Obsession (Explicitly Yours 4)

8

Melody. Lola. Had he even fucking known her? Beau entered all his interactions with at least a small amount of cynicism and distrust. It’d served him well in affairs both business and personal. But Lola represented a time before he’d had to be that man. When she’d kicked a car outside of Hey Joe, he’d been just as attracted to her as he had seeing her on stage at Cat Shoppe. He should’ve walked away based on the fact that he hadn’t wanted to. Something in her blue eyes had kept him planted on that sidewalk, though. She’d inched closer and closer, peering at him in the dark, neon lights reflecting off her shiny black hair. Some predators stalked their prey. Others waited for their prey to come to them. In those few seconds as she’d approached him, he hadn’t been sure which one of them was predator and which was prey. Even before his money, he’d never had that feeling before. But he’d recovered quickly. He was Beau Olivier—and he was nobody’s dinner.

“Olivier.”

Beau looked up from the presentation binder in front of him. His business partner stood at the head of the conference table. Lawrence Thorne was the other half of Bolt Ventures, and one of the only people Beau trusted. But that was all their relationship’d ever been. Larry had a wife Beau knew from myriad events and two kids Beau’d only met once.

“Think you might want to wake the fuck up?” Lawrence asked. “It’s four in the afternoon.”

Their lawyer, Louis, rapped his pen on the table. “You’ve been silent the entire meeting. Since when do you have no comment on the fact that VenTech’s stock closed at a record low?”

Beau furrowed his eyebrows and turned the page to a graph labeled Potential Holdings Research Report—VenTech. The squiggly line had dipped far into the red. That always caught his attention, but he hadn’t noticed it in the twenty minutes they’d been sitting there. Instead, he’d been thinking about the former holding who’d taken a nosedive into disastrous territory.

“This was today?” Beau asked.

Louis nodded. “Word is, they’re done for.”

Beau looked at both of them. “Then let’s move.”

“We have people looking into it,” Larry said.

“I’m tired of waiting.” Beau’d been patient as always, and as always, it’d paid off. But he had his limits, and he was ready to pounce on VenTech, the company that’d bought his payment services website ten years ago and picked it apart until it was nothing more than a carcass. Now, Beau was in a position to save VenTech from bankruptcy. He wanted to look the founder, George Wright, in the eye, and tell him he owned him. He leaned forward on his elbows. “Draw up the offer.”

“You’re sure?” Larry asked. “Established companies aren’t really our thing.”

“VenTech is desperate. You know I’ve been tracking them for a long time. You promised me the day we partnered, Larry—you’d back me up on this.”

Larry nodded. “I did. And if this is what you need, I’m on board.”

“Good. Get the paperwork started.”

“Consider it done.” Louis reclined back in his seat, steepling his fingers. “So, you going to tell us whose call you’re expecting?”

Beau slid the binder away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Last time you were like this,” Louis said, “you were wooing a new company but wouldn’t tell us which one. You’ve been checking your phone like an addict waiting to hear about a fix. So who is it?”

Beau glanced in the direction of his office. If he moved now, he could have a drink in his hand in under sixty seconds. “It’s personal.”

Larry snorted. “Bullshit. What’s more important to you than this?”

“I don’t know,” Beau said, “maybe an ear infection?”

“You’re mad because I left in the middle of the day last week to take my kid to the ER?” Larry asked. “The fuck’s wrong with you, man?”

“I’m not mad.” Beau ran his hands through his hair. “I’m saying maybe I’ve got my own shit to deal with too, yet I’m here more than anyone else.”

“So take an afternoon off. You’re the one who wants to be here all the time.”

Louis nodded. “You don’t need anyone to tell you when you can go home for the day. You got plenty of underlings around here who live to pick up the slack.”

None of this was news to Beau. Larry had started going home at five a couple years ago, and the office had survived. Thrived, even, without one more opinion in the mix.

“I’ll be honest, Beau.” Larry shut his laptop and sat. “You look like shit. Even more than when we’re going through a rough acquisition. I think productivity might pick up if you take your gloomy ass out to a matinee or something. Treat yourself to a haircut while you’re at it.”

“Fuck you, Thorne,” Beau said, but his heart wasn’t in it.

Larry just smiled.

Beau reached in his jacket for his phone but stopped when Larry and Louis exchanged a glance. He didn’t need to check it anyway. He tested his ringer several times a day, and it was working fine. He’d ignored two calls from Brigitte that morning just out of sheer anger that it hadn’t been Detective Bragg calling.

It’d been eight goddamn days since Lola had left. If this was a game for Lola, she hadn’t left him a single clue. The leather pants and T-shirt she’d worn the night he’d met her were gone, but other than that, he didn’t know what else she’d taken with her. Nothing he’d bought her, except what she’d been wearing that night. Bragg was also frustrated. He’d had better luck tracking down criminals with actual reasons to hide. Criminals who preyed on young, beautiful women traveling alone with lots of cash.

Beau was always hot lately, but with that thought, warmth traveled to his feet and scalp. Waking up with Lola, coming home to her—it’d been a new, irregular world, but she’d centered him. Now, a week later, he didn’t even know if she was dead or alive. That seemed unfair. If anyone should get to decide her fate, it should be him. He at least wanted that choice again.