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“Hmm. Then this will be super awkward,” I began. “We’re not just kicking back. I’m living with them. I moved into their place over the weekend.”
“What? Why!”
Shrugging, I flicked down to the hand curled around mine. “Because when I’m around them, everyone keeps their distance.”
Victor quieted, brows drawing together. “This about the lattes?”
My shoulders stiffened in a hard line. “You saw Iris drench me in the middle of class.”
“And I gave her hell for it after you left.”
“You did?” That was news to me. Everyone was sitting quietly, working on their bio assignments when I returned to class. The smirk Iris shot me wasn’t from someone who got bitched out.
“So you’re paying those guys to watch your back and let you live with them because people are messing with you? No.”
“I’m sorry, did you just say no?”
“No. That’s ridiculous, Sinclair. You don’t need them, you have me.”
My brows were halfway to my hairline. “I have you to do what?”
“I’ll watch your back. And if you need someplace to stay, you can move into the mansion. There are over fifty rooms.”
I pushed aside my half-eaten omelet. “Let me get this straight. You’re going to protect me from the same people you were getting chummy with behind the music hall? Your best friends Saylor and Everleigh told people to nail me with drinks after their attempt failed. You going to give them hell too?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it.”
His face crumpled in a scowl. “You’re so damn annoying. I’m offering to help you. Why can’t you say thanks like a normal person?”
“Ah, there’s the jerk I know and love.” I smiled sweetly. “The macho protective act you were putting on was starting to freak me out.”
Inexplicably, he mirrored my grin. “Then your skin’s about to be crawling, wifey, because it’s not getting around that my fiancée needs the Rogues to do what I can. We’ll walk to and from class together, and the invitation to move into the manor still stands.”
“But—”
Victor pulled me up by my captive hand, slipping a protective arm around my waist. I goggled at him as he snapped at Lucien, “Your services are no longer required, Calais.” He marched us out of the café.
“We don’t even have the same classes together today,” I said, wiggling free outside on the steps. “I have psych.”
“I’ll pick you up and drop you off.”
“Are you noticing that you’re telling me instead of asking me?”
“I did notice that.” The ass tossed his amber crown, winking. “Glad you did too.”
“Ugh.” I stormed off. Victor just jogged after me, falling in step beside and brimming with joy at irritating me so early in the morning. Glancing over my shoulder, I spotted Lucien tailing a fair distance behind. “What’s with you lately? Is this really about showing off that you’re a good fiancé? Because that feels less like you care, and more like an advertisement to ladies like Everleigh that you’d be a great pick after you dump me.”
Victor’s expression didn’t twitch. “Why do you keep saying her name like that? Actually, why do you keep bringing Everleigh up at all? What does she have to do with anything?”
“She seems to think she’s a better match for you than I am.”
His brows popped. “No shit? Damn, when did she say this?”
“Why?” I flung, rounding on him. “Are you interested?”
“Whoa.” Laughing, he threw up his hands. “Why am I in trouble? I’m hearing all this for the first time.”
“Yeah, right. I saw her flirting and pawing you yesterday.”
“You did? When?”
Sense seized control of my tongue, snapping my mouth shut. You almost admitted you were lurking in the shadows while Wesley was choking on his swollen tongue.
“Doesn’t matter when. The point is she was doing it and you know she was coming on to you. That’s why you’re not denying it.”
He lifted his shoulders. “Everyone comes on to me. Look at me.” Victor did a little spin. “I’m fucking hot.”
“I hate you.”
Cracking up, he said, “I don’t notice when girls flirt with me anymore. It’s as common as saying hello.”
“I hate you more.”
“I’m not trying to get with Everleigh,” he said, humor lacing his tone. “Or advertise to other women that I’d make a good husband—or whatever crazy shit you just said. If I’m advertising to anyone, it’s you, dumbass.”
“Wait, what?”
“I’m trying to show you that even if we don’t fall head over heels in love with each other, we can still have a good marriage. Even, heaven forbid, be friends.”
I screwed up my face. “Again, what?”
“I’ve been thinking since the other day when you got jealous over Iris and tried to flirt with my brother.”
Irritation blazed into an inferno. “Neither of those things happened.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” he scoffed. “Anyway, we’ve been fighting, arguing, and digging at each other since we met, and it’s already getting old. I’m not trying to spend the next sixty-plus years sleeping next to a woman who hates me, checking for the knife in my back every morning when I wake up.
