Marrying the Master (30 page)

“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.”

Chance
gave her his most winsome grin. She knew what went unsaid: he was probably done
with his former job for a reason. He’d seen a lot of violence and death, stuff
he’d never talk about, and if anyone deserved a young retirement running a sex
club to the stars, it was Chance.

Lola
smiled, linking her arm with his while they both looked over the architectural
model. It really was stunning.

“Chance,”
she said. “You’re a partner. Couldn’t you take the LA club if you wanted it?”

“You’d
think, huh?” he said, smiling back at her. “Wait ‘till you see tomorrow’s
surprise.”

“What—”

“All
further questions will be answered in noogie form, Theroux. Come and check out
this place.”

Lola
let him to play with the model on the table. She still had the sealed envelope.
She was meant to read the contents, right? She should definitely open it.

Inside
she found only a note:

I know Chance will not sing, no
matter what he has told me. I hope you extracted a high price for your silence.

I did not tell you about this out of
weakness and cowardice, Lola, even if I could not admit it to myself. I’m
sorry. It represented one of the myriad ways I could lose you. That is all.

It’s yours if you want it. I hope you
will stay.

I love you.

-Roman

Two
days later Lola was going out to get coffee—in her sweatpants—when
a limo pulled up beside her as she walked up Broadway.

She
wasn’t even surprised when the window rolled down.

“Bashir,
how you doing?” she said.

“Very
well, Lola,” Bashir said. “Get in.”

Lola
sighed. She knew by now there was no point in arguing. She got in the limo.

“So
he dragged you into this, too, huh?” she said.

“On
the contrary, it is my pleasure,” the Sheikh said in that lofty Cambridge
accent. He was smiling. Why was everybody smiling every time they sprung one of
these things on her?

“Are
you going to tell me where we’re going?”

“No.”

“Of
course. Can we at least stop for coffee?”

Bashir
actually laughed out loud. “You are more likely to need a drink.”

Lola
looked down. Nope, still wearing sweatpants.

Only
a few incredibly tense minutes later, they pulled up to a building that Lola
did indeed recognize.

“This
is Ford’s corporate office,” she said accusingly.

“Yes.”

“You
made me think I was going to some kind of…red carpet thing.”

“Come,”
Bashir said, getting out of the limo and extending his hand. He appeared to be
enjoying this, nearly as much as Chance had. Lola was momentarily nonplussed at
the idea of Bashir singing.

“Well,
it’s kinda fun to walk through a law office in sweatpants,” she conceded.

And
it was, in a terrible sort of way. Lola made a mental note to send flowers or
donuts or a mountain of highly caffeinated espresso beans to this office as
soon as she left. All those over-worked associates eyed her comfy sweatpants
with just a little too much weariness in their eyes.

Bashir
led her to Ford’s office, which she had expected. And Ford was there, also as
expected.

Lola
couldn’t, however, decipher the vaguely pained expression on Ford’s movie-star
face.

“Ok,
you two, out with it,” she said.

“I
believe you have the floor, Bashir.” Ford really did look distressed. He kept
looking down at a stack of papers on his desk.

“Lola,”
Bashir said, commanding her attention. “You know about my skills in reading
facial expressions?”

Uh oh.

“Yes,”
she said, warily. “You can read people like a freaking psychic. Don’t look shocked,
Stella told me all about it.”

Bashir
looked vaguely put out, like she’d stolen his thunder.

“Bashir,
come on. Of course she told me. You’re welcome for setting you two up, by the
way.”

“And
I will be forever in your debt,” he said with that well-bred formality. “Roman
has asked me to return the favor in part by telling you what I saw when I first
joined Volare.”

Lola
was going to just lose her mind if one more person paused before telling her
the big important information they were supposed to tell her. “Which was…?” she
said.

“You
have been in love with each other since I’ve known you,” Bashir said simply.
“You may know that about yourself; that is not my concern at the moment. But
you must believe me, Lola, that to the best of my abilities, it has been
painfully obvious to me that Roman has been in love with you since I first met
him. It was written on his face every time he looked at you.”

Lola
looked from Bashir to
Ford
, and back to Bashir. She
was, she supposed, in some kind of shock. To their credit, both men waited
patiently for her mouth to link back up with her brain.

“Why
the hell didn’t you say something?” she finally managed to get out.

“What
would you have done?” Bashir asked gently.

Lola
got his point. She would have laughed him off, freaked out, and run for the
hills.

“Roman
wasn’t ready either,” Bashir went on. He seemed fairly unconcerned. “I tell you
this now so that you know that, at the very least, he is telling you the truth.
He says that you can trust him.”