Baby for the Billionaire(147)

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.