Faking Forever (First Wives #4)(87)
She sent a group text to her friends.
I’m not pulling an Avery . . . or a Trina . . . Okay, maybe I am. I’m going to visit my sister. I will text the location later. Wouldn’t want the freaking media hacking my messages and following me. And Lori, tell Paul to back off. Remind him of what he signed way back when. I need to clear my head. Love you all, Shannon.
And she turned her phone off. Which was how it would stay until she wanted to pop back up on the radar. Between Friend Finder apps and her supersleuthy friends, Shannon was bound to find someone on the other end of the plane ride aside from her sister.
Lori found Shannon’s text the second she was out of the courtroom and walking to her car. Before she could read it all, Avery was calling. “What the hell?”
“Did you talk to her?”
“No. Did you?”
“No.” She picked up her pace, opened her car door, and tossed her briefcase into the passenger seat.
“Isn’t her sister in Africa or something?”
“Or something. Has Trina heard from her?”
“No, Trina called me,” Avery said.
Lori turned the car over, looked out her rearview mirror. “I’m calling Paul, you try Victor. Something must have gone down.”
“I’m on it.”
Avery hung up.
Before Lori called Paul, she contacted her husband.
“Hey, honey, how was court?” Reed asked before she had a chance to say hi.
“I need you to find Shannon’s sister.”
“Excuse me?”
“Angie . . . Redding, I think. I don’t believe she ever married. She was in the Peace Corps last time I heard anything about her.”
Reed cleared his throat. “Do you want to tell me what this is all about?”
“Yes, later.”
“Can’t you just ask Shannon?”
Lori rolled her eyes, pulled out of the parking space. “If only it was that easy.”
She hung up before Reed asked more questions and then dialed the number she had for Paul. For five minutes she was given the runaround before he finally got on the line.
“Hello, Lori.”
“What did you do?”
“Excuse me?”
“Don’t play coy with me, Paul. You said or did something to Shannon. Fess up.”
He was silent.
Lori waited and gripped the steering wheel to keep her mouth from opening and screaming at the man.
“I asked her to come back.”
“And when she told you no?” Please, please, Shannon, tell me you said no.
“I offered her another contract.”
It was a very good thing Lori was at a stoplight. “I’m going to play lawyer here for a minute . . . Are you listening, Paul?”
He was silent.
“Your contract specifically stated that any continuation or changes or anything in regard to Alliance has got to go through us first. You’re in direct violation just bringing the subject up without consulting us first. Do you understand that? Or have you forgotten everything you learned in law school?”
“Yes, Counselor.”
Good! The man could understand basic English.
“Now that we have that out of the way . . . Are you that big of a moron?”
The light turned green, and she shifted her car around a slow driver and hit the gas. “I understood you were a player when you signed on to Alliance, the risks were spelled out to Shannon, but you changed the rules when you filled her with hope that you were both more than temporary—”
Paul started to interrupt.
Lori didn’t let him. “You didn’t love her, fine. But you knew damn well she loved you, and you worked that for all it was worth. Now that Shannon is finally over you, you try and drag her back? That makes you a special kind of douchebag, Paul.”
“I’m glad you’re being diplomatic about this, Lori.”
“Oh, I’m not being diplomatic. I’m being a friend who is pissed off.”
“Fine. Now that your tantrum is out of the way—”
“My tantrum hasn’t even started.”
“I want to hire Alliance again.”
She laughed. “Not in this lifetime.”
“One good reason why . . . and don’t say Shannon.”
Lori sucked in a breath. “Alliance as you knew it no longer exists. In fact, it was someone searching for the truth behind your marriage to Shannon that helped shape our new business model. If you remember right, you and I had a conversation about this two years ago.” The fact that Lori’s now husband, Reed, was the private investigator searching for dirt on Paul’s hands was left unsaid. “Having you as a client a second time would be entirely too risky.”
“I forgot all about that,” Paul said with a sigh. Maybe she was finally getting through to him.
“Why don’t you find a wife the old-fashioned way? Leave Shannon and Alliance out of it.”
“I’ll consider your advice.”
“Good. You do that.”
“I never meant to hurt her, Lori.”
She wanted to believe him. “If that’s true, then leave her alone now.”
“I’ll let you extend my apologies, then.”
“I’ll do that. Goodbye, Paul.”