Lola & the Millionaires: Part One

by Kathryn Moon

  But it wasn’t Rake who answered the door when I rang the bell.

  “Oh.” I stared up at Caleb with wide eyes, the tall alpha hanging back in the open doorway.

  “Hello, Lola. I’m sorry, Rake hasn’t made it back yet and Leo was a bit frantic so I didn’t want to worry him. I can leave now that you’re here, though,” he said in a breathless rush, reaching up a tan hand to comb back golden blond strands. He was dressed casually in a rumpled button-down and jeans, with his toes peeking out from under the frayed hem.

  “You-um, no. No, you don’t have to go,” I said, standing frozen on the front step. “I—it’s your house.”

  Caleb nodded and winced at the same time. “I don’t want you to be uncomfortable. I don’t mind.”

  I caught my breath and looked over my shoulder. The cab was already gone. Not that I really wanted to leave. I faced Caleb again and shrugged. “I don’t want you to leave on my account. I’ll be all right.”

  Caleb stepped back, and between his courtesy and the absolutely massive old oak door, I had plenty of room to step inside. It was just that once I was inside, I would be alone with an alpha I barely knew.

  But Leo knew him. Was bonded to him. I badly wanted to believe in this pack being different than my experiences with alphas, for Leo and Rake’s sake.

  I stepped inside, and with one glance away from Caleb, I was suddenly too stunned by where I was to care who I was with.

  “Oh!”

  It was definitely not a series of apartments.

  It was…breathtaking.

  The floor was made of small boards cut and angled into a diamond pattern. The walls were a deep shade of natural gray, textured in panels. It took me a moment of gawking—at the works of art on the walls and the greenery filling the open space and the contemporary lighting that warmed the space—to remember the name for the room I was in. A foyer.

  This pack lived in an enormous house and they had a foyer. In the city. Until I was eleven, my mom and I had lived in an apartment without a second bedroom. When we moved, the second bedroom hadn’t had a closet.

  “The downstairs is really for show, business entertaining. I can… You’re welcome to go anywhere you want, or I can show upstairs to the family areas. They’re rather less intimidating,” Caleb said. For all the rasp Leo had naturally, Caleb was entirely smooth and clean. He was super fucking British too, his words arching prettily even as he rambled at my back.

  “Is it all this pretty?” I asked, studying the delicate, golden light fixture hanging above me, all angles and fine round bulbs.

  “Oh? Do you like it? Thank you, I—yes, I think it’s all quite nice.”

  I remembered then that Leo had mentioned in passing that Caleb was an interior designer. And then, with a sudden and humiliating wave, I realized that Leo lived here and he’d voluntarily spent the night in my shitty apartment.

  “Fuck,” I whispered. I closed my eyes, and my body wavered.

  I heard Caleb’s step, just the one, like he was prepared to catch me if I fainted or passed out or whatever this was.

  “Let me show you upstairs to the den,” Caleb said gently. “Rake will be back soon. And Leo’s about to try and commission a flock of birds if it’ll get him home any sooner.”

  I shook my head and swallowed. Maybe I needed to go. This was all too much, and I was only standing in the foyer. If I saw any more of the house, I might seriously lose my shit. And that wasn’t what my relationship with Leo was about. Logically, I’d known he and his whole pack were wealthy as fuck, but I’d never in my life seen wealth in context as clear as this. It wasn’t ivory pillars and crown molding either, it was pure, contemporary, thoughtfully considered class. This place was sexy.

  “Is it me?” Caleb asked. “I can’t tell if I should go or shepherd you somewhere to sit down or—”

  Caleb’s persistent panicking at having me standing in shocked silence did the trick. I giggled nervously and pulled my hand from my face, scrubbing it lightly over my eyes first.

  “Sorry. I haven’t really slept, and today started all wrong. I’m okay.” I turned to face Caleb and tried to offer him a reassuring smile, but both he and I were too nervous in front of the other for it to be believable. “Upstairs would be nice.”

  Upstairs would probably be divine, if I weren’t so totally overwhelmed it made it impossible to enjoy. Caleb sighed and nodded, walking carefully past me to give me plenty of breathing room. No amount of Leo’s reassuring that his pack was different than the alphas I’d known would ever be as effective at calming me as Caleb’s blatant concern for frightening me. Or maybe that stereotypical British awkwardness of his was just really soothing.

  I followed him out of the foyer and into an enormous open room, twice as tall as the first room I’d been in, and clearly designed for open entertaining. The walls were a deep navy, and there were giant teardrop chandeliers hanging from the ceiling over spacious couches. On the far end of the room sat a full wet bar and a reading nook with shelves as high as the ceiling and a terrifying sliding ladder. My eyes bugged, but I bit my lips as Caleb all but jogged for the stairs, as if he might lessen the impact of the dramatically lavish room by shortening my exposure to it.

  It failed. Intimidated didn’t even begin to describe the feeling. Staring up at Caleb’s back, I watched as his shoulders drew in while he hurried up the wide slatted stairs toward an enormous, sensually detailed oil painting of a fallen angel with glossy black wings and exquisite tanned skin. The angel reminded me of Rake. It probably reminded them all of Rake. Hell, it probably was Rake. Maybe he’d modeled for the artist.

  “All of this is your work, isn’t it?” I asked. Caleb stopped on the landing, and paused there he looked almost like he was being embraced by the angel behind him. It made me smile, and I gestured to the room—the intricate paneling and the sparse and open planning of the furniture, the metallic accents set against flat dark colors.

  Caleb nodded and looked over my head. “It’s almost a showroom, I suppose.”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  His shoulders relaxed, and I followed him up the rest of the way. The second story was a little less imposing, or maybe it just seemed that way after having stood in that gorgeous downstairs living room. The stairs ended on a small landing full of small potted trees and ferns, sitting in front of the window that faced the street. Caleb led me from there into what must’ve been the den. The floorboards cut off as the room sank down by two short steps covered in dense looking cream carpet. Plush couches faced the open wall holding a large screen over a long and low fireplace. On the opposite side of the room, paneled glass revealed an open plan style dining room and kitchen beyond, and there were curtains on either wall ready to be pulled shut over the glass to make the den feel close and cozy. Closest to me, and most attention grabbing, was a luxurious looking contemporary hammock hanging from the ceiling, cushioned and covered with slate-gray, velvety suede.

  “Can I get you anything?” Caleb asked me as I stood, still dumbstruck, looking at the glass case bookshelves behind the deep couches, everything in dark and warm neutral tones. “Water? Or something to eat? Leo’s sort of the cook of the family, but he usually leaves us leftovers so we don’t all starve while he’s gone.”

  I slipped my sneakers off on the floor, afraid to muss the room, and looked to Caleb. He was hovering nearby but out of reach, with his hands behind his back, and I wondered which of us was more scared of the other. I was starting to think it might be him, at least of frightening me.

  “Thank you for…doing whatever it was you did in the elevator,” I said.

  Caleb’s eyebrows jumped over his vivid blue gaze, and I could’ve sworn he was starting to blush. “Erm, of course. It’s… Rake calls my scent ‘Xanax.’ Um, here,” Caleb padded down into the circle of furniture, pulling a blanket off the back of a couch and bringing it to me, standing at the bottom of the short stairs so that I towered over him. He was so classically handsome, so traditional looking, an
d I pictured Rake and Leo and Cyrus around him, how he would compare with their more unique beauty. It would be a buffet of handsome.

  “Curl up wherever, wander. The kitchen is just through there, and you’re welcome to anything. Rake will find you when he gets back, it’ll probably just be a few more minutes.”

  I took the blanket from his hands—it was buttery soft against my fingers—puzzled by the offer until I got the first whiff of his drugging, syrupy scent. “Thank you.”

  Caleb nodded and passed me, heading for the stairs. I was a little surprised he was just leaving me with the run of his house, especially a house like this one, but he was right. All I wanted was to curl up. Except I almost called him back when I was left in the room alone. I wanted Leo, or Baby, or maybe even David.

  David. That’s who I should’ve gone to like this. Not my new boyfriend’s, alpha pack, fucking fancy as shit house. I breathed out a long sigh, and then lifted the blanket to my nose, inhaling Caleb’s scent deep into my lungs. Drowsiness hit me like a wave, tension I was so used to carrying unwound out of my muscles with the first hit of his pheromones. Xanax indeed.

  I padded down into the ring of couches and headed for the largest, L-shaped one, diving into the corner and wrapping the soft blanket around me up to my chin. I settled into the cushions, drinking in the room around me, wondering what the rest of the house might look like. My blinks grew longer, heavier, and I let Caleb’s drugging aroma carry me down towards sleep. Just for a few minutes. Just for…

  “Where’s Buzz?” I whined as I woke to Indy’s hand on my skin, my back on a bare mattress. The room was dark and it smelled different, none of Buzz’s sweet and ashy fragrance. Not Indy’s pine either.

  Maybe they were letting me just sleep tonight?

  Someone coughed, someone in the dark, and I stiffened. I tried to sit up, and two hands pinned my shoulders.

  “Indy?”

  “Lola, wake up.”

  “You just relax, Showgirl. It’s gonna be a long night.”

  I sat up with a gasp, taking deep gulps of air. My skin was sweaty and sticky, and the blanket around me was too hot. Gentle fingers reached for the back of my neck and I skittered away, spinning to face—

  “Hey, it’s okay. It’s just me,” Rake said, an uncharacteristic worry in his eyes.

  I took another deep breath and the nightmare, the old memory, faded away. I was at Leo’s house. I had fallen asleep on the couch. Caleb’s scent was on my tongue, and it replaced the mildewy flavor of the dream. Rake held his hand out in the space between us, and I peeled myself out of the tangle of the blanket before sliding my hand into his and squeezing back.

  “What time is it?” I rasped.

  “After one. I got back, but I didn’t want to wake you so I’ve just been keeping you company,” Rake said.

  I blinked and looked around the room. The TV was on, muted with the captions running. I’d arrived at the house before ten in the morning. Had Rake really just been sitting with me for three hours?

  “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  I was. My stomach felt hollow, and I realized I hadn’t really eaten anything aside from a few appetizers with Zane and Betty last night. I wasn’t even sure if I’d thrown those up. Mostly though…

  I frowned and stared at Rake. “Is there any way I could…take a shower here?” I was greasy and disoriented and exhausted, and nothing sounded better than trying to rinse the night off at the moment.

  Rake smiled and stood from the couch, still holding onto my hand. “Of course. Come on, I’ll give you a little mini-tour on the way to my rooms.”

  ‘My rooms,’ he’d said. As in multiple.

  Fucking rich people.

  Fourteen

  Rake

  Lola had that adorable, rumpled, ‘I just woke up from a nap’ look going on, complete with a pout I wanted to suck on. She’d also just had a nightmare or the start of one, and I was trying to keep it in my pants and not be my usual thirsty self, for her sake.

  “Don’t be intimidated,” I said as I led her through the house, up to the fourth floor.

  “Seriously? How could I not be?” she murmured, wide eyes drinking in every detail.

  Caleb had done a good job melding six very different men’s tastes into one home, compromising on rich neutral shades as a unifying palette and then letting us all dictate the styles in our own private spaces. But there was really no disguising the fact that we lived in a big ass house in the middle of the city, and we liked nice things. I was an omega. It was in my DNA to want to be a bit spoiled by my surroundings, after all.

  “Do you each have your own floor?”

  “No,” I said through a laugh, adding privately, we each have our own wing on one of three floors. I shared with Caleb, and Leo tended to spend more time on our floor than his own top floor that he shared with Matthieu. Wes and Cyrus had the fifth floor, but Cyrus also tended to sleep on the fourth floor with us. “Do you like it though?”

  “It’s gorgeous,” Lola said softly.

  Was she being quiet because she was uncomfortable or because of whatever had happened? Leo hadn’t given me much to go on in his messages, only that Lola had a bad night and he wanted her to be at the house if she was up for it. Was it nightmares? Or something more?

  “So, here’s my space,” I said. “I’ve got a few nest areas tucked around the house for when I’m kinda stressed but this is…”

  I cleared my throat and watched Lola, trying to hold my rambles in my chest. Was it okay that it smelled like me in here? I knew my perfume stressed her out, but at the party she’d let me all but coat her in my scent while we’d been dancing.

  Thinking of coating Lola in my scent was definitely not what I needed to be focused on at the moment.

  “I like these window walls,” Lola said, facing the tall wall in front of my bedroom that was made of wrought iron and glass panes.

  “Yeah, we all like open spaces, but those allow me to curtain them off when I’m getting closer to heats.” Her eyes trailed around my work space to where I had lights set up around a chaise lounge.

  Fuck, Rake, move her along so you don’t have to explain you take naughty pictures of your packmates for a hobby. Jesus, you’re a mess.

  “Uh, bathroom’s through here,” I said, walking her through the window wall’s narrow doorway. Fuck, my bed reeks of alpha sex. Fuck, why didn’t I take her up to Leo’s rooms? “I—I can go and get you something to change into, if you want?”

  Rake, you dumbass, is that a sex toy sitting on your side-table? It definitely was. It wasn’t like we usually bothered putting them away. I was shuffling around like a weird version of a sheep dog, trying to guide Lola to the bathroom while blocking out the sight of my mess of a bedroom. I opened the bathroom door for her and watched her eyebrows bounce up.

  “Um. Yeah. It’s kind of…dramatic,” I said, looking in at the glossy bathroom with the enormous jacuzzi tub directly front and center. “Shower’s in the corner there.”

  Probably left some plugs in there too, just to totally traumatize the poor woman, I thought.

  Lola nodded. I couldn’t tell if the circles under her eyes were old mascara or the actual shadow of lost sleep. I wanted to attach myself to her side until Leo arrived, and preferably after too, but she wasn’t talking or telling me what she needed, and I didn’t want to push her. It was a shame she was so skittish around my alphas, because Caleb or even Matthieu would’ve been exactly who she needed right now.

  “I’ll be right back with some clothes and to check on you. And I’ll get started on something to eat for us, okay?”

  She nodded again, her arms cradling her stomach. I’d seen her do that before, and it made me want to lift them up and slide underneath, wrapping her up in my own. I swallowed and left, racing toward the elevator I’d intentionally avoided showing to Lola. Caleb said she’d nearly passed out after walking in the front door, so maybe it was better if no one mentioned the personal gym or the infinity pool.

/>   I grabbed a few things from Leo’s room. A t-shirt and a cashmere sweater, and decided Lola would be better off in my own boxers than Leo’s. And maybe I just wanted her in some of my clothes too.

  Except when I made it back to my rooms, Lola was still standing in the middle of my bathroom, fully dressed. Her eyes were watery as they met mine.

  “I can’t shake the feeling that he’s watching me,” she whispered.

  My heart fully stopped beating for a moment, my gut turning to stone. Not for the first time, I wished I was an alpha, that I had the power to claim someone like Lola or Leo who had been injured by alphas and make sure no one ever fucking touched them again. Except in this instance, it was a good thing I wasn’t an alpha.

  I set the change of clothes down on the counter and crossed to Lola, giving into the impulse to pull her to my chest, relieved when her arms circled me and her hands clung to my back. “We’ve got a smaller bathroom around here somewhere. Or I can stay and join you, and we can do a bath instead?”

  I tried to hold onto my calm when Lola nodded. “Stay, a bath sounds nice,” she said, and my stomach did a little flip.

  I nuzzled the top of her head, marveling at the way she loosened in my arms. So an omega perfume wasn’t a total hard pass then? That was a relief. I’d been trying to be a good sport about her and Leo’s relationship but, if I was honest with myself, I wasn’t used to not getting what I wanted.

  And I wanted Lola.

  “I’ll get the water started,” I said, and Lola nodded, her hands going to the hem of her shirt as I pulled away.

  You have to be on good behavior though, I reminded myself. Not just because Lola was shaken, although that was the first and most important reason. The other was that I wanted to know for certain that Leo would be okay with it if I made a serious move. He and I had shared a fling before, but it was obvious to everyone in the pack that his feelings for Lola were a big deal. Their connection wasn’t about burning through temporary lust.