by Cox, Chloe
That word—“cowardly”—it looked like it had actually hurt him to say it. Lola smiled at him gently and tried to get a word in edgewise. “Roman, you don’t—”
He stood up. “No.”
There was Roman freaking Casta. Even when exhausted, scared, hurt, and vulnerable, that tone sent a shiver down her spine. That voice shouldn’t be legal. He should have to register that voice.
“I know what my obligations are. I will explain in time,” he said, standing over her, still holding her hands in just one of his. The other smoothed down her hair, gently petting her. “But now you have to rest. How can I make you feel safe enough to sleep?”
Lola wasn’t sure she wanted to forgive him—and, worse, she wasn’t sure that, even if she wanted to, she could make herself trust him again—but when he said that, one, perfect thing became clear.
“Stay,” she said.
“Always,” he said.
Something in Lola twinged at that word, “always,” but she was too tired to examine it. She let him pull back the covers and tuck her in, taking ridiculous care to make sure she was perfectly comfortable. He even fluffed her pillows. But when he bent down to kiss her forehead and put his hand next to her pillow, Lola surprised herself by taking his hand.
And then she pulled him down to the bed next to her. Roman didn’t say anything; he just wrapped her in his arms and held her until she fell asleep.
When Lola woke up, Roman wasn’t there. But about three million post-it notes were.
One on the nightstand. One on what had been, briefly, his side of the bed. One on the blankets. She could see from the bed that there was one on the bathroom door. She squinted her bleary eyes and read the one on her nightstand.
I haven’t left. I’m making you a better breakfast than the last one. -Roman
Hmm.
That had the unfortunate effect of reminding her of what had happened the last time she had gotten excited about Roman making her breakfast. Had that really been only yesterday? It felt like a million years ago. It felt like another dimension.
By the time Lola was done in the bathroom, she had thoroughly replayed all the worst moments from the day before like a particularly grotesque highlight reel of the most hurtful moments of her life. She was right back to having a broken heart. The truth was that she did believe all those things that Ben had said, and she had believed those things even before Ben had said them. Or maybe it was more accurate to say that she had feared them. Whatever the case, they now loomed in front of her, real and true and inviolate.
Roman wasn’t in love with her. Roman would never be in love with her.
Roman wanted her to see other people for her own good.
Roman had lied to her, all over again, about a second Volare location in LA. Roman had been planning to move to freaking Los Angeles, and he hadn’t told her.
The worst-case scenario: Roman had known that she was in love with him, and he’d done all those things anyway.
Actually, maybe that wasn’t the worst-case scenario. If that were actually, incredibly true, then Roman wasn’t the man she’d thought he was, and she could see a way to getting over him. Maybe.
She hesitated at the bedroom door, watching him make—was that French toast? Oh God, it smelled heavenly. So he had at least one more surprise up his sleeve. Lola knew that part of her was eager to build up an impregnable case against Roman because that would make it easier to run from him. From everything. From the whole messy situation. But if she were being reasonable, she’d have to admit that the man she’d known for ten years hadn’t just morphed into a total complete bastard overnight.
This had to be complicated. Of course it did.
She was still just so tired.
“You’re awake,” Roman said, smiling, and offered her a plate of French toast.
Lola tried to smile back. Now she was the one who was completely unsure of her footing. Really she had no idea what was going on, and the anxiety was starting to build. Roman had fucked with her head far too much, and holding her through a very scary night didn’t fix it. She couldn’t let herself depend on a guy who might dump her at any moment.
She stared at the delicious, golden brown French toast.
“No, thanks,” she said.
Which was insane. She was starving.
“Is something wrong with it?” Roman asked. “I’ll make you something else. We can order out. What would you like?”
“No! I don’t… Oh shit, Roman, I can’t do this,” Lola said, knowing she sounded crazy. She threw her hands up in the air anyway. “I can’t eat your French toast!”
Roman paused. Then he put down the plate and turned off the burner. “This is not about French toast, is it?”
“Yes,” she said sadly. “Or no. Whatever.” She thought for a moment, then darted in, grabbed the plate, and retreated to the couch. She decided to ignore Roman’s smile.
“Lola, give me a chance to say what I came here to say,” he said. “It might help.”
“Oh no, it’s not going to help,” she said, viciously tearing a bite out of the most obnoxiously good French toast she’d ever had. “It’s going to confuse me. You’re going to say something amazing, and it’s going to make me think that the impossible is possible, and then somewhere down the line I’ll be right back here. Only it will be worse.”
There was a silence. Long enough that eventually Lola braved a glance at Roman. He was watching her, the sleeves of his wrinkled shirt rolled up, his collar open, his hair a mess. She knew she shouldn’t do it, she knew it was a losing proposition, but she met his eyes. The sadness she saw there made her forget everything she’d just said.
“You have every right to expect that,” he said quietly. “I have made many, many errors in judgment, most of them born of arrogance. Some from…cowardice, of a kind.”
He still couldn’t say that word without looking like he’d sucked on a lemon. Lola knew it was anathema to him, to every single one of his values, and part of her really wanted to hear what made him think he’d been a coward.
Roman came toward her and knelt in front of her, the way he’d done the previous night. She groaned. She was supposed to make reasonable decisions with Roman Casta kneeling in front of her?
None of this was fair.
“You don’t know the kind of power you have over me,” she whispered. “It’s not fair.”
“I do,” he said, fiercely. “I do not expect you to believe me yet, but holy mother of God, Lola, I do. You hold that power over me. No, listen to me, please,” he pleaded.
Lola had closed her eyes. For him, she opened them, even though she knew she shouldn’t.
She’d never seen him look like that. Stricken. Desperate. Urgent.
His voice was ragged and raw. He said, “I came here to apologize for what Chance called my colossal fuck-up, and to explain why I made such a mistake. Why I…chose to hurt you, in the name of protecting you. I’m going to tell you, but I do not expect you to believe me, not yet. Today I’m going to tell you, and then I’m going to spend the week showing you.”
“The week before our wedding?” she asked, smiling so she wouldn’t cry.
“If you still want to have one,” he said.
Wait. What? What the hell does that mean?
“Oh my God, Roman, just tell me already,” she said. She was already wiping away a tear, and the knots in her stomach weren’t even proper knots anymore—they had become full-on nests of anxiety.
He kissed her hands and looked back up into her eyes. This time, he was smiling. “I can’t help but be happy, Lola. I’m in love with you. I don’t know for how long, but I think for a very long time. You are my home.”
Roman leaned forward and kissed her. He was gentle, and tender, until he wasn’t, and the hunger in his kiss brought back every moment of physical pleasure he’d brought her so far. She was melting into a puddle as he pulled away.
“I won’t ask anything of you now,” he said. “I intend to earn what I want
from you. I’ve called Stella, and she is already on her way here to help you for the day. Someone will be here whenever you want. And you will hear from me soon.”
He leaned forward again and kissed both of her cheeks and her forehead, murmuring, “I love you, Lola.”
She watched in a kind of half-stupor as he gathered his things. She didn’t snap out of it until he turned to give her one last, lustful look, and she saw her Dom. Her heart lurched in her chest, and she remembered why she was so nervous.
“Wait, Roman,” she said. “You said you have to earn what you want. What is it that you want from me?”
He grinned. “Forever.”
chapter 27
Stella was no help at all.
Lola said, “Tell me what he’s planning, Stella Spencer, or I swear to God…”
Stella ducked a pillow. “I can’t! No, I’m not being cute, I actually can’t. Bashir won’t tell me,” she said, darkly.
Lola remembered that this was apparently a big rule violation for Bashir. Given Bashir’s training in reading minute facial expressions and the powers of perception that it often gave him, Stella had instituted a reciprocity rule: she wouldn’t wear a creepy Kabuki face mask all day long if Bashir promised to be totally open with her in return.
But Bashir was definitely involved in something. Plans were afoot.
“Huh,” Lola said.
“Yeah, exactly. Hold your fire,” Stella said, tossing the pillow back. Stella had decided that Lola shouldn’t leave her bed all day, in honor of whatever the hell was going on. Instead Stella was providing meals, non-Ben tainted ice cream, and movies. They’d just finished Clueless and were about to move on to something, as Lola had suggested, with less of a romantic theme. She did not need to start crying again.
“Do you want to talk about it yet?” Stella asked.
“I don’t know,” Lola said. “I don’t know that there’s anything to even talk about. I mean, I know how I feel now, I’m not in denial anymore. I’m in love with him. Great. And he might even love me, in his way, but is that even enough?”
“What do you mean?”
Lola looked down at her nails. Bitten to the quick, which: gross. “Well, could you do it? If Bashir had been married before, and she’d died…”
Stella said softly, “I don’t know, kiddo.”
“Yeah. Me neither. Relationships are hard enough with two people. I feel terrible even saying this, but I’d thought I’d just be willing to, like, settle for being second best—”
“You shouldn’t settle for anything,” Stella interjected. Lola smiled. Stella’s loyalty was touching, but that didn’t mean it was realistic.
“Yeah, I know,” Lola said. “It’s complicated. Plus, all the other stuff, with the lying, and the trust…it’s just a whole mess, Stella.”
Stella picked up an errant take out menu and pretended to read it. In an overly nonchalant tone of voice that fooled exactly no one, she said, “So are you still gonna do the big publicity wedding thing? That we’ve been planning?”
“You just want a Volare wedding,” Lola teased.
“Not true!” Stella said. “Ok, not only true. I won’t lie, though, it’s been a lot more fun to run the show as a maid of honor. Like an awesome practice run, but with more kink.”
“So glad to be of service. And you promised not to tease me about what I still say did not happen at the bridal shop.”
“Hey, answer the question.”
Lola capitulated. “Of course of I’m still going to do it. I’m not going to let Volare down, no matter what, and that Harold Jeels creep is still going to hate us next week, so Roman’s plan still makes sense.”
But then Lola’s heart sunk as Stella’s eyes got progressively wider. Finally, Lola snapped: “Oh my God, out with it. What?”
“You really haven’t, like, seen the news? Been online?”
“Stella, I swear to God. Tell me.”
Stella scrounged around in the various pillows until she found Lola’s laptop. She flipped it open and madly mashed at the keys before silently turning it so Lola could see.
It was the website for the Tattle, and its feature story was a set of grainy, kinky, only half-blurred out photos of State Senator Harold Jeels in fetish wear, mid-scene. The exact same photos that Ben had sent to Lola. The photos that she had shown to Roman, and that neither of them had ever wanted to show to anyone else—outing someone for their consensual kinks was not something either of them wanted to be involved with.
“How did this happen?” Lola asked.
“It was Ben who sent them to you, right?”
“How did you know that?”
“Roman called me when he saw. He wanted to make sure no one had involved you, and he thought you might still be sleeping. He was right, by the way.”
Lola covered her mouth. This made her indescribably sad. “Ben did this? Why?”
“Looks like. Maybe as an incredibly misguided way to get back in your good graces? He hasn’t called you?”
“No, but I think Roman might have scared the crap out of him.” Lola stared despondently at the screen. They would have beaten whatever Harold Jeels threw at them. There was no need for this. Whatever hang ups the guy had—and there were clearly quite a few—nation-wide exposure was not going to help. “Well, I guess he won’t be coming after us for a little while.”
Stella slowly closed the lap top, and gave Lola a patented Meaningful Look. “Listen. I only interrupted your official day of rest to show you this so you wouldn’t think you were obligated to go through with a sham wedding that would break your heart a little bit more with every freaking step down the aisle. Seriously. As your friend. You don’t have to do this.”
“Then why did you ask if I was going to?” Lola said.
“I was wondering if maybe you wanted to, you know, actually marry Roman,” Stella said. She was impervious to all pillow missiles after that.
“Chance, what are we doing here?” Lola asked.
It was Day 2 after Roman had promised to “earn forever” from her. She still didn’t really know what that meant, but she’d allowed her cousin to lead her through half of Manhattan blindfolded. Now he’d taken off the blindfold to reveal that they were, not in some super cool hotspot, not in a fancy restaurant, but in an otherwise empty boardroom. With a sheet covering the table.
“Is this a heist?” Lola asked. “Seriously, is this the beginning to one of the Die Hard movies?”
“Oh man, wouldn’t that be cool?” Chance said. “Don’t tempt me, I have the relevant training.”
“I will personally kick your ass if you attempt a heist, hot shot military security mercenary dude or no. Whatever your job is.”
Chance gave an exaggerated shiver. “Fair enough. You fight mean.”
“Chance, what’s under the sheet?”
“Not yet. First, I need you to promise me something.”
Chance turned to her with his most solemn face, and took both her hands in his. Oh shit, she thought. Not something else terrible.
“Lola, I need you to promise me that when Roman asks you about this, you’ll tell him that I did the song.”
There was a silence.
Chance gave her a concerned frown and squeezed her hands.
“Wait, what?” Lola finally asked.
Now Chance grimaced. “Roman made me promise that I would deliver this news in song. Like, a singing telegram. I think he did it just to get me back for calling him a dumbass, which, for the record, he was totally being a dumbass.”
“No argument here.”
“Well, you know Roman, right? He got me to agree to help before he told me exactly how I’d be helping. Then he laughed.”
Lola started to laugh. “There’s a song?”
“Lola,” Chance said, looking worried. “Please.”
“Ok, fine. But don’t forget what I did for you.”
Chance beamed, gave her a peck on the cheek, then a brief noogie, and turned around to whip the sheet
off the table.
Underneath was one of those beautiful architectural models that looked like a work of art in its own right. It was a compound of several buildings in a sort of zen modernist style, set amidst a well-designed garden, flush with water elements and…palm trees?
“What is that?” Lola asked.
“That,” Chance said. “Is Volare LA.”
Lola felt herself stiffen, but fought against it. Keep an open mind, Theroux. He was going to make Chance sing.
“Go on,” she said, still somewhat suspicious.
“Ok, so, here’s my version, because I’m not reading this freaking song,” Chance said, handing her a sealed envelope. He was still looking at the model of Volare LA. “He had this in the works, and the original plan was that he was going to go out there and set it up, right? But he couldn’t do it because he didn’t want to leave you in New York. Likewise, he wasn’t psyched about the idea of you moving to LA without him, either. So…in a very un-Roman, wussy move—”
“Watch it, Chance Dalton.”
Chance stopped and saluted her.
“With an overly developed sense of concern, he decided not to tell you until he’d worked out some sort of alternative. He was still a wuss about it.”
Lola narrowed her eyes. She knew her cousin. “And?”
“And,” Chance said grudgingly, “he says it’s yours if you want it. If that’s the choice you make. But, Lola, come on.”
“Come on what?”
No way she was moving to LA, but torturing Chance into telling her what the hell he was so antsy about was more than worth the subterfuge.
“Dude!” he said, smiling like a little boy, “I want it!”
Lola felt her jaw hit the floor. “You quit the merc job? Or…whatever it was?”
“Yup. Done with that. Moving on. And this is fucking perfect. Unless you want it. Basically Roman’s gonna move heaven and earth to give you whatever the hell you want, so I’m asking you, as your cousin, don’t take the LA club. I’ve heard the women out there are beautiful, and I’d like to see for myself.”