CHAPTER Nine
Connor discovered over the next few days that getting married solely for Dylan’s sake wasn’t what he wanted. He wasn’t that noble. He wanted more.
She was driving him crazy. Once or twice as she sashayed past he considered yanking her off her feet, into his lap, and repeating the experiment.
Their no-sex agreement had to be the most idiotic thing he’d ever done. Hell, she was going to wear his ring. That would brand her his for the world to see. Yet he wouldn’t be allowed to touch. Sooner or later something was going to have to give—and it would be Victoria. He was quite confident that he would achieve that. She would come around. He’d see to it because he sure as hell had no intention of sticking to their stupid pact.
In the meantime, he made up for it by looking. Surreptitiously, carefully and at every opportunity he got.
It was torture.
Several times each day he would call Victoria at work—ostensibly to talk about Dylan. But he found himself looking forward to those segments of time when her husky voice came over the line, especially when he managed to get her to laugh.
Lust had turned him into something pathetic.
It was a sign of how entangled he’d become with his new life that, when Iris came into his spacious corner office with his coffee and announced that she’d heard Dana and Paul were getting married, Connor felt one brief flare of resentment and then … nothing.
The lack of turmoil and emotion was liberating. He stood staring at Iris until she said, “Connor, are you okay?”
He gave his assistant an unabashed grin. “I’m better than okay—I’m great.”
She snorted. “Because Dana and Paul are getting married?”
“Yep.” His grin widened. “Makes me feel much better than I thought.”
A wave of relief crashed over him that there was no need for anger, or to exact further revenge. That phase of his life was over.
What he had now was so much better.
Iris straightened the papers on his desk into a neat pile. “There’s a rumor that Dana’s pregnant.”
Even that didn’t disturb him. He grinned at her over the top of the coffee mug. “I should’ve anticipated that. Poor Paul.”
“You had a lucky escape.”
“I certainly did.” Setting the mug down on a wooden coaster, he tipped his head sideways and studied Iris as she slit his correspondence with a letter opener. “You never indicated you didn’t like Dana.”
“Wasn’t my place—you seemed happy enough with her.”
His gaze paused on her pursed mouth. “You’re not the only one. Michael never liked her, either, nor did Brett.” His brother had been open in his reservations about Dana after their first meeting. Of course, Dana hadn’t cared for Brett either—she’d been relieved that he lived in London.
There was a scrape as Iris shredded the empty envelopes. “Dana was always good at her job, and she knew who to impress. But she’d clamber over anyone in her way to get what she wanted.” Iris turned back to face him.
Leaning back in his executive chair, Connor folded his arms behind his head. “It wasn’t easy for her. People are always harder on women who are successful in business.” He thought of Victoria. “Even me.” He couldn’t help wondering what Iris would make of Victoria.
“It had nothing to do with Dana’s successes, just the way she went about achieving them.” Disapproval came off Iris in waves. “And you shouldn’t be defending her.” With that, she bustled out of his office, pausing at the doorway to say, “Don’t forget you have a meeting at noon.”
Connor nodded, then swiveled his chair to look out the window at the knot of gum trees that flourished beside a pond. A pair of ungainly blue-and-black pukekos minced on orange webbed feet along the bank of the pond, picking for food.
His motherly assistant thought Dana had used him as a way to get what she’d wanted, but to be honest, he’d used Dana, too. He was starting to realize that what he liked about Dana was that she didn’t affect him—he could stay heart whole and devoted to work. He didn’t think about her all day long. He hadn’t felt the same compulsion to talk to her as he did with Victoria. Dana hadn’t been a constant distraction from his work. Sure, she’d been a very decorative diversion, and of course he’d gotten a kick out the covetous looks other men had given her. And she could be as feral as a sex-starved mink in bed.
Yet her infidelity still left a bitter taste.
But Michael had hit the nail on the head. It had been his pride—rather than his heart—that had been bleeding when she’d walked out.
He’d never thought he’d land himself in a similar position.
Yet Victoria was even sexier to him, and her beauty was more subtle but no less captivating … and he had a suspicion that Victoria could make him never want to go to work again.
And she was even smarter than Dana.
Just look how she’d gotten him to agree to a marriage without sex—only minutes after kissing him stupid. She’d reduced him to a quivering lump.
Masterly.
And he’d been the fool who’d agreed to it! Even though he was certain he’d be able to convince her otherwise. Given time.
As the pukekos disappeared into the reeds on the waterline, an inner voice whispered, Dana would never have done that. She’d have used sex as another weapon in her arsenal.
But then he couldn’t remember ever wanting, yearning, going mad with desire for Dana in quite the same way.…
Out of respect for Suzy and Michael it was decided the wedding would be a small one with no frills and flounces—and definitely no fairy-tale white dress.
The following night after they’d put Dylan to bed Connor came to the small sitting room upstairs that Victoria had claimed as her own, where he hadn’t invaded until now. He paused at the threshold, and she watched him survey the changes she’d made to the elegant cream-and-dull-gold décor. The addition of a wall hanging in muted colors that she’d brought from her town house. A large fern she’d called Audrey, which was draping enthusiastic fronds over the back of the couch where she sat holding a wineglass.
“I don’t want to disturb you,” he said at last.
Didn’t the man know by now that he always disturbed her? Even wearing only a T-shirt and black jeans he managed to make her pulse pick up.
Of course she’d never admit it.
“Would you like a glass of burgundy?” she asked, setting her glass down and reaching for a clean one from the butler’s tray on the side of the couch. “A client gave it to me—and it’s rather good.” Relaxing, too—which she needed now that the realization she and Connor were actually getting married was starting to sink in.
Connor looked taken aback for a moment, then nodded. “Just half a glass. I’m not staying long.”
Once she’d poured, he moved farther into the room. Taking the glass from her, he raised it to his nose before sniffing and saying, “Mmm … nice.” Then he glanced down at her. “I came to ask for a list of friends and family you’re inviting to the wedding. Iris—my PA—will send out invitations if you give me details. She’s a whiz.”
“No.”
That caused his eyebrows to leap to his hairline. “Aren’t you a little busy to be doing it yourself?”
“There isn’t anyone I want to invite.” Victoria took a sip of her wine. “Have a taste, it’s very smooth.”
Settling himself against the antique writing desk across from her, he sipped. “Very smooth. No friends at all?”
She shook her head slowly, supremely conscious of the weight of his stare.
With the exception of Suzy, she’d lost contact with most of her friends over the past ten years, too busy with work. Occasionally she’d gone out with Suzy and her teacher friends to a movie, or to dinner with a group from Archer, Cameron & Edge. But she wasn’t close to any of them.
“What about family?” He shifted, crossing one ankle over the other where he leaned, the rustle of denim loud in the intimacy of the sitting room. “My brother’s coming.”
“I don’t have brothers or sisters.” Victoria dropped her gaze away. “My mom’s dead, and I haven’t spoken to my father in years.”
“Then this might be the time to invite him and mend some fences. Both my parents are dead—at least you still have a father who could be there for you.”
She played with the stem of her glass. Connor couldn’t know what he was asking of her. “I thought the purpose of the day was to get married and provide a family for Dylan.”
“Nothing wrong with using the opportunity for reconciliation, Victoria.”
Connor’s arrogant assumption that inviting her tumbleweed father to her wedding would make amends for decades of irresponsibility and selfish neglect rubbed her the wrong way. “So I take it you’ll be inviting Dana and Paul?”
There was a horrible pause. Then he said, “Okay, maybe we should just focus on the wedding.”
“Good idea.” In an effort to restore the peace she said brightly, “I didn’t know you had a brother.”
He drained his glass and set it down on the desk behind him. “Brett’s been living it up in London for the past few years.”
“And he’s coming all the way out to New Zealand?”
Straightening, Connor gave her a grim smile. “It’s my wedding—probably the only one he’ll ever see me celebrate. Of course he’s coming.”
Less than a week after Connor had asked Victoria to marry him, the wedding took place.
In sharp contrast to Suzy and Michael’s wedding, it was a small affair with no bouquets, flower girls or white lacy bridal dress in sight. In fact, Victoria decided that celebrate was a far too strong word for the civil ceremony that they rushed through in an anonymous Queen Street government building.
Afterward, accompanied by Connor’s brother and Anne—who’d come to take care of Dylan but ended up acting as a witness—they went to a lovely restaurant set in the rolling, parklike gardens of Auckland’s domain. Sitting at a table on a verandah that overlooked a series of lakes shaded by budding willows and frequented by swans, Victoria’s gaze settled on Dylan perched in the high chair beside Anne, and she finally relaxed.
Married.
Her place in Dylan’s life was secure now.
“Congratulations!” Connor’s brother waved a glass of champagne. “Welcome to our family.”
Victoria smiled and raised her glass. Brett’s personality had come as a surprise. Younger than Connor, he had a boyish flirtatiousness that made her laugh.
“Connor needs to be married,” he told her while Connor discussed their meal with the restaurant owner. “Even though I would rather you’d had a very unequivocal, big, splashy wedding instead of this hole-in-the-corner affair.”
“Needs to be married?” Victoria raised one brow skeptically and carefully ignored the rest of his explosive statement.
“Oh, yes. He likes domesticity.”
“Connor?”
She glanced at the man whose commanding presence had conjured up the owner and a trio of waiters in minutes. His baby brother was mistaken—Connor was as domesticated as a Bengal tiger.
Brett nodded emphatically. “Oh, yes. He’s suffering from empty nest syndrome.”
She must have looked blank, because Brett elaborated. “Since I left home.” His eyes widened. “He never told you that he raised me?”
“No.”
Victoria started to feel ridiculous. She knew nothing about the man she was marrying—except that he’d been dumped by his girlfriend and betrayed by his partner two years ago, and had built a multimillion dollar corporation out of the ruins of those relationships. She’d been crazy to think that was enough. “Until last week I didn’t even know he had a brother.”
“What mischief are you whispering to my bride?”
The owner had departed, wearing a very satisfied smile. But Connor’s eyes narrowed alarmingly as he focused on Victoria and his brother.
“No mischief … yet. I’m still trying to impress her with how upstanding we are. I’ll get to the skeletons in the closet later.”
Connor’s eyes crinkled into a smile. “Those are all yours, brother.”
After that lunch became a noisy, happy affair—where even Dylan contributed much gurgling. The food was sublime and the pale-golden sunshine gave the occasion luster. After listening to the brothers bantering, Victoria met Anne’s eyes and both women collapsed in paroxysms of laughter.
Dylan finally decided he’d had enough sitting.
“I’ll show him the swans,” Anne said, rising to free the baby from the high chair. “And it’s probably time for a change, too.”
“I’ll get a travel rug from the car—” Connor was on his feet “—for you to lay him on.”
“You may have noticed that Connor doesn’t talk much about himself,” Brett said to Victoria once Connor had disappeared around the corner of the building.
Now, that was an understatement. She flashed Brett a wry glance.
“Our parents are dead—did you know that?”
She nodded. “He mentioned it, but he didn’t give any details.” And she hadn’t asked because the last thing she’d wanted was Connor asking questions about her estrangement from her father.
“A train crash.” Brett paused. “That’s why he was so upset about Michael. Brought back old memories.”
She hadn’t even known; Connor had hidden the old, festering wound so well under that icy exterior.
Brett leaned closer. “Has he told you about Dana?”
“His ex?”
“The viper.”
A giggle escaped despite Victoria’s attempts to look disapproving. “Brett!”
“She kicked him out of his own home, but in a way it was a relief when I heard. I was scared shitless Connor would marry her—she was angling for it.”
“Should you be telling the new wife all this stuff?”
“It’s on a need-to-know basis.” He dipped down close and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Dana is poison. She told Connor she wanted children, but he didn’t believe her.”
Despite her qualms, Victoria couldn’t resist probing for more information. It was unlikely to be forthcoming from Connor. “Why?”
“He thought her work meant too much for her to take time out for kids.”
Uh-oh. That went some way toward explaining his attitude in relation to Dylan with her. “How do you know all this?”
He sat back in his chair and selected a toothpick. “I watched … and they sniped at each other sometimes. And after they split up Connor came to London and I took him on a pub crawl.”
Victoria frowned.
“Think of it as therapy—it was the only way I could get him to talk.”
“You’re devious.”
“Very,” he said with immense satisfaction. “And you’d better remember that, because I’m counting on you to feather Connor’s nest and keep him happy.”
Victoria laughed at the outrageous comment. But the sound dried in her throat when a hand landed on her waist. “Be careful of my baby brother.”
Connor’s husky growl close to her right ear caused her to shiver with delight.
“He’s just been warning me of how dangerous he is.” She slanted a mirthful look up at Connor.
Resting his arms across the back of her chair, he leaned closer, his body warm and his male scent familiar. Shuddery sensations of awareness tingled over her nape as her new groom said, “Unfortunately, it’s all true.”
“Right.”
“See, I told you to be careful of me.” Brett looked as innocent as an angel. “Now I’m off to whisper some secrets to Dylan.”
“More like flirt with Anne,” Connor murmured as Brett took off down to the water. He slid into the chair that Brett’s desertion had freed.
The latent tension in Victoria wound a notch tighter. No longer laughing, she pivoted on her seat to face Connor. “Brett tells me you brought him up.”
“He exaggerates.”
“So how old was he when your parents died?”
“You mean he didn’t get around to telling you everything?” The humor vanished, and his eyes cooled, becoming remote.
“He ran out of time. But I deserve to know—I’m your wife, remember?”
“In name only.”
The terse retort came like a slap in the face and she looked down, determined he shouldn’t see how he had wounded her.
“Brett was fifteen.”
Victoria snatched up the olive branch. Driven by an overwhelming need to know more about him, she lifted her chin and asked, “And you were?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Twenty-two! That would have been a demanding time of your life.”
Connor didn’t say anything.
“It was good of you to look after him,” she persisted.
“Anyone would have done it.”
“No, they wouldn’t.” Her father had shown next to no responsibility for his wife and child. Yet Connor had single-handedly raised his brother. She studied his guarded features, admiring the purpose and determination in the rocklike jaw, the sweep of the wide cheekbones and the dark hair that the late August wind had ruffled, giving him a sexy, rumpled look. “And now you’re doing it again. For Dylan.”
He shrugged. “Michael was my friend—my best friend, as it turned out.”
Without the irony, she might never have asked, “Tell me about your business partner.”
“Brett talk about Paul, too?”
“No.”
“So what brought on this bout of curiosity?”
His gaze was unnerving. Victoria gave a careless shrug and reached for her sunglasses. “Perhaps I’m just trying to understand what would drive a man’s friend to behave like that.”
“You think I drove him to do it?”
“I didn’t say that!” She blew out a breath in frustration. “I think what he did to you was despicable.”
“And what do you think of Dana’s behavior?”
She met his gaze squarely. “I thought that was pretty shabby, too.”
He nodded slowly as though her answer had satisfied a question deep inside him. Then, pinning her with his intimidating gaze, he said, “I once heard you tell Suzy that you didn’t blame Dana one bit.”
Victoria slipped her sunglasses on, and frowned. “I said that? When?”
“The day that we first met. You called me a jerk.”
Her eyes went around behind the dark lenses. “You heard that?”
“So you remember.”
“Yes, I was furious with you for attacking Suzy.” And it would have knifed him when he was already down. “So that’s why you were so hostile to me at the wedding.”
“Partly.”
She’d thought he’d taken an unreasonable dislike to her, and that had hurt. To learn that her own behavior had been a major part of the problem made her want to groan in dismay. “I’d found out while I was away on a grueling weeklong audit that Suzy was getting married. I was concerned about Suzy.” She paused, then decided he deserved the whole truth. “I was dog tired and your in-your-face arrogance was more than I could stomach.” Of course she’d bristled in return and the whole sorry situation had snowballed.
“And the other part of your hostility? Where did that come from,” she asked, curious now.
“It’s complicated.”
He was a complicated man. She decided to humor him, make him laugh. She shifted her chair back a little. “Come on, how complicated can it be? You’re a male, men are supposed to be easy.”
“I am definitely easy,” he deadpanned.
Victoria rolled her eyes. “You’re not getting out of this conversation by relying on sexual innuendo.”
“I wanted to see you blush so deliciously again.”
“I don’t blush.” She felt the rush of color even as he quirked a dark brow at her.
“That was so much easier than I thought,” he murmured, his eyes full of lazy humor.
“Oh, stop it!” She didn’t know where to look. He was altogether overwhelming in this mood. “Tell me the other reason you disliked me.”
“You reminded me of Dana.”
Her breath caught. Ouch. All relaxation and lazy desire fled. “I would never do what she did to you.”
She turned as Brett and Anne came up the grassy back toward them, Dylan happily squealing in Brett’s arms. “Don’t confuse me with Dana, Connor—I’m nothing like her.”
“Sure,” said Connor from behind her.
But he sounded far from convinced.
Silence fell over the house.
Victoria had discarded the pale-ivory suit she’d worn for the wedding, and showered. Anne had long since left for home, and Brett had taken off to meet the old friends he was staying with. Victoria set the empty baby bottle on a table beside her, Dylan having been lulled to sleep by Connor’s reading. She looked over the baby’s sleeping head to where Connor lay sprawled on the dark-blue carpet at the foot of the rocker, his head propped up on his elbow … watching her.
She shifted, and the nursing chair rocked in a gentle motion.
“Is the baby getting heavy?”
“A little,” Victoria prevaricated, taking the easy excuse he offered for her sudden restlessness.
Connor pushed himself to his feet in one lithe movement. “I’ll put him to bed.” His eyes sought hers. “Then we can go downstairs and share a toast to our marriage.”
Butterflies fluttered in her stomach at the thought of being alone with Connor. “Oh, he’s fine—”
But it was too late. Connor had already swept Dylan up.
For an instant the emptiness in her arms roused an ache of separation and she felt a flare of anxiety that she might never hold Dylan again.
She shook off the foolish fancy.
There would be lots of time to spend with her baby. She would be here for every day of his life—she could watch him grow, reach out to the world, become a real, rounded person.
Marriage to Connor had ensured that.
And, in spite of their differences in the past, both of them were committed to making this unlikely marriage work.
It had to.
Not only for Dylan, but for them, too.
Pulling her dressing gown more tightly around her, Victoria crossed the room to the oak crib where Connor stood, his broad shoulders accentuated by the white dress shirt, his hips lean in dark pants. She leaned forward as he tucked Dylan in.
“He’s getting big. Must be devouring rubber bands.” Maternal pride filled her as she studied the length of the oblivious baby. “He’s going to be tall one day.”
Connor pulled up the patchwork Peter Rabbit quilt. “He’s still just a baby. So many hopes and dreams tied up in one little person.”
The words moved her. “You feel that way, too?”
He turned his head, and in the dim glow of the nursery lamp part of his face remained in shadow. “I love him.”
She hadn’t imagined Connor capable of love. He’d always seemed too remote, too self-sufficient. Yet clearly he loved Brett, and now he was telling her that he loved Dylan, too. The tender expression he wore as he glanced down at Dylan made Victoria feel all soft and molten inside.
Connor doesn’t talk much about himself, Brett had said earlier. Well, she’d just have to learn how to draw him out, Victoria decided. The man she’d just glimpsed would be worth finding.
Downstairs the overhead lights in the living room blazed, illuminating the sculpted lines of the wide deck outside and reflecting off the glistening surface of the swimming pool under the night sky beyond.
“What about a glass of champagne?” Connor offered, and Victoria nodded.
He pushed some buttons in a wall panel and the brightness in the room dimmed, immediately transforming the mood from stark sophistication to shadowed intimacy. Victoria came to a dead standstill in the middle of an exquisite kelim and cast him a wary glance.
The invitation had been for a toast, she’d thought—not a seduction.
He extracted a bottle of champagne from a fridge concealed in a mahogany wall unit and two long-stemmed glasses from a cubbyhole above, and came toward Victoria where she stood dithering. Giving her a glass, he took her free hand.
Immediately, conflicting sensations rushed through Victoria. Trepidation. Nerves. And something far too close to desire for her comfort. But instead of fighting to free her hand she let him lead her to the black leather couch, her heartbeat loud in her ears.
“I prefer to sit on the deck outside at night, but it’s a little fresh out there tonight.” Connor increased her confusion by sinking down beside her instead of choosing the matching couch on the other side of the Murano-glass coffee table. After he’d filled both glasses, he said, “We’re paying the price for those open blue skies earlier.”
Determined to keep the conversation neutral, she said, “I’m not surprised you spend a lot of time on the deck—the view of the bay is simply stunning.”
It had been one of the first things about the house to capture her attention—right then she’d seen what Connor had meant. With its hardwood floors, big spaces, wide lawns and sparkling pool, this was the ideal place for a boy to grow up.
“And we were fortunate with the glorious weather today,” she added when he made no move to touch her. Get a grip, she told herself. They had a deal. She relaxed enough to take a sip of her bubbly wine.
“To my bride.”
Victoria couldn’t read his expression. The subtle tension notched upward. She decided to take the toast at face value and raised her glass in return. “My groom.”
He scooted closer and clinked his glass to hers. A sharp ting rang out. They sipped … and over the rims of the glasses their eyes held.
A bolt of electricity sizzled between them.
Victoria tore her gaze from his.
His hand came up and wrenched the black bow tie from his throat, peeled open the top button of his shirt. Victoria’s breath caught as her attention honed in on the ripple of a pulse under the swarthy skin. She didn’t dare raise her eyes lest she meet his and be scorched by more shudders of desire.
He shifted beside her. Aware of every inch of his long body, of the coiling muscle of his thighs under his dark, formal pants, Victoria stayed absolutely immobile. He leaned closer, and her breath dried up.
God.
“I should—”
“I think I should—”
They both stopped. Victoria gave an awkward laugh, and fluttered a quick sideways glance at him. “I was going to say I should go to bed … it’s been a long day.”
“And I was going to say I should kiss my bride,” said Connor with wry humor.
“Oh.”
She knew he’d seen her alarm because one side of his mouth kicked up.
“I still think I should.” He leaned nearer and, when she did nothing, he pressed his lips to hers.
For a long moment there was no sound.
Then he lifted his head. “Not so scary, was it?”
“I wasn’t scared,” she objected, all too conscious of the hard-edged features and his unblinking silver-gray gaze.
His hand reached out and his fingertips traced her brow bone. “Then why the wide eyes?”
Okay, so maybe she had been scared. Not of him, but of responding too enthusiastically to anything he might try, taking the kiss far beyond the kind of intimacy he intended. Like she did every time he kissed her.
Connor had a knack of making her want … more.
“We agreed no sex. You took me by surprise,” she sputtered.
He laughed. “A kiss is a long way from sex.”
Now he thought she was prissy. Damn. But she wasn’t going to let him roll her over. “It’s a darn good start along the road. Our bargain was that I marry you to give Dylan a stable home. No sex involved.”
“The billion-dollar baby bargain,” he said sardonically, his fingers sliding along her jawline.
“Hey—” the implication annoyed her, and his caress was unsettling “—I’m not doing this for money, you know that. I wouldn’t take a cent from you.”
But despite her heated words her bones were turning to fluid under his tantalizing touch. The citrus and male scent of him surrounded her. And the assault on her senses conspired to make her give a little shiver.
His fingertips came to rest under her chin. “Perhaps I should’ve offered you a million dollars to walk away from your custody and guardian responsibilities?”
Could he be serious? She wasn’t sure. But she decided to rid him of that notion once and for all. “You’re insane. I would never’ve taken it. Dylan is worth more than any amount of money to me.”
“And me, too.” He moved his thumb along her throat until it rested in the soft hollow beneath her ear. “Stalemate. So we’re stuck with each other.”
“But we’re not going to have sex.” She sounded ridiculously breathless.
He smiled, a slow, wolfish smile. “If you’re certain, then why is your pulse beating so fast?”
“It’s not my pulse—it’s yours you’re feeling through your thumb,” she said in a strangled voice.
Connor laughed. And her toes curled up at the sound.
“We’re going to have sex,” he said. “And like I promised, it will be far from casual.”
“You’re so arrogant,” she accused him.
“Think so?”
He moved and she squealed.
“Too late.” His arms were around her shoulders. “I’m not going to let you go.”
“But we agreed—”
“The idea of being married and not making love is …” His voice trailed away as he placed a kiss against her neck.
“Is what?” He’d taken her breath away again—along with her ability to think.
“It’s stupid.” His mouth opened hungrily against her silken skin. “Whose idea was it, anyway?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice was hoarse.
He blew softly, and shivers broke over her skin.
“Million-dollar question—what do you want me to do now, Victoria?”
Was he asking permission? Did Connor really care what she wanted? Or would he just take what he wanted and tumble away, like every man she’d ever known?