He wondered if she still got them. If they still ripped her in two.
And who kissed her tears away.
The notion that someone else was there to do that was like a fist in his gut.
When he reached the Mandarin Oriental, he kicked her out of his head once more, said hello to one of the valet guys he knew, and headed to the elevator, ready to turn his focus back to business and away from the past. The Mandarin Oriental was one of the few hotels in Vegas without a casino. While Brent enjoyed a game of slots or a round of cards, he also savored the calmer, classier atmosphere of this hotel—that was what made it a great spot for meetings with other locals. When you lived in town—and he’d grown up in Vegas and spent most of his adult life there—you had to find the hidden oases that let you conduct business away from the jingle of clanging slot machines, the slap of cards from the table games, and the eye-numbing parade of bare flesh in sequined tops serving drinks to tourists. God bless the visitors; they made this town run, and they powered his clubs with their energy and night-owlish ways. But sometimes, you just needed to be part of the engine and operate under the hood rather than as the ornament.
This hotel was one of those spots that let him do that.
The sleek metal elevator shot him up to the twenty-third floor, and as he checked his phone, he saw he was early for the meeting. When he reached the Mandarin Bar, the hostess greeted him, and said that James Foster was already there. Exactly as Brent had suspected. James was beyond punctual, and Brent was grateful every day to have such a steady guy as his lead investor.
The hostess escorted him to James, who was seated in a oversized red leather chair by the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the city. He rose when Brent walked over, and reached out a hand to welcome him back.
“Good trip?” James asked as he sat down again, gesturing to the booth on the other side of the table. James was older than Brent by a few years, and had a long pedigree in business. While Brent had the vision and the guts to build Edge, James was the solid, reliable rudder who made sure they stayed the course.
“The best,” he said, and recounted a few key details. When he was through, he glanced around, scanning the room for the waitress.
“The waitress should be right back. She’d just stopped by before you arrived,” James offered.
Brent tipped his forehead to the square bar in the middle of the space. “I’ll just grab a drink myself. You want something?”
“Vodka tonic.”
Brent threaded his way around the leather chairs and chrome tables to the towering shelf of liquor that framed the bar. A guy he knew, Miles, was working behind the counter, and nodded a hello. “Hey, Brent. What’s the latest with you?”
“Not much, just working on my tan,” he joked, holding out his forearm to show the color he’d nabbed while in the Caribbean.
“Haven’t I told you to quit the tanning bed juice?”
“This is all natural, man. Saint Bart’s color.”
“I’m working on my blue-light tan,” Miles said with a laugh, as he glanced up at the tinted lights in the bar. “Anyway, what can I get for you?”
“Scotch on the rocks, and a vodka tonic.”
“Coming right up.”
Brent drummed his fingertips against the steel countertop as Miles headed to the other end to pour. Turning around, he leaned against the bar and stared out the window, where the entire city stretched far beyond the glass. City of sin. City of secrets. City of endless opportunities. Whatever bout of exhaustion had threatened him when he’d landed had vacated the premises. He was wide-awake and energized, ready to sign deals, to grow Edge, to keep on building the business.
Glass clinked against metal, and he turned to grab the drinks and start a tab. A minute later, he had a glass in each hand and was making his way back to their table when he stopped short.
His pulse pounded.
His throat went dry.
The floor tilted and loomed closer. The glass walls zoomed in. He blinked.
He was seeing a mirage. Either that or he’d slipped back in time, because there was no other explanation.
After all those years, there she was, in the flesh. A vision in black and red, and a brunette now. He stared from across the room, trying to process what he was seeing.
Shannon Paige-Prince.
The biggest regret of his life, more stunning than she’d ever been, and she wasn’t alone. She was with one of her brothers, and they were both focused on James. Heading for his table. As she turned in his direction, she looked up and they locked eyes.
His drinks slipped from his hands, crashing onto the dark wood floor and shattering.
CHAPTER FOUR
“That answers my question. Those glasses are indeed breakable,” Brent said, tapping on his glass as he sat back down with a new drink and raised it in a toast. The waitress had just given it to him after quickly handling the spill.
James laughed and clinked their glasses. “Good thing you tested it. I was so damn worried,” he said, and Shannon faked a smile, still shaking in her skin. Blood pounded in her head, and the entire bar seemed to sway and bob, like a boat on the seas. She dug her fingernails into the leather of the armchair she’d claimed—a necessary stake in the ground because it gave her distance from that man. That man she wasn’t supposed to see tonight. Who wasn’t supposed to be there. Who had been just as surprised to see her. And who was doing a much better job at covering it up than she was, with his little jokes, and his self-deprecating humor.
Fucking bastard.
Everything was so easy for him.
The man was a master at ad-libbing, at covering up the hole in the routine.
She hated that he had the ability to patch a gaffe so quickly. But a small part of her was pleased that he’d been so shocked he’d dropped his glasses.
“In any case, now that my CEO has finished his quality control inspection of the Mandarin’s glassware, I’d like to introduce everyone,” James began, gesturing to Shannon and her brother. “This is Shay Sloan, the founder and head choreographer for Shay Productions. And her brother, Colin Sloan, a financier who advises Shay Productions. Shay and Colin, allow me to introduce Brent Nichols, who runs Edge.”
Colin rose first. “Good to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you,” he said, and extended a hand to the man he’d met at Christmas the year Brent had proposed. But Colin knew how to cover up the past, and knew intuitively that she’d want him to.
“All good, I hope,” Brent said, with a quirk to his lips, though he had to know it couldn’t be good. Colin, Ryan and Michael knew exactly how Brent had dumped her.
“And this is—” James began, gesturing to her, but Brent jumped in.
“Shan—”
“Shay Sloan,” she said quickly, correcting him before he said too much. “I wasn’t expecting you to be here tonight.”
“I wasn’t expecting you to be here either,” he said, and James shot Brent a strange look as if to say ‘of course you were’ but he said nothing aloud.
Brent shook her hand next, and instantly a million things zipped through her body. Memories, feelings, promises. He never once took his deep brown eyes off hers as their fingers laced together. She drew a breath and wished that she didn’t feel a slight charge in her body from the way his gaze held hers. But she did. The fluttery sensation spread through her with every breath. For a second, maybe more, they were the only ones there. The handshake went on longer than it should have.
James tilted his head to the side and gestured from Shannon to Brent. “You two know each other?”
Worry gripped her instantly, breaking the moment. She had no clue if Brent felt tricked or hoodwinked that she was behind Shay Productions. She dropped his hand, gulped, and parted her lips to answer.