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“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.”
