Don't Break This Kiss (Top Shelf Romance Book 5)

by Jessica Hawkins

  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.

  They were both getting what they deserved. Her, a chance to start over and find peace, and him—nothing. They couldn’t both win the game. She had to choose herself over Beau.

  Lola started the car. She didn’t have to go by Cat Shoppe on her way, but it would be her only glimpse of victory, even if it was through her black-tinted windows. She looped around and waited for a lull in traffic, then drove by the flashing, neon Girls sign. Beau paced the sidewalk, his eyes glued to Cat Shoppe’s front door. Had he understood, while being escorted out against his will, how little control he really had? Had he started to realize yet just how much he’d lost?

  Lola turned her eyes back to the road, pressed her high heel to the gas pedal and gunned it.

  She was out of town within half an hour.

  Chapter 46

  Tick.

  Tick.

  Tick.

  Beau didn’t remove his eyes from Cat Shoppe’s front door except to check his Rolex. Seconds slid by in a steady rhythm until almost ten minutes had passed. The bouncer sat on a stool, watching Beau pace like a caged tiger. He’d been instructed to remain twenty feet from the entrance.

  “I just want my girlfriend so I can get the fuck out of here,” Beau said across the sidewalk.

  “Any closer, and you’re leaving here in cuffs. Like I said, security didn’t take too kindly to your attitude.”

  Beau pulled his wallet from his suit jacket. “A hundred bucks if you get her out here for me.”

  The bouncer remained slumped on his seat, chewing gum like it was his job. After a few seconds, he shifted to unclip a radio from his belt. “What’s she look like?”

  “We arrived together. Black hair, tall.”

  He globed a hand in front of his chest. “I mean the titties—big? Small?”

  Beau glared. “Fuck you. That’s my girlfriend.”

  “Hey, I don’t mind the small ones. More of an ass man myself.” He chuckled, held the receiver to his mouth. “You got a read on the chick in the kitten ears?” He winked at Beau.

  Of course the doorman had noticed Lola, her black Burberry trench and red pout. He had a heartbeat, didn’t he? Beau tugged at the ends of his shirtsleeves, though what he really wanted to do was push them up, knock the fucker out along with the rest of the men in that place. They stood between Beau and something that was his. He would’ve barged back in to get to her, but that’d either l
and him in a hospital or a jail cell, and then he’d be leaving Lola alone with brutes. He wiped sweat from his hairline, an all too familiar feeling settling in him as the image of Lola with a gun under her chin flashed by.

  The radio shrieked with static. “It’s Kincaid. That was Lola Winters, worked here back in the day. We checked everywhere. She’s gone.”

  They looked at each other. Beau took a step closer. “Gone?”

  “You sure, boss?” the man asked. “She didn’t come out this way.”

  The LED Girls sign by the door burned into Beau’s retinas. He rubbed his eyes with stiff fingers, searched the sidewalk. The street was busy with cars. A group of people passed by, looking at him, none of them even remotely familiar—as if he’d exited the strip club onto another planet.

  Beau took out his phone, his adrenaline spiking when he saw that neither of his last two text messages to Lola had gone through.

  “She ain’t in here,” Kincaid said. “Must’ve gone out the back.”

  “There’s a backdoor?” Beau started toward the corner.

  “Yo—what about my money?” the doorman called after him.

  Beau broke into a jog, shouldering through a human cluster. Lola’d definitely promised to meet him out front. Had she needed a quick exit from security? Coming here had been a bad idea. Parking in back, where she was probably waiting in the dark, was a bad idea.

  His Lamborghini was in an end spot, close to the street. The only light was a distant sidewalk lamp. Not a person in sight. He looked in the passenger’s side window. He got onto his hands and knees to check underneath. She wasn’t there, or behind a nearby dumpster, or in the next building’s parking lot. He went to the backdoor and pulled on the handle, banged on the metal slab.

  He called her. A black shadow near the driver’s side door caught his eye—something hanging from the side mirror. He got closer, bending to see it better.

  After three melodic beeps over the line, he heard, “We’re sorry, you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error—”

  Beau ended the call and picked up Lola’s black kitten ears. On the glass was a red lipstick mark in the shape of a kiss. He looked between the headband and the mirror. The ears had been on her head. She’d been wearing red lipstick. Had Lola been outside at some point in the last fifteen minutes?

  He looked up suddenly. “Lola?” he called, her name fading instantly. “This isn’t funny. It’s not safe out here.”

  He turned in a circle. It wasn’t funny, but no part of him thought this was a joke. The strip club had been busy, but he hadn’t noticed a single person. Not one except her. That didn’t mean someone hadn’t noticed them. He tried to picture a face, anyone’s face, or something out of the ordinary. The only thing he saw was Lola’s back as she’d led him to the VIP room.

  He clutched the cat ears. He’d let security separate them. He shouldn’t’ve left her side, not without a fight. Someone might’ve hurt her, drugged her, taken her somewhere.

  He turned and kicked the dumpster. A metallic thud echoed around the lot, reminding him how empty it was. He paced the sidewalk, rubbing his temples. Think, think, think. He was used to remaining calm during a crisis, but his thoughts jumbled. His palms sweat. Her phone was disconnected—how long did that take? Could it be done in—? He checked his watch. Eighteen minutes?

  He beat the door with his fist until his palm began to throb, and finally, it cracked open with a heavy click. An older man peered at him. “What?”

  “Where is she?”

  “I told you already.” The man spit chewing tobacco on the sidewalk next to Beau’s feet. “She ain’t in here.”

  “She has to be. She’s not out here.” Beau took a threatening step closer. “You know her?”

  The man just looked him over. “Yeah. I’m the owner, Kincaid.”

  “So what the fuck happened tonight?”

  “Not my business. You take that up with her.” He went to shut the door, but Beau grabbed it, stopping it cold. Kincaid was short and squat, not nearly as meaty as the security guards.

  “Tell me, or I’ll get LAPD here within five minutes. I know the chief. You don’t want them sniffing around.”

  He shrugged. “Call them. I got nothing to hide. Maybe you ought to get the police on the phone anyway, because like I said ten times already, your girl isn’t in here. And I tell you, I got a real thing about possessive boyfriends. Don’t like them, don’t want them hanging around. Kind of a pet peeve I got.”

  Beau didn’t remove his hand from the door. He didn’t know the police chief personally, but he had a solid link to him. He wasn’t going to involve him, though, not yet anyway. He’d had a neighbor call the police on him once, when he and Brigitte had lived in a dump with thin walls, and she’d gotten hysterical over something. The officer’d arrived to find her calm and charming, and by the time he’d left, it was with her phone number. The police had done nothing for Beau that day or since, and they certainly wouldn’t give a fuck about a woman who’d gone missing from a strip club twenty minutes ago.

  “All right,” Beau said, lining up his options. “Okay. What do you want? Money?”

  Kincaid reeled slowly back, as if Beau’d offered him a bag of shit. “I want you to get the fuck off my property. That’s all we been telling you since the moment you touched her.”

  “Just tell me why. Why’d you kick me out?”

  Kincaid sighed, looked around the lot. “Something fishy here, but if it’ll get you to leave, I’ll tell you. Lola was here this afternoon, said she was bringing you by, said if you touched her, I should remove you. Treat you like any other customer, but I’ll be honest, the guys went easy on you. Weren’t really sure what we were dealing with.”

  Beau breathed through his nose, trying, failing, to put the pieces together. She’d arranged it beforehand, that he’d known, but why go through everything she did, from warning him not to touch her to begging him to? “If I find out she’s in there—”

  “She ain’t. She got a key to your place?”

  “Of course.”

  “Probably at home then. Good luck.” Kincaid pulled on the door, and Beau released it. He fumbled with his keys, got into his car and sat with his hands gripping the wheel. He shut his eyes and envisioned himself at the head of his boardroom faced with a problem. Everyone around the table, looking to him for the solution. Because there was an answer. He just needed to find it.

  Beau was no angel—he had enemies. Powerful ones. Business was their battlefield. It’d never crossed into personal territory for him—but perhaps he’d pissed off the wrong person.

  Beau opened his eyes and looked into the side mirror again, the lip mark plastered on his reflection. It seemed like a message that had nothing to do with business. It was a stretch, thinking someone had targeted Lola to get back at him. Those weren’t the kind of enemies he’d made, and Lola wasn’t a damsel in distress.

  Beau tried her cell again and got the same recording. He turned his phone over in his hand, checked the screen and battery. He dialed Warner as it occurred to him Lola might’ve contacted him for a ride.

  Beau spoke as soon as the line clicked. “Warner, have you heard from—”

  “—reached the voicemail of—”

  He hung up. Of all the days he could’ve given Warner off. He called the house, reasoning if Lola had left right after he’d seen her, she could be back there by now, but nobody answered.

  There was only one other place she could be, and the last place he wanted to go. He started the car, the engine waking up like a hungry lion. As he pulled out of the parking lot, he made another call.

  “Hey Joe.” It was a man, not difficult to figure out which one.

  Beau cursed silently. He wasn’t about to ask Lola’s ex-boyfriend if he’d seen her. Lola had talked about two other people she’d worked with, Amanda, who’d blown Johnny, and Veronica, a friend.

  “He
llo?” Johnny asked.

  “I’m calling for Veronica.”

  “One sec. Vero!”

  Beau waited through some shuffling until a woman came on the line. “Yeah?” she asked, already wary.

  “Is this Veronica?”

  “Who is this?”

  “I’m looking for Lola Winters. Have you seen her tonight?”

  Veronica grunted. “She doesn’t work here anymore.”

  “Have you seen her, though? Tonight? Is she there now?”

  “Now? I haven’t seen her since—”

  “Who is that?” Beau heard in the background, Johnny again.

  “Nobody,” Vero said. There was more rustling on the line. “Johnny, what—mind your own fucking business.”

  “Sounds like my business,” he said.

  “It’s not. Go pour a drink or something.”

  Beau was halfway between Hey Joe and Cat Shoppe now. He didn’t want to go in if he didn’t have to. No good would come from being in the same room with Johnny.

  “You still there?” Veronica asked after a few silent seconds.

  “You haven’t seen her since when?” Beau asked.

  “Since before she and Johnny broke up. I heard she was with you.”

  Beau glanced out his window. “You know who I am?”

  “You have a way of sticking out. How come you’re calling here asking for her when you know she don’t work here?”

  “You’re sure she’s not there? If she is, I need to talk to her. It’s important.”

  “I’d tell you if she were. I love her to death, that’s why I never want to see her in here again. She don’t belong.”

  Beau frowned. He wouldn’t like that either, Lola going to Hey Joe if she were in trouble. “If you see her, tell her to call me. It’s important.”

  “You said that already.” She sighed into the phone. “Look, I have to go. Johnny’s giving me the death stare.”