Faking Forever (First Wives Book 4)

by Catherine Bybee

  “No. But I wanted to warn you if you hadn’t seen it. And since you’re obviously still with Victor . . .”

  “Got it.” She knew the drill. “I’ll call you later.”

  They said their goodbyes, and Shannon tossed her cell phone on the bed.

  In the bathroom, she found a bathrobe and made use of the brush and the extra toothbrush on the counter. She considered putting her jumpsuit on from the night before but couldn’t bring herself to start her day without coffee.

  One last glance in the mirror . . . no makeup, sleep in the corners of her eyes, a borrowed shirt and bathrobe. This was the-day-after Shannon. If Victor didn’t like this look, they had no business spending serious time together. With a shrug, she padded, barefoot, out of her room and toward Victor’s kitchen.

  He wore jeans. His back was to her when she entered the room, his hands busy pulling cups from a cupboard.

  “Is that coffee?” she asked to get his attention.

  He turned, his jaw slacked slightly, and his eyes did a slow crawl down her frame.

  Shannon shifted her feet under his microscope.

  “I might not wash that bathrobe.”

  She took his words as a compliment and grinned. Her morning look must not have offended him. “Good morning.”

  He shook his head with a slight groan, turned back to his task. “Coffee with sugar, right?”

  “How did you know?”

  He poured her a cup. “Every morning on the beach you were huddled over a cup, reading.”

  “I’ll take the coffee, but I’m fresh out of reading material.” She took the cup he offered and doctored it with the sugar he had sitting out.

  “Did you sleep well?”

  “I did. You?”

  He sighed. “Do I offer the lie or tell the truth?”

  She leaned against the counter, brought the cup to her lips. “Is this like the game of truth or dare?” The java splashed against her tongue, waking her fully.

  “Knowing you were across the hall kept me up until three.”

  She lowered her cup. “I should have gone home.”

  “No, no, no . . . I wouldn’t have slept at all, then.”

  She doubted that. She sipped her coffee again. “This is really good.”

  “You’ve found my hidden talent.”

  “Making coffee?”

  “We all have one thing.” He led her out of the kitchen and into his informal dining room. There was a newspaper spread out on the table, evidence that he’d been sitting there for a while.

  “How long have you been up?”

  “Since six thirty.”

  “That’s not a lot of sleep.”

  They sat opposite each other, and Victor brushed the paper away. “My internal clock wakes me with the sun. It’s a curse.”

  “It makes you productive.” She set her cup down, glanced at the paper. “About last night . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Avery called this morning. It appears the paparazzi found something worthy of their magazines last night when you and I walked outside.”

  He picked up his cup, shrugged. “Like I said, I have nothing to hide. Besides, they won’t know who I am.”

  Shannon shook her head. “They will know your name, your business, and your net worth, if they think it will sell papers. They’re not called gossip magazines for nothing.”

  Victor reached over, placed a hand over hers. “Don’t spend one more minute worrying about me.”

  “I’m not worried, just warning you. We should come up with a statement we both stick to if we’re cornered by the media.” At least that’s how she’d approached them in the past. Scripted lines delivered and repeated to avoid the unfortunate slip of the truth.

  Victor drank his coffee and regarded her with a tilt of his head. “What kind of statement do you suggest?”

  She hadn’t thought about that. Shannon leaned back in her chair and processed the situation aloud. “We need to stay as close to the truth as possible. We met in Tulum.”

  “That’s easy.”

  She continued. “They will find out about our connection and about Corrie running off.”

  “I can’t imagine they’d care about that.”

  She looked at him as if he were new. “Your bride runs away and you’re seen with the photographer barely a month later. They’ll conclude there was something between us either before or during the wedding.” As that picture developed in her head, the nastiness that the media would paint started to appear. “They’ve been looking for something nasty on me for years. It can go a couple of ways. You’ll be a cheating bastard who got caught, or I’ll be the woman who lured you away. Neither are very flattering.”

  “Or the truth.”

  “Truth isn’t what they’re after.”

  Victor shrugged. “I can handle it.”

  “I’ve found that, so long as there is little fuel, the story just drops. Especially if something new comes around to take its place. It helps that you’re not famous and I’m no longer in the public eye because of my ex.”

  He sat forward. “So we tell them we met in Tulum.”

  “They’ll ask if we have a romantic relationship. Sex sells papers.”

  He grinned. “And how should we answer that?”

  Shannon traced the edge of her coffee cup with her index finger. “Maybe that we’re exploring our options.”

  “Are we?” He flashed his teeth with his smile. “Exploring our options?”

  “I’m wearing your T-shirt and drinking coffee in your home. I think we’re exploring something.”

  His gaze drank her in, and his silence had her heartbeat working overtime. “Fifty-five days is too long,” he said under his breath.

  “Victor—”

  “I have dreamt of your lips, of your touch . . . of you every day since we’ve met. I want to explore.”

  Her face started to heat. “I don’t know how to explore, Victor. I haven’t had a casual relationship since before I was married,” she confessed.

  “Who said anything about casual?”

  “You just jumped out of a—”

  “Relationship,” he finished for her. “I know. But it wasn’t right. I can see that now.” He reached over and took her hand in his once again. “I met with Corrie last week. You know what I discovered?”

  Did she want to hear this? “What?”

  “That we were never right for each other. Her immaturity is the tip of the mountain of everything that was wrong about us. I wanted the next step in my life, and somehow thought I could just order up that bride and everything would be fine.”

  A chord struck in her spine. The fact that she was once the “ordered bride” wasn’t lost on her.

  “I leaped into that relationship without thinking.”

  “You’re jumping again,” she argued.

  “No. I’m thinking.”

  “I’m not sure you’re thinking with the right side of your brain,” she said.

  He grinned. “Admittedly. But it’s more than that. Or at least I think it’s more than that. It needs exploring to find out.”

  “Fifty-five days—”

  “Is too long.”

  Her hand started to shake ever so slightly. Fear? Excitement? She couldn’t name the emotion to save her life. “The timing is off.”

  “Why are you so against this? You’re attracted. Don’t try and deny it.”

  She removed her hand from under his, pushed back from the table. “I’m an adult,” she said more to herself than him. “I don’t need to deny anything.” I’m not ready. As the words popped into her head, her body called her a liar.

  “What’s the worst thing that can happen?” he asked.

  I fall in love. You destroy me. The words ran through her head like a ticker tape on the evening news. None of which she could repeat without revealing too much. So she picked the words that would scare any man away. “I’ll get pregnant.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The vuln
erability on her face, the fear in her eyes. Where was the strong, confident woman he’d met on the airplane, the force of nature embodied by a woman he thought he knew?

  She stood after dropping what he was sure she thought was an epiphany to him, but in fact was old knowledge.

  He joined her when she turned her back; the bathrobe he’d placed in the guest room dwarfed her frame. He placed a hand on her shoulder, was surprised she didn’t jump.

  Victor realized, on some level, that he was acting a little bit like a high school senior pressuring his prom date to get naked. He wouldn’t, of course. But he did want to push Shannon out of her comfort zone and make her at least consider the possibility.

  “Shannon, look at me.”

  She didn’t.

  He ducked closer, made it impossible for her to look the other way.

  With a heavy sigh, she leveled her eyes with his.

  “Pregnancy is always a risk—” he said.

  “I will. It isn’t a question of risk. I stopped all forms of birth control months ago. One slip, one tear . . .”

  He knew the answer to his question before the words formed in his head but wanted to hear it from her first. “Why?”

  She studied the floor, looked up. “I’ll be thirty-five next month.”

  “And you want a child.”

  She didn’t look at him when she nodded. “It’s why I was in Tulum . . . I mean, outside of your wedding.” She rolled her eyes. “Your nonwedding.”

  “You were meeting somebody?”

  A quick shake of her head dashed away that thought. “No. Not somebody . . . just any . . . I shouldn’t be telling you this.” She turned.

  He placed a hand on her arm. Kept her from walking in the opposite direction. “You had a plan.”

  “A loose plan.”

  “I didn’t fall into it.”

  She looked at him as if he were crazy. “No, you didn’t. You crushed it. Not that I had found someone, but you were there and reminding me that maybe there was—” She stopped short, her thoughts unspoken.

  “You’re a beautiful woman, I can’t imagine you haven’t been given plenty of opportunities.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Less than you would think.”

  “What do your friends think about this plan?”

  She hesitated, so he talked over her thoughts. “And to be clear, you went to Tulum to have sex with someone you didn’t know for the purpose of having a child.”

  He waited for her to deny him. Her expression gave her away.

  “Avery hated the idea.”

  He smiled. “I always knew I liked her.”

  Some of the stress, anxiety, or whatever it was on Shannon’s face faded with his comment. “It didn’t happen.”

  “You met me.”

  “And we didn’t have sex.”

  “We could have,” he said. “You didn’t let us.” Because he wasn’t a stranger. Because he brought something to her life that made her revise her plan. The more he thought about what her motivation was for not having sex with him, the bigger his smile became.

  “You do realize that all of my friends would have advised me to not have this conversation with you.”

  Victor stepped forward, brushed a hair from her face, and tucked it behind her ear.

  She sucked in a breath.

  Such a simple touch, and yet she responded in a way that few did. “And what are your thoughts on this conversation?” he asked.

  Her gaze met his and paused. “It’s liberating, I suppose. Honesty. I’m not used to it.”

  “Paul wasn’t honest with you,” he deducted.

  Her gaze lowered. “I wasn’t honest with him.”

  That, he wasn’t expecting.

  He lifted her chin. “One day, I want you to tell me what you weren’t honest with him about.” Victor stepped closer. “But today, I want to relish in the fact that you are honest with me.” And he lowered his lips to hers.

  She was timid, maybe a little shocked . . . but she didn’t move away.

  Victor closed his eyes and pulled in her scent as he drew her close. Her full lips parted. For air? Invitation? He didn’t know, but he took advantage of the opening and deepened their kiss. He tasted coffee and mint and Shannon. His mornings would never be the same after such an intoxicating combination.

  The timid tip of her tongue met his and shot all the blood from his head south to his groin. Shannon reached around his waist. He felt her nails through the fabric of his shirt. He stepped closer, pulled her body flush with his. The outline of his erection pressed against the softness of her belly and wept to be closer.

  He fanned his fingers through her hair, tilted her head back, and worshiped her with open-mouth kisses that left her gasping.

  “This . . . this . . .”

  He kissed her words away and finally moved to her jaw and the lobe of her delicate ear.

  “Oh, Victor.”

  Her pelvis pushed against him, so he nibbled her ear again.

  She responded with a soft moan.

  He wanted this woman more than he needed his next breath. “Let me make love to you,” he whispered.

  Tight fingers spread against his back as he kissed the column of her neck. “The risk . . .”

  He’d take the risk. But he told her what she needed to hear. “There are more ways to make love to you without taking risks.” He reached for the belt of the robe and gave it one tug.

  Her eyes, half open with desire, met his. He could see her weighing her choices and questioned her resolve as she took a small step back. Shannon reached for the sides of the bathrobe and slowly pulled it off her shoulders.

  Victor smiled, his body firing in all directions, praising the prize he was about to receive.

  “This is a bad idea,” she said as the robe slid to the floor.

  His T-shirt hung on her, filled out in all the right places, and stopped at the tops of her thighs. Long legs, legs he wanted to worship with his tongue, reached to her painted, bare toes. “A really good bad idea,” he countered.

  Victor reached for her hand and drew her down the hall to the room where she’d spent the night.

  He turned her into his arms the moment they crossed the threshold and kissed away any doubt she had.

  Something inside of her clicked. He didn’t hear it, but he sensed it. Her lips traveled over his with renewed energy and need. Her hands roamed the span of his back and down over his ass.

  His cock jumped in his pants. If he didn’t get control now, he would embarrass himself before she could take him in her hand, her mouth. And that was how he was going to make love to her. With kisses and strokes of his tongue. It was as if the thought evoked some kind of pheromone from her skin, because it tasted sweeter when he kissed her neck and pulled the T-shirt aside and licked her shoulder.

  “You smell so good,” she told him. She nuzzled his neck, took a deep breath. “On the plane I thought it was cologne. But it was you.” Teeth grazed his chin.

  “I thought you were sick,” he teased. “Had I known you were trying to smell me, I’d have leaned over and let you.”

  Shannon tugged at the edges of his shirt.

  His hands rode down her back and then traveled up her shirt. Slender curves and smooth skin had him closing his eyes and imagining what he’d find when he removed the shirt from her back. His thumbs traced the outline of her breasts and ran over the pert nipples. Would they be pink, or dusty mauve? Tan, or a darker brown?

  She pushed into his palms and he lowered his head to kiss them through the cotton of the shirt.

  “Yes, please,” she said.

  Her body responded with tight restraint. She pushed forward, head back.

  He sucked in one nipple, through the cloth, and caught her when her knees buckled. Shannon was a ripe berry ready for harvest. He teased and nibbled. Let her pull the shirt from her shoulders.

  His breath caught.

  Victor had seen her frame through the moonlight over Tulum, but never did he imag
ine just how majestic it would be to hold and touch. “You’re exquisite.”

  A soft, almost doubtful laugh made him tilt her chin and force her eyes to meet his. He didn’t repeat his words, he simply kissed her. And when she went pliant in his arms again, he felt his own knees give way and moved her to the bed.

  He guided her back, felt her knee slide up his leg as he lowered her. Her dark hair spread over the pillow. He’d imagined this moment the first time she started singing to him at the bar in Tulum. There were fifty ways to leave the one you were with, to be with the one you wanted.

  “Touch me,” she pleaded.

  Victor lowered his lips to the hollow of her neck and farther, until he found and captured one dusky nipple between his teeth.

  She surged, all of her. Welcoming, asking.

  He answered with the spread of his hand over her ribs and down her slim waist until he met the elastic of her underwear. Slow fingers searched.

  So wet. How was it possible she was so ready?

  Victor had made love to many women in his life. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t enjoyed nearly every one. The first time, with fumbling fingers and a climax that only satisfied him . . . to the women that pretended and called out long before their breath had a chance to be snatched away. But this woman, Shannon. His fingers found her again . . . she jumped, so he repeated the motion.

  “Yes.”

  Her single word of approval had his lips grazing her skin as he moved down her body, pulling her panties away from her legs until they sat on one of her ankles.

  Everything about her was intoxicating . . . the scent, the taste . . . he moved lower and replaced his fingers with his lips. Tease.

  He did . . . with his lips, his breath . . . his tongue.

  Her hips surged forward and his pelvis pushed against the bed between her legs. The need to bury into her was as carnal as it comes, but he held back and made love to her in a way that left them both in need of something more. He settled between her legs and felt his heart singing when she placed a hand on the back of his head to hold him exactly where she needed him.

  The muttered words that he couldn’t decipher kept him going. He listened to the rate of her breath, the way she held it and pressed her hips forward.