He’s the swing vote on Delavigne’s commission.”

  That was the best news Gavin had heard all day. Daniel Delavigne was one of those rich guys who liked to contribute, and the way he contributed was by running a city licensing commission. And that was how he planned to kill Club Volare—deny all relevant licenses, just on point of principle, and shut the place down. For Delavigne, it was personal. But for everyone else on the commission, and in the city, it would be about the club itself, and whether they wanted a BDSM club in their city. The club had two votes locked up, and so did Delavigne. They both needed Black’s tie-breaking vote to win.

  And Gavin bet he knew a little more about Mr. Black than Delavigne did.

  “Where do you know him from?” Luke asked.

  “From the scene. From before,” Gavin said. “He used to live out in Mississippi, would come in for weekends.”

  “He’s kinky?” Luke asked.

  “He’s a Dom,” Gavin said, looking around again for Olivia. Still nothing. “Or was. Decent guy.”

  “That’s fantastic,” Luke said. “Why don’t you look happy?’

  Because nothing’s that easy, Gavin thought. And because Blue doesn’t look happy.

  Blue had excused herself from conversation with Aaron Black and was gliding straight toward Gavin and Luke with extreme prejudice. She carved a path that would be hard to miss, drawing all eyes the way she did. The woman moved in a very particular way.

  “What are you smiling about?” she said to Luke before kissing the younger man on both cheeks.

  She made a point of doing the same to Gavin, even in this company, where Gavin was more radioactive than the scarier parts of Chernobyl. Blue was a good friend, but Gavin was having trouble appreciating it the way he should.

  Where is she?

  “Gavin says the swing vote’s kinkier than a twisted straw,” Luke said, still smiling. “That’s good news.”

  “No it ain’t, it’s terrible news. Gavin, honey, you know me, I don’t fool around. I just went and asked him what he thought about Club Volare New Orleans point-blank.” Blue paused to shake her head. “I’m sorry about this, but Aaron Black doesn’t want someone with your…reputation in charge of introducing BDSM to the mainstream here. He says it’s too important. He’s got definite views on that.”

  Gavin heard the words, but he was only half listening. Where is she?

  “Well, ain’t that some bullshit,” Luke said. Blue shrugged and looked upward, like it was beyond her. Gavin looked at Daniel Delavigne once more, across the room, and saw the man’s hate glowing in him like a furnace. Delavigne could barely tear his eyes away from Gavin, that’s how hot it burned.

  Suddenly Gavin felt it like it was new all over again, all that animosity, all that anger. He frowned. This is how Olivia would feel it, if she was put in the middle of this. But he needed her—the club needed her. Olivia had starred as a sexual submissive in Submit and Surrender, the first and only mainstream BDSM romance to come out of Hollywood. She helped make kink acceptable. If anyone could win over public opinion—and Aaron Black—about Club Volare New Orleans, it was Olivia.

  Where is she?

  “So who are you boys waiting on?” Blue said. “Same lady I’m waiting on?”

  “What?” Gavin snapped to. “What have you heard?”

  Blue put her hand on her hip. “Come on, give me the inside scoop. I have a bet to win. Is Charlene gonna be late to her own fundraiser again?”

  So she hadn’t heard anything about Olivia. Gavin rolled his neck, felt the tension through his back and shoulders. He was wound tight—tighter than he should be, considering.

  Gavin turned, his friends fading from his focus. He wasn’t just on edge because the Delavignes were here. He was on edge about the Delavignes being in the same room with Olivia. There was no way in hell he was going to let his past mess up anyone else’s future—especially not Olivia’s, especially not with how badly she’d been screwed over already. And definitely not the club’s. He wouldn’t allow it.

  But he realized this because when he turned around, he didn’t see Olivia—he saw Simone Delavigne, standing right in front of him.r />
  “Now we’re really going to be late,” Olivia said, looking around nervously.

  Charlene started and put a hand to her chest before peering down at Olivia. “It freaks me out every time you talk to me from down there, I swear.”

  Olivia was hiding, as best she could, while sitting in Charlene’s car. She had reclined the passenger seat as much as she could, and now she tried melting her body into it, trying just one more time to see if she could get it to go any further. If it wasn’t for this insane get up Charlene had made her wear, she would absolutely ride in the trunk.

  “I am not getting photographed again, lady,” Olivia said. “You just have to deal with it.”

  “Ok,” Charlene said in her own stage whisper. “Five minutes, I swear, I just forgot one thing.”

  Olivia smiled. Charlene had never been on time for anything in her life. And besides, Olivia was probably just being overly paranoid. She was ninety percent certain that she’d lost those photographers yesterday—eventually, at least.

  Olivia tried not to think about it. Just like she didn’t want to think about how she was going to have to tell Gavin about what she’d done to his poor car, which, after an energetic pursuit and a teeny, tiny little run in with a tree that came out of nowhere as she was making a turn at high speed, was now in the shop. It looked a lot worse than it was, but she’d still side-swiped Gavin’s 1972 Challenger.

  She just added it to the list of things she was trying not to think about.

  Like the fact that she was on her way to the world’s craziest charity fundraiser, which was going to be full of people who suddenly knew a whole lot about her personal life. Or about how she couldn’t stop her body from responding every time she thought about Gavin, and she had no idea how she was going to get through this crazy fundraiser if she had to look at him the whole time. And finally she tried not to think about the dress she was currently wearing to that crazy dinner, because it was made out of shower curtains.

  The Cook For Your Life Dinner was supposed to be a cooking competition where anyone could take on the chefs from Charlene's restaurant like one of those Iron Chef shows, but Charlene had quickly realized that competitive cooking and formal wear were actually a terrible combination. That first year she’d apparently given out garbage bags, everyone had a blast getting messy, and now, a few years down the line, there was an award for “Most Creative Disposable Costume” in the middle of what had to be the wildest annual charity fundraiser not sponsored by a fraternity. Which was how Olivia ended up sitting in Charlene’s car in a dress made out of shower curtains with the air conditioning on full blast, trying not to think about a whole bunch of things.

  Like Gavin, obviously.

  Or Brandon.

  Poor Brandon.

  Olivia was hit by a new kind of sadness, and she had to force herself not to cry. In the twenty-four hours since she’d found out about Brandon, there were lots of things—little things and big things—that had started to make sense. And as she connected more and more of the dots while lying awake in Charlene’s spare room, the anger she’d carried with her about Brandon started to turn, by some horrible alchemy, into sadness.

  It had been so much easier to be angry, back when she thought she knew anything about what her life had been.

  “Dammit,” she muttered. And then she dug her phone out of her clutch and dialed one of the only numbers she still knew by heart. Even though she’d mostly given up hope that he’d ever pick up, this seemed like extenuating circumstances.

  There were about a million things she wanted to tell him. She wanted him to know he was a jerk for the way he’d treated her, and that she loved him anyway, because he was her best friend. She wanted him to know she got it, she felt it too, as soon as they broke up it was like taking off a pair of really ill-fitting heels that you’d somehow convinced yourself were comfortable even while you were limping. She wanted to shake some sense into him. And she wanted him to know he wasn’t alone.

  And when even his super-secret cell number went straight to voicemail, she couldn’t figure out how to say any of it.

  “It’s me, Brandon,” she finally said. “I just…I hope you’re ok.”

  And then something crashed into the car.

  5

  “Good Lord, woman!” Olivia cried. “You scared me half to death!”

  “Sorry! Sorry! Oh man, I’m so sorry!” Charlene said, from the other side of the car window. It was Charlene who had crashed into the passenger-side door, scaring Olivia out of her Brandon-related sulk. Or, more accurately, it was Charlene and the giant piece of kitchen equipment she was carrying. The thing looked like some piece of medieval torture equipment.

  “Charlie, I thought you were going back for, like, your phone or something,” Olivia said, struggling to get out of the car so she could help her friend. “Not a hundred-pound metal contraption. What is that?”

  “A mixer. What are you doing out of the car? You are in hiding.”

  “Would you let me—”

  Somehow, together, they struggled to maneuver an insanely large mixer and associated attachments, all while wearing shower curtain dresses sewn together by some young upstart fashion genius who’d gotten her start at Bastien House. They shimmered and flashed in the late-summer light while fighting an inanimate object, but the dresses survived, and the equipment made it inside the car.

  “Think we’re going to make it?” Charlene said, closing the door. “On time, I mean.”

  “What happens if you’re late, anyway? What are they gonna do, kick you out of your own restaurant?”

  Charlene’s face darkened. “I lose a bet. We do it every year.”

  Olivia covered a smile.

  “When was the last time you won?”

  Charlene pointed at Olivia as she started to walk around the car to the driver’s side. “What’s important,” she said, “is that I’m going to win this year.”

  Olivia looked at the determination on Charlene’s face and burst into laughter. She hadn’t laughed too much in the past twenty-four hours, and her body seized the opportunity. She leaned on the car for support while her body shook, and when it was finally done she actually felt better for about one full second.

  Then she looked back up, and a flash went off in her face.

  Olivia didn’t even get a good look at the guy because she instinctively put her hand up in front of her face while she yanked at the car door. The only clear image she did get was of Charlene gathering her shower-curtain skirts and running around the front of the car.

  “Olivia!” Flash. Flash. “Olivia!”

  Flash.

  It seemed like forever, but by the time Olivia had her door closed and locked Charlene was already climbing in from the other side.

  “Put your seatbelt on, girl!” Charlene yelled.

  Olivia closed her eyes and covered her face against the photographer’s flash, but she knew she’d never forget the sound or the smell of burning tires. Charlene peeled out of there like they were in a Journey video.

  “They following us this time?” Charlene said.

  Olivia poked her head out the window, instantly regretting that choice hair-wise, but happy to see there was no one behind them. “Not yet!”

  She leaned back in her seat, finally putting it up at a normal angle, and was surprised to find that she was smiling. Yeah, getting caught by another pap sucked, and if she was worried about her career yesterday, she was doubly worried now. Olivia was definitely starting to feel the pressure. But somehow having friends around to help her made it all…less terrible.

  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 be
aring 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?”