“Nice dress,” he said, and Simon laughed.
“You can’t stop yourself, mate. You’re a fucking mess.”
They were both a wee inebriated.
“I have no idea where your boyfriend is. He ran off. Champagne?”
I found Hayes eventually, on the other side of the theater, talking to a model. For fuck’s sake. Young, thin, wide-spaced eyes. She looked to be Brazilian, or Portuguese. Some exotic ethnicity that was completely his type. And for a second I felt it in my gut, the impulse to turn and run. But he looked up and his expression on seeing me was so completely smitten, if he’d felt an ounce of guilt it did not show.
“Hi. You’re here.”
“I’m here.”
He took my head in his hands and kissed me, and he smelled of citrus and amber and Scotch. And all was forgiven. Almost.
“You look amazing,” he said, low.
“Ditto.”
“This is Solène.” He turned toward the model. “And I’m sorry, what was it you said your name was?”
“Giovanna.” She smiled. Her teeth were not perfect.
“Giovanna,” he repeated. He turned back to me, a wide grin on his face. “Giovanna was just telling me how many Instagram followers she has.”
I tried not to laugh as Hayes did his best to disengage and bid his new friend adieu.
“What are you doing?” I said when we were heading back across the space, weaving through the crowd and potted oversized bonsai.
“I was killing time until you got here.”
“With eighteen-year-old models?”
“I was avoiding Rihanna,” he laughed. “Stop. You’re walking too fast. I want to look at you.”
I turned to face him. He looked ridiculously sexy, even for him. Black suit, sheer black shirt partially unbuttoned, long silk scarf draped around his neck. Hair, elegantly disheveled. The fact that he was still wearing a light dusting of makeup from the show didn’t even bother me.
“Hi,” he said, again.
“Hi. I’m sorry you lost.”
He shrugged. “It happens. Where did you get this dress?”
“Balmain,” I said. “A few years ago.”
It was easily one of the sexiest things I owned. An intricate lace top, a high-waisted, studded fitted skirt ending just above the knee, my Isabel Marant bondage shoes. Daring, black, rock-and-roll.
I turned and continued heading toward the table, still pissed about the model.
Hayes’s hands were on my hips, pulling me into him. His mouth at my ear.
“Bloody hell, I just want to fuck your arse in this dress.”
I laughed. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m the guy who gets to fuck your arse in this dress.”
His words stopped me. There, in the middle of the theater at the Ace Hotel. Surrounded by music execs and wannabe starlets and Grammy winners. My rock star boyfriend pushed up against my back.
“You wanna go now?”
“I want to go now,” he said. “There’s a GQ and Armani party in Hollywood, and we have to swing by there because I have to show my face. And then we’re going to stop by Sam’s party in Bel-Air because I told him we would. And then we’re going to go back to the hotel so I can fuck your arse in this dress … Are you okay with that?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“You always have a choice.”
“Do you have lube?”
He laughed. “We’ll improvise.”
His hand was spanning my abdomen, pressing me into him. All of him.
“Okay. Call our driver.”
“Done.”
*
Later, much later, when Hayes was passed out in a signature suite at the SLS Beverly Hills, I lay awake, watching him sleep. The night had passed in a blur of champagne and music and sex. It was going to hurt in the morning. It was already hurting now.
My eyes scanned the room, plush and slick with Philippe Starck touches and an overabundance of leather ottomans. The floor-to-ceiling mirror facing the bed was anything but subtle.
“Who chose this place?” I’d asked when we arrived, sometime after one. Two? “I feel like a hooker.”
“You’re going to feel even more like a hooker when I’m done with you,” Hayes said, making me laugh.
He was rough. And fun. And I loved everything about it.
At one point, when he was lying above me, inside of me, his chest against my back, his arms splaying mine, fingers entwined, he brushed his mouth against my ear and said, low: “Do you feel like you could be my mother now?”
*
There was a faint knocking in the hall. A knocking and a whimpering of sorts. I looked over to see if Hayes had heard it, but he was snoring, oblivious. His postorgasmic slumber.
I grabbed a robe and peeked out the peephole but could not make out much, a lone figure in the corridor, knocking on the door across the hall. A girl.
“Liam, please open the door,” she was saying, soft. “Please. I’m so sorry. I screwed up. Please open it.”
She continued to knock and whimper, and Liam’s door did not open, and finally, I cracked ours.
“Are you okay?”
She was young. Very. Brown hair, big doe brown eyes, sullied with makeup. She was crying.
“My phone is dead and I don’t have a charger and my girlfriend has my wallet in her bag but I can’t find her and I just want to go home.”
“Okay,” I said. “Okay. What do you need? Do you need me to charge your phone?”
“Please.”
My eyes were scanning the corridor for security, but there was none. “How did you get up here?”
She shook her head. Her dress was mature beyond her years. Red, Herve Leger. A lot of effort for a little girl.
“Did you come up here with someone?”
“Simon,” she said, wiping her eyes. She was clinging to a set of keys and what looked like a student ID.
“Where’s Simon now?”
“In his room. Sleeping.”
“Which one’s Simon’s room?”
She pointed to the suite next to ours.
I was confused. “Then why are you knocking on Liam’s door?”
She shook her head, and the tears started to fall again.
“Okay. Okay. Give me your phone and I’ll charge it and we’ll find your friend and get you a ride home.”
Hayes was stirring in the bedroom. “What are you doing up? Who are you talking to?”
“There’s a girl, in the hallway. I don’t know if she’s a fan or a groupie or what. But she’s young, and she’s out there, and she’s crying.”
“Well, get Desmond to deal with it.”
“I don’t know where Desmond is. It’s four o’clock in the morning, Hayes. There’s no security out there.”
“Fuck.” He rolled over, burying his head under the pillow.
“Oh-kay. I guess I’ll take care of it then.”
“She’s not your problem. Don’t get involved.”
“She’s someone’s daughter, Hayes.”
“Everyone is someone’s daughter, Solène. Don’t get involved.”
I returned to the girl in the hall once her phone was charging. “Where’s your friend? The one you came with?”
She shrugged. “She disappeared with the drummer.”
“Who’s your drummer?” I turned back into the suite. Hayes was now up, in the living room, in his underwear, looking for his phone.
“Roger,” he sighed. “He’s a good guy.”