Baby for the Billionaire(145)
“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.”