Marrying the Master (29 page)

Silently,
she walked back into her bedroom and sat down on her bed. She heard Roman come
in behind her.

“Lola,
what’s wrong?”

“I
don’t know. I’m just so tired all of a sudden, Roman. This…whatever this is…”
she said, waving her hand around at the air between them, “it’s just killing
me. And then this bullshit with Ben…”

Roman
came and knelt beside her bed. He took her hands in his and kissed them.

Ok,
now she was worried. “Roman, what is wrong with you?”

“Nothing,
not anymore,” he said. “Lola, I came here to tell you something important. But
you are exhausted, and I do not want to ask anything more of you tonight if you
do not feel up to it.”

Lola
hated to admit it, but he was right.
As usual.
Her
body was already pulling her toward the bed, telling her to sleep, and it was
getting hard to resist.

Roman
squeezed her hands and said, “But please know that one of the things I need to
do is apologize.” He looked up at her, his eyes, those dark, shining eyes,
begging her. “I have behaved despicably. Stupidly.
Very, very
stupidly, for cowardly reasons.
And I have hurt you, and for that I will
probably never forgive myself.”

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.”

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.”