Faking Forever (First Wives #4)(60)

Avery pulled Victor away from Shannon and walked him over to Trina and Wade for introductions.

Lori fell back. “You didn’t tell me how good-looking he was.”

“You didn’t ask.”

“Are you really counting the days?”

“He just had a huge breakup. We agreed on three months to give him time to process.” But apparently those three months were going to include phone calls, texting, and cocktail parties. And visits from his ex future mother-in-law. She’d forgotten about that until that moment.

Was Victor speaking with Corrie?

She supposed that was normal, but how much talking, and what was being said?

He was there, so that spoke for something . . . right? Or Victor could be a complete player like her ex-husband and keep his cards close to his chest.

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.