US News

PAUL’S NEW N.Y. HONEY PIE

Lovelorn Paul McCartney is putting his lonely days behind him by rushing into the arms of a married millionaire New York businesswoman.

The divorcing, legendary ex-Beatle was spotted in the Hamptons last weekend sharing sweet kisses with Nancy Shevell, the vice president of her family’s trucking business and a member of the MTA board.

Shevell, 47, is legally separated from Bruce Blakeman, a megarich and politically connected Nassau County lawyer who is a commissioner on the Port Authority board.

“The separation is amicable and mutual,” Blakeman said yesterday, adding that it’s “the only statement I am going to make.”

Since 1983, Shevell has worked at her dad’s New Jersey trucking firm, New England Motor Freight, which has been accused by the government of being a mob front linked to the Genovese crime family.

In 1988, the feds filed suit against her dad, accusing him of having a “corrupt relationship” with Tony Provenzano, a reputed mobster who is thought by some to have been behind the 1975 disappearance of Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa.

The suit was settled with no admission of wrongdoing by Mike Shevell, according to a report in the Village Voice.

Nancy Shevell later used her Republican connections to get then-Gov. George Pataki to give her a 10-year term on the MTA board, which ends in 2011.

Despite their professional positions in the gritty world of trucking and transit, Shevell’s and Blakeman’s private lives are all about jet-setting glamour.

They have been friends with McCartney since he was married to first wife Linda, and remained close to him after she died, pals said.

“They even ended up organizing a big memorial for Linda when she died,” a pal told The Post. “It’s fascinating what has happened.”

Later, they also became “very close friends” with Heather Mills, a pal of the couple said.

Now, with both their marriages on the rocks, Paul and Nancy are apparently becoming even closer.

They spent last weekend wandering around the chilly East End side-by-side. They were first spotted dining together Friday night at an East Hampton restaurant, according to Britain’s The Sun newspaper. They stayed out until 3 a.m., then went home alone.

On Saturday, they were back together. They were spied browsing at the Top Drawer Lingerie store. That night, they saw the film “American Gangster” and then went to dinner at the Mount Fuji sushi restaurant, The Sun reported.

The paper said they then went to McCartney’s posh mansion, but Shevell left two hours later.

That wasn’t the end of the couple’s getaway.

On Sunday, they were seen strolling on the beach before Sir Paul took Nancy home. That’s when their weekend reached its climax, as they were spotted sharing a kiss.

“With Nancy, Paul appeared happier and more relaxed than he has for a long time,” an onlooker told The Sun.

“They were chatting like old friends and seemed totally wrapped up in their conversation. . . Later, Paul dropped Nancy off. As they were saying goodbye, he leaned over and gave her a kiss before she got out.”

While Shevell would not talk about her feelings for McCartney when asked by The Post last night, he is telling people close to him that they are just friends.

“I have no comment,” she said outside her Manhattan apartment as she walked her dog.

Heather Mills said yesterday that McCartney claimed nothing was going on with Shevell, according to TV’s “Extra.”

“Paul is a free man and can do what he wants,” she told the show.

McCartney, 65, and Shevell have more in common than just their shared friends in the Hamptons social scene and their massive homes six miles apart.

Like Paul’s beloved first wife, Linda, Shevell battled breast cancer. She was first diagnosed in 1996, a year after Linda announced she was stricken with the disease.

There also is the shared pain of facing the end of their marriages.

Shevell has been married since 1984 to her husband, Bruce, whom she met at Arizona State University. They have a teenage son.

Their marriage has been going downhill recently. Pals said they first knew there was trouble between the pair when they stopped wearing their rings.

Shevell also recently dropped the name Blakeman from her official MTA bio.

Additional reporting by Julia Dahl, Erin Calabrese and Lorena Mongelli

todd.venezia@nypost.com