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“I’ve got my own guy.”
She chuckles dryly, slipping her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. She’s barefoot, I realize, with toenails painted a deep red. Everything about her looks casual and unforced, and I wonder which version of her is the real one. This one, or the woman I met last night?
Or maybe they’re both lies.
She’s clearly a good fucking liar.
“I’m sure you do have your own guy, but Brenson’s been taking care of you since day one. He knows how far along you are in your recovery, and he told you to book a follow-up with him anyway. So do it now.” She tugs her phone out of her pocket and taps out a message. “I can get him here in five minutes.”
Marcus’s jaw clenches. I grab his arm and shoot him a look. I’m sure this is some kind of power play on Victoria’s part, but after all the things Marcus has done in the past twenty-four hours, I really would feel better if a doctor checked him out.
He stiffens under my touch, then nods once, a sharp jerk of his chin.
Victoria smiles, then sweeps her arm out in an inviting gesture, indicating we should move deeper into the house. We follow her through the space, and my gaze darts around, cataloguing everything I see.
The inside matches the outside—understated and clean. There are a few hints of wealth here and there, but they’d be easy to miss if I wasn’t looking for them.
“Luca wasn’t particularly happy the three of you left the party early last night,” Victoria notes, leading us down a hallway before stepping through a door into the back yard. She catches Marcus’s gaze. “I made an excuse for you, but you better be careful. He doesn’t like any hint that people are disrespecting him.”
“I can take care of myself,” Marcus grunts.
Victoria’s smile makes my stomach tighten. “Oh, I’m counting on that.”
The back yard is much larger than the front yard, and this is the first sign I’ve seen of Victoria openly throwing her family’s new money around. An Olympic sized pool takes center stage in the yard, bright blue water glinting in the sunlight. It’s not all that uncommon for even middle-class people to have pools in Halston, but they sure as hell don’t look like this.
Victoria catches me looking at it and shrugs. “I swim almost every day. It’s heated so that even when the nights get colder in the winter, the water stays warm. It relaxes me.” Her phone buzzes, and she glances down at it before catching Marcus’s gaze. “Doctor Brenson is here. You can let him in and he’ll give your injuries a check.”
Marcus doesn’t even bother responding to her with words. But his hand closes around my elbow, and he tugs me toward him, dropping his head as he murmurs, “Last chance, angel. You say the word, and we’re out of here.”
I shake my head adamantly. “I’ll be good. Go. I’ll only take as long as you do, so once the doc is done checking you out, we’ll leave.”
He nods, seeming mollified by that. He gives Victoria one last piercing look before striding back into the house.
As soon as the door closes behind him, her demeanor changes. The air she had earlier of a hostess giving a tour of her house at a dinner party evaporates, her expression turning cool and calculating as she levels her gaze on me.
“So, did you come here to beg me not to do it? To let him go so he can marry you instead and whisk you off to his castle for a happily ever after? Because it’s not gonna happen.” She laughs humorlessly. “People like us don’t get happily ever afters.”
My stomach gives a weird little flutter at the words “marry you.”
That’s not what I came here for. I haven’t even considered the thought of marrying Marcus, or his two closest friends either. What we have seems so much bigger than that, so much more chaotic and meaningful and intense. Marriage seems like too small a word to fit the thing that exists between us.
“I’m not really big on begging,” I say carefully, falling into step beside Victoria as she begins to walk along one side of the long pool. She’s still barefoot, but the marble slabs that border the pool are pristine and smooth. “I’m just trying to understand what you want. Maybe there’s something we can offer that you want more.”
“Are you sure you want to be a part of this?” she asks suddenly, cutting a glance my way. “You do realize that once you’re in, you’ll never get out, right?”
“Yes. And I don’t care.”
Her vivid green eyes are impossible to read as she shakes her head. “I think you will. When you finally realize what you’ve signed up for.”
“Why do you want to marry Marcus?” I ask, shifting the topic back to the reason I’m here. I get the feeling she’s trying to put me off-balance, and even though it’s working a little, I refuse to let her see that.
Victoria stops, turning to stare down into the clear water of the pool as she crosses her arms. “I don’t want to. I need to.”
We’re standing side by side, so I can only catch her profile when I glance over at her, and her expression is still hard to read. But there’s something in her voice that sounds almost sad.
“Why?” I press.
She shrugs a delicate shoulder. “Why do you think? I think he’s going to win, and if we’re married, that means I win too.”
