She finally looked at Beau. “If you’re fighting against the wrong thing, the only person you’ll hurt is yourself.” The digital clock on the dashboard changed. “I’m sure this isn’t how you want to spend your precious few hours,” she added.
He looked at the clock too, then out the windshield. He turned the car around. “What happened to your mom?” he asked.
“Oh, she still works there.” Lola turned her face away when he peered at her.
They didn’t speak again until they were on Santa Monica Boulevard. “How many women have you done this with?” Lola asked.
“None.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Why would I lie?”
“To seem like less of an asshole.”
Beau chuckled. “What does it matter if you think I’m an asshole? I already got you here. If you don’t like me by the time we’re done, it’s all the same to me.”
Her eyes drifted to the clock again. She assumed they were now going to the hotel, but she didn’t ask. Beau had his own agenda. “If you don’t care either way, then I could be anyone.”
“That’s not true at all.” He sighed and shifted in his seat. “I’ve met a lot of women over the years. All kinds—blonde, brunette, athletic, short, sweet, married, single. Something’s different about you, Lola.”
Lola didn’t think of herself as the same as or different from anyone. But she could guess the things she was compared to Beau’s usual women. For one, she didn’t go for bullshit, but his world turned for it.
“Something’s different about you too,” she admitted. Lola wasn’t proud that she’d pegged Beau as another corporate asshole during their first meeting on the sidewalk. He’d proved her wrong during their darts game, but that’d only lasted until his proposition. Then he’d been worse than an asshole in her eyes. She worried he was proving her wrong again. That would make the evening entirely different. The Beau she’d agreed to spend the night with was the repugnant one who’d offered money for her body—not the sexy one she’d known before that.
“It’s always been my opinion that different is good,” he said. “I hope you agree.”
“You know, you aren’t the first man to try and sleep with me behind Johnny’s back.”
“Did you?” Beau asked.
“Did I what?”
“Sleep with them.”
“No,” Lola said emphatically.
“Good.” He hit his blinker and slowed for a light. “I don’t like cheating. It’s for people who don’t think they can win. If you don’t believe in yourself enough to play by the rules, you aren’t worthy of the prize.”
“Are we still talking about sex?”
“Cheating is always weak, no matter the circumstances.”
“Beau, some people—lots of people—might call this cheating.”
“I don’t. And I didn’t try to sleep with you behind his back like you said. It all happened in front of his face. Johnny’s aware of everything. He had his chance to put a stop to it.”
“Have you ever turned down a million dollars?” Lola asked wryly. Beau had been desperate before. Had he already forgotten how that felt?
“Sure I have,” he said. “When the company on the table was worth more.”
“I’m not talking about business, Beau. We’re people. I’m talking about lives.”
He didn’t speak. Money, sex, worth, people—it all shaded into a gray area for them. Had anyone asked her before all this, she would’ve answered that a dollar amount couldn’t be put on a person’s life. She still believed that, but the concepts were no longer completely unrelated in her mind.
“Let’s not argue about it,” Beau said, sighing again. Ahead, they were ent
ering Beverly Hills. “I don’t want you wasting any more energy. You’re going to need it soon.”
11
On the sixteenth floor of the Four Seasons Los Angeles at Beverly Hills, Beau and Lola exited a gold elevator. They’d been quiet since the car. To their left, a large window showcased the dark sky and the faint silhouette of mountains on the horizon. She followed him the opposite direction past the elevator bank to a hallway. At the end of it was a single black-lacquer door with a knob in the center. The corridor was long and carpeted, muting their steps. Her heart beat faster. It’d been nine years since she’d been with a man other than Johnny. And about that long since she’d wanted to.
Beau pulled out his key and unlocked the door with a click.
Lola’s stomach was beyond butterflies—she was sure an entire zoo had been released inside her. She stared at the doorway, which was a threshold, a point of no return, a choice plain and simple. Sweat beaded on her upper lip.
“It’s too late to turn back now,” Beau said.
She didn’t look away. “Not if I give back the money.”
Beau let the door close. “I know what you’re doing.” He walked to her, his steps deliberate. “If I force you into that room, then it isn’t your choice.”
“Nobody forced me here,” she said. “I made every decision. I had to. That doesn’t make my choices right.”
“Lola,” he said softly. “You don’t have to put on a show. Tonight is about you and me only. Take control of what you want.”
She glanced up at him. “You think you know what I want?”
He moved forward until the wall was at her back. He pushed a hand in the neckline of her dress. “You’re right,” he said. “I have no idea what you want. Since your nipple isn’t hard between my fingers. And you weren’t wet earlier as you sucked me off.”
“Just because you manipulate my body’s reaction,” her voice wavered, “doesn’t mean I want this. You can’t control my mind or my heart no matter what you say.”
His hand stilled. The muscles in his jaw flexed. “You’re so fucking concerned about your heart? Keep it. I’ll use your body. I won’t be gentle. And when I’m finished, you can have it back.”