Provocation (Explicitly Yours 3)

Lola had come into his home and disrupted his system. During the ten years Brigitte had lived there, she’d tried to do the same, but Beau’d always put up a fight. Not with Lola. He was happy she could make those little changes that made her feel at home.

Beau’d found her unprompted comments earlier about laundry and dishes adorably amusing, her nerves obviously strung tight. Her behavior had been mildly strange all day, though, up until she’d sat him down in the VIP room. She’d been collected then, as if she’d done that dance a hundred times. She had, but he didn’t want to get that same dance. It should’ve made all the difference that it was him sitting in that seat.

A pit of doubt formed in his stomach. Perhaps her comments hadn’t been so offhanded. Maybe they were meant to serve as a hint, something more significant than he’d thought.

He looked up from the glass. “I’m out of options. I have to call the police.”

“Not yet. Just wait a minute.” Brigitte played with her bottom lip. She’d been staring out the window behind him for a good two minutes, since he’d finished telling them exactly what’d happened. Brigitte went and got the cat ears from the foyer table. Beau didn’t even realize he’d brought them in. “You said these were just hanging on your driver’s side mirror? And her phone’s disconnected?”

“Yes.”

Brigitte’s expression changed, her eyebrows angling inward. Beau didn’t get looks of pity often. “Beau…”

“Never mind.” He picked up his phone again. He had more phone calls to make, starting with the LAPD. If Brigitte was going to tell him this wasn’t an accident, he didn’t want to hear it.

“I think—”

“I don’t care what you think.” He focused on scrolling through his contact list. “You don’t know the whole situation.”

“Warner, give us a minute.” Brigitte waited until Warner had left the room to come over and touch Beau’s forearm. “Come upstairs with me before you call anyone. I want to see one thing.”

Beau hovered his thumb over the call button.

“If I’m wrong, we’ll call the police.”

Beau returned his phone to his pocket. “What’s upstairs?”

She left the kitchen, and he followed. Before reaching the second floor, she glanced back, as if to make sure he was still there. In his bedroom, she opened the closet’s double doors. She ignored Beau’s side and went to Lola’s dresser. The top drawer was full of lacy undergarments.

“Is it all there?” Brigitte asked.

“How should I know? I don’t keep track of her fucking panties.” Beau went deeper into the closet as Brigitte shut the drawer and checked the one underneath it. “What are you looking for?”

She didn’t answer. Beau sifted through Lola’s dresses and touched the peach-colored one he’d bought her for their evening at the ballet. For once, he’d gotten her out of black—her go-to, safety color. She’d looked stunning. Good enough to eat—and he would’ve, had he had the chance. He slid the smooth silk through his hand. Any excuse he could think of to touch her that night, he’d used. She’d let him, up until a certain point, and then she’d politely moved his hand away and said, “Beau, you promised.” He couldn’t count the number of times she’d said that to him. Yes, he’d promised, but he was only a man, not a fucking saint.

Brigitte was at the bottom drawer now. She slammed it shut, squatted on the floor.

“Brigitte, I’m wasting time.”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong. It looks like all her stuff is here.”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

She didn’t look up at Beau, and that made him nervous. Normally, she delivered any news with a tremor of excitement. “I mean—the cat ears, the lipstick mark, choosing Cat Shoppe for a special occasion…it’s almost like a message. A ‘fuck you.’”

Beau’s ears static-crackled when he swallowed. It sounded like Brigitte was suggesting Lola’d gone out of her way to hurt him, but that wasn’t possible. He had no doubt Lola loved him. “You think she set me up?”

Brigitte picked at nothing on the carpet. “I think nobody gets over being hurt that bad as quickly as she did.”

“She wasn’t over it. We were working on it.”

“Still.” She looked up. “She moved in here two days later.”

Beau took a step back. It didn’t sound like Lola. She didn’t lie or manipulate. She wasn’t malicious. She would never do to him what he’d done to her.

Would she?

He wiped his temple with his sleeve. “Maybe she’s still angry, and maybe she wants to hurt me. That I can wrap my head around. But not planning it ahead of time to the point you think she would’ve packed a bag.” He shoved a finger toward the dresser. “All her shit’s here.”

“I don’t see her personal things.”

“She only came here with one bag,” Beau said. “She left everything else at Johnny’s.”

Brigitte shook her head slowly. “I’m talking about irreplaceable stuff. Passport, license, social security card, birth certificate. She wouldn’t’ve left those things behind.”

“She didn’t. I have them. I filed all that in the study when she got here.”

“Is it locked up?”

“No. I wanted her to have access to…” Beau narrowed his eyes. His chest was burning, most likely from the steak. That, or his body knew something his mind refused to register.

“You hate Cat Shoppe. She knows it’s a night you’d prefer to forget, and she made you relive it. That woman—you hurt her. Bad. You didn’t break her heart, Beau—you put it in a goddamn blender.”

“I’m not denying—”

“Have you slept with her since then?”

He paused. Were they clues, her rabid efforts to keep him at arm’s length, the kisses that sometimes felt off? His face heated. Was it possible, after making him wait like a fool, that she’d never planned to sleep with him?