Love Redone (3 page)

To put it simply
, her business, Belle Events, was the best of the best due entirely to her magical vision and the almost empathic way she understood and interpreted the wishes and desires of her handpicked clients.  She could make a fabulous event happen with only a set of markers and a ball of twine if she had to. 

Not every occasion she created came with the eye
-boggling type of budgets something like a Hollywood Studio or a major political party could muster, and she was proud that the clients she chose were based on what she could give rather than what the business would make.

Her calendar was full for the next month with one party or top
-drawer event after another. She liked being booked solid and enjoyed the ever-changing projects she’d taken on, but something had been shifting recently.  Something deep inside her, hidden away in a corner of her being that never saw the light of day, was suddenly restless and throbbing to life. Something that she knew better than to take out and examine, for some things are best left sleeping.

Still, no amount of denial or clever redirection of her emotions seemed to be working lately.  Restless, sleepless nights had been agitating her sense of calm, making her feel uncharacteristically moody and tense for months.

Looking around her lovely hideaway terrace, Shannon breathed a troubling sigh, for she didn’t like where this reverie was headed.  Being busy and successful was her duck and cover for a personal life that was empty and isolated. No manner of achievement was going to alter her preference for a solitary existence.

Oh, she’d had tons of friends when she was younger.  Had spent her youth and early university days excitedly exploring new places with new people and generally embracing everything life had to offer.

At least that was until fate had slapped her up hard and she’d been forced to learn a cruel lesson about men and their unerring penchant for seduction and deceit as long as it got them what they ultimately wanted—a warm body in their bed to play with and then discard like a toy that is six weeks beyond its warranty date when something or someone new or better came along.

Yes, that was a bitter lesson
that Shannon had learned the hard way and one that kept her heart and emotions securely locked and deeply hidden away so as to
never
be vulnerable like that to another human being ever again.

There were quite a few business acquaintances who she could be socially friendly with
, and she was generally seen as a smart, savvy businesswoman who could charm a roomful of clients with the best of them, but when it came to what went on with her beyond closed doors, she was something of an enigma to those who knew her at all.

Living in
Southern California had been her choice after her university days ended due in large part to the fact that, though she had a family that undoubtedly loved her, she had been a late-in-life child and her parents, both in their early seventies, had more in common with and understanding of her forty-eight-year-old brother than they did with her. 

Her folks were great and she loved them both to pieces
, but as 1960s-era east-coast academics with impressive titles and the letters “Dr.” before their names, they were locked in a world of academia that suited them both.  Hell, her practically perfect big brother, Ted, also sported one of those doctor titles, and that alone made her unglamorous arts degree something of an anomaly in their family.

It was simply easier and less stressful for her to live on the other side of the country and run her little business
, which relied heavily on fantasy and effect, than to try and fit in to their evidence-based lives.

A small bird perched gently
, seemingly weightless, on a scraggly branch of bougainvillea blooms just beyond where Shannon was sitting, and she turned her eyes to absorb the beauty of the moment. The colorful-winged animal twittered briefly before lifting off and flying away, reminding Shannon of another bird, a small, blue-tinged image that was inked on her left buttock.

Dammit,
why had she thought of that?  Unless she had some burning need to look at herself naked in the mirror or had eyes in the back of her head, there was no reason to connect with that visual reminder of a time long past.

Getting up to refresh her mug
, Shannon considered a recent incident when the tiny tattoo had made its presence known.

Even though she didn’t seek personal friendships
, she had in fact made one in the form of Jules Stewart. They’d met by chance when both had been involved in a relief fundraiser after a massive disaster.  Jules was a society doyenne with a flair for organization and coordinating large-scale charity campaigns, while Shannon, in this instance, was the party-planner extraordinaire to the crème de la crème of Los Angeles and Hollywood elite.

She’d been chosen to run the fundraiser, which would have a
worldwide televised audience and the potential to pick up millions of dollars in donations, alongside Julianna Stewart, who came on board to represent the charity and the global initiative it had begun in disaster relief.

She and Jules had hit it off right away.  They were both calm, coolly collected
, and intensely focused on whatever they were working on.   Jules had reinvented the role of charity benefactor and had single-handedly engaged hundreds if not thousands of individuals and businesses in active giving outreaches that had helped so many.

She felt oddly comfortable in
Jules’s presence and liked the woman’s ability to find the best and kindest attributes in just about everyone.  She was fun to be around, and her straightforward and unabashed love for her husband and their little family made Shannon like her even more.  Jules Stewart was for real.

They’d been doing an event together a few weeks ago when the sudden
callout of a costumed character important to the theme threw everything into frenzy.

With no other option available to them
, it was Shannon who at the last had wiggled into the skin-tight costume and spent the rest of the time playing the role of sexy siren.

Afterwards, she had needed the assistance of Jules to squirm out of the
get-up. She recalled that, as the red-sequined second skin peeled away to reveal Shannon’s lower half in a skimpy thong that completely bared her butt cheeks, her friend had been treated to a bird’s-eye view of her telltale tattoo.

Jules
had actually commented on the unexpected sight of the blue tattoo on her bottom, and blushing furiously, Shannon had explained the significance of the tiny bird and the symbol.

From an old African tale, the bird represented the freedom
that comes when the heart finds its one true mate.  Shannon choked the explanation out while Jules sat back and simply stared at her. It was an odd reaction that was over quickly as the two continued on bustling through the charity event.

Funny how the presence of a tiny bird on her patio could send her off on a trek down memory lane.

Ah well, Shannon mused.  Such is life. Straightening up from her comfy chair, her second cup of tea drained, Shannon rose and headed inside to shower and dress for the day.

It was hard not to love her beautifully restored Craftsman
-style house with the pergola-shaded terrace just off the quaint kitchen where Shannon was headed.  Stepping up to the farm sink under a wide-silled window that was overflowing with herbs in multi-colored and -sized pots, she quickly rinsed her mug, a kitschy souvenir from Disneyworld showing Belle from
Beauty and the Beast
, which she hadn’t been able to resist with the adorable connection to her business.  Wiping off the counter with a hurried swipe, Shannon made sure the kettle was switched off and the back door latched before she turned to make her way to the bathroom addition she’d had built, her one true indulgence, to get ready for the day ahead.  A relaxing interlude in the massive soaking tub surrounded by hand-painted tiles with French doors that opened to the private terrace would have to wait until later when she wasn’t so rushed.  For now it would be a quick shower and then a mad dash to get ready for what she knew was another busy day.

Maybe when the next few weeks wrapped up and she’d done her last party for this season, a party
that just happened to be a very special birthday blowout for Jules’s six-year-old son, she would take some downtime and head back east for her parents’ fiftieth anniversary get-together.

She needed to do something
, she thought wryly, because all this restless, distracting energy and lack of sleep was making her out-of-sorts enough that she knew she had to change it.

It seemed like time to step back and maybe make some changes to her otherwise safe but frighteningly bland life.

“Oh, please work, you little wonder, please, please work,” Shannon muttered to no one but herself as she hurried along a hay-bale-stacked walkway decorated every inch a cowboy dream as she tapped away at her phone.

With six desperados missing in action just as they were supposed to come riding into the party zone
yee-hawing all the way, she was anxious to get a text through to her assistant, Rory, who was god-knows-where on the property.  Shannon had lost sight of her ages ago as they’d each gone off to supervise and coordinate the party in progress. Good old trusty and dependable Rory would know what to do or at least maybe have an idea where the actors were that she’d hired to play the outlaws for Domenic Stewart’s authentic cowboy bash.

Shannon needed this event to be picture-perfect.  Not because she wanted a glowing recommendation from the hosts
, but rather because the hosts in question were Jules and Ned Stewart. Shannon was emotionally invested in seeing Jules’s vision for her precious six-year-old son’s birthday party come to life.

Shannon didn’t
make real friends easily.  She had loads of business relationships and even some pseudo-friendships, like the one she enjoyed with Rory, but at the heart of it was always a reticence to share anything beneath the surface.  Something deeper and more meaningful was shut away from her and would always be ever since she’d learned a bitter lesson about deception.

But she really liked the Stewarts, Jules and her little family made up of big
-time lawyer Ned, whose firm handled the legal affairs of the rich and fabulous, and their adorable toddler daughter, Amy, and of course the birthday boy himself, Domenic.

Fascinated by the Wild
Wild West, the charming and personable birthday boy had caught Shannon’s heart the first time they’d met.  As she and Jules had gotten closer and worked together more and more, little man Dom was around quite a bit. He was hysterically funny and arguably the most curious child on the planet with a head’s-first, take-the-ball-and-run-with-it energy that seemed to nudge Shannon’s deepest emotions and ring a familiar bell. She teasingly called him a “man on a mission” because once he got a thought or idea in his busy, creative little boy’s mind, he was off and running, chasing down the details.

He liked her
, too, a lot, and the two of them could spend hours discussing dragon lore or why horses sleep standing up.  The little boy tugged at her heart in ways that fired up a yearning deeply hidden inside her. Maybe it was his all-too-cute dimples or the way he seemed to fill whatever space he was in that evoked a response from Shannon.  Like all young school-agers, he had a way of looking at life that was straightforward and unabashed, something she found charming.

When Ned had insisted that Shannon give life to every conceivable cowboy fantasy a six
-year-old boy’s imagination could dream up, her quiet delight at being given the opportunity to bring some lighthearted fun to Dom and his family was deeply satisfying. She could see the joy radiating from the proud parents, their straightforward love and pleasure in their first born swirling around them. They made Shannon smile.

Here today, the Stewart property was completely bedecked in
Western-themed props and scenery that made visitors feel like they were strolling through an authentic Wild West town complete with wagons, horses, and a scattering of actors providing charming improv flair. That they lived in Los Angeles meant she had at her disposal pretty much anything a Hollywood studio could get its hands on, so the possibilities were truly endless.

They had even set up a chuck wagon,
which, judging by the delicious aroma of searing meat permeating the air, was busy cooking up mouth-watering gourmet burgers and cowboy steaks for the assembled guests.  Every thought and care had gone into not only bringing the coolest kid party imaginable to the occasion but a festive and fun-filled adult experience as well for the parents, friends, and family who had gathered to wish Domenic Stewart a very happy sixth birthday.

Right now though
, she was stressing because of the M.I.A. cowboy bandits and was hoping against hope that Rory had this under control.  So focused was she on tapping out a text that she was in no way paying attention to her surroundings as she hurried breathlessly along a path covered with straw and bordered by hay bales, wagon wheels, and enough top-drawer Hollywood scenery that it looked like a movie set.

Creatively decked out in head
-to-toe cowgirl costume with a below-the-knee denim skirt and flirty ruffled petticoat, she’d added a very cool wide, double-buckled leather belt to the outfit, making the overall effect perhaps a bit sexier than she’d ever intended due mostly she knew to her curvaceous figure.  Shannon was at this moment glad that her long, full-bodied tresses were caught snugly under her cowgirl hat so she wouldn’t have to keep pushing them away from her face as she lowered her head to concentrate on the screen of her phone.

Between one second and the next
, she was all but galloping along, her favorite short suede boots snapping a beat on the crunchy straw underfoot, when she seemed to hurl full force into a solid wall, causing her hat to fly off and a riot of blonde tresses to tumble around her face, blocking the wall from view. She started to stumble backwards into an awkward free fall when all of a sudden two large, strong hands caught her by the upper arms just before she went down.

“Whoa there
, little lady, you pack a powerful punch.” An amused male voice chuckled in a deeply familiar, hypnotic drawl that spread through her senses like warm butterscotch, flowing all around her, covering her being and penetrating her senses in a rush of awareness that stole her breath. She’d know that voice anywhere.  Even in her nightmares.

Oh no, no, no, no, no
,
her brain screamed while her head snapped up. She felt her eyes widen and pop from her head at what she saw.

Still held firmly in large hands
, which were sending electric shocks through her careening emotions, Shannon gazed in stunned horror at the face of the man who had changed the trajectory of her life.  The man who had pretended to love her only to later assert that he’d just been having a bit of fun while availing himself of her naïve favors.  Fool her, for he had been given everything she had only to casually walk away without a backward glance while Shannon had in the end lost far more than just her heart to this villainous man.

To say she was struck dumb was an understatement.  Thunderstruck maybe.  More like a grenade going off in her brain.
Dammit.  Nick Temple in the flesh.  No, no, not Nick Temple,
the grad student who she’d fallen hopelessly in love with, her memory screamed, but Nicholas Temple Barrett, billionaire dilettante with a heart of stone. As for the flesh, well, Shannon was all too aware of the suddenly superheated atmosphere surrounding them.

Time stood still. After several long seconds of stunned silence, a shocked
, raw voice husked, “Oh my god…Shannon?” as he, too, seemed to be struggling in the moment. “Can it be you?” he ground out. Clearly bewildered and dazed, his reaction seemed to hang frozen in space for several excruciating moments, long enough for Shannon to absorb even more of the warm caramel consequence to his presence.

Dear heaven
, but she’d loved this man so.  Loved the sharp, witty, caring grad student she’d known. Loved his long and slightly shaggy dirty-blond hair when it brushed freely against his collar.  Loved the striking hazel eyes flecked with vibrant gold that gave him a sexy leonine appearance.  Adored the cute-as-hell dimples peeking out of several days’ growth of scraggly beard every time he broke out the huge smile that so often had lit up his face.  She considered that young man to be beautiful and handsome in an innocently shining knight way.

The face she looked into today, while shocked and momentarily silenced, was older, harsher
, and completely lacking in the kind of joy that would bring out those dimples. Gone was the long hair and rakish manner. 

In its place was a serious
-looking grown-up with immaculately cut hair, his chiseled features lending an even greater air of barely contained power to his formidable physical presence, which was big, maybe a little intimidating, and if she wished to admit it, sexy as hell.

To Shannon’s horror, instead of reacting like a viper had been tossed in her presence
, she was instead suddenly fighting an unbidden and completely traitorous physical response.  Indeed, her heart had all but leapt in her chest at finding herself held in the gaze of the hazel orbs that had haunted her dreams these last eight years. While Shannon knew she should run for the hills, she seemed instead to be melting in relief, as if she’d just been waiting all these years for him to come back and take away her unhappiness, so lonely had she been without him.

What?
  What in the hell was she thinking? She wasn’t lonely—she was safe.  Safe from having to engage her heart and end up broken and bruised.  Turning frozen and brittle when the enormity of how he’d deceived and used her all those years ago came flooding back, Shannon sharply jerked herself ramrod straight in a physical rebuff just a heartbeat before hastily yanking her arms from his shocked, loosened grasp in wild arcs as she tried to pull away from him.

Gaining her release
, she cried, “No!” as she turned to escape, aware in her heart of hearts that she was fleeing her wild desire for him more than the man himself.

In one frantic maneuver
, Shannon tried to reign in her flailing arms in the same second that she turned to run away. Unfortunately, her hasty attempt at retreat was immediately halted by the heel of one boot getting caught in some scenery. Before she knew what was happening, she fell sideways in a clumsy wobble and went down hard with a thud before putting out her hands to break the fall and lurching forward when her knees hit the ground.

To make matters worse
, as her body pitched frontward, she smacked her head on the edge of an inconveniently placed wagon wheel. Crying out in distress, she found herself stunned, sprawled on the ground, skirt and petticoat revealing way more leg than this situation called for, ankle twisted, knees bruised, hands scraped, and a nasty bump growing at her hairline. 
Fabulous
.

Trying to right herself from the uncomfortable and clumsy sprawl, Shannon put a hand down on the ground for leverage and instantly regretted that decision.  She cried out in a painful gasp a split second before Nick gently grabbed both wrists and turned over her hands
, palms up, so he could assess her injuries.

Shannon was overcome with pain and distress and could feel a welling of tears making their way to her eyes, something she
seriously did not want at this moment.  Breaking out with some waterworks was simply not an option, no matter how hurt she was.  Blinking furiously to keep the problem at bay, she stared in helpless fascination where Nick’s large, masculine hands so gently held her own much smaller and slightly trembling ones.

* * *

If his brain hadn’t been so damn fuzzy
, Nick was sure he would have caught her before she hit the ground or at least reacted quickly enough to help break the fall. Instead he stood there numb and frozen, watching in a sort of slow motion haze.

As it was, his
fabled cool had deserted him the moment he understood that his most fervent desire, his one true wish, was right there in his hands. For real.  Not a dream. Not a hallucination or fantasy, but the lovely Shannon, his Shannon, right here, close enough to pick up on her haunting scent.  She always smelled of almonds with a hint of something else, deeply feminine and elusive, which he tucked away in the most secret corner of his mind lest he lose himself in wanting something he would never have again. Only this was real, and those hidden thoughts were colliding in rapid-fire fashion as the situation unfolded before him.

Nick recovered quickly though and was at her side before she’d taken more than a breath or two. Realizing that she was definitely hurt gave his analytical mind something to focus on beside
s the wild rush of adrenaline overlade with yearning and a painfully deep desire that was washing over him and through him in wave after wave.

A fierce and focused businessman, he was a serious force to be reckoned with.  It wasn’t all that unusual for competitors and those whose compan
ies he engaged with to have a healthy fear of him.  What the hell, sometimes even
he
was scared of himself, but right at this moment, after eight long years of self-imposed emotional isolation, he was suddenly bereft of his usual steely cool.  Having something purposeful to do meant he could pretend to be that other guy, while inside he was quietly reeling and struggling not to lose control.

Beneath a frown of concern Nick carefully inspected her palms where evidence of scraping and abrasion were clear.  He had to physically restrain himself from bringing both injured palms to his mouth so he could kiss her wounds and make it better. Those delightfully delicate hands with long
, beautifully shaped fingers, so feminine and, to his mind, ladylike, brought a thousand memories flooding into his mind. 

Memories
of those divine hands learning the planes and angles of his body, seeking out sensitive spots and stroking his skin in exciting wonder as she explored him in that erotically sensual way that lovers have blossomed in his mind.  Her touch had been at times reverent and at others naughty or teasing.  He’d bloomed under her stroking exploration, finding in her inexperienced caresses a deep sense of sharing and a connection more satisfying than any he’d ever known before or since.