“You’re trying to change the subject.” Beau was undoubtedly a catch, enough to make Lola wonder why he was still single. He had to have known things would be different between them without Johnny in the picture. It was one of those things better left unsaid, though. “Anyway, you were lying about how women aren’t all over you.”
“I didn’t say that at all.” He winked playfully. “But just because a woman wants me doesn’t mean she gets me. I’m selective. First, I choose the woman.”
“That’s it?” she asked.
“Of course not. I have to get her to choose me back.”
“Who wouldn’t choose you back?” Lola hadn’t thought before she spoke, which meant she was becoming too comfortable. She sat up straighter, leaning slightly back from him.
Beau tilted his head, studying her as if she were a science project. “In my experience, not many,” he said. “In any case, I don’t sleep with every woman I’m photographed with. Sometimes a photo is just a photo.”
“It doesn’t matter either way to me,” she said quickly. She changed the subject. “I’m not one of those girls, so I don’t think I understand my role tonight.”
“My being unmarried doesn’t make me more of a risk, but some people see it that way. I don’t make a habit of kowtowing to that kind of thing unless it affects my business, which it’s beginning to. It’s been four months since I’ve been in public with anyone. There’s speculation I’ve settled down. Might as well let them think you’re the reason for that.”
“So I’m the one you’ve ‘settled down’ with?” He was asking her to be herself. Instead of his sex object, now she was a person. It wasn’t quite what she’d expected from the night. “How do I be that if we’ve only just met?”
“Only give them your first name. A little mystery is good. Don’t answer anything personal. I don’t want your bar, your past or your partner associated with me.”
Lola’s confidence took a hit. “If I embarrass you, why even bring me at all?”
“Ah,” he said softly, as if comforti
ng her. “It takes a great deal to embarrass me, Lola. I said that for your protection. The press has no regard for anyone. If they see you with me, then suddenly what I do affects you. Best if we can limit that to one night.”
He wanted to protect her? More and more he was uncharacteristically gentlemanly. There was a very small possibility her assumptions about a man who offered money for sex were wrong. Maybe he wasn’t completely soulless. Maybe there was more to him than money and expensive suits. Lola thawed. She couldn’t think of anything to add, so she just said, “He has a name, you know.”
“Who?”
“Johnny. The way you say partner sounds sterile.”
Beau didn’t respond. He seemed more interested in what was out the window.
* * *
Beau’s limo door opened, and camera flashes blinded Lola. He offered her his hand. She only took it to be polite, but the noise, the brightness, the desperation crowding in on them—they were the reasons she didn’t let go.
Photographers called for him. They called for them together. They ordered her out of the picture, and Beau’s grip on her hand became crushing.
She smiled in every direction. The rolled-out carpet matched her nail polish. Behind them, a vinyl wall advertised the L.A. Philharmonic and the event’s sponsor, Rolex. At one point, there were A-list celebrities to her left and right. When she got her bearings navigating both the carpet and the press in towering shoes, she tried to pull her hand away. Beau kept it tightly in his. “Don’t,” he whispered and kissed her cheek. “I’m the one holding on to you.”
Whether he’d meant it or it was for show, hearing that made her a tinge protective of him. The media was made up of too many toothy smiles to count, and in the glaring lights, they became a unit. A snarling beast, hungry for Beau.
An entertainment channel reporter had caught his kiss. “Beau? Beau!” she cried from the other side of the velvet rope. Even with her teased, platinum hair that added a couple inches, she barely came up to Lola’s shoulder. In a leopard-print dress, the woman was about as opposite of Lola as it came. “Kissing in public?” She gasped. “Does this mean it’s serious?”
Beau slid his arm around Lola’s waist. She had to give him credit. There were practically stars in his eyes when he turned to her and said, “Very.”
The reporter’s gaze flickered over Lola without touching her face. “Who is she?”
Suddenly, Lola and Beau were no longer on different sides. Beau wasn’t these people. He looked her in the eye when he spoke to her. He didn’t talk over her or tell her to move out of the way. She craned her head to the microphone in Beau’s face. “She is Lola.”
The reporter pouted, touching Beau’s forearm. “Oh, dear. Hearts are breaking around the nation. Does this mean the chance to snag the handsome Beau Olivier has passed?”
Something flared in Lola seeing the woman’s long red fingernails on him. Beau had chosen Lola tonight, not whoever was under the putrid cloud of hairspray and perfume in front of them. “That’s exactly what it means,” Lola said. “So kindly remove your claw from my man.”
The reporter finally looked at Lola with such lit-up indignation, Lola had to suck in her cheeks to keep from laughing.
“Lola,” Beau said.
She swallowed her laugh. She’d had no right to say it. Beau didn’t belong to her. It shouldn’t bother Lola that the woman looked and acted cheap, thinking that did anything for Beau. Maybe it did do something for him.
Lola was appropriately sheepish as she looked up and met his glinting eyes. When he spoke, it was for her and no one else. “Patience has never been my strong suit,” he said, drawing her front flush against his, “but I do take credit for resisting this long.”
He caught her mouth with his. Their lips pressed together hard, the way his hand pressed the nape of her neck. Her palm went automatically to his chest. He was solid under her hand, just as his arm was solid around her. Camera flashes exploded like fireworks. When his fingers coiled into her neck and her hip, her body stirred, prickling with warmth, as if waking up from a long sleep. She was acutely aware of being so tightly against the hard length of him. She angled her head up to deepen the kiss right before he pulled back.
His expression almost seemed to ask permission, overdue though it was. People shouted at them, but it quickly became white noise.
“Your lips are red,” she said.