The Billionaire's Second Chance (14 page)

Not too much longer after that dinner arrived as each of them had been deep in thought after their phone calls, processing a flood of information.

Shannon was flagging fast and ate slowly from the tray table he’d set up next to the sofa. Nick watched over her like a hawk and noted the circles forming beneath her eyes made all the more evident by her flawlessly pale complexion.

Finally having enough Shannon loosed a deep sigh and sagged back against the sofa cushions. Although her headache had vanished
from
earlier as the result of the shot she’d received, the tension and anxiety of the day’s events were tap dancing on her brain making the slowly building discomfort from her injuries get the better of her.

Quietly removing the remnants of their meal, Nick set about tidying things up, keeping an eye on Shannon and carefully laying out in his own overworked mind how best to navigate the minefield of negative emotions they were surrounded by. 

“I need to use the bathroom
.” she declared in a fragile
, overwhelmed voice which only served to magnify the vulnerable state she was in. Nick realized this was going to present a challenge since the bathroom walker wouldn’t be here until tomorrow and he was pretty damn sure she wasn’t going to let him hover over her while she took care of her needs.

Shannon too seemed to realize the conundrum and quickly informed him that the small guest bath behind the kitchen had a sturdy knee wall that she could use for balance without him having to do any more than simply get her in position.

Relived that there was a simple solution it took Nick only moments to once again, scoop her up in his massive arms and stride confidently in the direction of the small bathroom.  She was right about the space and after standing her up carefully on her one good foot,
he
took a second to reach out and give the nearby towel bar a study yank.  If she was going to rely on it for support he wanted to be sure she’d be safe. Relieved that she could handle things from there he backed out of the small space after she assured him that no, she would not put her foot down and yes, she would call him the second she was ready to leave the room.

As the door of the bathroom shut Shannon caught sight of her reflection in the oval mirror hung above a very modern basin bowl
and frowned at
what she saw.  With one bandaged hand gripping the towel bar and the other using the high knee wall surround for balance, she looked like a cowgirl after an
encounter with some outlaws. 
Her hair was all over the place and her clothes were wrinkled and mussed. Eyes a bit too bright stared out at her above cheeks which bore the blushing imprint of the situation she found herself in. 
No lady wants to be helpless in the bathroom and as embarrassing as the situation was, she wryly acknowledged
,
she’d be screwed without his help right now.
She may not like his take charge,
I’m the man
way of doing things but she was damn glad in this moment she had that option.  Better to be childishly annoyed while accepting his help than be completely alone at a time when letting someone else take care of her was the best thing if she wanted to recover quickly.

Shannon tried to wrap her mind around everything which had tr
anspired in the last few hours.
When she’d awoken this morning the day had promised to be just like any other.  That was how she’d preferred it.  Nothing unusual or out-of-the ordinary.  A busy Saturday, working an event.  All business, all the time. The usual.

Hell, she liked things to be that way.  It suited Shannon to immerse he
rself in her work for after all
what she did supplied a certain degree of emotional satisfaction.  She liked pleasing her hand-picked clients, liked the feeling that what she did had meaning whether in the pursuit of charity donations or the simple smile of a child whose birthday she’d made super special.

That was enough for her to live on, or so she told herself these many years. Never again would she risk her true feelings. For longer than she felt comfortable admitting, this slightly jaded and all-consuming need to protect herself from further hurt by simply shutting off the feeling side of her nature, had served her well.

She was an island unto herself.  No foolish romantic fantasies, only carefully chosen and infinitely superficial friendships and lots and lots of solitude had been her norm.  Except for Jules, Shannon hadn’t allowed a meaningful friendship into her life since that moment when Nick had sliced and diced her naïve heart.

Shannon wasn’t immune to her inner life, far from it.  She was though, very careful not to indulge in flights of fancy or foolish dreams and if this meant she didn’
t date, then that was fine.
Besides, she wasn’t the kind of girl who could simply chase after her own needs and pleasures without her emotions being involved. Oh, she’d watched her share of Sex and the City and found something to admire in those quirky, fascinating women and the story they told but she could never be as free and adventurous no matter what the situation.

The very notion of being physically intimate with someone actually frightened her. What she had experienced with Nick had been so intense and so powerful that she couldn’t conceive of ever laying herself bare like that for any other man as long as she lived.  It was too raw and too intimate.

Try as she might to deny a sudden flash of vivid memories, she couldn’t banish from her mind’s eye the way they had twined around each other in naked communion. Flesh to flesh, joined so closely they were practically in each other’s
skin, whispering
words of adoration and desire
s spoken the way lover
s do when lost in the sensual heat of the moment.

No, there was absolutely no chance of Shannon ever going there again. When the rose colored glasses of first love had been yanked from her and she’d been forced to understand that while she was falling in love, her so called prince charming was simply getting laid, Shannon knew then and there she would never allow herself to be put in that position ever, ever again. Trust was off the table from that day forward.

He’d reappeared the moment Shannon had indicated she was finished and carried her solemnly to the bedroom where she hoped to have some privacy at last. Quickly swallowing the pills Nick had thrust her way she shut him out completely after that. Reassuring him that she was fully capable of getting undressed and into bed, he had reluctantly retreated while the air around them still swirled with emotion.

Finally snuggling deep into the soft cocoon of blankets and pillows in her massive sleigh bed, Shannon sighed deeply in exhaustion and frustration, feeling drowsy but unsettled. Returning to the train of thought from earlier, she fell into a whirlpool of self-doubt followed by crippling confusion as her mind sought answers. In her heart of hearts she just could not understand how he could have been so detached, as he claimed, and she not known it.   He hadn’t seemed detached or unaffected by their brief, intense relationship.

Hell, it had been him as the slightly older and definitely more mature alpha male who had taken one look into her eyes and simply marked her as his own.  He charmed her with his impeccable manners, seduced her with his intellect and humor before sealing the deal with a devastating journey of the senses into a realm of sensuality made all the more intense by her own sweet innocence.

He hadn’t acted like that with anyone but her even though she had seen first-hand the admiring glances and sometimes bold suggestions thrown his way by nearly every female in his general vicinity.  She’d seen it happen in small tribal settings, at team meetings, in public, at social gatherings, you name it.  He was the type of man who exuded a lethal erotic vibe made all the more sexy with his rakish, pirate charm and those adorable dimples hidden in several days stubble under a head of long sun washed hair. 

But in all those settings and on all those occasions he’d never had eyes or a speck of interest in anyone but her.  Yes, he’d devoured her in every way a lover could but he also lay shuddering in her arms in the aftermath of their loving.  He slept possessively wrapped around her and his eyes never failed to twinkle with leonine intensity when she was nearby.

Those were not the signs of a man who was just interested in sex. How could he say those things to her? At the core of every argument and memory Shannon always returned to that.  How could he?

She wanted to cry but she had no tears left for a man who had selfishly trashed her adoration; the aftermath of that act leading to a series of events that would forever shut down her heart and suck her soul of its passion.  Hot tears found their way from the corners of her smoky turquoise eyes, dripping in silent acknowledgment of the truth she could never completely hide from. 

She had given this man her heart and the passion they had shared, not just in their most intimate moments but in the way they each grabbed a
t life, had altered her soul. 
When she learned that for him their time together had been nothing more than
a
time
filler on the way to his real life, his important grown up life, she had been beyond consoling so deep was her pain. 

Over the years that pain had morph
ed many times to other emotions;
anger, desolation, regret, despair but here she came back as she always did to the one thing she couldn’t ever understand – how could he not want to build on the deep emotiona
l connection they had shared? 
How could he turn his back on something that had been so perfect and special and devastatingly deep?  That would always be the thought that brought her up short.  How could he live without knowing that kind of perfection ever again because she knew he felt it too even though he tried to deny it.

The rejection is still what hurt the most and reconnecting with that brutal truth increased the torrent of super-heated tears leaking from the depths of her very soul. 

He said he’d been wrong and made a mistake by shutting her out. She tried to mull over everything he had said earlier about his family and the business he’d inherited but the after-effects of a long, trying day and a good dose of medication
was not helping clear her mind. Hidden memories
of unspeakable loss
surfaced
when she recalled that the
ir intimacy had created a life, quickly
followed by the horrible, heart wrenching truth that his bitter, angry, hurtful handling of their final moments together had stripped her soul leaving nothing on which to build a future.

She cried the entire night, silent hot tears that spoke of a broken heart and a damaged soul in need of healing.  Hopefully,
a
calm and clearer mind would greet Shannon with the sunrise.

CHAPTER NINE

Ow, oh Ow!  Shannon came awake instantly when her restless movements collided with her injuries. Usually slow to wake, the jolt of discomfort invaded the leisurely and pleasant experience Shannon was accustomed to and just like that, the events of yesterday came flooding back to her sluggish brain in vibrant Technicolor replay. 

That she’d been banged up a bit in a clumsy accident was NOTHING compared to the dawning realization that Nicholas Barrett was on the other side of her closed bedroom door. Yeah, that thought had her sitting up in a hurry.

“Ow and damn!” she muttered as the sudden movements brought more pain slamming into her half-awake brain making Shannon mutter dark curses of frustration and discomfort.  What was worse she mused?  A swollen, black and blue ankle or the presence in her home of the man
who had
arrogantly thrown away what she’d imagined was true love? 

Cautiously swinging her legs off the bed, Shannon winced when her mangled foot gently lowered to the floor. Shaking her head to clear away the fogginess leftover from the nighttime pain medication, she wanted nothing more than to hit the bathroom for a cold water face splash and a chance to relieve herself before having to confront what awaited on the other side of the closed door.

Unfortunately she realized, her foot was going to make that impossible without help
,
but right
at
this second the last thing she intended to do
was
ask the high and mighty rich guy to provide any needed assistance.

Releasing a deep, heavy sigh Shannon perched on the end of her bed and
let her thoughts wander.
She’d had restless dreams for weeks.  Hazy scenarios ripped from t
he darkest corners of her heart, t
he all-to-real dreams had rocked her tightly controlled world; vibrant memories and sensory tugs from long ago steeped in sensual awareness and yes, longing for what had been and what was lost.

And then of course there was the suddenly strange behavior of her friend Jules, which now made perfect sense but at the time had her baffled and confused.

She thought about
Dominic’s cowboy extravaganza and the role Belle Events had played in the event.  Jules and Ned had been thrilled and Dom, well he was beyond chuffed at the transformation of his backyard into cowboy heaven.  Belle Events had done a great job and Shannon was proud of the result.

Then her mind hit on the moment when she’d all but plowed into an immoveable human object which turned out to be her biggest nightmare and wickedest dream in the flesh.