CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Not labeling what was happening was pointless.

They were clearly dating again. Shannon couldn’t even try to pretend it was anything but real, honest-to-goodness dating. As if they had just met, and were so taken with each other they had to see each other every day. That kind of dating.

It was scary and amazingly fun at the same time.

On Monday, she visited Edge in the morning with her assistant choreographer, Christine, to make notes on the space, since the layout was similar to the club in San Francisco. James showed them around, but Brent popped out of his office to say hello.

“Hey, Shay. Good to see you,” he said, as he walked to the other end of the club. While she wasn’t worried for her safety per se, or that clients would pull contracts if they learned her real name, she simply preferred the new one in business matters. The fact that Brent moved fluidly between the two warmed her heart. After they reviewed the plans for the show, Christine said she needed to return to the studio to rehearse the dancers, and James had other meetings to attend.

As Shannon walked to the exit, Brent caught up with her. “Can I interest you in lunch?”

“You can definitely interest me in lunch.”

Saying yes was easy. Saying yes felt right.

After they finished pho and chicken dumplings at an upscale Vietnamese restaurant on the Luxe’s property, he told her he had a gift for her.

“You really don’t have to give me anything,” she said as the waiter cleared their plates, even though inside she was delighted. She adored his zest for giving her sweet little things.

“I know, but truth be told, it’s not something I can control. My desire to give you gifts, that is.” He reached into the pocket of his jeans. “I come from a long line of gift-giving men. It’s in my blood and it can’t be bred out of me.”

He handed her a small, champagne-colored drawstring pouch. She’d never had much growing up, and she’d learned to live with that. But perhaps that was why Brent’s generosity had thrilled her so much—it was all so new and fresh and fun.

It still was. With quick, eager fingers, she untied the bag and plucked out a pretty rose-gold bracelet. She gasped. It matched the silver one that she wore every day. It wasn’t too gangly or too busy. Simple and stylish, it was just right for her, and for how she chose to dress these days.

“I noticed you started wearing bracelets,” he said as he stretched his arm across the back of the booth, looking so casual and confident, but also hopeful. He clearly wanted her to like his gift. “You never did before, but you do now, so I picked this out for you.”

“I love it,” she said softly, her gaze on him. “So much.”

His brown eyes seemed to sparkle at her response, and warmth rushed through her from knowing this simple give and take, this little back and forth, seemed to matter. It was only lunch, but it was suddenly more.

She held out her wrist, letting him clasp the jewelry on her. Instantly, the moment shot her back in time to another night when he gave her jewelry. A ring.

The night he’d proposed he’d taken her ice-skating. It was a sport she could still do well enough in spite of her injury. She’d shown off for him, gliding and spinning across the rink while he’d skated…well, the way most men who weren’t hockey players or professional skaters skate. Clumsily.

It hadn’t bothered him, though. He’d laughed at his own clunkiness. He was never one to embarrass easily, if at all. On a long circle around the rink, he stumbled like a cartoon character whose feet spun wildly beneath him, then he fell. It had been an awkward, flat-on-his ass tumble, and she laughed even harder as she glided over to him.

“Pull me up,” he said, still cracking up. She offered her hand, and tugged him. He made it to only one knee. All laughter had stopped and the moment had turned both serious and breathtakingly romantic at the same time when he said, “I meant to do that. And I mean to do this, too. I am so madly in love with you and I want us to be together now, and next year, and always. I want a life with you, and I’ve never been more certain of anything.”

She fell to her knees, tears streaking down her cheeks, and kissed his face. “Yes. Yes. Yes.”

Amazing how, in spite of what she saw happen to her parents, she’d never had a single doubt about Brent. She had wanted to be his wife as much as she had wanted to dance—a pure, perfect, passionate love. She’d loved him more than she’d thought possible.

As she gazed at the new bracelet on her wrist, she blinked away the memory, and the tear that was threatening to slip from her eye. The past was behind her. She couldn’t linger on what they might have had before. She knew the ending to that story. Besides, past love was no indication of future choices. Her mother had loved her father. All her parents’ friends and family had been shocked when her mother was arrested, because they could recall so many happy days between Dora and Thomas.

When had Dora crossed the line from loving mother to killer wife? Was there a switch that had flipped in her, or had the possibility always been there, latent through the years? Her mother hadn’t been a murderer when she’d walked down the aisle, or when she’d given birth, or when she’d attended Shannon’s early recitals. Shannon could still remember so many moments during her younger years, back when her parents cared for each other, before their marriage turned bitter, before her mother started cheating on her husband with a well-liked local piano teacher.

The past was meaningless. The present was the only thing that mattered.

But, even so, the hardened part of her fragile heart took some comfort in the fact that she was different from her mother. She loved this bracelet because it was from this man, not because of what it might have cost.

This present—her present—was something she could embrace right now. So she moved to the other side of the table, ran her hand through his hair and whispered, “I always loved your gifts, and I still do. Because they’re from you.”

* * *

On Wednesday, Brent invited Shannon to the Thai restaurant at the Luxe. There was something so freeing, in a way, about the pattern they seemed to fall into with lunch. He hadn’t intended it, but these brief moments in the middle of the workday, with a clear beginning and a clear end, were perfect for getting to know her again. That was what Shannon seemed to need to let him into her heart again.

Or to get to know him anew.

Because she turned the questions on him.

“Why did you leave comedy?” she asked as she rested her chin in her hands at the table and looked at him, a curious expression in those green eyes. There was no judgment in her tone—no caustic retort like the first night he’d seen her again. Just a simple question, and one he’d been asked by many others when he’d announced he was leaving his show.

But still.

His fork froze in midair over the chicken pumpkin curry. “Why?” he repeated, stalling for time.

She nodded. “You were so successful, so popular. It’s odd why you’d leave when you were the toast of the town. Inquiring minds want to know,” she said with a bat of her eyes.

His muscles tensed, a visceral response to the one topic he didn’t want to get into with her. There wasn’t some awful secret he was sequestering away. He wasn’t kicked off the network for banging an intern. He wasn’t given the boot for sniffing coke on his desk before his monologue. And he wasn’t found skimming off the top of the ad revenue his show raked in.

Nope.

But he feared the truth would make him look bad.

Unreliable. Disloyal. The kind of guy you can’t lean on. The kind of guy he was fighting to show her that he wasn’t.

He looked away, staring at the golden Thai dragon on the wall, at the red embroidered jacket behind the hostess stand, then at the sea of busy tables and booths full of tourists, high-rollers, and Vegas businessman and women doing deals at the Luxe.

Brent pulled his eyes away from the crowd and back to Shannon. Her long brown hair fell loosely around her face, so different from the short, fresh-faced style she’d had in college. She was different too. Tougher than she’d been back then, but softer as well. More vulnerable, too, at times.

He briefly considered his answer. He could easily spin a quick tale about loving the nightclub business, and while that was true, he’d lost her once before by being less than honest. He wanted to show her that he’d changed—by giving her the full truth, warts and all.

He inhaled deeply, and steeled himself. “Look, I could make up a nice story, Shan. I could tell you something about how I’ve always craved the challenge of running a club, and some of that is true. Because I do love Edge, and building it has been exciting and I’ve enjoyed it. But the truth is, I left comedy because I didn’t want to wear out my welcome.”

She tilted her head to the side. “How so?”

He launched into the backstory of his show. “My show had record ratings. It was the biggest show on cable. It was beating broadcast some nights. It was the kind of gig most entertainers would’ve held onto forever. For years. It was the type of job you’d ordinarily have to pull someone away from kicking and screaming.” An image of the Hollywood trade articles on his departure popped into his head. The entertainment industry and the viewers had been shocked that he left after only three years. “But I wanted to go out on top. I didn’t want anyone to cringe when I did my monologue. I didn’t want anyone to say, his jokes are stale, or, he’s phoning it in.”

She nodded a few times, as if she was processing his decision. “I get it. You wanted to leave on your own terms. But why would it bother me?”

Okay, he was just going to have to spell it out, no matter how bad it made him look. “Because I was worried you’d think it proves I don’t stick around. That when the going gets tough, I pack up and get out of Dodge. That I leave before things can turn difficult,” he said, the words tasting bitter. His own indictment of himself.

She didn’t speak at first. In her silence he wanted to kick himself for having spoken so honestly. Maybe he should have given her his canned line—I was ready for a new challenge.

“Does it mean that?” she asked, but her tone wasn’t cutting. It was earnest. “That you don’t stick around when things get tough?”

He shook his head several times for emphasis. “I don’t think so. I don’t regret leaving the show, but I think—at least I hope—that I’ve learned that what might be a good philosophy in business isn’t necessarily a good way to approach relationships.”

She flashed him a sliver of a smile, and in it he felt exonerated. Not from the choice to step down, but from the prospect that she was only going to see him as a certain type of guy. He felt like he’d shed some of the bad reputation that might prevent her from trusting him again.

“I’m glad you’re being honest with me now, and that you’re changing,” she said. “We all are, aren’t we? Changing? I know I am. I’m trying not to see people for the things they might do. I’m trying to believe in second chances, as my grandma would say, and to focus my energies on that.”

“She’s the smartest woman I know. I agree with everything she says,” he said, slicing a hand through the air as if making a declaration, and Shannon laughed.

“But I noticed one thing about you hasn’t changed...” she said, letting her voice trail off.

“Besides my stunning good looks, strapping build, and huge cock?”

She rolled her eyes and burst out laughing. “I have no idea if your dick is still huge.”

“You could find out.”

“Sure, whip it out right now, Brent,” she said, leaning back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest. Daring him. God, he loved this about her. She went toe to toe with him.

He lowered his hands to his crotch, and pretended he was getting ready to unzip his jeans.

“Kidding! I’m kidding,” she said, and he stopped. “Anyway, what I was getting at is this.” She pushed up his shirtsleeve, her fingers tracing the sunburst on his forearm. His skin sizzled under her touch, and matters south of the border grew harder as she stroked the ink on his skin. She trailed her fingertips across the tribal bands. “You have the same ink you had in college. You never got any more?”

He shook his head. This question was easy. “I got it all with you. You came with me for the first one, and then my others, so it seemed wrong for me to get more without you.”

“Did you want to get more? Was there something you had in mind?”

He’d had about as much seriousness as he could take for one lunch. As many admissions as he was up for making. So he returned to familiar ground, fixing a studious look on his face. “A zebra.” He held out his arm, showing her the canvas he’d use. His right bicep was free of ink. “Right here.”

“That sounds perfect. You could even have the stripes go all the way around,” she said, tracing a pattern on his arm. Ah, this was good. He hadn’t expected his joke would get her hands on him, but he’d keep it up to keep her touching him.

“The other option is a badass, flying Pegasus. Breathing fire and all. You see, Shan, now that you’re back, all I want to do is just cover myself in ink. Coat myself in it.”

“You let me know when you’re ready to go under the needle. I’ll be there,” she said, as she danced her fingertips up his arm, hitting the cuff of his shirt from where she’d pushed up his sleeve. She wrapped her arm around his bicep and squeezed, then let go of her grip.

That was his cue to move on. “I got you something else,” he said, handing her the bag he’d brought with him today. It had been next to him in the booth, since this one didn’t fit in his pocket.

A smile spread across her face—that was reward alone. She dug into the shopping bag, and took out a box, then opened the top. He catalogued her reaction. Her eyes seemed to twinkle with happiness, then she brought a hand to her chest, then she took out the pair of red leather shoes with a strap over the arch of the foot.

“You’re still a size six, I presume?”

She nodded as she slipped off her black heels, and tried on the new ones. “I can’t believe you got me shoes.”

He leaned across the table and lowered his voice. “The shoes looked hot, and you’re hot, and I always liked to fuck you in shoes, because you used to leave them on and that was insanely hot. Which pretty much describes you. Hot.”

“So let me get this straight. You think I’m hot?” She raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah. Your understanding is right on,” he said, deadpan.

“And is this your way of trying to fuck me again, Brent? By buying me shoes and making me laugh?

“Yes,” he said with a nod. “Does it turn you on?”

“You know it does.” She stretched out her leg across his, and modeled the new shoe, then spoke in a smoky whisper. “Does this turn you on?”

He nearly groaned as he answered, “You know it does.”

“Do you want me to wear them on Saturday night? When you take me to Alvin Ailey?”

“Yes.”

All he could think about now was her in those shoes on Saturday, and what might happen later that night. Images flashed wildly before his eyes. Her legs on his shoulders. Her legs in a V. Those heels digging into his back. His tongue all over her naked body, spread out before him. Her spine curving in an arch as he took her once again, and sent her over the edge.

Damn, he liked the reel his mind was playing. Far too much.

“I’ll even let you pick me up if you want,” she said, and he nodded vigorously, thrilled that she was giving him her address finally. She reached for her phone. “I’ll text it to you right now, and then I’ll be wearing these shoes when you come get me,” she said in a come-hither voice that made him want to come hither that instant.

He wasn’t going to be able to get up for a long time because he was so fucking hard. Good thing his phone rang, and Tanner’s named flashed across the screen. Perfect boner killer when he needed it.

“Let me grab this for one minute,” he said to Shannon, then answered the phone. “Hey, Tanner. What’s up?”

The man wasted no time with hellos. “Here’s the deal. You need to meet the leader of the neighborhood association. Let him know Mr. Late Night Funny Guy can be a real businessman. Can you get to New York this weekend? I set up a meeting Sunday night.”

He cursed silently. Saturday night was his big date with Shannon. No way was he backing out. Not after the time he’d missed taking her to Alvin Ailey in college, and not when he was trying to do everything right now. But he could catch an early Sunday morning flight. “I’ll be there in time for a seven p.m. dinner.”

“Fine. I’ll send you details,” Tanner said in a gruff tone.

“Hey, I put in a few calls to the parks department in the city. I made a donation to have some of the parks there revitalized, like you suggested.”

“Good. Keep that shit up. You got a long row to hoe.”

After Brent hung up, he gestured to the phone. “The neighborhood association in New York is being difficult about my plans to open a club there,” he said, then caught her up to speed on the situation as he paid for lunch.

“Hmm,” Shannon said, tap dancing her fingers on her chin as they walked out of the restaurant.

“Hmm, what? You coming up with a perfect plan for me or something?” he joked.

“Actually, I was thinking. Even though your meeting is Sunday, I could record a rehearsal in San Francisco next week when I’m there with the dancers. You can show it to them after so they can see it’s more Cirque du Soleil than Scores.”

He stopped in his tracks, and raked his eyes up and down over the woman at his side. This time, though, he was admiring her business savvy. “That’s brilliant.”

As they left, he vowed to do whatever he had to in order to keep her in his life. Work had won his heart ten years ago. He had to show her that she was more important than work.