was the charm, or maybe it was the sexy gravel of his voice. Who knew? Or maybe it was just that he was hot as hell, and he was funny. Rarely did those two traits exist in one man, but they resided in Brent, and she’d had a hard time looking away from the screen.
Brent had continued, pacing the other direction across the small stage. “So that was me. Yeah, me,” he’d said, pointing at himself, stabbing his finger against his chest. “So, I’m meeting with the head of this hotel chain, and I’m suited up, right? Got the tie, the jacket, the tailored pants,” he’d said, then glanced down at his jeans and loose T-shirt, as if to say I’m still casual when I moonlight on stage from time to time. “And we’re talking about moving my nightclubs into his hotel, and I said ‘let me show you the plans.’ And what do you think was on my screen?”
He’d stopped, shaking his head, utterly bemused with himself. That was the self-deprecating tone and expression that he alone had mastered. The one that had worked its way into her heart in seconds when they were younger and made her fall in love with him. He was so damn charming, so utterly irresistible like this. When he owned every second of who he was.
“No, it was not ‘Hot, Horny Girls Who Like Comedians,’ though that would be a fucking awesome site. Someone needs to make that if it doesn’t exist. And I will gladly sponsor it, bankroll it, whatever. Anyway, it was my ex’s Facebook profile. Yeah. I’m that guy. That idiot. King Schmuck. That asshole who Facebook stalks his ex,” he’d said, then he’d stopped pacing and tapped his chest, the look on his face one of utter disdain for his own antics.
She’d grabbed the phone from Colin’s hand and pressed end on the video.
“It was just getting to the part about you—”
She cut him off. “I don’t want to see him. I certainly don’t want to hear about him Facebook stalking some girlfriend.”
“Um, Shan. That ‘some girlfriend’ is you,” he’d said, sketching air quotes.
“I don’t care,” she’d said, and then gritted her teeth and tapped the menu. “Let’s order and talk about Europe.”
Colin had never brought it up again. While she knew the popular video was about her, she’d resisted every single urge to watch it. She didn’t care to hear anything he could possibly say about her that was uttered in the same breath as ‘porn on his computer screen,’ no matter how funny, or how trendy the video had become.
Brent was an asshole, and the way things had ended between them was entirely his fault. He’d had the choice to have both her and work, but he’d picked work and ditched her. Case closed, in a classic stone cold fucking of her heart. Maybe that was why she couldn’t deny her delight in the wild goose hunt he’d taken himself on via Facebook. He might have found Shannon Paige-Prince and been checking out her profile, but she wasn’t that person anymore, and she barely maintained that page. Hell, she didn’t maintain any profile because she didn’t want to be known, or to be found. She preferred her new name, and new life, and living it off the Internet.
When she’d started her company four years ago, after amassing several high-profile choreography jobs following West Side Story, she’d already switched her hair color from bright blond to dark brown. Next, she’d jettisoned the last name she had growing up. She’d needed a sleeker and sexier name. Companies wanted to hire Shay Sloan more than Shannon Paige-Prince. But she also didn’t want to see that look, that furrow of the brow that came when someone heard her last name. “Are you one of the Paige-Princes of...”
Nope.
Those questions needed to be cut off at the knees.
She’d taken her cues from Michael, her oldest brother. They all had. They always did. He’d been the first among them to change his last name to Sloan, and had suggested they all do the same. Sloan was an everyman name. It had no history, no notoriety. They could slip easily through this town and live free of all those questions from people who remembered who they had been long ago. With new names, their old life faded away, receded far into the rearview mirror.
“Anyway, Shay.” Her twin brother lingered on her business name, mocking her playfully as he said it. “The guy you hate won’t