Page 42 of Billion-Dollar Baby Bargain

“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.”

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