Sweet Sinful Nights(28)

Her grandparents were the reason she returned to Vegas after a few years working in London, Miami, and Santa Fe for various dance companies and touring shows. Despite all that had happened, Las Vegas was the epicenter of her fractured family, her grandparents the heartbeat. Together with her brothers, they’d moved their grandparents into a new house in a safe and affluent section of Vegas. They’d made a pact as teens to live differently than their parents, to pull themselves out of the shit circumstances they’d grown up in, and to make sure they’d never be like their mother, who’d do anything for money.

Who’d done the worst for money.

Shannon looked at the picture again, pressed her fingers to her lips, and then touched her dad’s photo in the frame. Victoria did the same, and murmured, “Rest in peace.” Shannon’s throat hitched. Even now, even eighteen years later, she still felt so much emotion welling up inside her.

Better to focus on the conversation about Brent than to drift off into photos of days gone by.

“You hear correctly,” Shannon said, answering Victoria’s question about working with her old flame. “He hired my company to arrange for some dancers and choreography at his night clubs.”

They walked across the cool tiled floor to the kitchen. Victoria turned on the tap and poured some water, and handed a glass to Shannon, who downed half of it quickly. “He’s a sweet boy,” Victoria said in a whisper, first checking to see if any of Shannon’s brothers were in earshot.

“Boy,” Shannon said with a laugh. Brent was hardly a boy. He was all man, and the memory of how he’d touched her on his bar the other morning crashed back into her, like a comet of lust.

“He came back to bring me my ring, you know,” Victoria said, leaning her hip against the counter as she pushed a hand through her silvery hair.

Shannon furrowed her brow. “You never told me before.”

“I did try to tell you at the time, sweetheart. But you didn’t want to hear a word of it. You weren’t interested in any news about Brent, so I let it go. The ring doesn’t fit me anymore, but he came by and dropped it off himself shortly after you split.”

A strange sense of shock raced through her system as she flashed back in time. She remembered tossing the ring at Brent the day she’d walked out. She recalled too the red-hot rage, coupled with the soul-ripping sadness that her one true love had chosen something other than her. The days after the break-up were an agonizing blur of tears and investments in boxes of tissues, of anger and impromptu sessions using her couch pillows as punching bags. The weeks that followed were worse, the missing intensifying, the emptiness deepening, and they’d made her wish she had answered his calls earlier because his calls had stopped.

Shannon vacuumed up those memories. She knew her grandmother had the wedding band again, but she’d never stopped to find out how it came back to her. She’d always figured it had arrived by mail, never by personal courier in the form of Brent Nichols.

“He called me in advance. Made sure I was here. Said he wanted to return it to its rightful owner,” Victoria continued, as she poured herself a glass of water.

“He came to see you at your house?” she asked, processing this news for the first time.

“He did. Pulled up on his bike and came inside. I offered him some tea, and sat with him for a few minutes. Russ was at work, so it was just your boy and me. He said he didn’t want to risk putting the ring in the mail, or FedEx, or any of those services,” she said, and this little detail somehow worked its way into Shannon’s heart, chipping away at the tiniest piece of ice that had coated that organ to protect her from Brent.

“That’s actually really thoughtful,” she said softly.

“He asked about you. He wanted to know if you were okay. How you were doing.”

Her heart beat faster. She wanted to grab it and tell it to settle down. “He did?”

“I knew you’d split up, and you were busy working on West Side Story, but I think he was just trying to find out how you were,” her grandmother said, stopping to take a drink of water.

That lump in Shannon’s throat resurfaced, and tears threatened her eyes. She blinked, holding them in. What was wrong with her today? She needed to get a grip. That was ten years past, and this was now, and she was seeing the man tonight. She hadn’t told a soul about her plans for the evening.

“I’m seeing Brent tonight,” she blurted out, desperate to tell someone she could trust.

“You are? About the business deal? Or maybe about more,” her grandma said in a sly tone.

Shannon went with it, turning the moment playful. “Maybe more. We’ll see.”

“Some things are worth second chances.” Then her voice turned cold, as she held up a finger. “Other things—one must never grant a second chance.”

“I know, Nana. I know.”

Then the softness returned. “For what it’s worth, I always liked him,” her grandmother said.

“Liked who, Nana?” asked one of her brothers.

Shannon straightened her spine. Shit. Michael had just sauntered into the room with the toolbox, heading to the garage.

“Liked you, my love,” she said patting her eldest grandson on the cheek. “I’ve always liked you.”

Michael narrowed his eyes. “Hmmm. Doubtful,” he said skeptically, but continued into the garage.