Provocation (Explicitly Yours 3)

Lola bit her thumbnail. “Go ahead. I know these guys. I just have to settle the bill, and get my things—”

“I’ll buy you new things.”

One of the men grunted. “Three.”

Her heart pounded as she hesitated. “I’ll only be a minute—”

“Two.”

“Did you not hear what I said?” Beau snapped. “So help me God, Lola. Leave your shit, and let’s fucking go. Now.”

Havermann’s chest swelled. “I’m not letting her leave with you. Not when you talk to her like that.” He lunged for Beau’s arm. “Come—”

Havermann stumbled when Beau stepped back. “Put your hand on me again, I’ll break every bone in it.”

“You got a fucking death wish?” Havermann grabbed Beau’s lapel and yanked, but Beau was faster. He already had two fistfuls of Havermann’s SECURITY shirt as he threw him backward into a wall. Beau pulled Havermann forward and slammed his body a second time. “I don’t think you understand.”

Lola covered her open mouth. She was as afraid of his expression as she was of him taking on two security guards. “Beau—”

“I’ve been this way for weeks,” Beau said through gritted teeth. “I’m on the edge, and in two seconds, you’re going to know exactly what that means. I’m holding back because jail is the only place I’ll be worse off.”

The other security guard pulled Beau off by the back of his suit. “All right, ladies, enough.”

Beau was breathing hard. He stared Havermann down as he was dragged away, then looked pointedly at Lola. “Let’s go.”

Havermann regained his footing, pinching at his shirt like it was a fine suit. “Just get the fuck out. She said she’ll meet you in front. You got to cool off before we leave her alone with you.”

“Jesus Christ. She’s my goddamn girlfriend.”

“Yeah, we heard you.” Each of the men took an arm, forcing Beau out of the room.

Lola stood frozen to the spot, her blood rushing, her head spinning like she’d spent the last two minutes running in circles. She held her hands out for balance, worried she’d have to sit, and she didn’t have time to sit. It could’ve gotten violent. But it hadn’t. It hadn’t, it wouldn’t, and it wasn’t her problem anyway. She didn’t deserve to be the one coming to Beau’s defense when the pain he’d inflicted on her was worse than any fist to the stomach.

She flinched with her entire body and snatched her trench coat off the floor. She got it on, throwing the belt into a knot, and stopped at the door. Her plan had worked. Not as smoothly as she’d hoped, but it had—and this? This was the easy part. Walk away. Let go, so everything else could take course. Her dignity, her power—they were there for the taking. She just had to walk away.

She looked down the hall, the way they’d come. It was quiet. Her steps were brisk but her strides long as her memory guided her to Cat Shoppe’s backdoor. When Lola had worked there, she and the other girls would slip outside between numbers, leaving a heel in the doorway so they wouldn’t get locked out. Lola yanked on the handle, but it didn’t budge. Her heart, already racing, began to hammer.

“Damn it,” she whispered, pulling it with all her weight. Stuck like a mouse in a cage. There was only one other way out, and Beau was waiting there. She could picture him, a fuming bull, eyes squinted and nostrils flared, his urges pinballing between mowing the place down with his car, breaking Havermann’s arms and fucking through his rage.

“Sometimes it sticks,” Lola heard from behind her.

Lola whirled around. Marilyn, the bartender-stripper she’d met earlier that day, stood three feet away in her white, vinyl bikini and blonde wig. Lola cleared her throat. “I, um—need a cigarette.”

“You don’t got to explain. I heard some of what you said to Kincaid today. He hurt you, that guy you came in with?”

“Not like you think.”

Marilyn nodded as though she’d heard it a hundred times. “I’ve been there.” She reached over and jerked the handle upward, throwing herself into the door. “There you go,” she said as it opened. “We’ve got to help each other out, right? Some of us really got nobody.”

Lola exhaled an unsteady but relieved breath. Something about Marilyn struck her as trustworthy. Maybe it was that no matter how Lola dressed or did her makeup, she’d always have some of the Cat Shoppe girl in her.

Lola reached out and hugged her

. They each went completely stiff. For the first time, Lola realized how far she’d gone to sterilize her heart for Beau—it was extending outside of their relationship now.

“Please, don’t mention this to anyone,” Lola said.

Marilyn shouldered her way out of the embrace, a tight-lipped but sincere smile on her face. She pinched her fingertips together and slid them across her closed mouth. “Our secret.”

Lola leaned outside, peering into the dark. It took her eyes a moment to adjust. The backdoor closed and latched, swallowing the club’s music. There wasn’t time to spare, she knew that. Beau’s car sat at the edge of the lot, and she tried to make out the driver’s seat. It looked empty.

She took off the cat ears and walked toward his Lamborghini, passing her thumb back and forth over the fur band. Something scurried across her path, and she stopped short, clamping a hand over her mouth to keep herself from screaming. She inhaled a breath and continued to the driver’s side.

Beau was smart. Cunning. He would figure out why she’d left, but not at first. She needed to leave something behind so he’d understand she’d made this choice. Otherwise, he might involve the cops. And she didn’t need that. She twisted the Lamborghini’s side mirror up, kissed the glass and hung the cat ears on it.

She pulled her coat tighter around her body and strode toward an alley, glancing over her shoulder before she entered. The only light came from a Thai restaurant’s illuminated sign at the other end. She’d been eating there for years. When she exited the alley, she waved through the window.

The owner met her out front with a plastic bag of hot food and a single key. Lola handed him a fifty, waving off the change. “Thanks for keeping an eye on it.”

Directly in front of the building was a car, but not just any car. It was a brand new, violently-red Lotus Evora she’d purchased that afternoon—in cash. She slipped into the driver’s seat—the fresh, unbroken leather giving her a noisy welcome—and put the key in the ignition. It was easy—all she had to do was turn it, and she was home free.

Lola had been dealing with men since she was a teenager. They weren’t difficult creatures. Beau was in love with Lola. And Lola knew as early as six years old, when her father had left, that your first broken heart was also your most painful. That was what she wanted for Beau. It was simple but effective—moving something he loved just outside his grasp was enough to drive him to the edge. Because one thing was for sure about a man who already owned anything money could buy—the only things left to want were the ones he couldn’t have.