Page 21

“Up and coming from where?” Adriana asked before Lola had a chance to explain.

Lola infused her stare with so many lightning bolts she’d give Zeus rage-envy. Did Adriana already know Kiki? Know her plans?

“I found her on social media,” she admitted without a hint of shame. “She’s a queer influencer with over—”

“An influencer?” Natalia raised a perfect brow before shaking her head. “Those flash-in-the-pan types never last. You’ll be wasting your time chasing that.”

“I really think Kiki could have staying power,” Lola argued. “She’s talented. The connection with her followers is real. With the right guidance, she could crossover into traditional media. Her voice is phenomenal, but she can also launch consumer products, host—”

“She’ll waste your time,” Natalia said crisply.

Lola resisted the urge to back down. To admit that she didn’t have anyone else in the prospect pipeline. This was an opportunity. A chance to show Natalia that she deserved her spot at the table. That she’d made Starla and she could do it again from the rawest materials.

While Adriana bragged about some actor who’d just come out and wanted to change her representation to the only queer-female, top tier talent agency in the country, Lola plotted.

There were so many avenues she could go with Kiki… assuming Kiki accepted her representation. She’d responded to her message, but Lola had been too distracted to prioritize it. That wouldn’t happen again.

After the meeting, Adriana walked next to Lola as they returned to their side of the office, away from the conference room, and the bullpen, and Natalia’s throne.

“You did a good job standing your ground,” Adriana said when they were far enough away that Natalia wouldn’t hear them — even though Lola was sure that Natalia had some superhuman senses and keeping secrets from her was impossible. “Natalia can be really old school, but pushing her to think outside the box scored you some points.”

Lola squinted, straining her eyes to see the motive behind the false encouragement. After getting with Roxy, Adriana had started pretending to be all mellow and nice, but Lola wasn’t falling for it.

“Don’t try to poach her,” Lola snapped before turning toward her office and leaving Adriana behind.

She wasn’t going to let Adriana lull her into a false sense of some bullshit sisterhood. They weren’t a team. It was every agent for themselves. Lola couldn’t let herself forget that.

CHAPTER13

After a marathon hearingthatshouldhave been a five-minute thing according to the senior associate who stuck her with it, Carmen pulled into the parking garage in the afternoon when she’d expected to be back before nine in the morning. The mental exhaustion triggered by having to think on her feet after opposing counsel tried to pull some shady shit on her cleared as soon as she saw Lola’s car parked on the deck below hers.

The black Mercedes didn’t show any signs of the run-in they’d had weeks ago. The dent Carmen had made was already ironed out. Erased.

Discomfort pulled at the empty stomach she’d bombarded with two sugar-free energy drinks. Lola rolled in and out of her life like a tide. She pressed the heel of her palm to her stomach. A tide was too gentle. She was like a hurricane, leaving nothing but a mess in her wake.

Carmen tried to stop the images that followed any thoughts of Lola. The memory of her touch.

No one had ever touched her the way Lola did. When Lola’s ferocity was pointed in the direction of a kiss, she kissed with every fiber of her being. Her touch was so sure, so hungry, so intoxicating.

It was crazy to want more of her. Carmen knew that. As crazy as the surfers who flooded the beach when a storm was threatening to roll in. They risked life and limb for the rush of catching a huge wave. For the euphoria of experiencing something out of the ordinary and raw and powerful.

Walking to the elevator, dragging the cart full of discovery that had been provided in paper form by her opponent just to be annoying, Carmen’s lips tingled at the thought of Lola’s kiss. The rest of her body reacted, lighting up like a bioluminescent display under a full moon.

She’d been stupid to think that Lola might stay after they’d torn at each other’s clothes, reaching for each other in that closet like they were following some animal instinct.

Lola hadn’t stayed the first time, either. After the Christmas party when a dare turned into incredible sex in the back of Carmen’s SUV. Volcanic sex that melted rocks into magma.

Sex and then Lola rushing to get dressed. To leave. To return to open hostilities like it had never happened. Like they’d never whispered to each other in the dark. Like they’d never clung to each other hard enough to leave bruises.

Each step Carmen took toward her office helped quell the longing wrapping around her chest. Stifled by the nauseating flutter in her belly.

Lola was never going to stop being Lola. Never going to stop being an unbearable brat too concerned with winning to ever let her guard down. To drop the games and be real.

Maybe she was incapable of real feelings, Carmen decided when she hit the button in the elevator. In some ways, she was no more mature than a teenager. Fueled by emotion. An unpredictable tempest ready to rage at every turn. She was unreasonable, stubborn, childish, ridiculous even.

By the time the elevator doors opened — and her great-grandfather greeted her with disapproval from the great beyond — Carmen had forced herself to forget the inexplicable lust Lola ignited in her and remembered all the ways she couldn’t stand her. All the ways she was immature and abrasive.

Rolling the crate to a paralegal’s cubicle in the maze at the center of the sprawling law office, Carmen dropped off the unexpected mountain of loose pages and explained what to do with them. She stopped in the kitchen next to her office to eat something for the first time since lunch the day before. To chase the taste of Lola off her lips.