Faking Forever (First Wives Book 4)

by Catherine Bybee

  The arrangement was a two-year job she was utterly skilled at performing. She hadn’t dated anyone seriously since college, so when presented with a marriage that would end with six million in her account and a home—and her parents off her back—she took it. The only downfall Shannon foresaw at the time was if she’d met someone during her marriage and couldn’t act on it.

  She didn’t expect that someone to be the man she was married to . . . and she didn’t expect to leave her marriage rich yet in shambles.

  Shannon’s sellout had backfired.

  At least that’s how she viewed her brief time as a political wife. That was, until she met the women in the First Wives Club. Lori, Trina, and Avery became the supportive sisters she needed. They didn’t judge her with condescending eyes, they understood her with loving hearts.

  They lifted her up and gave her the courage to take an active step forward in her life.

  She came out of hiding the year Lori pushed the four of them to take a Mediterranean cruise together. Her small wedding photography business had picked up, giving her purpose.

  Shannon looked at the images of the fragmented Brooks wedding.

  Flowers and finery . . . dressed up guests and grooms. She was good at wedding photography, but she’d be lying to herself if she said she had true passion for it.

  Earning money for posed pictures was not what Shannon had studied in college.

  In a way, she was still selling out.

  Wedding photography was safe.

  Marrying Paul had been safe.

  Kissing a jilted groom, not safe at all.

  She was tired of the safety net. Wasn’t that why she was considering a one-night stand in an effort to have a baby? Was it rebellion, or was she playing it safe to have a child alone in an effort to save her heart from breaking again?

  Shannon powered down her computer, grabbed her camera bag, and locked the door behind her as she left.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Two weeks after his return from Tulum, the remaining bills from the wedding came due.

  Victor ignored the mail for several days. When the weekend arrived and he sat in his home office taking care of his personal finances, he tore through them.

  The caterers had been given their payment the night of the reception, but they failed to bill him for the overage, since the guest list had increased nearly twenty percent. It didn’t matter that many of the guests had immediately left. The food had been ordered, cooked, and served. To whom, Victor couldn’t say.

  The florist sent a receipt . . . he’d forgotten how much he wrote the check for.

  He glanced at the envelope from a jeweler. It wasn’t the person he’d purchased Corrie’s ring from. He opened the mail and read the receipt. It was for a male wedding band.

  Victor looked at his left hand.

  Two thousand dollars?

  The receipt stated paid in full, but it was in Victor’s name.

  He logged into his personal bank site and opened the separate account he’d opened for Corrie to use for wedding expenses. In light of the fact that they weren’t yet married when he opened the temporary account, both their names were tied to it.

  Not that she’d put any money in.

  Weddings are expensive, she’d told him. If he wanted to be bugged constantly for questions like, “Do we want to add bacon to the salads and pay a dollar more a plate?” then he could stop working every time or just allow Corrie to take care of it.

  Having more money than time, Victor cut a check and stepped back.

  He looked at the balance on the account.

  To her credit, it wasn’t at zero.

  No, there was a $23.67 balance.

  He compared the jeweler’s name to a check written against the account. Not that he cared to have a two-thousand-dollar wedding band instead of a bride to go with it. The names matched and he pushed the receipt aside.

  He’d put twice as much money in the account than was the estimated need, which had him digging.

  Early checks were written in deposit, some were posted the day of the botched wedding . . . and it appeared some were still due.

  He skimmed the list, trying to muster up a little anger that he was paying for something he didn’t get. Although when you thought about it, he did get what he’d paid for. He paid for flowers, he saw them. He paid for food, his guests ate it. The bar bill . . . yeah, he’d gotten his money on that. He also paid for Corrie’s friends to fly to Mexico and their stay in the hotels. Even his friends refused him when he offered to pay their way.

  What did he expect? Corrie was fifteen years younger than he.

  He found Shannon Wentworth Photography and a check written for one thousand dollars.

  Now, call him naive, but he didn’t think for one minute that was her total fee for flying to Mexico to be their photographer. And yet there wasn’t a second bill in the pack that he was sifting through.

  He smiled at his resourcefulness as he picked up the phone.

  Shannon answered on the second ring. “You’re seventy-five days early,” she said instead of hello.

  Victor sat back in his office chair and propped his feet up on his desk. “Do you have a countdown clock like people use when they’re excited about a major life event?”

  “Are you suggesting a phone call from you is a major life event?”

  He heard laughter in her voice.

  “Hello, Shannon.”

  She sighed. “Hello, Victor.”

  “Aren’t you going to ask me why I called?”

  “No. I’m sure you’ll get around to it.”

  She made him smile. “You sound good. Did I catch you at a decent time?”

  “It’s two o’clock in the afternoon on a Saturday.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “Oh my God, Victor . . . yes. It’s a good time. Why are you calling?”

  He could see her eyes narrowing, her lips pulling into thin lines. “Miss Annoyed is back. I kinda liked her.”

  “Victor!” His name was a warning.

  “Okay, okay, I actually did have a reason other than wanting to hear your voice.”

  She paused. When she spoke again, her voice had lost some of its edge. “What’s your reason?”

  “I think I owe you money.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He glanced at the pile on his desk. “I’m going through the wedding bills, and all I see is a deposit for the photographer.”

  “Oh, that. Uhmm . . .”

  “Shannon?”

  “I don’t expect to get paid for something I didn’t do.”

  “You flew all the way to Mexico for a job. You deserve to get paid for your time.”

  “Thank you, I appreciate that.”

  He kicked his feet off the desk, reached for a pen. “How much?”

  “We’re even, Victor.”

  “Shannon!”

  “Oh, Mr. Annoyed has arrived.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “So am I. We’re good.”

  “Do you want me to guess what your fee is and send you a check?” Because he would.

  “I won’t cash it.”

  “Then tell me a number.”

  “Fine. Two hundred dollars.”

  He started to write down the amount and paused. “That isn’t possible.”

  “That’s my number, take it or leave it.”

  “Why are you being difficult about this?”

  “Because I don’t want your money,” she told him.

  He dropped his pen. “That might be the first time I’ve ever heard that.”

  She laughed. “That’s too bad.”

  “You’re refreshing,” he told her.

  “I have no business being anything to you for at least another seventy-five days.”

  The fact she had the days down like a calendar made him grin as if he were a kid skipping school on a sunny day. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  “Goodbye, Victor.”

  “Goodbye.
”

  He stared at his phone for five minutes and replayed their conversation in his head. Then he opened his calendar, counted seventy-five days ahead, and started a countdown clock. He titled it: Major Life Event.

  Shannon hung up the phone as she sat surrounded by the portfolios she’d done when she was in college.

  Victor calling didn’t surprise her, but his reason did.

  There was no way she was taking any of his money. Not after she’d kissed the man. Not with a pending romantic date in seventy-five days. On some level, she knew her job as his photographer and going on a date were entirely different things, but it didn’t stop her from cutting him off.

  Shannon Wentworth was finished taking money from men.

  Especially men she kissed.

  “Miss Annoyed,” she said to herself.

  Shaking her head, she ducked back into the project in front of her. Each collection of photographs had a different purpose for the class she’d taken. In the beginning, she took her professor’s direction literally. When he assigned an urban setting, she went out and photographed all the angles and textures of Los Angeles. She remembered vividly the moment she saw her grade as a D. The doubt she’d harbored inside her heart about picking the class as her minor soared. Her second assignment had been “Through the eyes of a child.” The grade went to a C minus. Again, she pulled her hair out. The images she’d captured were exactly what the professor asked for. When she turned in her third assignment, her professor called her into his office.

  He told her that if she was going to continue delivering photographs that anyone with a cell phone could take, that she should drop his class right then and there.

  She was so upset to see her dream explode before she could even exercise it.

  As she was leaving his office, tears down her face, he stopped her.

  “How do you feel?” he asked. “One word. Tell me how you feel in one word.”

  She had turned around, looked him in the eye. “Despair.”

  “Good. Now go out there, capture despair . . . in the city, and the eyes of a child . . . anything. Prove to me you should be in my class.”

  And she did.

  Shannon picked up the portfolio of those pictures she’d taken all those years ago and flipped through them. With one word, one emotion, she found exactly what her instructor wanted. Her first stop was an animal shelter, where she found the solemn face of an emotionally wounded mixed breed dog. It took everything not to spring the animal and take it home. Then she took the same emotional wound on the face of a child sleeping in a makeshift tent with her parents under one of the many overpasses of the 405 freeway in Los Angeles. That was when Shannon found her voice behind the camera.

  She’d proved she belonged in the class and went on to capture the attention of the head of the photojournalism department. Some of her work ended up in the school newspaper.

  When her professor encouraged her to reach out to the more mainstream media, Shannon retreated back into her shell. The turmoil of her sister’s independence had started to shake their parents’ patience and made life for Shannon more difficult. They expected her to fall in line even faster since her sister couldn’t find the damn thing. By the time Shannon was graduating college, Angie had long since dropped out.

  Shannon sold out to the commercial end of photography. Because she came from an affluent family, she managed to book the occasional wedding. But her meals came from the stream of kids wanting their starts in Hollywood who were in need of reasonably priced headshots.

  Somewhere in all of that she’d met Sam and was told about Alliance. She met with Lori for the first time when they discussed a marriage contract with Paul.

  Stupid plan.

  Well, except for the money. That part worked out rather well. Although she wasn’t sure it was entirely worth it.

  She put aside her infant work and picked up her senior project.

  Gritty stuff, nothing smooth and perfect about it. Even if she was taking pictures of beautiful people, she’d seized the moments their facades fell and real life crashed in. Then she framed the same subjects and added the filters they wanted . . . like her life as Paul’s wife, and then her real life when alone with her thoughts.

  The striking contrast earned her honor awards.

  And what did she do with it?

  Shannon flew to Tulum to take pictures of a spoiled girl’s wedding. That was how she spent her independence.

  In her defense, there wasn’t a way to take the images she’d managed in her college years after she became Paul’s wife.

  She was the subject of speculation and gossip for years following their divorce.

  Was that the case any longer?

  There really was only one way to find out.

  Shannon lifted herself off the floor and went to her closet.

  The walk-in room housed all the finery one would expect of a woman who spent much of her time on the other side of the camera. She sifted through her jeans, designer, but nothing that had a logo that would scream money.

  From her workout clothing, she chose a T-shirt with a cat and pulled it over her head. Next came a ball cap, and she tugged her hair through the back in a ponytail.

  In her bathroom, she removed her jewelry and lipstick and looked at herself in the mirror.

  Not exactly what anyone would expect her to be wearing.

  With her camera bag in hand, she set the alarm in her house and walked out the door. Seeing her car, she stopped short.

  Ten minutes later, Shannon rode in the back of an Uber to test her popularity. If she went unnoticed as she wandered the streets snapping photographs, then maybe her identity as the governor’s wife was truly behind her.

  And she could see if she still had something else to give this world other than pretty pictures of people faking the perfect life.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Victor sat in a Starbucks on Ventura Boulevard with one eye on the door.

  She’d agreed to meet him. Public place, no possibility of physical contact outside of conversation . . . not that Victor had any intention to touch anyone.

  He caught sight of Corrie before she waltzed through the door. She walked up with a friend and was talking to her outside. With what looked like a breath of courage, Corrie pushed through the entry, scanned the room, and paused when she saw him.

  Dressed in a flowing-sleeved shirt in pale yellow and white jeans that stopped just below her knees, she crossed the room, turning a few heads.

  Victor stood as she approached.

  Should he kiss her cheek? Pull out her chair?

  She didn’t give him the option.

  “Hello, Victor.”

  “Good morning.”

  She tugged her chair back and sat, removing the sunglasses hiding her eyes.

  “Did you want a coffee?”

  “No. I don’t,” she said.

  Okay . . . He sat across from her and tried to find the name of the emotion floating to the surface of his feelings in that moment. Nothing came.

  “Thank you for meeting me,” he told her.

  Her chin was tight, her eyes scanning the room instead of looking at him. “I’m surprised you found time in your busy schedule.”

  She was angry.

  “I—”

  “And you’re here on time? Do you know how many times you were on time when we were together?” she interrupted him.

  He opened his mouth, didn’t utter a sound.

  “Zero. Even on our first date you showed up ten minutes late.”

  “There was traffic.” He regretted the words the minute they sputtered from his lips.

  She dropped a hand on the table. His coffee jumped.

  “You’re right, Corrie. Okay. I know I wasn’t the most attentive boyfriend.”

  “Fiancé.”

  “Right. Fiancé. There isn’t anyone who will argue against that.”

  She lifted her chin, an indignant smile on her face.

  “I’m not sure I des
erved how you ended things, however. When did you know you didn’t want to be my wife?”

  He asked the question because he’d asked himself the same one several times in the past three weeks. When did he start questioning his future plans with her? Looking at Corrie now, no longer feeling like he could place his hand on her arm, kiss the side of her cheek, take credit for the fact the men in the Starbucks turned to look her way, he saw her differently. She was beautiful, no denying that. Her stubborn jaw and curt attitude, however, when she was the one who had walked out on him, felt displaced. Adolescent, even. And yes, she was young.

  “Once the newness of wearing your engagement ring wore off,” she told him.

  “When was that?”

  “Two months after you put it on.”

  He glanced at her hand, wasn’t surprised to see she wasn’t wearing the two-carat ring he’d spent a small fortune on. Other men would have asked for it back.

  She must have noticed his attention on her hand. She lifted it up, wiggled her fingers. “I sold it.”

  That, he didn’t expect.

  “If you knew you didn’t want to go through with the wedding, why did you plan it? Why wait until the last moment to run away? Was I so impossible to talk to? Didn’t I deserve a face-to-face conversation saying you were leaving?” Because while he admitted he didn’t give the woman as much attention as he should have, or maybe even the love she deserved, he had never fought with her or denied her whatever she wanted when it came to their wedding plans. He gave her gifts . . . what woman didn’t like gifts? They went to nice places . . . yeah, he was sometimes late, and there were times his phone interrupted.

  “I got caught up in the process and waited until no one was looking.” For a nanosecond, her hardness ebbed and her eyes moved to her lap.

  He reached across the table, and she snapped her arm away. He opened his mouth to say he understood her position, but she didn’t give him a chance to speak.

  “Then I realized that you’d kept me waiting over and over again, and it was my time to return the favor.” Her anger was back.

  Around them, people hushed their personal conversations to watch them.