Lola & the Millionaires: Part One

by Kathryn Moon

  I stared at her, the cryptic suggestion teasing my thoughts as Lola retreated from my studio. My eyes slid down to my palette, and I picked up my brush.

  Twenty-Five

  Lola

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather I stay?” Leo murmured.

  Rake had moved to his alphas in one of the nests for the night, and in the morning the whole pack was set to leave for their country home—I was still wrapping my head around that—to spend a long weekend together for his heat. A heat I had been invited to, leaving me speechless for a good five minutes while I caught my breath from the offer.

  “I’m gonna be fine, Leo,” I whispered back, grinning. It was dark out, but the city’s glow let ambient light in through the brick glass ceiling above, enough for me to see Leo in blurry blue and gold and shadow. “Isn’t a heat a big deal? Rake would miss you if you weren’t there.”

  Leo sighed and nodded, his arm nudging against me. I sat up a little so he could slide it under my back and tug me against his chest. His skin was warm under my cheek, and I burrowed closer.

  “I wish you were coming,” Leo said, so soft I wasn’t sure I was meant to hear it.

  “I thought heats were for pack,” I said, trying to stay relaxed.

  Leo snorted, breath puffing against my shoulder. “That…wouldn’t matter in this case. To Rake or anyone else. But…”

  “I’m not ready for that,” I said, more gently, and sighed when Leo nodded. “Anyway, I’ve got that dinner meeting thing with Wendy tomorrow night. I can hardly miss it and tell her I’m going to Rake’s heat, right?”

  “Are you sure you wanna get into that pool of sharks? I mean I love Matt and Cyrus, and I know this is important to them, but you don’t deserve to be a rope in a tug of war,” Leo said.

  “I think I want to hear from Wendy herself though. Like, are Betty and Zane putting a poisonous spin on things, or does Wendy really want to rake Designate and Matthieu over the coals?”

  Leo hummed, head turning and lips pressing to my forehead. “I was gonna say they’re lucky they hired you, but to be honest I’m lucky they hired you, otherwise I might not have found you again.”

  I gasped and pressed my face firmly into Leo’s throat, trying to hold a tight grip on my emotions. No waterworks tonight, not even for happy reasons.

  “I’m having a hard time knowing I’m gonna be out of town again and this stuff with…you know, isn’t really taken care of yet.”

  Indy.

  I soothed my hand over Leo’s chest. “Wes tracked the phone to pretty far west of here, didn’t he?”

  Leo nodded. “Still. Any chance I could talk you into staying here while we’re gone? Matt will be home, but he’ll stay out of your way if you want him to.”

  “I don’t mind Matthieu. I don’t mind any of you,” I said. “But Wendy’s sending a car to my apartment and—”

  Leo let out a heavy sigh and I laughed, wiggling up against his chest to hover my face over his. “Tell you what. You guys get back Monday, right? I will be here then. Maybe even sooner. I’ll keep in touch with you and with Matthieu if it makes you feel better.”

  “It makes me feel much better,” Leo said, smile stretching. His arm tightened around my waist, pulling me over his hips, my legs falling open to either side. “Having you on top of me like this makes me feel great.”

  I grinned and dipped down, sucking on Leo’s lips and rolling my hips, catching his moan on my tongue.

  It was weird to overthink what you wore to a dinner meeting with your boss. It wasn’t a date, but there was an aspect of trying to impress involved. I wanted to look professional, but not stuffy, and at Designate professional kind of ran the gamut of styles. I settled on a long, black, jersey t-shirt dress and a red leather jacket, pairing it with sharp makeup and dressy accessories just in case we were going somewhere a little nicer.

  I didn’t need to worry though. Wendy had chosen a trendy but informal fusion restaurant, and she was sitting in the booth dressed in a t-shirt and jeans. Granted, they were obviously tailored to fit her perfectly, but that was probably a given with fashion people.

  “Lola, nice to see you out of the office like this,” Wendy said, rising from the booth just long enough to shake my hand.

  “I’m happy to be here,” I said, and tried to make sure I looked it.

  Any sensible brand new assistant editor at Designate should be ecstatic to be asked to dinner with Wendy, and I needed to remember that. It was just a little more difficult after my conversation with Cyrus the other night, seeing the pained expression on his face as he talked about her. I would be in some kind of serious shit if Wendy realized I was here to dig up information for Matthieu or Cyrus, and not because I was genuinely interested in her plans.

  “I’ve always wanted to come to this restaurant,” I said, since that was true.

  I had always wanted to, but it was constantly booked.

  “Let me know next time you want to come. Niko is a friend of the family, so I’m a little spoiled,” Wendy said, shrugging. “Restaurants always hold a few tables if you know who to ask.”

  “I’m surprised Designate hasn’t branched out into stuff like this. Not just restaurants specifically, but new cultural landmarks,” I said.

  Wendy took a sip from her water glass, eyes watching me over the rim. She had pretty, thin rings stacked on her fingers, different metals and gems winking under the raw lighting.

  “You have the mind of an editor in chief, you know that? Thinking of the magazine as a whole instead of just your beauty pages,” Wendy said. “Don’t get me wrong. You’re very good at your specialty, but you should consider starting to map the ladder you’d like to take up your career.”

  “Thank you,” I said blushing. Before getting the job at Designate, a Head Beauty Editor position was as much as I’d dreamed of. More than that was a tempting but unknown route of fantasizing about my future.

  Wendy sighed and looked down at the table. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Voir is run by a bunch of dusty old white men. They’ve decided Designate’s place is to tell a woman how to see herself in a mirror and nothing more. They’re determined to leave the magazine a dinosaur, rather than let it breathe and change with a new generation of women. Not to mention a new age of publishing.”

  I opened my mouth and wondered if I could debate her point of view. Matthieu hadn’t tossed my ideas out the door when I blurted them out in a run the other night after dinner. What was the real rift between Wendy and Voir? It was as if she was taking her anger at Cyrus out on the entire company.

  “Betty said you’re interested in starting your own magazine,” I said instead.

  “Mmm, more like a website devoted to fashion, to beauty, to culture,” Wendy said. “The age of paper and ink is over, and there’s so much more money to be made with online advertising. So much less money to be spent too. We wouldn’t need offices, wouldn’t need to waste a fortune on floors of a place like the Stanmore.”

  My heart sank at the thought. Maybe it was superficial of me, or maybe I was more old fashioned than I realized, but I loved working at the Stanmore. I loved the beautiful old building, and I loved sitting at the table brainstorming with the beauty team. God, I loved playing with the samples of everything.

  “Sounds like an entirely different kind of beast,” I said, nodding slowly.

  “Absolutely. A sleek, efficient, globally available beast. I want to hire some of the biggest names in the social media beauty trends to work directly with us, reel in some of the independent figures that provide a place like Designate with competition, and turn them into my allies,” Wendy said.

  It was smart and it was cutthroat, and it would deliver a major blow to Designate if Wendy succeeded in that alone, never mind taking some of the magazine’s contacts with her.

  “Are you a picky eater?” Wendy asked as a waiter approached our table.

  I was a little queasy with nerves now, but I shook my head. “Never. Everything here sounds
amazing.”

  Wendy nodded. “It is. Yes, hi, Marco. We’ll have one of everything, just bring sharing plates. And can we get two glasses of champagne please?”

  I swallowed hard. Had I already agreed to take part in Wendy’s plan just by telling Betty I’d come to the dinner? Either way, I had a long night ahead of me, and after hearing Wendy’s broken down, streamlined version of Designate, I was pretty sure I needed to see this whole thing through.

  All day Friday, with Cyrus out of town for the heat, our department kept busy with more of the menial tasks. Zane and Betty were in and out of the office, and I couldn’t tell if they were running errands or just helping themselves to a lot of breaks, but I was happy to be able to work alone for most of the day. My head was still reeling from the dinner with Wendy. She was powerful, in a brutal kind of way, and her vision of the future of fashion and beauty reporting sounded uncomfortably impersonal and disparate.

  To make matters a little worse—or a lot, if I was honest—I was missing the guys like crazy. Not just Leo and Rake, although my nightmares decided to come calling again now that I was back at my apartment alone. But I was missing seeing Cyrus at work and then again at dinner. I was missing Caleb and his warm scent and his careful words and his constant habit of finding new ways of making me comfortable. I missed helping Wes with the crossword and curling up in the passenger seat of his old Plymouth when he would drop me off at the Stanmore.

  And Matthieu…

  It was less missing and more craving. I was nervous at the promise I’d made to Leo to return to the house sometime during the weekend. I trusted Matthieu, but I didn’t trust myself around Matthieu. He was a wholly unexpected temptation, and I wasn’t blind enough to ignore the stares he made in my direction. He’d just ended a relationship. Maybe I was just a convenient side piece? An easy rebound opportunity, and a beta to boot, so no real threat to the stability of his pack.

  My phone rang at lunch and I grinned when I saw Leo’s name on the screen. I’d called the night before but he hadn’t answered, and it’d been hours later before he’d responded with a series of deliriously tired but sweet texts.

  “Hey, I miss you,” I said, the words falling out easily.

  Leo sighed, low and long over the line. “God, gorgeous, I miss you too. And I’m not the only one.”

  “How is he?” I asked, glancing around the office. Corey was in, so I was probably better off not saying Rake’s name specifically. Rake had been cuddly at the photoshoot, but not much more than most models and omegas usually were.

  “He’s… I mean, he’s good, of course. Heats are fun,” Leo said slowly. “But…um…okay, so he’s been asking for you a lot.”

  “Oh.” I tried to ignore the twinge in my chest. I’d assumed when I’d turned down Rake’s invitation that would be the end of the idea. That’d he happily move on to enjoy his heat with his pack.

  “Whining. Begging, really,” Leo said, voice dropping in my ear, and heat thrumming in my core. “I know you said you weren’t ready to come to a heat, and I totally understand. But I… It’s hard to see him like that, and I said I would ask again for him.”

  My jaw hung open and my eyes flicked around the room without really seeing my surroundings. “He’s not… Is he okay?”

  “It’s almost like pain, but not quite. Like the pain of, you know, wanting someone but without the satisfaction. I mean he’s satisfied, and then two seconds later, he’s asking for you. Caleb and Cyrus could stay clear-headed enough to keep their hands off you if you changed your mind, but I don’t think they’ll be able to leave the nest,” Leo said. “I know, Lola. I know it’s a big ask. And it’s just a few more days, really. Maybe by the time the next one comes…”

  Maybe then I wouldn’t mind being part of an orgy with my alpha boss and another alpha packmate of Rake’s?

  Caleb and Cyrus, I reminded myself. Caleb was basically a friend. Cyrus was too, aside from the whole I reported to him at work thing.

  “Say no if you need to, gorgeous,” Leo prompted gently. “Rake would never begrudge you that, and as soon as his head is clear—”

  “How would I get there? I don’t have a car.”

  Are you fucking serious right now? Leo’s voice died off abruptly as my brain sputtered to a halt. Was I really considering going? And if I was, why now?

  Because it’s Rake, and he doesn’t just want you there. He needs you. Badly enough that Leo felt pressured to ask, which Leo would never otherwise do.

  “Matthieu was going to come up tonight so the whole pack was together. He would pick you up if you decided to come. It’s kind of a long drive,” Leo added gently.

  That alone might’ve been a strong enough warning to change my mind if I’d been thinking straight, but apparently I wasn’t.

  “I can’t guarantee Rake won’t try and talk you into more, but if you catch him in some downtime, the cuddles alone would help,” Leo said. He was obviously tiptoeing over his words, expecting me to spook and refuse.

  I wanted to prove him wrong, to prove myself wrong really. I wanted to be strong enough to be there for Rake when he needed me. Cuddles would be nice. I missed them; it felt like I was missing limbs as I tried to fall asleep, I was so used to having someone to curl up against now.

  “Okay. I’ll need to run to my apartment after work first.”

  “Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Not really,” I said. “But I’d like to try.

  “Try is fine, gorgeous. If anything changes, you let me know. It’s—I can’t wait to see you,” Leo said, wistful and warm.

  “Ditto.”

  I swallowed hard as Leo made his goodbyes, and we both hung up. I was going to Rake’s heat. I was going to try and be there for Rake’s heat. Where Caleb and Cyrus would also be.

  I needed to think of something, anything else. Anything but what my boss might look like naked and fucking Rake.

  What the hell are you doing, Lola?

  Twenty-Six

  Lola

  “So what are the chances of me being in the room and not having sex?”

  “Umm…when one of my alphas tried to give me space, I went and hunted his ass down,” Baby said. “But this isn’t Rake’s first heat. I—”

  “Honest opinion, babe,” I said, stuffing clothes into a bag in my apartment.

  “Fuckin’ slim to none. None. You’re gonna have heat sex. Bomber says it’ll feel a little like you’re getting high with all the pheromones flying around.”

  Shit. That was probably the thing I was least prepared for. The sense of being out of control, of things starting to happen and me not knowing what would come next, or where it would go, or who would touch me or—

  “If Leo is there and you need to leave, he will make sure you can, right?” Baby asked, voice cautious.

  I huffed out a breath, the slow tensing of my shoulders collapsing at her question. “Yes. Yes, he will.” That I trusted completely. Leo had texted three times since he’d called during the day to make sure I was still okay with coming, and he’d already told me that he hadn’t said anything to Rake yet in case I needed to change my mind.

  “Are you at all excited, or just nervous?” Baby asked.

  “Ehnnn, yeah, I mean, I’m a little excited,” I said laughing. “I’m always a little excited when it’s the three of us. Just now it’s the three of us plus two and those two are—”

  “Try not to think of them as alphas. They’re nice guys, right, and they won’t play grabby hands with you? So they’ll be like…sexy air fresheners. Mood enhancers. Sound effect machines. Spare dicks if it comes down to it.”

  I was wheezing with laughter, yanking on the zipper with one hand and holding my phone with the other. “I was planning on saving it for when he got back, but I got Rake a surprise and I figured now is probably a good time to gift it to him.”

  “Ooo a naughty courting present? I love it!” Baby sighed. “My little Lola’s first heat. Gosh,
how they grow up.”

  I scoffed and shook my head, pulling the phone away and then seeing the time. Shit. I ran to the window and looked down to the street. There, in the no parking zone, a long, sleek black car waited, red tail lights still on.

  “Baby? Car’s here, I gotta go.”

  “Okayiloveyoubaiiiiiiii,” Baby rushed out.

  I slung my bag over my shoulder, patting the bottom to make sure my recent purchase hadn’t been forgotten, and then ran out the door, locking it behind me. Matthieu was halfway up the stairs, a long brown wool coat on over a cozy looking sweater and jeans. He smiled as I nearly ran into him and then he pointed down to the door.

  “Why isn’t that locked?”

  “It was supposed to be, but the landlord hasn’t done anything yet,” I said with a shrug. “I think he’s pretty absent.”

  “Wes will take care of it when we get back in town.”

  “Wes isn’t my landlord,” I said, frowning.

  “He will speak with him,” Matthieu bit out as we reached the landing. “Do you need your bag? I can put it in the trunk for you.”

  I shook my head and Matthieu was there, slipping his hand under the strap and sliding it off my shoulder before I needed to say anything. Standing at the backseat door, a tall beta in a black suit waited for me to slide in.

  We were taking a driver to the country house? The car wasn’t quite a limo, but there was more than usual amounts of legroom in the back seat, as well as a small fridge and a privacy window up to screen off the front seat.

  I caught a glimpse out of the window on my left as I slid in, my stare freezing on a figure in the dark. Across the street, leaning against a light post, someone was standing under the glow, wearing a dark hoodie. Even with the shadow of the hood and the head lowered, the body was facing me directly.