Brent shook his head in exasperation. Tanner was a piece of work. “Glad to hear that about Alan,” he said, avoiding the other comment. He flashed briefly to his conversation with Bob from the comedy club, who’d been getting fleeced by his landlord, too. Fingers crossed that this meeting tomorrow would send them all down the right path. Brent could continue the expansion of Edge, and Bob would have the new job he needed to pay the bills.

“So be here by noon, got it? Same location. McCoy’s.”

“See you tomorrow.”

Brent sighed heavily in frustration as he hung up. Win some, lose some. He called his assistant and asked her to change his flight from the morning to the midnight red-eye to New York. That gave him two hours with Shannon after the show ended. Crap. Make that one hour, since he’d need that hour to get to the airport and through security. Even so, he picked up a key from Alfonso.

Wishful thinking for sure at this point. But sometimes you had to roll the dice.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Not too long now,” Michael said. “A few more edits.”

Shannon drummed her fingernails against her kitchen table as she peered at the computer screen with Michael. “Colin’s such a loud mouth,” she said with a laugh.

“I know,” he said, taking a break from tapping away on her keyboard to pat her on the back. Michael had stopped by to help her finish editing a video she’d shot of rehearsals for the Edge show at her studio. The dance was almost perfect, but there was a section she wanted to review with her assistant choreographer. The problem was that Colin had stopped by during the rehearsal and had started talking her ear off about a new investment his firm was making.

“Ding dong,” she’d told him. “Now I’m going to have to edit out the audio.”

“Oh shit,” he’d said, covering his mouth.

“I’m assuming you don’t want to take a chance on anyone but me hearing about the new data storage company that has a ten times valuation of blah blah blah,” she’d said quietly, parroting him back as she held her phone to record the dancers.

“That’d be a no,” Colin had whispered, then mouthed a thank you as he zipped his lips shut and let Shannon finish shooting the video.

Michael was a whiz at editing video, so he’d stopped by to help her remove Colin’s audio. Which also meant now was as good a time as any to tell him what she was up to tonight. She hadn’t said a word to him last weekend at her grandmother’s house, but she didn’t know then that she’d actually be dating—seriously dating—her ex-fiancé. Now she was, and she didn’t like cloaking her life in lies around her brothers, especially Michael. They were as tight-knit as a clan could be, and that was because they’d protected each other and trusted each other through thick and thin.

She steeled herself for his reaction. Of all her brothers, Michael had been the biggest fan of Brent, and then turned the other way when Brent left her.

Best to rip off the Band-Aid.

Michael zoomed in on the software, pushing a flop of dark hair off his forehead as he worked. She cleared her throat. “I’m going out with Brent tonight,” she said before she could back out of her confession.

His fingers stopped moving. She didn’t see his eyes, just his forehead as he furrowed his brow. He raised his face, and rubbed his knuckle against his ear. “Pretty sure I just heard you wrong,” he said slowly. “Say that again.”

“I’m seeing Brent,” she said, straightening her spine, keeping her chin up.

“You’re dating him?” he said, as if she were speaking in tongues.

She nodded.

“I thought you were just doing business with his clubs,” he said, taking time with each word, as if he could restitch them into a pattern that made sense.

“I thought so, too. But then it turned into something more.”

“How? How did it turn into something more?” he asked, cocking his head to the side.

“We started spending time together again,” she said, keeping it PG.

“Why would you do that? You were pretty damn clear ten years ago you never wanted to see him again. You told all of us—me, Ryan, Colin. You made it abundantly clear he was persona non grata.”

“I didn’t want to see him then. But that was ten years ago, Michael. Things changed.”

“What changed?” he asked through gritted teeth. “I can’t imagine what could have changed in the last week or two that would erase what you went through.”

She bit her tongue. She didn’t want to serve up all her feelings for everyone to judge. It was hard enough to say them to Brent, let alone to her big brother. She didn’t feel she needed to defend her heart. Some things were personal. Some things were private. Like the fact that she was falling again for someone who was tender and kind, rough and fiery, funny and sexy, and who only had eyes for her.

Someone who was putting her first.

“He’s different. I am, too. That’s what has changed,” she said in a crisp voice.

Michael closed his eyes, gripped the side of the table, and breathed out hard. “I have no idea why you would want to do this. After everything that happened,” he said, opening his eyes and staring at her.

“Nothing that happened was his fault.”

Michael’s eyes widened. “If it wasn’t his fault, whose fucking fault was it?”

“Both of ours,” she said, holding her ground, even as something darkened inside her.

“Shan,” he said in a heated whisper, as if that was the only thing keeping him from shouting, and Michael Sloan never shouted. Michael Sloan never raised his voice. Michael Sloan stayed in control of his emotions at all times.

Except when it came to his sister. “I was with you in London. You were devastated,” he said, his eyes black and hard.

“Of course I was.”

“You were torn in pieces,” he said between gritted teeth.

She slammed a hand on the table. “I know! I fucking know. I was there. It was my body. Goddammit, Michael. I’m sorry you don’t like him, but I’m seeing him again and I care about him. And I’m not asking for your approval. I’m simply telling you because I don’t like to keep secrets from you. So if you could just chill out, that would be great.” She pushed back from the table, the legs of the chair scraping against her wood floor in a shrill shriek. The sound jolted her brother.

“Shan,” he said gently.

She held up a hand. Don’t come closer. Not now. “I need to get changed,” she said, and tipped her forehead to her bathroom. She wasn’t ready for him to say he was sorry for getting mad.

“I’ll be done soon,” he said, in a gentler tone.

She shut the door to her bedroom, headed to her bathroom, and stripped off her clothes as she turned on the shower. As she stepped under the hot stream, the water pelting her, she closed her eyes, returning to ten years ago.

* * *

Brent had been gone for a few weeks, and she was six days late. She’d hoped and prayed and bargained and bartered with the universe that she was simply that—late. Women all over the world were late, and it didn’t mean they’d been stupid. It didn’t mean the pill hadn’t worked. It only meant they were late, but that red was coming.

Right?

Right, she told her freaked-out brain.

While they’d stopped using condoms a long time ago, she was on the pill. She’d switched prescriptions, though, since the one she was on had been giving her headaches. They’d used condoms during that time, but something must have gone wrong. Hell if she knew when the little bastard sperm had breached her body.

She pressed a hand to her belly, alone in her tiny Brooklyn bathroom in a room she rented for one month from an older couple, fingers crossed behind her back, trying to remember if a condom had broken during those times they’d relied on them. But when the two pink lines appeared, churning her stomach and stabbing holes in her future, it didn’t really matter if she could recall the moment when the protection failed.