“I’m sorry if you thought any amount of money would get you my heart.”
She should’ve known if Beau decided that was what he wanted, that was what he’d get. The money no longer even registered for Lola—it was something else entirely. She and Johnny now had bigger problems.
Beau enfolded her from behind with his arms and rested his chin on her robed shoulder. “So you didn’t run out on me,” he said.
“I just needed a minute.”
“I want to give you lots of things,” he said, “but minutes aren’t one of them.”
“There’s still half the night left.” With her own words, she brightened. She and Johnny needed to have a conversation when she got home, but for now, she wanted to forget anything but being with Beau. “You should’ve taken me to dinner or something. What are we supposed to do until sunrise?”
“I don’t know. I’m all fucked out for the moment.”
She laughed and relaxed into his arms. “Me too.”
“We could sleep,” he suggested.
“Does that mean I have to give you a discount?”
He tsked in her ear. “Since when are we joking about this?”
She shrugged. “Since I’ve finally accepted this is how things are—this is our situation.”
“Really. After all this, with only half a night left, you’ve finally accepted it?”
“Better late than never.” It hit her then. There wasn’t “still” half a night left—there was “only” half. Lola couldn’t deny her feelings for Beau, but she and Johnny had history, and a lot of love between them. Aside from that, Beau hadn’t signed on for anything more than a night. So after sunrise, she
and Beau were finished. “You know something?”
“Tell me, beautiful.”
“I don’t think I want to sleep, because—” She hadn’t thought through what she was about to say. It was a huge admission. She wavered, swallowing as if she could keep the words down.
Beau nuzzled into her hair. “Hmm?”
“Because this isn’t just your last night with me,” she said. “It’s mine with you.”
He kissed her cheek. “This is our space,” he said softly. “You can always say what’s on your mind, and nobody will know but us.”
His arms were surrounding her. She was protected, but it was more than that. She was safe. While she was with him in their space, nothing could harm them. Nothing but themselves, she thought, right before pushing it out of her head.
“We can do whatever your heart desires with the time we have left,” he said. “We can go to goddamn Paris if you want.”
“I don’t think our agreement holds across international lines.”
“Yes, it does.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. There was no mention of that in anything I signed. I mean, for God’s sake, what if I got pregnant in Paris?”
“Well—”
“That wasn’t covered in the pregnancy waiver,” she continued. “How would we proceed? And then there’s the fact that we’d never make it back in time for sunrise—unless,” she put a finger to her lips, “we adjusted for time change—”
He nipped the shell of her ear. “You’re teasing me.”
She giggled and covered his arms at her middle. “You’re the only one who gets to have fun?”
“You’re having fun. I know you are.”
“You seem determined that I do. Why?” she asked, looking up at the sky. “Why do I matter to you?”
“Why does anyone matter to anyone? You’re asking me to explain something impossible.”
It still bothered her, though, that he’d never given her a reason. To pay that much just because he was drawn to her? Was that enough? She sighed. “Try.”
“If you think any of this would be happening if you weren’t you, you’d be wrong. It’s not that I paid for a night with a woman. It’s not that you’re so beautiful, it almost hurts me.”
The same was tragically true for Lola. She was there because of Beau, and she suspected that’d been the case all along. Johnny’s happiness and Hey Joe’s preservation were the reasons she’d convinced herself she could do it. She would’ve denied it until her last breath, but now she knew without a doubt—she would’ve refused anyone else’s offer.
“What was the reason then?” she asked.
“That I simply had to have you. Can’t you understand that? And maybe, can’t you admit you understand because you feel the same for me?”
She was quiet. To know that herself was scary enough, but to say it out loud was traitorous—and it was terrifying. It could set something in motion, and she wasn’t ready for that. There was nothing to be gained by a confession like that except more damage.
“Don’t feel guilty, Lola. Johnny knew this was a possibility. There’s no rule we can’t fall for each other.”
She looked over the balcony railing. “Maybe not. But I can’t jump, Beau.”
“There’s more than one way to fall,” he said. “Say, if you were pushed.”
“If you push me,” she said to the ground sixteen floors below, “it will be messy.”
“It already is messy,” he said. “Just trust in this—my hands on you.”
His protection. A safe place in his arms. Nothing about him was trustworthy. Anyone who made as much money as him had to have put his needs ahead of everyone else’s at some point. And he used that money to get anything he wanted, including her. When he was interested in a company, he designed their meetings around what made them most comfortable. Was that because he cared, or was it manipulation?
A thought struck her for the first time. Had his proposition at Hey Joe been spur of the moment like she’d thought, or had he done it there because that was where she was most comfortable?
“When was the first time?” she asked.
“The first time for what?”
“You said in the shower when you look inside me, it’s always like the first time. When? What moment?”
He was silent for so long, she began to worry.
“Beau?”
“It was at the beginning,” he said.
“The beginning of what? At Hey Joe? Or you mean the first night we spent together?”
“No,” he said. He squeezed her so hard that she gasped a little.
“Beau?” she asked again.
“Remember at Hey Joe, before I left, I tried to tip you.”
“Yes, I remember.” Of all the moments and silences they’d had between them, that one was fairly insignificant in Lola’s mind. “It was then?”
“No,” he said. “Why didn’t you take it?”