Dirty Boss: A Second Chance Romance by Alex Riley Page B

of Georgia. He had graduated with distinction and Shannon was as proud of him as a mother. A special dinner party was organized in a hotel for those graduating with distinctions and they were allowed to bring with them two more guests.
    Greg’s parents were dead like hers and he had given the invitations to Shannon. Now, Shannon wanted Emily to come with her.
    Placing the book on the bed, Emily inclined her head to the left to study her friend. Shannon was dressed as usual in flamboyant colors that threatened to burn the retina. Emily could make out shades of yellow, bright pink, magenta and gold. She shook her head, slightly distracted. Her friend was just a tad crazy. No, more than a tad, she corrected when she caught her first real look at Shannon’s hair.
    “What on earth did you do to your hair?” she exclaimed in astonishment.
    Shannon shrugged and plopped on the bed beside Emily.
    “I thought you would never notice,” she murmured impishly, patting her hair and preening like a peacock.
    Emily continued to stare at the hair in question, unconsciously raising a hand to touch it to see if it was as real as she saw it.
    “Nothing so bad as to get your mouth hanging open like that,” she replied with a naughty grin. “I only cut it a bit and dyed it in the colors of the rainbow; you know how my Greg loves the rainbow.” She said with a throaty laugh.
    Emily shook her head. Really, she shouldn’t be amazed at her friend’s behavior anymore but each time, she allowed herself to be surprised by the different impulsive decision that Shannon make on an almost daily basis. Just this morning, Shannon had been a redhead, now her hair looked like it was cut so haphazardly that there appeared to be no pattern and was dyed all the colors of the rainbow.
    “But why would you do that? You loved your red hair.” She said, looking her friend right in the eye.
    It was true. Shannon always claimed that her red hair was her best feature without which she would just have been an ordinary Irish girl in a foreign country. Shannon just shrugged again.
    “I want to make Greg’s last night in Georgia memorable.” She said with a dare devil grin. Just as soon as the words were out, her shoulders drooped and worry entered into her grey eyes. “What if he goes and forgets me? You know we are world apart and he might decide to go for an American when he is out of here. Maybe if I make tonight so special for him, he wouldn’t forget me? I want him to be my forever.” she said worriedly.
    Emily sighed in exasperation. Shannon could be so insecure of herself at times like this but only when she was alone with Emily. Emily shifted towards her to draw her into a hug.
    “You know that he wouldn’t dare. Grey loves you too much to forget you and you know it. Why would you even think that?”
    She held her friend in her embrace, patting the dyed hair down her back. Shannon was petite but curvy and everyone knew that Greg just loved her to pieces as she did him. Since his graduation, Shannon had been fretting, worried that she still had one year to go while Greg would leave the city. She had started to convince herself that the distance would tear them apart and she would be left heartbroken.
    Emily however had seen the couple when they were around each other. They only had eyes for each other and couldn’t bare being away from each other, on the holidays or even during the day when classes separated them. Though Emily herself had never been in a relationship of any kind, she guessed that Shannon and Greg’s love was the real thing and wished for something similar for herself someday.
    “Believe me, I know … but what if?” Shannon asked, leaning back to stare into Emily’s baby blue eyes.
    “Don’t think about what ifs right now but what is .” She said firmly. “And right now, ‘what is’ is that Greg loves you and you love him; that should suffice.”
    “Thank you.” Shannon said softly, squeezing her into a tight