Waiting for him.
He didn’t deserve her, but that made him even more grateful. He planned to spend all his nights reversing the pain he’d caused her. And to think—he’d almost lost her.
No, Beau didn’t recognize the person he’d become, but he didn’t mind. He was forever changed that night he’d thought he’d lost her for good, only to walk into the lounge of the Four Seasons hotel and find her.
Waiting for him.
11
Three weeks earlier
At exactly 9:51 P.M. on the same day she’d fled Beau’s presidential suite, Lola slipped into a high-backed seat at the hotel’s lounge. She’d passed out on the floor of her eleventh-floor room for a few hours, but after a cold shower, she’d slipped back into her white dress. She was reborn—and ready to enter the arena.
Revenge went against her nature, but Lola’s motive ran as deep as Beau’s betrayal had cut. This wasn’t eye for eye or tooth for tooth—it was the most valuable thing you could give another person. Hope for a future, raw vulnerability. This was heart for heart.
“Evening.” The bartender slid a napkin in front of her. “What’re you having?”
Lola’s back was unnaturally straight, her body tense. Tonight, she was both predator and prey, target and huntsman. It was an entirely normal inquiry from a bartender—what drink did she want—but she’d come to learn that friendly strangers were strangers nonetheless, and strangers could be dangerous. She repositioned herself in the chair, trying to get more comfortable. “What do you recommend?”
He grabbed a menu from the bar and held it open in front of her. He tapped it with his finger. “I’m new here, but I’m told the Colony Cocktail is our most popular drink.”
Lola’s mouth soured. The last man who’d picked her drink had also chosen that one, and it hadn’t exactly turned out well. “I’ll have anything but that.”
He laughed, clapped the menu closed and tossed it aside. “How about I make you my off-menu specialty?”
She tried to smile, but it felt more like a grimace. The bartender was a poor distraction. Beau could be back any minute, she had no idea. “Sounds great. I also need a Macallan, neat.”
“You got it.” He picked out a couple liquor bottles and moved down the bar.
Lola released a breath. She was tempted to turn and check the entrance, but she kept her eyes forward and her back to the door. To put him at ease, he had to believe he was in charge, that he could sneak up on her.
The bartender set down both drinks, and Lola moved the Scotch to the side. She unsnapped her clutch.
“It’s on the house.”
Lola looked up from her lap. She’d worked in a bar a long time, and drinks never came free. “But the Macallan. It’s expensive.”
He shrugged. “It’s my second night here, and my manager left me alone. Why not?”
Lola closed her purse. “You won’t get in trouble, will you?”
“Maybe, but it’d be worth it. If I could get a smile.”
There it was, the price of her drink. A little bit of herself. And surely, he expected her to be flattered by his manipulation. It occurred to Lola, she’d agreed to a game of darts with Beau knowing little more about him than she did about this bartender. It’d led to a more dangerous game.
He stood there, waiting, not reading her skepticism.
She smiled. At least she knew better now. “Thank you. What is it?”
“Blood orange juice and gin.” He glanced between her eyes and the red drink. “Strawberries on top. It’s called an Amore Vietato.”
“Amore.” Lola picked up the martini glass and took a sip. “That’s Italian for love, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“What’s vietato mean?”
“Forbidden.”
She shifted her eyes to meet his. A love that shouldn’t exist, that survived despite the odds. Or because of them?
“Excuse me,” he said when another customer sat a few seats down.
Lola checked her watch and glanced around. It was after ten o’clock. The bar was right off the lobby, but the hushed conversations and low lights made it feel secluded. It was made for seduction, but that was only half the reason she’d chosen it. She wanted to remind Beau of the hour they’d spent there on their second night, their drinks barely touched, her mouth closer to his than necessary.
Like any woman worth her salt, Lola could fake intimacy, but men weren’t wired that way. Beau’s adoration had been in his touch, his eyes, his whispered words. Even if it was only an ember, something burned in him for her.
Lola sipped her Amore Vietato and took comfort in the fact that even roaring, rampant fires had started as embers.
Minutes passed. When Lola’s posture began to slouch, she corrected it.
The bartender returned and leaned his hip against the counter. “So, what is it? Blind date?”
Lola shook her head. “Just a friendly drink with a…friend.”
“Right.” He raised an eyebrow. “That dress is about as opposite of friendly as it gets.”
Lola cocked her head. “You think?”
He dropped his gaze for the briefest moment. “If he’s male, your friend might get the wrong idea.”
“And I guess that would be my fault.”
“Of course. You know what you’re doing. Nothing is ever as it seems with you ladies.”
Lola stuck her elbows on the counter like she and the bartender were old friends. “That’s a lot to put on an article of clothing.”
“My ex wore white when she’d done something especially devilish. It was a subconscious way of seeming innocent so I’d take pity on her.”
She squinted at him. There was no ring on his hand. Not even a tan line where a ring would be. That didn’t mean anything, though. A ring could change a person’s entire identity, and it could also be slipped on and off. Like her, he was black-haired and blue-eyed, but his face was round and inviting. Her face was not round, it was heart-shaped, and she doubted it was particularly inviting tonight. That would have to change once Beau got there.
She lifted one shoulder. “What if a dress is just a dress?”
The saleswomen of Rodeo Drive had shown Lola many outfits earlier that day. Red was aggressive. Black was too her—she didn’t want to be herself tonight. She only wanted to play herself. White’d been the least threatening. Perhaps the bartender had something there.
“It’s just a theory,” he said, another shrug. “I never asked her. Then she’d know I was onto her.”
Lola was leaning a little farther over the bar now, envisioning what Beau would see if he’d walk in right then. “Sounds like you two had some trust issues.”
“Show me a relationship without trust issues, and I’ll show you bullshit.” He laughed, genuinely amused, then scanned her face. “I’m Sean, by the way.”
She shook his outstretched hand. “Lola.”
“Beautiful name for a beautiful woman.”
Lola rolled her eyes. He wouldn’t have said that if she’d been herself, normal clothing, just a girl having a beer. This dress, this hotel in this part of town, it was like a parallel universe. “Surely you can do better than that.”
He shook his head, shamefaced but grinning. “You’re right. How about—an angelic name for an angelic dress. As for the woman in it…”
“Not angelic?” she suggested, crooking the corner of her mouth.
“That’s to be determined.” He winked, then looked over her shoulder, his expression souring like he’d just eaten something questionable.
Lola didn’t have to ask what’d caused that look. Something ghosted against her ear, causing the hair on the back of her neck to stand on end.
The familiar voice was deep, warm and unequivocally male, but Lola sensed the edge in his words. “What are you doing here?”
She turned to face him, the man she loved and loathed, her expression soft and her hands balled into quiet fists—fragile as a vase hiding igneous rock.
12
Beau loved Lola’s hair—to feel it between his fingers, to pull it in a fist as he took her from behind. She responded to that as much as he did, arching and moaning toward the ceiling. Even with her back to him in the hotel lounge, there was no mistaking her shiny hair, obsidian-black against her white dress.
Lola turned her head over her shoulder, hesitating a moment before she looked up at him. After the way they’d parted in the early hours that morning, he would’ve expected anger. Their time together had been short, but he’d learned to read her mood through her eyes—she was calm.