And that was all the time they had to talk before Paul stepped up beside Lori, his warm eyes settling on Shannon.

“What a wonderful surprise to find you here,” Paul said directly to her.

Lori turned toward him and smiled. “Thanks, Paul. But I’m married now.”

He winked at Lori and kissed her cheek. “Hello, Lori. How have you been?”

There was never any real bad blood between the two of them. Although Shannon knew Lori’s loyalty lay directly in Shannon’s court.

“I’m fine. I see you’re still working the room just by being in it.”

His eyes found Shannon again. “A blessing and a curse, I’m afraid.”

“I don’t see the curse,” Lori told him.

“It’s hard to find who your true friends are when people put you on a pedestal.”

Okay, he was definitely speaking directly to Shannon.

He leaned forward, kissed Shannon’s cheek. “Hello, Shannon.”

“Hello, Paul. You look well.” A little too well, if she was being honest with herself.

“And you’re glowing.”

“I would give credit to the new man in her life,” Lori said quickly.

Paul stood back, tilted his head. “So I’ve heard.”

“I didn’t realize you read the gossip columns,” Shannon said.

“My staff does.”

Right . . . his staff. The people who orchestrated many of the images she’d found of herself on the front pages of the tabloids when they were married. The disappearance of her anonymity came with the paycheck. She’d been willing to sign up for it until her heart became involved. That’s when she realized the price for being married to Paul was much too steep. “Right,” Shannon said with a sigh.

Paul took a step forward, spoke to Lori out of the side of his mouth. “Would you give us a few minutes alone?”

Lori seemed surprised by the question and looked to Shannon for her approval.

“I’m fine,” she assured her friend.

Lori’s mouth moved into a tight line. “Behave,” she scolded Paul before walking away.

Paul took Shannon’s elbow and led her away from the crowd. “Should I know what I did to deserve her disapproval?”

She waited until they’d found a quiet corner before calmly removing her arm from his fingertips. “I doubt you’re that naive.”

His smile used to devastate her. Especially when he looked at her as he did now, soft and smoldering. “How is it you become more beautiful every time I see you?”

She felt her guard go up. “We’re not doing this, Paul.”

“Doing what?”

“The thing where you make me believe I mean something to you when I don’t. We don’t have to fake it anymore.”

He shook his head. “You’ve always meant something to me.”

She kept her tone even, a smile on her face for anyone who may be watching. “Yes, a means to an end.”

“That was mutual.”

She swallowed. “In the beginning.”

She could see his breathing picking up, did her best to keep hers even and unaffected.

“I should never have let you go,” he said quietly. “Biggest mistake of my life.”

Three years ago, she would have told him that she never left and he could get her back. But not now.

“It isn’t your fault that you didn’t love me.” She choked on the word love.

“Of course I loved you.”

She looked into his eyes. Was he that well practiced at telling lies that he could tell her what she always wanted to hear and make her believe him?

“If that were true, you wouldn’t have let me go. Our divorce would never have happened.”

He lowered his voice. “That was our contract. What you wanted.”

Shannon turned her body to try and hide her reaction from anyone watching. “You know better than anyone that is not what I wanted. You made love to me the night before you handed me the divorce papers.” Just thinking about it made her angry. At the time, all she had been was hurt.

“That was wrong of me.”

“It was criminal.”

“I’m sorry, Shannon.” He reached a hand out, placed it on her arm. “I want another chance.”

Why was he saying these things to her now? “I have someone in my life.”

“You’re not married.”

“He’s important to me.” And he was, much more than the memories she’d held on to of her life with Paul.

“What if I fight for you now?”

She smiled and took a step back. “Your opportunity to win that fight is long gone.”

“I don’t believe that. I see how you look at me.”

She’d have to work on that. If in fact she looked at him with any longing whatsoever. She lifted her chin, calmed her speeding pulse. “Spend your energy and fight. Go ahead. Maybe it will do you some good to learn that you can’t have some things back once you’ve kissed them goodbye.” Her words were a challenge, one she was pretty sure he wouldn’t take her up on. Paul never groveled. For good measure, she leaned in briefly and lowered her voice. “Goodbye, Paul.”

He stopped her with a soft touch to the side of her face. “I’m not giving up.”

She flinched and then stopped herself. A wounded ex-wife was what he expected. So she let her lips split into a smile and calmly walked away.

“That looked intense,” Lori said once Shannon was back at her side.

“Yeah, well, looks can be deceiving.” She glanced around the room, no longer wanting to be there. “You know that when a man tells you exactly what you want to hear . . . it’s probably bullshit.”

“I think I told you that.”

“You did.”

Lori motioned for the door. “Do you want to leave?”

“Absolutely.”

When The Cat’s Away!

That was the headline, and once again Shannon found herself on the front page of several magazines, from obvious gossip columns to political satire on the pages of the local newspaper.

This smacked of a setup.

She wanted to call Paul out, give him a piece of her mind. She hadn’t seen the photographers at the event but should have smelled them the second Paul moved her to a private corner.

In all the years since her divorce, she’d never truly gotten angry with the man, but that ended the moment her e-mail flooded with Google alerts with her name in the search engine.

“Is he that big of an asshole?” Avery asked when she called early in the morning.

“I didn’t used to think so.”

“Is there a chance he doesn’t know anything about the photographers?”

“Slim to none. He needs people to think he’s trying to mend things with me. Righting his past so he can get re-elected. I bet his rating goes up in the polls by the end of the week.”

“Asshole,” Avery said under her breath. “Has Victor seen these yet?”

“I doubt it. He’s flying back today, probably in the air right now.” She glanced at a clock and tried to calculate the time he said he was leaving to the current time in China . . . it all jumbled in her head.

“Some of those pictures look really convincing. If I didn’t know you, I’d think the tabloids got this one right.”

“They didn’t. I told him goodbye and I meant it. Finally.”

“Lori told me he said he was going to fight for you.”

Shannon glanced around her kitchen. “I don’t see bouquets of flowers or half a dozen messages of his love flooding in.”

“Delete the messages and throw away the flowers.”

“That’s my intention.” Not that she thought they were coming.

Only a couple of hours later, she would have lost the bet.

A dozen red roses arrived at her door with a simple note.

I miss you.

It wasn’t signed.

Angry that he would even try, Shannon marched out to the full trash bin in her driveway, put the flowers on top of the pile, and went about her day.

After a twelve-hour flight, made longer because of delays both leaving China and arriving in Los Angeles, Victor felt like the walking dead. Much as he wanted to surprise Shannon with a midnight call, he fell into bed after a much-needed shower and didn’t wake until ten the next day.

When he did, there was a stack of magazines and newspapers on his doorstep. They were tied in a big purple bow with a handwritten note.

She doesn’t love you!

Victor spread the papers on his dining room table and looked at the pictures.

He had to be missing something.

Shannon and her ex-husband looked as if they were rekindling a flame.

Something didn’t feel right. He looked at his calls and didn’t see her number in the log.

A message from his brother saying “Call me” caught his attention.

“Hey, Vic,” Justin said, picking up on the second ring.

“Is everything okay?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing.”

Victor could hear the busy noise of a machine shop in the background.

“I flew in last night.” He glanced at the tabloid on his table, closed his eyes, and shook his head.

“I thought as much. Hold on . . .”

Victor heard the noise in the background start to fade and then go away altogether. “I couldn’t hear you.”