The doorbell rang, and Lori left her side to answer it.
Voices had her turning around.
Shannon greeted the couple with kisses and hugs. “I didn’t realize you were coming.”
Sam and Blake Harrison had become her friends when Shannon signed the contract to marry Paul. Petite with red, curly long hair and a low, raspy voice that men loved, Sam hugged her hard. “I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”
Shannon questioned her with a look, then words. “You knew Victor was coming.”
Sam didn’t pretend to deny it. “Where is he?”
“You know everyone else in the room, so I doubt I have to point him out.”
Sam did the once-over, found him, and said, “Very cute.”
Shannon rolled her eyes and hugged Sam’s husband. “Hello, Blake.”
“Hey, Shannon. It’s been a long time.” He kissed her cheek. “And I didn’t know about any man. I was told to get dressed and drive.”
“This is all a bit premature. We’re not even dating.”
“Yet,” Lori said. “Fifty-six days, according to Victor.”
Sam tossed all that hair back with a laugh. “I like the man already.” She grabbed Shannon’s arm and pulled her toward Victor. “Introduce me.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“. . . she hopped up from my lap and then proceeded to blame me.”
Like clockwork, Shannon jumped in to clarify and embellish the story of their meeting the second he finished his sentence.
“I’ve known you all of a month, and that is the second time I’ve heard you tell that story. Each time it gets a little worse.” Shannon glanced at her gathering of friends, some sitting, some standing, all of them glued to what she had to say. “He stretched out and I couldn’t get to my seat.”
“You could have just woken him up,” Reed suggested.
“I would have stepped over, too,” Trina said.
Victor watched Shannon’s expressions as her friends weighed in on the conversation.
“Before Liam, I would have purposely fallen in your lap.” Avery’s confession had everyone laughing.
“When I asked Shannon her name, she addressed herself as annoyed. So every time I saw her in the next couple of days, I thought of her as Miss Annoyed.”
“I can beat that. I called you Mr. Phone and Mr. Clueless.”
Wade patted Victor on the back, lifted his drink toward his wife, Trina. “Don’t feel so bad, Victor. Trina flat-out turned me away the first time we met. She took one look at me and was like, ‘Oh, no, Cowboy. This is not gonna happen.’”
“I did not say that.”
“No, you said, ‘Wade Thomas who?’”
Trina turned to Victor. “I didn’t listen to country music. I didn’t know who he was.”
Wade and Trina were undoubtedly the most famous couple in the room. Multiplatinum country western singer Wade Thomas was one of the biggest in the industry. And Trina . . . well, she owned an exceptionally large part of an oil company inherited from her late husband’s estate.
“Sam turned me down,” Blake chimed in.
“True story. But I wised up,” Sam told the room. “Who doesn’t want to be royalty?”
While everyone laughed, Victor shook his head.
Lori helped out his confusion. “Blake is an actual titled British duke.”
“What?”
“I’m not responsible for my parents,” Blake told him. “But the title does come with a few perks, so I’ve kept it.”
“I thought you said you were in shipping,” Victor said.
“I am. And a few other things I’ve added on over the years. The dukedom was something I was born in. That is nothing more than a title and land in England. The actual business part of being a duke went away a long time ago.”
“Owning retail property in England is a business, hon,” Sam corrected her husband.
He waved her off. “It doesn’t count if you have someone else managing it.”
“It counts,” Trina chimed in. “I get calls every week about the property Alice left me—”
Victor tuned out of what everyone was saying to watch Shannon.
Her long legs were crossed at the ankles, a glass of white wine dangled from her fingertips. Surrounded by her friends and watching her watch everyone else had him thinking about something Avery had said back in Tulum.
Something about Shannon being the quiet, reserved one. Up until now, Victor thought that was a joke. Shannon had been anything but silent since they met.
Yet here she was, listening to everyone tell their stories with very little to say about herself. He wanted to know more . . . How did she meet all the personalities in the room? And there were some pretty big personalities there. Money . . . lots of it. More than he had, that was for sure. Victor had met people through the years whose income dwarfed his, but seldom was it at an intimate gathering of friends. Then again, he wasn’t sure the last time he’d gathered with friends like this. The wedding, he supposed. But his buddies from school didn’t measure up financially, which always meant that Victor was paying the bill. He’d gotten tired of it and slowly pushed people aside. Which meant he spent a lot of time working and not a lot of time living.
Shannon must have felt his stare. Her eyes lifted to meet his.
His gut warmed with her soft smile.
“. . . you’ll have to come, Victor.”
His attention was pulled back into the conversation by Trina addressing him.
“Of course.” He had no idea what he’d just agreed to.
Someone on his left laughed.
Shannon snickered and sipped her wine.
“Okay, Trina, Wade. You gathered us all together tonight for a reason.” Lori shifted the conversation, which forced Victor into paying attention.
“We wanted to congratulate Avery and Liam.” Trina smiled.
Liam put his arm over his wife’s shoulders.
“And meet Victor.”
Yeah, he’d sensed that the second he walked through the door.
Wade walked behind his wife, a silly smile on his face, wrapped her in his arms, and rested his chin on her shoulder. He placed one open palm on her belly. “And one other little, tiny thing,” he said.
The women in the room screeched.
“I knew it!” Avery tore loose of Liam’s arm and stood.
Lori reached Trina first. “Congratulations.”
Shannon set her wine aside, moisture gathering in her eyes. Victor’s gaze followed her as she crossed the room to hug her friend.
Victor stood aside and watched a steady stream of handshakes.
Through the mix of hurried questions and excitement, he heard words of due dates and diapers.
And he watched Shannon. The happiness in her eyes shined, but there was a hint of sadness there, too.
He took the opportunity of the room swimming with multiple conversations to move to her side.
“It looks like you’ll have a couple of baby showers to plan this year.”
Shannon smiled with a nod. “Yes, it does.”
He looked at her, paused. “Do you want children?”
His question resulted in her blinking silently several times. “One day,” she said quietly.
Here she was again, the observer. Victor couldn’t help but wonder if it was a shell, a way of protecting herself from the elements around her. If the room was any indication, she was the last of her friends to be single, or divorced and unmarried, in any event. Clearly Victor was asked to join the party as a test of some sort. The protective nature of Shannon’s friends was evident in the questions they asked him, the way they made him feel welcome and yet didn’t put on fake airs. They were weighing him like a father did a daughter’s date on prom night.
He liked it.
“Do you think I passed the test?” he asked close to Shannon’s ear.
It took her a few seconds to understand what he was asking. The question chased the sadness from her eyes. “Were they
that obvious?”
He touched her elbow, felt her tremble, and led her to a quieter part of the room by the window. “Your friends care about you. I think that says a lot about them and you.”
“What does it say?” she asked.
He leaned against the window, reluctantly removed his hand from her arm. “This whole party. Inviting me and not telling you . . . they want to make sure I’m worthy.” That I’m not out to hurt you.
“They’re protective.”
“You deserve their protection.”
“You barely know me.”
He smiled. “I’m going to change that.”
Her mouth opened and closed without words.
The need to hold her, kiss her, wrap his arms around her until she stopped trembling . . . or maybe until she trembled more. His palms itched to leave with her.
An eruption of laughter flowed toward them.
Shannon glanced away from him, stepped closer.
“Would you like to leave?” Shannon asked.
Victor did a double take.
Her jaw was tight, her smile forced.
The protective hair on the back of his neck stood on end.
“Please,” she said. “If we leave together, they won’t question my exit.”
He took her hand in his, found it cold and clammy.
Victor looked in her eyes as she blinked away the emotions surging to the surface.
He pulled her toward their hosts. Lori broke off the conversation with Trina and Wade when they approached. Her eyes shifted between the two of them, hesitated on Shannon, and then focused on him.
“It looks like I’m being given a coffee date two months early,” Victor announced. He glanced toward Shannon to see if she wanted to add anything.
He saw her swallow . . . hard. Her hand gripped his.
“And we thought it would give everyone a chance to talk about us after we leave,” he added.
Lori grinned and hugged Shannon.
After the shortest round of farewells Victor could remember, he and Shannon stood in the elevator in silence. Her shoulders started to shake.
Victor placed his arm around her and pulled her close. He had no idea what had spurred the sorrow pouring from her, but he was thankful he was there to catch it.
He handed the concierge his valet ticket and escorted Shannon outside to the fresh air.
She tilted her head back and drew in a long breath.
Victor turned her toward him and placed his hands on the sides of her face.
Her dark eyes glistened, her lips attempted to smile.
“You don’t have to fake it with me,” he told her.
His words seemed to prompt a small gasp from her lips. He wanted to fix her, whatever it was that was making her unhappy. He settled for brushing away the tears that had fallen from her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she started.
He placed one of his thumbs over her lips to stop her. The flash of lights from a passing car drew her eyes across the street.
Shannon’s expression shifted, her eyes narrowed.
Victor glanced over his shoulder and realized that what he thought were passing cars were actually two men holding long-lens cameras pointed in their direction.
“What the . . .”
“Paparazzi,” she said in explanation.
She stiffened, her head tilted higher.
“They’re not here for me,” he said aloud. Only the flash of their cameras kept buzzing the night air.
“I doubt they’re here for me either. I’m just a bonus.”
The valet drove up in his car, and Victor hastily helped Shannon inside. By the time he had tipped the driver and slid behind the wheel, Shannon was talking on her phone. “Let Wade and Trina know the cameras have arrived.” She paused, looked out the window as they drove away. “Only a couple. No, I’m fine . . . I love you, too.” She hung up.
Victor sped away from the lights. “That was a first,” he said as he switched lanes.
“I’m sorry in advance.” Her soft words cut through him. “Although I doubt they care much about me any longer.”
“You mean you’ve dealt with them before?”
She regarded him from the passenger seat. “Are you suggesting that you didn’t google my name at one point or another?”
Okay, he was guilty of that. “Well . . .”
“Where do you think those pictures came from? Some were from the press hired by my ex-husband, but the majority were circulated by the opportunistic photographer looking for gossip.”
“They didn’t find any on you.”
She stared out the window. “That didn’t stop them from trying, or making up what would sell newspapers.”
The more she talked, the less sadness he felt surging off her.
He kept her talking.
“This was my first. What was yours?” He knew, on some level, he was inviting conversation about her life with the former governor. He welcomed it. He wanted to know this beautiful, poised . . . sad woman sitting beside him.
“It was choreographed,” she told him. “Shortly after we announced our involvement. I walked out of our engagement dinner to the flash of a dozen cameras. He leaned in, twisted my ear. ‘Smile . . . you’ll get used to it.’” She sighed. “I smiled, froze . . .”
Victor glanced over, watched her staring out the window.
“I’m just now waking up.”
Victor reached out his free hand and placed it on her arm.
She offered a soft smile.
“You think they were there for your friends Trina and Wade?”
“Undoubtedly. When Trina visits on her own, the cameras are harder to find. When Wade is here, there is a pretty good chance someone is hiding in the bushes.”
Victor turned off the freeway and kept heading west.
“That can’t be easy.” He couldn’t imagine his life under a microscope.
“It takes a strong disposition, and someone without secrets.”
He hadn’t thought of that angle.
“Do you have any?” she asked out of the blue.
“Secrets?”
“Yeah.” She watched from the corner of her eye.
He thought of the question and searched his mental database. Page after blank page came up.
“Never mind. You don’t have to answer that.” Shannon’s voice deflated.
He raised a hand in the air. “No, no . . .” He paused. “Damn, I’m boring,” he finally said.
He heard a small laugh from her side of the car. “Everyone has something.”
No . . . high school didn’t count, college . . . he studied, he worked, did the typical things kids did who were actually trying to finish school in four years. Then decided four years was too long and left after two. Nothing newsworthy. His business was clean. Really boring.
Shannon shifted in her seat, waiting.
“There was that time in the Bolivian jail with that little cartel situation . . .” He lifted a hand from the steering wheel. “But the name change and plastic surgery seem to have gotten them off my scent.”
Shannon’s shoulders started to shake until finally her laughter broke.
He turned into his driveway lined with palm trees and parked in front of his garage doors.
“Where are we?” Shannon asked.
Victor had driven on autopilot. Not really considering the moment when he pulled up to his house.
“My home,” he told her. “But I’m not expecting anything. Let’s have a nightcap, talk about my drug selling days, and count the stars in the sky.”
If she was nervous, she didn’t show it. “We should introduce your friends to my ex bookie . . . I bet they’d get along.”
And she pushed out of the car.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Her cell phone was ringing.
Shannon reached out toward the phone jack on her nightstand and found her hand colliding with a lamp.
Her eyes blinked open. Sun from the corner of the room
invaded her senses.
The bed was softer, the sheets didn’t feel right, and her phone kept ringing.
Victor’s.
The memory of crashing in Victor’s spare room late in the night surfaced. Her hand landed on her phone. “Hello?”
“Someone is sleeping in.” Avery’s voice shook some of the cobwebs from her brain.
Shannon swung her feet over the edge of the bed, looked down at herself. She wore an oversize T-shirt that didn’t belong to her. “Good morning,” Shannon said to her friend. “What time is it?”
“After nine.”
Shannon looked around the room to find a clock . . . didn’t see one.
“I need some coffee,” she said more to herself than Avery.
“I won’t keep you. I’m just checking to make sure you’re okay.”
She wiggled her toes on the carpet covering the dark wooden floors of the room. “I’m fine.”
“You left pretty abruptly last night.”
“Victor convinced me to sneak away.” She offered a tiny white lie to keep the questions at bay.
She heard footsteps from outside the room and then a knock at her door. “Shannon?” Victor called through the wood.
“Just a minute,” she said, covering the phone with her hand in an attempt to keep Avery from knowing she was talking with someone.
It didn’t work. “Oh my God, he’s with you.”
“It’s not what you think.”
“I need to hear all about this.”
Shannon didn’t believe for a second she’d escape the dozen questions her friend would ask.
“It was late, we’d both had another drink. I slept over. Nothing happened.”
Avery laughed. “That isn’t a good enough explanation. But I’ll let you go for now.”
“I’ll call you this afternoon.”
“Okay. But before you hang up, I wanted to give you a heads-up.”
Shannon stood and stretched. “About what?”
“You and Victor made the tabloids last night. A small shot on the front page leading to a full-page spread on the tenth.”
Any dust in Shannon’s head blew away with the news. “Whatever could they possibly say about me on a full page?”
“It’s never flattering.”
“Did they photoshop thirty pounds on me and say I was suicidal?” Which had happened a year after the split with Paul.
Faking Forever (First Wives Book 4) Page 19