by Chloe Cox
“Roman…”
“Do you agree?”
“What?”
He laughed outright now. “Tell Stella to make it the greatest show on earth. We have to fight a publicity war now. You two can organize, simply give us the dates.”
“Sure,” she breathed, and moved her leg to give him better access. It didn’t matter: he was just torturing her. His finger teased her, grazing her flesh at will, giving her no release.
Some part of her was amazed. Some part of her kept thinking, He can make you do anything.
“Give me wine,” he said.
She looked around—there were just the specially shaped carafes, like scientific beakers with long spouts. Roman had poured an elegant stream of wine into his mouth from a great distance. Lola didn’t want to be outdone.
She picked up the carafe and tipped it from a few feet, pouring the wine in a long arc into Roman’s open mouth. She even knew when to stop. She felt somehow even more servile, even more…
His submissive.
“Very good,” he said, and the arm he had wrapped around her waist moved briefly to give her a pat her ass.
“You shmuck,” she said, smiling.
“You liked it,” he countered, and tweaked both her nipples. “There. That’s better. I want you to be properly adorned when the waiter arrives.”
“The what?”
But there was already a knock on the wooden frame. Lola startled like a frightened bird, and looked at the flimsy rice paper door that separated them—and her nakedness—from the rest of the restaurant.
Of course the waiter would be coming by. Of course. It was a freaking restaurant.
“I know this place,” Roman said.
The door slid open. The young waiter gawked. Roman said, very calmly, very firmly, “Come in and close the door.”
Lola clung to Roman. She was simultaneously furious and thrilled. She felt like she was on display—well, not felt like, she absolutely was on display—and at the same time completely safe. She didn’t doubt for a second that Roman would break any number of laws to protect her.
“Give us the Catalan omakase,” Roman said, handing the speechless young waiter a wad of cash. “And tell the rest of your colleagues not to come by this room, yes?”
The young man, all of about twenty, stared open mouthed at Lola. Somehow it made her feel…powerful. She tightened her grip on Roman’s neck, and extend one leg across his lap.
He squeezed her leg in approval.
“Yes sir,” the waiter finally said.
“You won’t want to draw attention to us, will you?” Roman asked. It was technically a question, but he used the Dom voice. So really, no human mortal could actually question it. Lola smiled into his neck.
“No, sir,” quavered the poor waiter.
“Good. Close the door behind you.”
Lola heard the door slide shut. The room next door was full of chatter, oblivious to what Lola and Roman might be up to. They were alone.
“Dinner will arrive in twenty minutes,” Roman said, unwinding her arms from around his neck and pushing sideways onto the cushions so that she lay down, her exposed pussy facing him. “I want to work up an appetite.”
Lola started to protest, but felt his big hands pin her one useful arm uselessly behind her back. She looked back at him, unable to keep herself from smiling. “You are unbelievable,” she said.
“You have no idea,” he said, unzipping his fly.
“You are really going to fuck me here,” she gasped.
“Yes,” he said. “And I’m going to fuck you well.”
One hand came around her front, greedily fondling her breasts, as he came into position. “Don’t make too much noise,” he said with a smile.
And then he pushed into her. She gasped, not quite believing he would do it. He was fucking her sideways in the middle of a restaurant. He expected her to keep quiet, while all of him—all of him—thrust into her.
He thrust again, even deeper, feeling larger than he ever had because of their position, her legs nearly crossed in front of her, and she couldn’t help it: she cried out.
The conversation in the adjacent room stopped. Lola bit the soft flesh on her upper left arm. Roman pumped harder. He leaned over her, and whispered in her ear.
“If I have to pay more in bribes because you were too loud,” he said between thrusts, “I think we will have to do this all over again.”
Lola buried her face to keep from crying out, smiling despite her best efforts. No other man had been able to make her laugh and come at the same time.
chapter 11
Roman checked his watch for the third time, and wondered again what Lola was doing.
Rather, he wondered about various ways he could do Lola.
It was maddening. Here he was, having lunch with the very pretty, very obviously curious reporter that Ford had set him up with, and still all he could think about was Lola. Lola’s eyes. Her legs. Her ass. The way she looked when she came.
“So tell me about your wife,” Denise Nelson said.
Roman felt like he’d been hit.
That word—wife. It was a word he hadn’t used much in recent years. It was a word that made him think of Samantha. It always took him a moment to realize that now people meant Lola.
“Did I say something wrong?” Denise asked.
“No, of course not,” Roman said.
Denise Nelson gave him a long, thoughtful look. She was sharp—her questions so far had indicated that she knew exactly what the situation was with Harold Jeels, and she knew exactly why Roman had agreed to an interview. She wouldn’t be an easy ally, nor would she allow herself to be manipulated. Roman had to make sure that it was genuinely in her best interests to write stories that helped Volare.
He got the sense that she smelled blood.
“You were married before, weren’t you?” Denise asked.
Roman tensed. This was exactly the sort of conversation he wanted to avoid. “I do not think that is relevant,” he said.
“Of course it’s relevant. It was a tragic story.”
“You do not think it is poor taste to discuss my late first wife when asking about my current wife?” He was beginning to lose his patience.
“I think it’s interesting that when I asked about your wife, you thought of Samantha Casta.”
Roman laughed bitterly, even though he felt like he’d just been punched in the gut. He couldn’t help it. He’d just wondered how he could get himself to stop thinking about Lola constantly, like it was some sort of addiction, a weakness, and here was a journalist claiming that he couldn’t stop thinking about Samantha.
The terrible thing was that he hadn’t thought about Samantha as much, since he and Lola… No. Samantha was never far from his thoughts. But it was true, undeniably true, that he hadn’t felt the weight of grief and guilt as heavily as he once did. What did that mean? What did that make him?
Why did it take a nosy journalist to point that out to him?
Roman shifted in his chair. He didn’t know what to do with that realization. He felt nauseous with guilt.
Why?
“Have you ever lost someone close to you, Ms. Nelson?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Are they ever completely gone from your thoughts? Do they just vanish?”
Denise looked at her uneaten salad and said, “Fair point. But this is a human interest story, Mr. Casta—”
“Call me Roman.”
Denise smiled, the first sign of pleasure he’d seen from her. She was trying too hard to be the hard-nosed journalist, and then in moments like this she revealed…something. Perhaps more than a professional interest in Volare.
“All right, Roman,” she said. “Samantha’s death is part of the public record, because it was so sudden. There was that inquest. A congenital heart defect, something no one could have known about, if I remember correctly. But there were reports that just before she died—”
“You may call me
Roman,” he interrupted, “But know that if you ask me about my first wife’s death again, this interview will be over, and I will speak candidly with your toughest competitor instead.”
The silence fell thickly, leaving Roman’s threat hanging in the air between them. This was a very real boundary. He would not tolerate speculation on the circumstances surrounding his wife’s death. He did that enough on his own, and he knew the answers would only cause more pain. Nobody else needed to feel responsible, and he certainly didn’t want Lola to have to endure this kind of comparison. He could shoulder that burden himself.
Denise nodded her apology, raising her hands in mock surrender. She said, “I thought you hated Sizzle now.”
A peace offering.
“I do not have the best of luck with journalists, it seems.”
“Maybe I can break your streak,” Denise said. She smiled at him over her glass of wine.
Roman sighed. Yes, she definitely had more than just a professional interest. He would have to manage this carefully—he didn’t know what the best protocol was when a flirtatious journalist interviewed one’s new, fake wife who was also one’s new submissive, but he’d better figure it out before he put this woman in the same room as Lola.
Lola. Damn. Again, an image came to mind, unbidden: Lola naked, looking at him over her shoulder, while he…
“Roman?”
He shook his head. He couldn’t believe it. He’d gone from grieving thoughts of Samantha to…
He was gripped with a sudden certainty: he had to get out this restaurant. He had to find Lola.
He said, “Ms. Nelson—”
“Denise.”
Roman rose. “Denise. We will have to finish this interview another time.”
“What? When?”
“Soon. And I will make sure Lola is present as well. You will get a better story that way, no?”
“I don’t know what kind of story I’m going to write yet, Roman,” she said.
“I hope that isn’t a threat.”
“No, just a fact.”
Roman laughed again, though his mind was spinning. In spite of himself, he liked this woman Denise Nelson. The combination of strength and intelligence reminded him of the two women he could not apparently stop thinking about: Samantha and Lola.
Samantha and Lola. Roman gripped the back of his chair so hard his knuckles turned pale.
“Very fair, Denise,” he said, taking her hand. “I promise you will get a better interview.”
He didn’t wait for a response. He needed fresh air, needed something to ground him, something to put what he was feeling into context. He was already out onto the street, striding up the avenue just to keep moving, barely noticing the other pedestrians who hurried out of his way when his phone rang.
It was a call he had to take.
“Chance,” he said.
“Hey buddy, how goes?” Chance Dalton’s voice was punctuated by static, a sure sign of a bad connection.
“You have not been keeping up with New York news,” Roman said dryly.
“Nah, should I? Listen, I only have a minute, but I wanted to tell you I’m wrapping up here early. I have some maybe big news for you, but I don’t want to blow it until I’m sure. Just tell me the L.A. Volare is still on,” Chance said.
Roman knew that this was where he should tell Chance about Lola. About the sham marriage. There should be nothing difficult about explaining that situation to Chance.
But that would be dishonest, because it wasn’t entirely a sham. He was fucking Lola. He was fucking his best friend’s cousin, the woman he’d been charged with looking out for. He was apparently obsessed with fucking her.
It was still all he could think about. If he let his mind wander, there she was. Lola. Even when he should be grieving his dead wife, even when…
And that was not something he cared to explain over a difficult satellite connection while Chance was on a break in some desolate warzone, doing God knew what to provide security. That was something he needed to say in person. He could at least give Chance the opportunity to beat the shit out of him.
“The L.A. location is proceeding ahead,” Roman said.
It was a lie of omission, the kind that offended Roman the most, since it seemed cowardly, and yet necessary under the circumstances. Roman couldn’t imagine leaving Lola in New York under the present circumstances, and yet there was no one else to run the L.A. club.
“Good! We’re gonna have to talk about that when I get in.”
“When you get in?”
“I’m coming to New York, buddy!” Chance shouted. “I’ll see you in a couple of weeks!”
Roman stopped in his tracks, forming an immovable island in the current of New York city pedestrians. The connection was gone; Chance had hung up.
The hunger came upon him like a brutal, unreasoning tide, and he no longer cared that it didn’t make sense, or that he should feel guilty about it. Right now, he had to see Lola.
He took off running.
chapter 12
Lola was vaguely aware of a maelstrom of activity around her, with her at the relatively peaceful eye of the storm, but she wasn’t paying much attention. Luckily, she didn’t have to; the wedding planner Stella had brought in, a tiny blonde woman named Dagmar who never smiled, constantly talked into her headset, and probably could have organized an invasion of Europe in an afternoon if a client asked her to, was a blur of activity. Dagmar and Stella had herded her into some fancy wedding dress place, and were in the process of winnowing down dress choices. They barely needed Lola at all.
Which was good, because Lola had a lot to think about.
Three more texts from Ben.
Each more apologetic than the last.
Each one saying exactly the things she wanted to hear.
Each one begging to see her.
Rationally, she should tell him to go fuck himself. Maybe. On the other hand, Lola had been making herself crazy for months, wondering why he’d done it, why she’d been so easy to lie to, why, why, why. And there had been no answers. She had finally accepted that she would never get any answers.
And then here came Ben, offering to give her those answers.
Maybe.
And she couldn’t help but think that maybe if she got those answers, Roman wouldn’t be able to drive her so crazy. That maybe, if she got that closure, she wouldn’t be so vulnerable to Roman.
Because she was sure feeling incredibly vulnerable.
“Hey, bride lady!” Stella said, waving a hand in front of Lola’s face. “You know we’re picking out your wedding dress over here, right?”
Lola snapped out of it. She looked down at Ben’s last text—Please just for coffee, you don’t even have to speak to me. Just let me apologize—and thought, fuck it.
She typed: Ok. Coffee. And hit send.
“Sorry,” Lola said. “I just had something I had to take care of. It’s not a real wedding, Stella, so, you know. Whatever. Where are we?”
“Dagmar has narrowed it down to a couple of choices,” Stella said.
Dagmar’s head snapped up from her tablet. “Also you must choose a theme. I will pick location, decorations, etcetera. You leave it all to me. I get press, I get magazine pictures.”
Dagmar waved her hand in the air like a conductor, and went back to her tablet, muttering something into her headset.
A terrible thought occurred to Lola, and she groaned. “Um, guys—I know the point is publicity, but we can’t compromise the identities of our members. How…how is that going to work, exactly?”
“Is no problem,” Dagmar said, not even looking up. “Mask. Costume. Venice. Carnival.”
Stella giggled. “Eyes Wide Shut.”
“Very hush hush,” Dagmar said, apparently not getting the joke. “Very exclusive. Magazines love.”
Lola marveled. The woman didn’t even have time to speak in full sentences. “Stella, where did you find her?”
“I know, right? She’s like
the special ops of wedding planners. She’s already picked out something for you to try on. They’ll have it out in a minute.”
“I don’t even need to be here do I?”
Stella smiled. “Well, except for the tiny detail of actually trying it on, no. Hey, listen, you ok?”
Lola tried to laugh it off. “Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”
“I just thought, you know, this wedding stuff, with the way you feel about Roman…”
“The way I used to feel,” Lola corrected. She even hoped it was true. She had trouble figuring out how she felt about Roman now—her mind usually stopped working completely as soon as she saw him. It was maybe better to just rush ahead and not stop to think too much, like the way circus people ran across tightropes. If she stopped to think, she’d plummet.
Ok, so keep moving, then. Change the subject.
“I was just distracted because I keep getting these texts from Ben.”
“Oh, honey.” Stella gave her a one-armed hug. “Bad?”
“I don’t know. He wants to talk.”
“Do you?”
“I think so. Is that a terrible idea?” Lola asked. She really had no idea if she was making a mistake.
Stella shrugged. “I dunno, I’m not an expert. I was kind of a disaster before I got lucky and you hooked me up with Bashir. But it does seem like some break ups are tougher than others, and this one is, um, pretty bad. Maybe it’s like tipping over a vending machine—you have to give it a few shoves and build up some momentum before it really takes.”
“So you’re saying talk to him and give him one final shove?”
“Metaphorically,” Stella said. Then she thought about it. “Or not. I’m ok with literally shoving him, too.”
Lola laughed and gave her friend a big two-armed hug. “You are basically the best, you know that?”
“Tell me that after you go through with this wedding.”
“The dress,” Dagmar said, looking up from her tablet.
Two smiling assistants had indeed come back with a dress. Lola was overwhelmed by yards of sculptured white silk, afraid to even touch something that pretty. She couldn’t imagine actually wearing it.