Free Shadow of a Doubt (Tangled Ivy Book 2) by Tiffany Snow

smiled blandly. I got him back once we’d moved on from that group to another.
    “How do you do?” I asked, taking the hand of a woman who stood with two other ladies. They were all older, perhaps early sixties, and exuded class and wealth. This time,
I
adopted the accent—heavily French. “I am Vivienne. This is Marc.” I indicated Devon.
    “Pleased to meet you both,” the woman said, introducing herself and her friends. “Is this your first time to the symphony?”
    “Indeed,” I said, laying it on thick. “I know no one in the States, so I hire a man to accompany me.” I smiled as I saw all their eyes open wider. “He is very good, no?” Devon’s hand tightened on my waist, but his face remained pleasant.
    “Really?” one of them asked. “How interesting. And is he, perhaps, a . . . full-service escort?”
    “Is there another kind?” I replied with a very French shrug.
    Now they were all looking Devon over as if checking out the merchandise.
    “Wherever did you find him, darling?” another woman asked, her gaze resting a tad longer than necessary on the bulge in Devon’s trousers.
    “How you say . . .” I pretended confusion. “Ah yes! The yellow pages.”
    “I do believe the performance is about to begin,” Devon cut in. “A pleasant evening, ladies.”
    They all nodded as Devon herded me away.
    “I do believe those pensioners are eyeing my arse,” he complained in my ear. “And you certainly do not need any more encouragement on this game, I can see.”
    I laughed outright, unable to hold it in any longer, and we paused in an empty corner. The chandeliers twinkled above us as I gazed at Devon. He held my hands with each of his own, tugging me closer until he bent and brushed my lips in a sweet kiss.
    “A gigolo, eh?” he murmured. I giggled again.
    “Millicent the secretary?” I replied.
    “Touché.”
    The symphony was a blur of happiness as we sat in a private box, my hand in Devon’s. He ordered us champagne for intermission and told me how he’d played the violin for a short time, but had given it up because it never ceased sounding like writhing cats fighting.
    I loved how he talked to me, just chatting, and he was constantly touching me—whether it was a hand on my knee, or a caress to my shoulder, or playing with my fingers. And since he was sharing stories with me, I told him of my one and only failed attempt to make the cheerleading squad—failed because of my inability to turn a proper cartwheel.
    “But I could do the splits, which should have made up for it,” I said. “But they still turned me down.”
    “I’m quite sure you would’ve been an excellent cheerleader,” he teased. “Even without the cartwheels.”
    Chatting eventually led to more serious matters until Devon was telling me the story of his parents’ deaths while we were driving back to the hotel.
    “It was an IRA bomb,” he said. “My parents had taken my younger sister with them into the city. The bomb went off while they were in the Tube. I was staying with a chum because I didn’t want to go.”
    “I’m so sorry,” I said. “That must’ve been horrible.” My heart went out to him and I reached across the seat to take his hand. To my surprise, his grip was tight on mine.
    “They said Shannon died instantly from the shrapnel,” he continued. “And I remember feeling grateful because she hadn’t bled to death like my parents had, waiting for help to arrive.”
    “They couldn’t get to them in time?”
    He shook his head, glancing at me before looking back at the road. “The damage and rubble were bad, which made getting to the survivors extremely difficult.”
    Good God, how awful. I didn’t say anything after that, just held his hand as we drove. I couldn’t begin to imagine the therapy he’d had to undergo to get past something like that. But then who was I kidding?
I
needed therapy, for crying out loud.
    Devon made love to me as if it were our first time together, his