The way he grinned with that comment made my skin crawl.
What an unfortunate thing to feel around my husband, and yet I knew him well enough to know when he was joking, and when he was making a threat.
I was well versed in the latter.
As if he couldn’t help himself, Shane’s eyes slid to me, and this time, he indulged in letting them stay there. And because it would be impolite to look anywhere else, I held his gaze.
It sliced through me like a razed wire, even after all this time.
“Ah, yes,” Nathan said, standing straight before he curled his arm possessively around my hip and tugged me into his side. “This is my beautiful wife, Ariana.”
Shane’s nostrils flared at the wordwife.
His eyes didn’t leave mine, the gaze piercing through me like a spear.
And then his hand came forward.
That little motion shouldn’t have had my throat tightening. It was just a handshake, a polite formality that was natural and expected in that moment.
But the world went silent as his fingers reached for mine.
I told myself to breathe, to be normal, to remember where I was and who I belonged to.
Still, my pulse betrayed me, drumming so hard in my throat it blurred my vision.
And when his palm met mine, the years between us disintegrated, heat blasting from the point of contact and sizzling every nerve in my body.
That hand was warm and rough, but worst of all, it was familiar in a way that made my knees threaten to give.
For a second, neither of us moved. Shane shook my hand before holding it too long to be professional, too short to ever be enough.
He hesitated when it was the appropriate time to break the contact, eyes flicking between mine, and then his fingers tightened around my hand, his pointer finger gently pressing into my wrist like he was trying to speak some sort of secret code to me with just that touch.
And here we were, standing in the moment of truth.
Would he pretend like he didn’t know me, or admit our history?
My stomach twisted with a fear I couldn’t quite name. Part of me braced for Shane to speak — to say my name like he used to, to expose the history I’d buried so carefully — and the thought sent a sharp spike of panic through my chest. I could already imagine Nathan’s hand tightening at my hip, the warmth of his possessiveness tipping into something colder, something dangerous.
But there was another fear just as unsettling.
That Shane wouldn’t say anything at all.
That he’d let go of my hand, step back, and pretend I was nothing more than the woman standing beside his general manager. A stranger. A closed chapter. The idea hollowed me out in a way I didn’t want to examine too closely.
I stood there, caught between dread and disappointment, unsure which outcome would hurt more.
“Ariana,” Shane said, sending a wave of goosebumps over my skin. His lips curled at the corner, like he saw the effect he’d had and loved it, and that made my gaze harden. Because although my body seemed intent on betraying me, I refused to let it drag me down memory lane like Shane and I had only joy between us.
We both knew that wasfarfrom the truth.
“It’s a wonderful surprise to see you here. How have you been?” Shane seemed reluctant to drop my hand, but he finally did with that question, and I immediately folded my fingers together in front of my waist.
Before I could answer, my husband arched a brow. “You two know each other?”
“We had a class together at Boston College,” I said, and I hated how low my voice was when I said it, but I wasn’t surprised. I didn’t know how Nathan would react to this news, which had me hesitant to speak too loudly. I hoped to brush it offquickly and not make a thing of it, but I could tell by the way my husband’s gaze narrowed that I wouldn’t get off that easily.
“Is that right?” he asked, that perfectly practiced grin of his sliding back into place easily as he turned to Shane. His grip tightened as he pulled me even closer to him, and I winced against the sharp dig of those fingers into my hip. “Sweetheart, why didn’t you mention this before?”
