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Back into the cold they went. Compared to Avril, in what Liam could only think of as entirely fitting, Victoria seemed completely immune to the chilly afternoon. If anyone among the five of them ought to have that right, it was her.
“A really, really bad match,” he said. “In her… colorful sort of way.”
Victoria held him in her gaze, clearly waiting for those colorful details. Not let off the hook, Liam paraphrased Avril’s description of the two then-twenty-somethings.
“She said you leaped from eighteen to thirty in terms of maturity, while her brother has spent the past fifteen years acting like he’s still twenty.”
If Victoria took any slight from the possibly apt description of herself, she didn’t show it. However, she did quibble with one aspect of it. “Avril didn’t meet me until I was in my twenties, so she wouldn’t know what I was like at eighteen. The rest, however, is mostly valid. Especially concerning Casey’s maturity, or lack thereof.”
“She definitely emphasized that part most of all. I’m pretty sure she said you ended things once you ‘wised up’ about her brother, even.”
“She’s remarked in that same way directly to me,” Victoria revealed. This time, their return to Tess’s didn’t silence their conversation. Which meant, as she came to check on them again, clearly antsy about how things would go between them, she was privy to the same details.
“You’re discussing Casey?” Tess said, brow furrowed at this unusual topic to have popped up between relative strangers.
“Yes, Liam already knew about him—and me.”
“Oh.” The surprise swiftly melted away, however. “Avril.”
All Victoria needed to do then was nod. Liam heavily suspected that it wasn’t the first time that a conversation almost exactly like it had occurred. Just the mention or understanding of Avril’s involvement was enough to fill in the blanks. Once they were back outside, Victoria continued to expound about her past relationship with Avril and her brother.
“There’s not much else I’ll disagree with, as I was the one to break off our engagement. But for an explanation as to why Avril and I remain close to one another, which I would imagine is what you’re most interested in, it’s not so far off what I suspect you’re going through with her.”
Something tells me that isn’t the case,Liam couldn’t help but think, but the last thing he would do was correct her. Especially because, in the ways she next espoused, she was right.
“She and her brother are rather similar, though they thankfully diverge at a few important junctures. They’re both adventurous and boisterous, and there is something magnetic about their self-confidence, which seems so endless at times that it is as if they expect the world will simply adhere to their whims. If I were to view it more dangerously, I might describe it as intoxicating.”
They reentered his home, and Liam noticed that Victoria awaited his agreement or denial. He responded by half-shrugging and half-nodding. He knew what she was talking about, even if she didn’t know how heavily he had imbibed Avril’s alluring nature.
“When I began dating Casey, I was twenty-two years old. Two years later, we were engaged. Six months after that, we weren’t. During most of those two and a half years, I spent a great deal of time with him and his family. For certain reasons beyond the scope of what I’m willing to divulge, I didn’t have much contact with my family at that time in my life. Casey and his family were more than happy to invite me into their home, and that magnetism I spoke of is manifold when surrounded by the extravagancies and leisure that the Knights experience daily.”
“Like Christmas parties where you open a dozen presents from just one gift giver?” Liam provided.
However, Victoria, allowing him to espy the slightest flicker of amusement within her eyes, shook her head. They began working on scooping up Anna’s gifts next.
“More like visiting Bora Bora, the Fiji Islands, and Saint Lucia—and all over a single summer. And while there, being treated like absolute royalty. Few people ever attribute vainness to their self-descriptions. Fewer have ever experienced what it’s like to live withoutanymonetary restraints. Avril might sell me as though I was completely immune to the vices of extravagance, but Iamstill human. If not swept off my feet at the beginning of my relationship with Casey, I was at least staggered by the lifestyle that they lived. I could count the number of times I’d gone on vacation toanybeach on one hand before I began dating him. By the time I ended our engagement, I’d need my hands, your hands, and Tess’s hands to make the count.”
Liam did his best to resist the flood of images of Victoria lounging on more and more exotic beaches, swapping between bikinis designed to accentuate her dangerously alluring figure. His best wasn’t quite good enough, largely because of the excitement she’d interrupted between him and Tess on her arrival. Swallowing, his struggle for calmness, which resulted in a brief silence on his end, drew Victoria’s attention.
I know what you’re thinking about,her piercingly pale blue gaze seemed to say. However, besides that one revelation, he failed to parse any other tells from her neutral expression. Thankfully, she let him off the hook by continuing her story.
“I have no siblings, and Avril has no sisters. As outlined already, I enjoyed being around her for the same reasons I initially enjoyed being around her brother—and I suppose she must have enjoyed being around me, for reasons unknown. We ended up bonding. Enough so that our friendship survived me breaking off my engagement with her brother. Believe me when I say this, Liam. For all her antics, Avril is less thoughtless and far,farless puerile than Casey is.” Making it back to Tess’s, she stopped them at the door. “She is a good friend to have, and I value our relationship very highly.”
There was something there, something not yet spoken aloud. Detect its existence as he could, he couldn’t identify its nature. Surely,surely,Avril hadn’t intimated or shared anything about his and her relationship with Victoria, close as sisters or not.
“Yeah, I totally agree,” he said, careful about the potential landmines around his feet. “I feel the same way about her and Anna.”
No metallic click, no all-encompassing dread, no eruptive fountain of soil and metal fragmentation. Holding him hostage with her piercing eyes for one moment longer, Victoria, seemingly satisfied by his answer, released him from it. The two made it inside, delivered this batch of presents, and then they were back out the door.
It was on the next trip back that she finally noticed the mistletoe hanging above the door.
The response was brief but notable. Her eyes flicked up toward it in the same way that someone who’d just noticed a fly buzzing about in their peripherals did, where it lingered. As was typical in the gorgeous but composed woman, he couldn’t tell what she thought of the festive object hovering over their heads. Only ten minutes of semi-alone time later, he’d already figured out that he’d need a Victoria translator—Avril or Tess—if he wanted to have any chance of intuiting her internal monologue.
By comparison, his own thoughts were a mess of fretting and overthinking things, which he hastily worked to soothe. It was a simple and familiar enough thing to find at this time of the year. There was no reason to think that Victoria could deduce what he and Tess had been doing before she arrived just off a hung mistletoe.
Right?
His half-hearted attempt at calming his paranoid thoughts utterly failed. However, seconds later, Victoria’s gaze dropped away from the famous decoration. She headed into the living room and put down the presents, and Liam followed. She did not comment on it, and Liam didn’t dare broach the topic.
