Faking Forever (First Wives #4)(64)

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—”