A Sense of Guilt ✔

Chapter 25

Shannon kept checking her phone with an almost obsessive compulsion, searching for messages from Joe on every medium possible. She told herself to stop being so stupid, it wasn't like Joe bothered much with social media at the best of times so he was hardly likely to take it up now. And she had told him not to contact her.

She scrolled through Facebook looking for Katherine's profile having had more than a passing glance at it over the past few months. When she couldn't locate it she realised Katherine must have blocked her and her stomach sank. The timing suggested that Katherine must know about her and Joe, and if she did know then why hadn't Joe been in touch? Impulsively she called Donnie.

'Hey,' he said sounding pleased to hear from her. 'I wasn't sure you'd still be talking to me after the other day.'

'Actually, you were right. I called it off with Joe, whatever it was,' she said sounding braver than she felt.

She heard Donnie let out a deep breath. 'You've done the right thing Shan. I don't think Joe should be with Kat any more than you probably do but he shouldn't have brought you into this.'

Shannon nodded to herself. 'That's pretty much what I told him, to sort it out with Katherine first.' She hadn't thought he'd take so long to do so though.

'I bet she'll be kicking him to the kerb,' Donnie said with a rueful laugh. 'She knows something's gone on between you, I don't think they'll be marching down the aisle anytime soon.' Shannon's heart briefly rose before sinking again. So Katherine did know, and Joe hadn't been in touch, that could only mean one thing. They were working on their relationship.

She swallowed hard trying to hide her upset. 'Well it's up to Joey and Kat to sort out, I don't want to be involved.'

'Best that you're not,' Donnie said lightly. 'So what are you going to do today?'

'I've got work this evening, I guess I'll just hang out for a while.' She'd barely been out lately, creeping around with Joe had negatively impacted on her social life.

'Don't hide away,' Donnie said.

'I'm not, I just want to enjoy my own company before I head off to work.'

It wasn't a lie, she enjoyed being alone sometimes, and she could hardly tell all and sundry about Joe. She felt disconnected from her friends keeping such a big secret to herself. Only Kelly knew the truth, and since she was working on Kat's wedding, Shannon preferred to keep the gory details to a minimum.

~~~~

Joe stared blankly at his computer screen, the stats on some apartments the company was considering buying were failing to hold his attention. He was supposed to have his recommendations ready for his dad by the end of the day although he knew it was a superfluous exercise. Adam Cooper would have already made his decision and he'd either congratulate Joe for coming up with a proposal he liked, or he'd take great delight in pulling it to shreds and pointing out exactly where Joe had gone wrong.

Just wait until Adam found out about Shannon, it didn't bear thinking about.

Joe swung around on his chair before buzzing his secretary to have her bring him more coffee. He already had three half drunken cups on his desk so what was one more?

'Could you take these cups away?' he asked as she placed the fresh coffee in front of him. 'Please,' he added when she gave him a pointed look.

'Don't forget you have a meeting with Mr Cooper in ten minutes,' she said before leaving and he grimaced at the reminder. He turned back to his computer screen and minimised the report, logging onto Facebook instead. He rarely went on there but boredom got the better of him. He checked his notifications and saw he'd been tagged in a number of pictures from the engagement party. It seemed so long ago. Looking at the images of himself and Kat he couldn't believe how happy they looked, and he was certain they had been happy that evening. He wasn't thinking about Shannon then, not really.