The article had been packed with mistruths. The biggest one being that Victor and Shannon had met before the doomed wedding in Tulum. So far the paper had painted Victor the villain and Corrie and Shannon the innocent victims. Sadly, it made Shannon sound like a weak woman being taken advantage of. She was surprised to hear that the media was knocking on Victor’s door. There wasn’t a story worth telling there. Still, she knew better than to test fate.
“What restaurant?”
He picked something quiet and private. A small Italian place that smelled of garlic and carbs. Victor was waiting for her when she walked through the door. He greeted her with a kiss to the cheek and a knowing squeeze to her waist.
Itchy, burning excitement at the sight of him ignited with his touch.
“Beautiful,” he whispered in her ear before encouraging her to tuck into the booth.
“Had I known we were having lunch in such a nice place, I would have dressed differently.”
He scooted in beside her, placed his palm on her thigh under the table. “Don’t ever feel like you need to dress up for me.”
“You want me to dress up for someone else?”
He squeezed her thigh. “No!”
His single word was said a little too quickly, and with more force than she’d expected.
“I was teasing.”
He blinked at her, patted her thigh he’d just grabbed. “I knew that.”
Shannon leaned forward, tilted her lips toward his. He seemed surprised but didn’t disappoint her. The kiss was brief, like that of a kiss on a scratch in an effort to mend.
That seemed to do the trick.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he told her. “I’m hoping the promise of more lunches, and maybe a few hours this weekend, will give my mind time to get back to work.”
“What happened to waiting three months?”
“Screw that. We’re renegotiating that deal.”
“Oh, are we?”
“My business won’t survive two more months.”
“But—”
He lifted two fingers to her lips, silencing her. “Tell me about this loft you were looking at.”
And just like that, their negotiations were over. By the time lunch ended, she’d agreed to go to dinner with him on the weekend, a place where she could dress up and he could practice his charming swagger . . . his words. He promised to pick her up and have her home by a reasonable hour unless she insisted otherwise or had an allergic reaction to her clothing and needed his assistance in getting out of it. To tide him over until Saturday, he told her he wanted to see the loft she was considering, so they made another midweek lunch date.
They ended their impulsive date with a kiss by her car and a promise for more.
As she drove home, her heart was doing somersaults. She cautioned herself, reminded her heart that Victor might be rebounding, even if he continually told her he wasn’t.
Timing was everything, and in his case, it was off by a few months. Shannon couldn’t bring herself to stop.
Even if that was the smart thing to do.
“What did I do to deserve this unexpected happy hour visit?” Victor asked his brother the following evening.
Justin had called earlier in the day and wouldn’t take no for an answer. He wouldn’t elaborate as to why either.
“Can’t I ask to go out for drinks with my little brother on occasion?”
“You can, but you never do.”
Justin picked up his beer. “Correction, I don’t any longer. I used to all the time, but you continually turned me down.”
“I usually work late.”
Justin took a drink. “But you said yes today.”
Victor leaned one elbow on the bar he’d picked, not far from his office but closer to the neighborhood his brother called home. “I’ve been working on finding more time for my personal relationships.”
Justin smiled. “Mom told me you were coming over a week from Sunday for a family dinner. Is that part of your soul searching?”
“You could say that.”
His brother drank from his beer. “Does this have anything to do with Shannon?”
Victor hesitated. “How do you know about Shannon?”
Instead of answering, Justin said, “I’m shocked at how many people I know read gossip magazines.”
He should have known. “Don’t believe everything you read.”
“So there isn’t anything between you two?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then there is.”
Victor took a drink, set his beer down. “Shannon and I are dating.”
Justin shook his head. “You don’t waste any time, do you?”
“It just happened. We were trying to wait a respectable amount of time—”
“That sounds like something a woman would come up with,” Justin interrupted.
Victor considered the couple they’d met in Tulum and Avery’s take on the time frame of rebound relationships. “Shannon needed assurance that I wasn’t using her to get over Corrie.”
“Are you?”
Okay, that hurt. “No. Why would you think—”
“Because it’s only been eight weeks.”
“Seven.”
“You’re counting?” Justin asked.
“No. Shannon is. I don’t care if it was yesterday or last year. Corrie was a mistake. Any feelings I had for her are long gone, if they were ever there at all.”
Justin set his beer aside and fixed his eyes on Victor’s. “Then I need to tell you something.”
“I’m listening.”
“The day I left Tulum I told Shannon that if I wasn’t dating Deirdre, I would have asked her out.”
Victor’s forearms tensed. “What did Shannon say?”
“That I was the man of her dreams and she wished she could change my mind,” Justin said, deadpan.
Victor’s jaw started to ache.
“Damn, you’re easy.” Justin broke into a grin. “Stand down, Vic. She politely told me she wasn’t interested.”
Victor released the breath he was holding. “Asshole.”
Justin started to laugh.
Victor slapped his brother’s back a little too hard. “Payback’s a bitch.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“I need to change our plans for Saturday,” Victor told her as they walked around the loft.
They’d only been there five minutes, and her excitement over meeting Victor was swept away by his words. “Oh.”
“I said change, not cancel,” he clarified as he dropped an arm on her shoulder as if it belonged there.
“Clarify, please.”
He walked her past Gary, who stood in the middle of the room watching them, and over to one of the three massive windows.
“I completely forgot about a charity fundraiser that I sponsor every year. I’d like you to come with me. It’s a dinner thing, kinda fancy. I’d skip out of it if I hadn’t purchased a table and already seated it with some of my biggest clients and their spouses. Not going would be—”
Shannon stopped him. “I get it. You don’t have to explain. But are you sure you want to bring me? People will talk.”
“I absolutely want you to go so people do talk.”
“Great comeback,” Gary said from where he stood several feet away.
Victor looked up, smiled at the agent.
“Sorry. Eavesdropping. It’s a weakness.”
“Say you’ll go,” Victor said. “Get dressed up for me.”
His words reminded her of the conversation they’d had earlier in the week. “What time?”
Once they’d ironed out the plan, Gary drew their attention back to the room.
Victor walked around the space, asking questions and pointing out options. “You could drywall over the brick, but that might feel too modern. Or how about one of those plaster jobs with texture and color, maybe even leave some of the brick exposed like you’d see in Italy on a three-hundred-year-old building.”
Shannon stared up at the wall in question and the shape of it started to come into focus. “That’s a really good idea.”
“Brilliant,” Gary added.
She nodded several times. “What about the bedroom space upstairs?”
“You said you didn’t like modern.”
“Not particularly.”
“Then gut the bathroom. Start over with it. I’d suggest you wait to sell your house until after, if you can swing it. Give you time to make this exactly the way you want it.”
Gary pointed to Victor. “I like this guy.”
Shannon rolled her eyes. “I’m not sure if I could live here.”
Victor turned in a circle. “Who said you had to? You said you needed a change. Is this a big enough change, or are you wanting more?”
“I want something that is all me.” Not a byproduct of her marriage to Paul, or something she fulfilled because society, or in Shannon’s case, her parents, asked it of her.
Victor lifted both hands. “If this isn’t it, we keep looking.”
“We?” She picked out one word.
“You keep looking, and I keep offering my opinion and support,” he clarified.
“What do you think about this place?”
He regarded her for a second and then turned to Gary. “Can you excuse us for a few minutes?”
“Of course. I’ll meet you outside when you’re done.”
Once they were alone, Victor turned to Shannon and placed both hands on her hips. “What’s stopping you?”
“I’m just not sure—” The thought of change was exciting and new, but the reality of it made her skin itch with uncertainty.
“You said open space, this can open up. You wanted an ocean view. I’m not sure they get a whole lot better.”
“It is a pretty great view.”
“But?”
She dug deeper and tried to find the reason she was hesitating. “It’s the perfect place for a single person.” Which she was, but didn’t really want to be.