Faking Forever (First Wives #4)(84)

The reason for the call cleared in his head. He sighed. “Yeah.” He picked up the handwritten note that was left with the papers. She doesn’t love you. “I don’t know what’s going on. I haven’t talked to Shannon yet.”

Justin paused. “Are you going to be okay?”

“You think the papers are telling the truth?”

“I think you jumped in really fast after Corrie.”

Victor ran his hand through his hair, suddenly more nervous than he had been before calling his brother back. “It’s probably bullshit.”

“And if it isn’t?”

His heart fell into the pit of his stomach with the thought. “She and her ex were a long time ago.”

“Looks like they saw each other while you were in China. At a political fundraiser. That couldn’t have been an accident.”

No denying that.

“Listen,” Justin said. “I don’t want to add to your stress, I just wanted to tell you I’m here if you wanna talk, or get drunk, or whatever. Twice in one year is a lot for anyone.”

“Yeah . . . okay.” This was not happening again.

“Love you, bro.”

“Yeah. Love you, too.” He hung up.

Instead of picking up the phone and calling Shannon, he dressed and went straight to her house.

He pounded on her door and called her name. When she didn’t answer, he glanced through the front window.

Nothing.

His palms started to sweat.

Oh, who was he kidding? His heart rate had soared the second he’d seen the pictures, elevated even more with Justin’s phone call, and now might need some serious drugs to find a normal pace.

He started to dial her number before he noticed the trash at the end of her driveway.

The roses he’d sent her sat on top of the garbage.

His step faltered.

Something inside of him started to chisel away and break.

This was not okay. Not again. Not with Shannon. Was he so easy to leave, to forget?

He finished dialing her number.

“You’ve reached Shannon, please leave a message and I’ll get back to you.”

Hearing her voice made his heart shatter.

He didn’t bother with a message.

He wished now he’d put her on Friend Finder so he knew exactly where she was. Only the thought hadn’t occurred to him.

It was Sunday morning . . . afternoon. He’d forgotten to set his watch to the current time. The last time they spoke she was excited about the loft, so that’s where he headed.

Victor tried to calm down, talk the caveman off the ledge. He was still half-dead from flying and cautioned himself against jumping to conclusions. But damn if he was going to ignore the pictures he’d found. Maybe Justin was right. Maybe he was jumping too fast with Shannon. What if she wasn’t over her ex?

His stomach wanted to erupt.

Worse, his heart started to break.

If she was walking away, she’d have to do so face-to-face. No running away! Not this time.

He violated several speeding laws in his haste to drive to her loft and even parked in a red zone when he couldn’t get into the tenant garage.

He heard music from inside before he knocked on the door.

When she didn’t answer, he let himself in.

Shannon was on her hands and knees, her arms reaching out in front of her as she worked a worn spot of the floor with a sponge. The simplicity of what she was doing was lost with the feeling that his world was changing with every breath.

“Hello,” he said from behind.

She jumped, turned his way, and dropped her head. “God, you scared the hell out of me.”

She was beautiful, even with dirt smudged on her forehead. “Sorry. You didn’t answer the door.”

It took her a second to get to her feet. She turned to him, took one step, and then froze. “What’s wrong?”

What’s wrong? She couldn’t be that clueless. “You don’t know?”

She blew out a breath. “Hold on.” She moved to the blaring radio and turned it off.

The room plunged into silence.

Shannon looked at him again. Paused. Anything that looked like a smile fell from her face. “You read the papers.”

He nodded. “Yeah. All of them.”

She started to smile and stopped. “You believe ’em.” She wasn’t asking a question.

“Tell me they’re wrong.”

“Of course they’re wrong. How could you think for a minute they weren’t?”

He pulled the picture that was the most convincing out from the inside pocket of his jacket. “Explain this.”

She took the picture from his fingers, handed it back. “Explain what, Victor? That a photographer took a picture, out of context, wrote a bunch of lies, and splattered it everywhere? Is that what you need to hear?”

He ticked off the facts that couldn’t be denied. “You went to a political fundraiser.”

“Lori asked me to go. Reed hates those things.”

“Where Paul was going.”

“I didn’t know he was on the guest list.” She placed both hands on her hips. “As if I need to explain this to you.”

He looked at the photo again, winced at how intimate it appeared. “He’s touching your face, Shannon. Is that photoshopped?”