Provocation (Explicitly Yours 3)

“Not your business,” Beau said.

“Fine.” Brigitte stood. “Check the study.”

“I will. Only to show you you’re wrong.” Beau left the room, went downstairs. Lola wouldn’t do this to him. Not after the progress he’d made the last few weeks. Not after he’d promised her he would do better. Be better. He had a lot of work to do, but it was early. What were a few rocky weeks when they had their whole lives to figure this out? Leaving him when he’d just let her closer than anyone’d ever been—it was unfathomable.

He opened the door of his study too quickly, accidentally knocking it against a wall. One drawer of the file cabinet sat ajar. He went directly to it, opening it all the way.

His heart hammered up against his chest. Lola’s folder of paperwork was empty. He pulled it out, dumped it upside down. Nothing. He dropped it. The other files belonged to him, but he proceeded to check each one for something of hers, also tossing them when he found nothing. Anything important to Lola was gone.

“Gone,” he said.

“That’s what I thought,” Brigitte said behind him.

He shoved his hands in his hair, grabbing it in two fists. There were papers everywhere. Lola was gone. She’d pulled the rug out from under him, and this was all she’d left behind—a mess at his feet. Why? To punish him for loving her?

He yanked the drawer all the way out, scanned it one last time for any stray papers, then threw it on the wood-paneled floor with a deafening clang. “What the fuck?”

He’d made the grave mistake of underestimating her. He’d thought the game was over. He’d waved his white flag too soon.

He was losing control. He didn’t care. He wanted to lose it. He was the master—and she’d played him. She’d turned predator into prey. Without thinking, he slammed his fist into the steel cabinet. Satisfied by the throb in his hand, he did it again and again.

“Beau,” Brigitte cried over the noise, “you have to calm down.”

He turned on her. She had her palms over her ears. “Calm down? You want me to calm down?” He’d let himself l

ove her. She’d pretended to want that from him. She’d made a fool of him twice, and nobody got away with that. He overturned the entire file cabinet, smashing it on the floor. “Do you have any idea what she’s put me through?”

Brigitte held her hands out. “It’ll be okay. I’ll get Detective Bragg on the line. He’ll find her—”

Beau laughed hollowly. “You think I want to find her?” He picked up a Young Entrepreneurs award from his desk and launched it against the wall, shattering it into a million little pieces. “I hope I never see that fucking bitch again.”

Brigitte covered her mouth. She was trembling. “Beau. Brother. Go upstairs and rest. I’ll bring you ice for your hand. None of this will seem as bad in the morning.”

Rest? That was the last thing he needed. Maybe an all-night bender, or a grueling session on his treadmill. But it wasn’t his body he wanted to punish.

“What’s going on?” Warner asked, entering the study.

Beau went to his bar cart. “Get out. Both of you.”

“Sir—”

“We aren’t leaving you,” Brigitte said. “You’re not in the right state to be alone.”

“Don’t tell me what I am or am not. I’m not your goddamn puppet.” He poured himself a generous helping of Scotch and turned his back to them, wired with adrenaline. “Do me a favor, Brigitte. Get her shit the fuck out of here. By the time I come out of this room, I want Lola completely erased from this house.”

“Beau—”

“If I see anything of hers,” he continued, “I will go into a rage like you’ve never seen.” He looked over his shoulder at her. “Is that what you want?”

Warner moved in front of her, but she stopped him with a hand on his bicep. “No.”

“Then get rid of her.”

“I will.” She nodded slowly. “I’ll handle it. The housekeeper will come first thing tomorrow and scrub this place until it’s shining. Just promise me you’ll calm down.”

“Get out.”

Beau returned to his alcohol once they’d gone and the door was shut. He finished his drink off in one large gulp and poured another. Lola would’ve needed nerves of steel to pull a stunt like this with someone like him. He’d told Brigitte he never wanted to see Lola again—that wasn’t true. Not by a long shot. Just like anyone who screwed him over, Lola had to pay for this. And he wanted to be there when she did.

21

Beau wasn’t any calmer by his fourth drink. Slumped in a desk chair in his study, he’d replayed the entire evening twice already, more and more certain he’d been set up.

* * *

Lola had been quiet since they’d left the restaurant, and he could feel her eyes on him as he drove, even though his were focused out the windshield. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“What?”

Beau looked over at her. She was fidgeting with the cat ears in her lap. He still wasn’t sure how he felt about this whole thing, but she seemed more excited than he’d seen her in a while. “You’ve been staring at me.”

“Oh.” She paused. “I was just thinking about how this is our last night like this.”

“Like what?”

* * *

Beau drank more. She’d never answered him. Or if she had, he couldn’t remember what she’d said. The alcohol was making his brain mercifully fuzzy.

He’d centered his phone on the desk, staring at it. It never rang. He’d been toying with an idea, one he hadn’t been sure about, but with each drink it sounded better. He couldn’t sit there anymore and do nothing. He wanted to know where Lola was, where exactly she was going to undress, shower, lay her head tonight. It was unclear to him still what he’d do with that information, but at the very least, it would give him some of his power back.

He dialed a number he hadn’t used in a while. He’d already wasted enough time doing nothing.

A man answered. “I told you before—”

“I know what you told me,” Beau said, “but this time it’s personal. I need someone I can trust.” The line was silent. “Are you there?”

Detective Bragg hacked into the phone. “I’m here. All sixty-eight years of me.”

“I’ll make it worth your time.”