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“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.”
