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?”