Lola hadn’t noticed they were heading toward the Four Seasons until the limo turned into the hotel’s half-moon drive. She looked at Beau. “Did you forget something?”
“No.”
Her door opened. Fleetingly she’d wondered why she was even more dressed up than the week before while he was in a suit instead of a tuxedo. Now she had her answer—he just hadn’t changed yet.
They unfolded from the car. Beau placed his hand at the center of her back. In the lobby, he guided her right, away from the elevators. “First, a drink.”
He directed her to the hotel lounge. The few people seated around the room were as cool and modern as the bar’s interior. They spoke and sipped their drinks privately. The bartender placed two napkins in front of them. “The usual, sir?”
“And the Colony Cocktail for her.”
Beau had a “usual.” Was it a girl and a Scotch, only his choice of drink the same night after night? What were the other girls like—and did they all have Colony Cocktails? Lola’s dress was elegant—she was not. She wondered if anyone at the bar could tell, and moved closer to Beau.
He looked down and smoothed a hand over her hair. “All right?” he asked in her ear.
She was bothered thinking of him with another woman, but it hardly seemed fair to bring it up, not that she wanted to. It would only invite questions. She nodded that she was fine.
When their drinks were served, Beau picked a corner booth and they sank against the pillows. He clinked his Scotch against her glass. “To the night,” he said. “Underneath its faithful cover, we can be who we want. Or in some cases, who we truly are.”
“Or, I can be who you want,” Lola said. She took a sip.
“Meaning?”
“This dress. The limo. The cocktail—too expensive, I might add. I’m simply a product of your fashioning.”
“Or,” he said, grinning, “a masterpiece sculpted from clay.”
“Whatever you want to call it.”
“I like to think the masterpiece is already there, underneath. I’m just chiseling the clay away.”
“I was nothing until you came along. Is that what you mean?” In case her sarcasm was lost on him, she smirked. “Your money’s made me worthy?”
He touched her knee. Her smirk faltered. “No. I like you just as you are. You don’t pretend to be something you’re not like most people I know.” He slid his hand up her thigh, and it left a tingling sensation in its wake. She exhaled louder than she meant to. “You don’t hide who you are, do you?” he asked.
Her focus was shifting from their conversation to his touch. She wasn’t sure she grasped what he was getting at. “No.”
“You wouldn’t pretend with me.”
She understood. Fighting their connection, keeping her feelings to herself—it was the same as hiding parts of herself from him. It went against who she claimed to be.
“It’s not that black and white,” she said. “Everyone has some darkness inside to hide what they need to.” She paused. “Even you. Maybe you most of all.”
He looked as surprised by her statement as she was. But it was true. She’d glimpsed his dark side here and there. It didn’t scare her. The opposite, actually. It made her want to know more.
“Do you?” she asked.
“Like you said, everyone has some darkness.”
“What’s yours?” Even as the question came out, she knew he wouldn’t answer. Beau seemed to have levels. He’d let her beneath the surface—somewhere she didn’t think many people got—but then there were layers over his heart and his trust that not just anyone could peel away.
His hand on her thigh tightened. He glanced over at the bartender, absentmindedly watching him make a drink.
She regretted her question. It was her job to make sure her feelings stayed physical, but they were edging on dangerous territory. She was just anyone to him. She couldn’t be the one to remove his layers. “Never mind,” she said. “It’s too much for just one night.”
He quickly turned back to her. “No. It’s okay. I’m just not used to talking about these things. That doesn’t mean I don’t…want to.” He cleared his throat. “During the two years my mom was depressed, she stopped leaving the house and I took on all the responsibility. She’d say I was nothing like my dad. My dad would’ve run away, but I didn’t. I took care of her. I spent time with her every day. I bought all the groceries and Brigitte and I would cook each night. I made sure the bills were paid and that Brigitte kept up with her schoolwork.”
Lola had a familiar feeling in her gut. She’d also been forced to take care of herself, but at least she hadn’t had other people depending on her too.
Beau rubbed the bridge of his nose. “It’s just that none of that did anything. None of it was enough. The only thing that made her happy again was that money—Brigitte’s inheritance. And once it was gone, she picked up and went to Florida.” He looked up at her. “I couldn’t take care of her—or anyone for that matter. My dad needed a whole other family, because I wasn’t enough.”
“I understand, Beau. My dad left too.”
“I know.” He studied her a moment. “Do you ever feel like you aren’t enough?”
A lump formed in her throat. As a kid, it’d been straightforward, like an equation—if she could get her dad a bike, he’d come home. She thought she knew better now, but maybe she didn’t. Beau didn’t seem to. “Is that what drove you to work as hard as you did? Not being enough?”
“Is that why you’re here tonight?” he countered.
They stared at each other. For once, Lola didn’t try to shut him out. She held his gaze—let him strip her down for a few moments.
“You’re afraid if Johnny loses Hey Joe, all he’ll have left is you. You want to give him something else—his own bar, money, a family—because you think you alone aren’t enough.”
It sounded so simple when he put it that way, as if it hadn’t been years building. It wasn’t that she hadn’t thought of the effect her dad leaving had on her relationship with Johnny, but when she did, it was in an abstract way. It wasn’t the way Beau dealt with his insecurity, where money equaled love and there wasn’t much more to it than that.
“And as long as you have money, you have something people want,” she said. “Somebody can always be there if you need them. But it also means you don’t have to let anyone get close.”
“You’re getting close.”
“Why?” she asked. “Why are you telling me all this?”
He picked up his drink and swirled it. “I guess it’s because I know nothing will continue past sunrise. It’s almost like…”
“It doesn’t count,” she finished.
She and Beau weren’t so different, but it wasn’t just that they had something in common. Having the same fear over their heads and recognizing it in each other connected them deeper—in a way many people never did.
She covered his hand with hers. “You’re enough without it.” She swallowed. He winced. “Maybe the money is what got me here, but it was never what I wanted. It was a means to an end. I want you to know—in my eyes, you are enough without it.”
He got closer, leaned into her. “Give me that too, Lola. Something no one else has. When I’m inside you tonight, when I take you, I want to know something about you he doesn’t.”
She shook her head.
He stroked some of her hair behind her ear. “I told you things I’ve never told anyone.”
“Johnny knows everything,” she whispered.
“There must be something. Close your eyes. Say it in the dark.”
His clean, natural scent invaded. There was, in fact, something Johnny didn’t know—something she didn’t even want to admit to herself. Something that could only be said in the dark. She let her lids fall shut. “I’m here tonight because I want to be,” Lola said. “Not because of the money or so I can buy him his dreams.” She took a deep breath, fighting herself. Giving this to Beau was like taking it from Johnny. “I’m here because every way you touched me last time was the right way and because it meant something to me.”
“Lola,” he murmured. He was so close that he swallowed her words before the world heard them. He kissed her softly. “I am exactly where I want to be—for the first time in a long while.”
“I think you might be right that I didn’t know what I wanted until you showed me.”
His took her face in his hands firmly. “Yes. You need a man who can be that for you. A man worthy of your love.”
“Love?” Her eyes flew open. “Wait—what?” She removed Beau’s hands by his wrists with great effort. “That’s not what I was saying. Love has nothing to do with any of this.”
“It has everything to do with this. Is Johnny enough?” he asked. “Maybe I had it wrong before. Maybe you’re more afraid he isn’t enough, and without Hey Joe, it’ll all fall apart.”
Throughout their relationship, she’d catch herself feeling that way and snap out of it. The guilt of thinking he wasn’t enough—when her fear was not being enough for him or anyone—could be suffocating. She’d buried it deeper any time it threatened to emerge. “He’s enough,” she said, but her voice was shaky. Unconvincing even to her own ears.
“I don’t believe you. You need more. You deserve more. Did he do everything in his power to stop you from coming here tonight?”
“No, but—”
“Did he throw himself at your feet and beg you not to go through with it? Did he tell you if you did, you’d never see him again because he couldn’t live with himself? Did he say he didn’t care about the money—that without you, it would mean nothing?” He put one hand on the table, trapping her in the corner. “I would buy you over and over again, Lola, but I would never sell you. Not to see every dollar bill in the world stacked at my feet.”
Lola’s eyes darted between his. It couldn’t be true. Beau hadn’t known her long enough to make a declaration like that. But for some reason, she believed him. “Beau, I…I don’t—”
“You should know what you’re worth.” He ran his hand through his hair. “It’s his job to make sure you know.”
She just shook her head. “I don’t know how you expect me to respond to that.”
“I don’t.” He smoothed the hair he’d just disturbed. “I’m not asking you for anything. I’m not saying I deserve you either. But be here with me tonight—just me. You might be surprised to learn that love comes in different packages, even ones tied in a black ribbon.”
He stood and left the table.
Love? Was that what he wanted? Was he her doomed gift that should remain wrapped? Or was she the one topped with a black ribbon, left out to tempt him?
She found him waiting for the elevator and went to stand silently next to him.
He gathered her hair in his hand and let it fall down her back. “I got carried away,” he said. “I think about all the late nights, all the things I missed out on for work. Fueled by just the smallest hope that one day I might have it all.”
She looked up at his profile. He stared somewhere above the elevator. He seemed to have relaxed, but the hard angles of his jaw naturally made him appear tense.
“My youth. Family. Happy hour with co-workers. Women. Why did I do it? So I’d never want anything I couldn’t have. So my family wouldn’t want for anything, and so I could give another person everything she wanted when that time came. She’d have no reason to ever walk away from me.” He glanced down at her. The elevator dinged. “That’s what you’re worth.” He walked inside and turned to look at her. “Not a dollar amount. All those nights for these two nights with you.”
“Me?” she asked. How was it she could have that much power over this man, who stood tall in his suit, looking capable of taking on the world in a moment’s notice?
“Ironically,” he said, “for a moment just now at that table, I thought I would give it all up for you. My kingdom for my queen.”
Her footsteps echoed in the elevator bank as she followed him. She wrapped her arms around his middle. His body was stiff. She pressed her cheek against his chest. The elevator was like this moment between them, warm and private. The walls were wood paneled, except for the doors, which reflected their embrace as distorted and brassy. “If it weren’t for him…if we’d met a different way. If things weren’t how they are.”
“You could love me?”
She wanted to give herself over completely, just for the space of one night, but she knew she wouldn’t come out the other side the same. And at some point in her life, keeping things the same had become important to her. It was the threat of change that had gotten her to this place—that’s how far she and Johnny had gone to keep things the same.
Could she love him? There were moments she and Beau were impossibly close for the short amount of time they’d spent together. He picked and picked at scabs that had formed over the wounds time had healed. She was most connected to him when he was also vulnerable, like just now in the lounge. When he took her there, they went together.
“Maybe. That’s all I can give you.” She couldn’t risk her life with Johnny to love and be loved by Beau for one night. “Maybe I could love you.”
“If at any hour of this night you think you do, tell me. Promise me that.”
She should’ve laughed at the absurdity of it. Or come back with some witty response meant to deflect. But it wasn’t funny. She’d lied to him. There was no “maybe.” Her answer was yes—she could love him. Maybe part of her already did.
