Marrying the Master (28 page)

“Lola,
we have to work this out.”

Ben
was close enough that she could smell his mouthwash. She realized that that was
why he’d kept his distance at the front door. The thought that he’d put that
much thought into this scared her even more.

“You’re
drunk, Ben,” she whispered. “Please leave.”

“Lola,
no,” he said, lowering his voice, trying to make it soft. “You just don’t
remember how good we were together.”

Ben
grabbed her arm as she turned away, forcibly pulling her back, and tried to
kiss her. A few thoughts went through Lola’s head all at once: he’d ignored her
every request for him to leave and he’d just put his hands on her, so it was a
good bet that he wasn’t going to be respecting any other boundaries; he was scary
drunk; and he was angry.

She
kneed him in the balls.

Then
she smacked him in the nose with the bag of ice cream.

And
she bolted to her bathroom, the only room in her apartment that had a working
lock.

It
wasn’t until Ben started pounding on the bathroom door that she realized she’d
forgotten her phone on the nightstand.

~ * ~ * ~

Roman
was so focused on getting to Lola that at first he didn’t think much about the
fact that her doorman was literally sleeping on the job. He had walked right
into the lobby and right past the doorman’s desk to the bank of elevators. It
wasn’t until afterwards that he thought much about it at all.

He
checked his watch on the ride up, and only then did he wonder if Lola might be
asleep. He was an idiot. It was the middle of the night; he couldn’t barge in
on her like this. He’d wait, like a civilized person, and let her get her
sleep. There was no chance he would sleep until he’d spoken to her, though.

The
door opened on Lola’s floor, and Roman pressed the lobby button, shaking his
head. It was normal to want to tell the woman you loved how you felt as soon as
you figured it out yourself, but he’d be damned if he was a jerk about it. The
doors were already closing when he heard the noise.

A banging noise.
Someone shouting.

Someone
shouting, “Lola!”

Roman
caught the closing elevator doors and forced them open, his eyes roaming
wildly, not expecting to find anything, but looking all the same. Hunting.
Weirdly, he thought of that woman in the park
;
thought
about how adrenaline distorts things. He had tunnel vision as he raced down the
hall to Lola’s door, and he could hear his pulse pounding in his ears—and
a man shouting.

Lola’s
front door was unlocked.

His
brain had just enough time to process what he’d heard before he burst into
Lola’s bedroom, which, all in all, might have made him more forceful than was
strictly necessary, because he recognized that voice.

Ben.

Ben shouting, sounding drunk, angry, and mean, trying to
break down a door.

Where
was Lola?

Nowhere.
She was nowhere. Ben was pounding on the bathroom door.

Only for a second longer.
Then Roman grabbed the stupid hood
that protruded from his jacket and dragged him away. Threw him on the floor
across the room. Ben got up, shaking his head, and Roman punched him back down.

He
stayed down.

“Lola!”
Roman shouted. Insanely, he threw off her bedspread, as though she might be
hiding under the covers. “Lola!”

“Roman?”

She
was in the bathroom.
Of course.
Clearly. The
adrenaline started to fade and Roman took stock. Ben was groaning on the floor,
a hand to his bloody mouth, trying to get up. Lola was in the bathroom. Scared.

“It’s
me, Lola,” he said, never taking his eyes off of Ben. His chest heaved as he
drew in great gasps of air.

“You’ve
got to be fucking kidding me,” Ben said. “You’re the knight in shining armor
now? You? The fucking dickhead who treated her like shit?”

Roman
was stunned with rage. Almost knocked back on his heels. Ben was up on one
knee, rising to his feet, still talking.

“Such
fucking bullshit. You treat her like all those other subs that you just use up
and toss out, like she’s fucking
nothing
,
and you’re the hero? I fucking love her, Roman. I didnt’t string her along for
years and then just start fucking her when it was convenient. I didn’t dupe her
into a fake goddamn marriage because it was politically convenient.” Ben looked
at Roman’s face and laughed. “Oh yeah, there’s all kinds of gossip, you piece
of shit.”

Each
statement hit Roman like a punch to the gut. It wasn’t the way Ben said them;
it was the kernel of truth in each and every one, twisted around to suit Ben’s
interpretation of the world, but a kernel of truth nonetheless.

He
had hurt Lola so much worse than he’d thought.

Roman
forced that thought from his mind and grabbed Ben, hauling him up against the
wall with one arm pinned painfully behind his back. His focus had to be on
making Lola safe. That, right now, he could handle.

“If
you move, or try to escape, or even say anything to her that I don’t like, I
will break your arm, do you understand?” Roman said. “I will
enjoy
breaking your arm.”

“Roman,
what’s going on?”

“I’ve
got him under control, Lola. It’s safe to come out if you want. If you don’t
want to, I can make sure we both leave first.”

He
heard the door creak open and turned his head. Lola was standing in the
bathroom doorway, looking gorgeously angry, even in baggy sweatpants.

“No,”
she said. “Stay. I don’t know what I want.”

“Lola—”
Ben tried to say. Roman found himself putting more weight on his arm.

He
said, “Please don’t make me behave in ways I will regret, Benjamin.”

Lola
was pacing, her eyes darting about, just like the girl in the park. Lola had
been trapped in there, and Ben was obviously angry, and Roman could smell the
liquor on him. She had been truly terrified. Right then, all Roman wanted to do
was take care of her.

“Do
you want to file a police complaint?” Roman asked, careful to keep his voice
calm. He wanted to do whatever she needed him to do in order to help her feel
in control of this situation.

“Maybe.
I don’t know.” Lola had started biting her nails. He couldn’t remember ever
seeing her bite her nails. Suddenly she turned to Roman, and he saw that she
was on the verge of tears. “Ok, no, I’ve changed my mind. Get him the hell out
of here. I just want him gone.”

“Done,”
Roman said. He turned back to Ben and saw that he had been crying, too, and was
now about to speak. He leaned forward, close to Ben’s ear. “Think very
carefully before you speak. If what you have to say makes this even one iota
worse for Lola, I can promise you that you will regret it. Not right now. But
soon.”

Ben
swallowed. Satisfied, Roman kept hold of Ben’s wrist with one hand, and with
the other seized the hood, giving him an excellent hold. He pulled Ben off of
the wall and began to walk him out of the room.

“Wait,”
Lola said. “Ben, give me your phone. Now.”

Roman
didn’t feel like giving Ben any slack. He let him struggle for the phone with
his free hand.

“What’s
the name of your sponsor, asshole?” Lola said, looking at the phone.

“What?”
Ben said.

Roman
gave his arm a little twist. “What did I say not one minute ago?”

“It’s
under Cheesesteak,” Ben said. His voice broke, like the severity of the
situation was just dawning on him. “I’m not supposed to give out names. Dude
loves cheesesteaks.”

Lola
shook her head and scrolled, then lifted it to her ear.

“I’m
calling about Benjamin Mara,” she finally said into the phone. “I’m an ex of
his. He showed up at my apartment tonight, drunk, and tried to assault me.”

Roman
closed his eyes and willed himself not to break the arm of a helpless man.

Lola
was still talking into the phone. “I think. I don’t know. It is safe to say, at
the moment, that he has relapsed. And I want you to give him a message when you
see him sober, ok? Tell him if I ever see him again, I’m going straight to the
cops. I may go to the cops now. I don’t know—I don’t really want to make
any decisions right now. Can you come get him? Great. And yeah, call me to warn
me.”

She
gave her address and then hung up the phone, giving Ben the most withering look
Roman had ever seen.

“Ben?
Listen to me.
Roman’s going
to take you downstairs.
‘Cheesesteak’ is going to meet you. If you fail to meet him, he is going to
call me back, and I am going to call the police. If you ever contact me again,
I am calling the police. If I even hear your voice again, I am calling the
police. Do you understand?” Lola was starting to sound like Lola again, but
Roman knew she wasn’t recovered. She went on, “Tell me you understand, Ben.”

Ben
was crying openly now, and slurring his words. He said, “I understand.”

“Please
take him downstairs, Roman.”

Roman
went about his task grimly. He didn’t want to leave Lola alone, and he didn’t
want to leave Ben unchaperoned, lest he get stupid ideas about making
apologies. As they were about to open the front door, Lola called out to him
from the bedroom.

“Roman?”
she said.

He
turned, and the sight of her, looking for the first time vulnerable, open,
looking to him for something, left him gasping for breath.

“Yes?”
he said.

He
watched as whatever light he had seen flare there, however briefly, faded.

“Never
mind. Thank you for…this,” she said, and disappeared back into the bedroom.

Lola
got Roman’s text not ten minutes later.

ROMAN:
Mr. Cheesesteak has arrived, and Ben is safely in his custody.

She
couldn’t help but smile—who else would give a guy called “Cheesesteak”
the honorific “Mister”? But then she hesitated. What could she say? “Thank you”
didn’t seem quite adequate, or even entirely accurate. She was still a confused
jumble of feelings, as far as Roman was concerned, and now, on top of that, she
was a mess from this Ben incident. Before she could respond, he texted again.

ROMAN:
Will you speak to me? Please. I want to see that you’re all right

That,
she could deal with. She didn’t know why. Maybe nonverbal communication would
be easier. She said yes.

And
immediately after she’d agreed she realized that she wanted to see how Roman
would react to the things Ben had said. She’d heard them, of course; it was a
flimsy freaking bathroom door. Actually, she was sure that half the floor had
heard them. Ben had been drunk and loud. Everything he’d said had been hard for
Lola to hear about herself, but in a perverse way she was glad that Ben had
said them, because she didn’t know if she’d ever have said any of them herself.
But now they were out in the open. And they had to be dealt with.

She
went to the front door and unlocked it. She was waiting there for him when he
came back up.

He
looked like hell.

Roman
was normally so effortlessly stylish. Now, his
jet black
hair was tousled; his suit—a casual suit, obviously, even in the middle
of the night—was rumpled. But it was more than that. His expression was
dark, and his complexion pale, as pale as he could be.

Lola
opened the door for him, not sure what to say, now that he was actually here. He
took care of that. Wordlessly he walked right up to her and wrapped his arms
around her.

“Lola,
I am so sorry,” he said, stroking her hair. He pulled back and Lola was stunned
to see that his eyes were completely bloodshot. “Did he hurt you?”

“No,”
she said, slightly bewildered. Roman seemed more freaked out than she was. “He
didn’t get to me. He just scared the crap out of me.”

“
‘Just
,’” Roman said, spitting out the word. “I could kill
him.”

“Roman…”

“Yes?”

“You
have to let me go. I can’t breathe.”

Roman
released her, backing away as though he were unsure of his place. She’d never
seen him like this. In fact, she was pretty sure no one had ever seen him like
this. Roman Casta, the Master, unsure of himself?

“Lola,”
he said, running a hand through his hair. “I am at your disposal. I want you to
feel safe. I will do whatever I have to do to make that happen.”

Lola
tried not to show that she was stung by those cold words—“at your
disposal,” like all that mattered was that he felt kind of guilty—because
she knew her reaction was unfair, and probably a little emotional, and
definitely colored by all the other crap that had happened. She didn’t realize
just how much her trust in Roman had been damaged, didn’t know how emotionally
drained she was, until right then. Just the effort of hiding that one last
extra drop of hurt…