The Billionaire's Second Chance Read Online Free

body in their bed to play with and then discard like a toy which is six weeks beyond its warranty date when something or someone new or better comes along.
    Yes, that was a bitter lesson which Shannon had learned the hard way and one that kept her heart and emotions securely locked and deeply hidden away so as to never be vulnerable like that to another human being ever again.
    There were quite a few business acquaintances who she could be socially friendly with and she was generally seen as a smart, savvy business woman who could charm a room full of clients with the best of them but when it came to what went on with her beyond closed doors, she was something of an enigma to those who knew her at all.
    Living in southern California had been her choice after her university days ended due in large part to the fact that, though she had a family which undoubtedly loved her, she had been a late in life child and her parents, both in their early seventies, had more in common with and understanding of her forty-eight year old brother than they did with her. 
    Her folks were great and she loved them both to pieces but as 1960’s era east coast academics with impressive titles and the letters Dr. before their names they were locked in a world of academia which suited them both.  Hell, her practically perfect big brother Ted also sported one of those doctor titles and that alone made her unglamorous arts degree something of an anomaly in their family.
    It was simply easier and less stressful for her to live on the other side of the country and run her little business which relied heavily on fantasy and effect than to try and fit in to their evidence based lives.
    A small bird perched gently; seemingly weightless on a scraggly branch of bougainvillea blooms just beyond where Shannon was sitting and she turned her eyes to absorb the beauty of the moment. The colorful winged animal twittered briefly before lifting off and flying away reminding Shannon of another bird, a small , blue tinged image which was inked on her left buttock.
    Damnit , why had she thought of that?  Unless she had some burning need to look at herself naked in the mirror or had eyes in the back of her head, there was no reason to connect with that visual reminder of a time long past.
    Getting up to refresh her mug Shannon considered a recent incident when the tiny tattoo had made its presence known.
    Even though she didn’t seek personal friendships she had in fact made one in the form of Jules Ste wart . They’d met by chance when both had been involved in a massive disaster relief fundraiser.  Jules was a society doyenne with a flair for organization and coordinating large scale charity campaigns while Shannon, in this instance, was the party-planner extraordinaire to the crème de la crème of Los Angeles and Hollywood elite.
    She’d been chosen to run the fundraiser, which would have a world-wide televised audience, and the potential to pick up millions of dollars in donations alongside Julianna Ste wart who came on board to represent the charity and the global initiative it had begun in disaster relief.
    She and Jules had hit it off right away.  They were both calm, coolly collected and intensely focused on whatever they were working on.   Jules had reinvented the role of charity benefactor and had single-handedly engaged hundreds if not thousands of individuals and businesses in active giving outreaches that had helped so many.
    She felt oddly comfortable in Jules’s presence and liked the woman’s ability to find the best and kindest attributes in just about everyone.  She was fun to be around; her straight-forward and unabashed love for her husband and their little family made Shannon like her even more.  Jules Ste wart was for real.
    They’d been doing an event together a few weeks ago when the sudden call out of a costumed character important to the theme threw everything into frenzy.
    With no other option available to them it was Shannon who