Night Edge (2 page)

She shook her head. “Not yet.”

“That’s not what I’m getting at. Tonight, I’m all yours. I’ll shut off my phone, and we can talk and catch up. All night long, if that’s what it takes.”

Lola pulled back a little. “But you have to work in the morning.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ve done it before, if you recall.”

Lola narrowed her eyes. The corner of her lip twitched. “Aren’t you getting a little old to pull so many all-nighters?”

He laughed, slapping her rear end lightly. “Sounds like you don’t think I can do it. Is that a challenge, Miss Winters?” He released her and walked away, disappearing into the pantry.

She gave in to her smile. “Does that always work on you?”

“What?” he called.

“Well, for example—if I were to tell you I don’t believe you can do laundry, would you do it just to prove me wrong?”

“I do laundry just fine.” Beau came out with a bag of ground beans. “I’m going to put a pot on. Let’s move this to the couch.”

Lola took the coffee from him. “I’ll make this. I’m sure you’re dying to get out of your suit.”

He kissed her quickly on the lips and brushed a lock of her hair from her forehead. “Have I said how much I love having you around to take care of me?”

Lola caught herself grinning after he’d left the kitchen and quickly wiped the smile from her face. She had an entire, uninterrupted night to worm her way into his heart. And he wasn’t going to lay a hand on her. For as obstinate as he could be, Beau wasn’t as difficult to move around the playing board as she would’ve thought.

Once the coffee was ready, she poured two mugs and met Beau in his den. It was the only room besides his that was remotely comfortable, and while he rarely spent any time in there, she frequently did.

Lola sat beside him on the couch and handed him his drink. He clinked his mug with hers. “To keeping my dick in my pants another night—Lord knows it isn’t easy.”

She laughed and pushed his shoulder. “I’m not drinking to that.”

“All right.” He winked. “To quality time.”

They both took a sip, and she set her cup on the coffee table. She scooted closer to him and ran her fingers over his hairline, just above his ear. “So, why was it such a long day?”

“I don’t want to talk about work.” He readjusted to face her better. “What’d you do today?”

“Slept in.”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “You don’t say. Then what?”

“I read the newspaper. Looked up some stuff online. Before I knew it, it was almost time to start dinner, so I went grocery shopping.”

“Sounds nice.” He cleared his throat and rubbed her knee. “It makes me happy that you don’t have to work. But have you thought about doing something more…um—doing something else with your free time?”

Lola rolled her lips together. Of course she’d thought about it. She was bored all the fucking time wandering around this shell he called a home or going shopping for things she knew she’d have to leave behind. She wanted a job, and not just because she knew a million dollars wouldn’t last forever. But there was no point in getting one when she was leaving soon.

“I’ve thought about it a little,” Lola said. “It’s just so nice not to have to bust my ass cleaning up after drunk idiots anymore.”

“You were wasting your potential at Hey Joe. I knew it the minute I walked into that dump.”

She cocked her head. “But I have no other skills.”

“Go back to school.” His eyes lit up, and he shifted his body even more toward her. “I have connections at UCLA and USC. It wouldn’t be a problem to set you up there.”

Lola felt a little like moving away from him, but she stayed where she was. It was Beau’s kneejerk response to any problem—how could his money and status solve it so he didn’t have to?

“I suppose you’d also be willing to pay my way,” she said.

“Why wouldn’t I?” He shrugged. “Look, I’d have absolutely no problem with you staying home every day and doing nothing if I thought it’d make you happy. Plenty of guys I know have wives who do that and go to expensive luncheons every month so they can call themselves philanthropists.” He sipped his coffee. “That’s not you, though. You can do whatever you want now. You never let yourself have dreams and aspirations before, but there’s nothing holding you back anymore.”

Lola also picked up her mug and took a drink, hiding her face for a moment. If he kept pushing her, everything she’d been thinking lately might come pouring out. There were lots of things she wanted to do, and going back to school was one of them. She’d been debating between majoring in graphic design or business. Maybe both. She wasn’t limited—she could be a goddamn mechanic if she wanted. But she wasn’t focusing on herself yet. It was Beau’s time in the spotlight.

She changed the subject. “What if there’re other things I want to do first?”

Beau settled back, crossing his arms. “Such as?”

“I want to travel. I’ve never been past Vegas.”

Beau nodded approvingly. “Where should we go? Paris? Bali? New York City?”

She hadn’t lied earlier—she really had spent a good portion of her day kicking back, researching things to do around the country. “That’s a little ambitious. Did you know the world’s largest ball of twine is right here in the United States?”

“It’s nothing to write home about.”

She smirked. “You haven’t seen it.”

“You’re right, I haven’t. Big balls don’t do anything for me. But if they impress you, I can show you a couple—”

“Don’t even.” Lola rolled her eyes, grinning.

“You have the whole world to choose from, and you pick—where’d you say this ball was?”

“Kansas. Where would you go if you were me?”

“I’ve been a lot of places. For me, it’s less about what I’m seeing than how it makes me feel.”

“So what’s made you feel?”

“Hard to say. There’s so much to choose from.” Beau blinked away, drank a little coffee. He looked into his mug.

Lola studied him. He seemed to forget she was there for a moment. “What are you thinking about?” she asked.

He glanced up. “The last trip we took as a family before my dad died was the Grand Canyon. Standing there, the world seemed so big. So many possibilities. It was the first time I started to think I could do something with my life. If there were things out there like the Grand Canyon I still didn’t know existed, then there must be a way for me to find them.”

“Always so serious,” Lola murmured. She laced her fingers with his. If she ever came across a little boy like the one Beau had been, she vowed to buy him an ice cream or tell him a dirty joke. There were consequences to taking oneself so seriously. “Have you been back?”

“Yes.” He glanced down at their hands. “After I sold my first company, the same night I met you, I doubted myself. I wasn’t sure which way to turn. I drove to Arizona and looked out at the Grand Canyon, waiting for answers. A place like that really makes you realize how little control you have. But it also puts things in perspective.”

“I get the feeling keeping perspective hasn’t really been an issue for you.”

“Not usually. It helps to separate emotion from most things.” Beau took Lola’s mug from her, set their drinks on the coffee table and looked at her. “Don’t think I don’t realize how lucky I am. I almost lost you because of pride, but you gave me a second chance and saved me from a lifetime of regret.”

Lola let herself get lost in the comforting green of his eyes. Tonight, she was one half of a normal couple. How could Beau not see right through her? Hear the undercurrent of her distrust in everything she said?
She
was the one left with regret—regret that he’d made her do this. And that she’d never get to witness his suffering.

He leaned in to touch his lips to the bow of hers and made his way around her mouth with light, gentle kisses. She could’ve told him right then that she loved him, and it wouldn’t be a lie. But the closer they got to the end, and to each other, the more afraid she became that saying it aloud would feel too good.

His hands were on her cheeks now. His patience unnerved her. “I’m hungry, Lola,” he said so softly, she almost missed it.

“I’ll heat up your dinner.” She went to pull away, but he kept her there.

“Not for food.” He ran the pad of his thumb along her bottom lip. “I want to know you inside out. And for you to want the same from me.”

“I do.”

“Do you?”

“It’s not a race, Beau. Be patient.”

“I am. We have all night.”

That was almost true. Lola wasn’t sure who fell asleep first, just that it happened sometime before the sun came up, after they’d talked and talked about everything and nothing in particular.

Around dawn, Beau stirred. Lola squeezed him closer with her arm, not ready to lose his warmth. “Stay,” she murmured.

“It’s almost six.”

“Take the day off.”

He kissed the top of her head and raked his fingers through her hair. “I can’t. Not right now.”

Lola sighed deeply. She was already drifting back to sleep when he moved her arms and shifted her aside so he could stand.

“Want me to take you upstairs?” he asked.

“I’m fine here.” Her eyes were still closed. She felt around for a pillow to take Beau’s place, yawned and burrowed into it. “Have a good day, honey.”

The room was quiet a moment, and she assumed he’d left. Then he said, “You’ve never called me by anything other than my name.”

It took her a moment to realize she wasn’t dreaming. Lola blinked her eyes open. She got up on an elbow and squinted at him. “What? What’d I call you?”

“Honey.”

Beau’s hair stuck up on one side from sleeping against the arm of the couch, and his eyelids were heavy. Light was just beginning to filter through the blinds. Lola couldn’t remember how she’d gotten there and what she was supposed to be doing.

Beau came back to the couch and squatted to kiss her on the forehead. “It’s nice waking up with you. My day can only go downhill from here.”

He stood, but Lola grabbed his arm. “Then stay with me.”

He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it. “Call me when you get up. We can get lunch.”

He let go and left the den. Lola rubbed her eyes and watched through the door as he climbed the stairs toward his bedroom. It’d been a nice moment, but it was cut short by Beau’s devotion to the only thing that had his loyalty—his work. Business. The empire he looked down upon from his office in the sky.

And then Lola remembered where she was and how she’d gotten there.

Chapter Three

Present day

Twelve hours, thirty-one minutes, eleven seconds. That was how much time had passed since Beau’d hung up the phone with Detective Bragg. Lola had been missing even longer. She wasn’t missing, though. She was just gone. Beau couldn’t wrap his head around how easily she’d erased herself from his life. Between disappearing without a trace and Brigitte cleaning out Lola’s things, it was as if she’d never even been there. She had, though, and once he found her, this uneasy feeling she’d left him with would finally go away.

Beau rubbed his eyes with tense fingers, the air in his office stale. She’d told him once she’d never been past Vegas. There was a whole fuck-of-a-lot beyond that. Every minute that went by, she got farther away from him. He wouldn’t even entertain the notion that her first stop might’ve been LAX airport—he couldn’t take on the rest of the world right then.

Beau finally got some relief when his cell vibrated on his desk, Bragg’s name popping up. He answered it. “How far did she get?”

“I got nothing.”

Beau’s grip tightened. He didn’t have the brain capacity to accept that Bragg might fail him. Bragg was a go-to man, someone who’d made a decent living making things happen. “I’m sorry, can you repeat that? I thought you said you have nothing.”

“It’s what I said. Went to Cat Shoppe last night and talked to Kincaid, the owner. After a chunk of cash that I’m tacking onto your bill, I finally got him to show me the surveillance tape. That’s some show your girl put on for you.”

Beau’s gut smarted as though he’d been punched. “You watched?”

“Don’t get shy on me, Olivier.” Bragg chuckled into the phone. “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? Leave no stone unturned? I see what the fuss is about, though.”

“Get to the point.” It’d been his last intimate moment with Lola, her dancing on stage just for him, but now two greasy old men had shared in it too. That was the fucking goodbye gift Lola had given him.

“After security removed you, Lola talked to a girl, but she swears up and down Lola didn’t tell her nothing. Just needed help getting the backdoor open.”

“So she walked out the back. Then what?”

“Some brief indistinguishable activity by your car and then poof. Gone.”

“What, in a car? Bicycle? Come on, Bragg—this is rookie shit.”

“It look to you like I got a crystal fucking ball? I only see as far as the camera does, and it stops in the parking lot.”

“What about the owner? What’s he know?”

“Said she used to work for him, and she stopped by earlier that day to arrange the VIP room. Paid him a lot in cash. That was all he’d give me. Not sure if he knows more—bouncer said he’s protective of his girls.”

Beau leaned his knuckles on his desk. “I got the same thing from him.”

“Only reason he showed me the tapes was because I threatened to get the police involved. Didn’t seem too bothered about it until I flashed my old badge.”

Lola was too good. She must’ve considered Beau might go after her, and she hadn’t left him any obvious clues except the ones on his car. He pushed off his desk and turned to look out the window. “What about Hey Joe?”

“Yeah. Bit of a confrontation there. You spoke to Veronica?”

“Lola’s friend.”

“Says she hasn’t spoken to Lola since she left Hey Joe, and I believe her. But the ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend really don’t like me there—he starts pushing my buttons.”

Beau cocked his head. “His girlfriend?”

“Skanky thing.”

“Amanda?”

“Yeah, that’s her. Her lip curls just hearing Lola’s name. Anyway, I had to rough Johnny up a little.”