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Victoria’s piercing gaze grew no softer during or after he’d saidhispiece. That didn’t unnerve him; he hadn’t expected her to suddenly thaw into a balmy oasis before his eyes. She was who she was, just as she’d explained. And he’d hardly given the most effusive and direct explanation, anyhow. A few more moments languidly trickled by before Victoria’s contemplation ended.
“Everything you have said is true, or at least I hope it is. As I said, I am not trying to enforce my will upon you or Anna. You are right; you are both adults. Your business is yours, and I hope it will stay that way.”
He nodded. “Thank you for understanding, Victoria. I appreciate it.”
“As I appreciate you for having this conversation with me,” she replied. An uncharacteristic but not unwelcome sliver of a smile curved one corner of her mouth upward. “Even if you did basically end it by telling me to mind my own business.”
Liam’s face heated. It wasn’t something he could deny. But hey, it’d earned him a smile from the rather severe professor. He suspected that that put him in rare company. Her students likely wouldn’t have believed it if he’d found a way to tell them. Avril, who’d complained about how boring Victoria’s lectures were during their game night together, was among them.
“Probably not something you’re all that used to, huh?”
Her slight smile didn’t disappear. “Avril’s one of the few who would tell me off so directly. Tess, sometimes, though she’s usually more diplomatic about things. That’s about it.”
“That’s pretty good company to be in,” he pointed out.
“I suppose.” Her head tilted incrementally, a moment of rumination breezing across her poised, beautiful face. “All things as they are, I suspect most men your age would covet the position you’re in.”
Unknowingly, she’d just uttered one of the most accurate statements of all time.
“Why just ‘my age?’” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t think there’s an expiration year on how fortunate of a situation I’m in. Someone twice my age would be just as thrilled to take my place.”
“Fair,” Victoria conceded. “However, if someone in their mid to late thirties were in your position, the manner of our conversation involving their relationship with Anna would have gone very differently.”
So, Ishouldn’tbring up my relationship with Tess. Got it.
Not that he’d ever actually considered bringing that topic up in his and Victoria’s brief time alone, in the same vein that he hadn’t ever seriously considered defenestrating himself when he’d climbed the Empire State Building back in the eighth grade. What hewasconsidering, however, were the ways in which he might keep his and Victoria’s conversation going. He wasn’t quite ready for the sight of her amusement, mild as it might be, to end.
“They’d have to pry my spot here from my cold, dead hands,” he promised. “I wouldn’t give it up for anything.”
Victoria folded her arms beneath her breasts, and it necessitated a herculean effort for him to prevent his eyes from breaking away from her gaze for a quick peek. That sweater of hers was so damn snug, and her body was just so phenomenally attractive; it was unfair. In an hour or two, once Avril and Anna arrived, the house next door would be rife with unfairness.
“Yes, I can’t imagine why,” she said drolly. “You’re really taking one for the team by attending Tess’s party. Such a sacrifice, being the only man in attendance.”
His smile, somewhat sheepish as it might be, was far less restrained than hers. “If someone’s got to do it, it might as well be me.”
Victoria rolled her eyes, but her small showing of mirth persisted; it might have even grown. Liam gleefully sustained his mild flirtatiousness for so long as it remained.
“Besides, it’s not the kind of job that just anybody could take up. There’s a lot of hardship that comes with it, and you need a pretty versatile skillset to manage.”
“Is that so? Just what hardships are you seeing that I don’t?”
“Well, you’ve got to be able to survive Avril Knight, for one thing.”
Victoria snorted, and his smile became a grin.
“All right. I will concede that point. But no others.”
“What about having to survive all those icy glares of yours?”
“I have not glared at you a single time today.”
He sent a dubious look her way, but she remained adamant.
“My natural resting expression might be somewhat solemn, but that does not mean I have been glaring at you.”
“If you say so—”
“I do,” she interrupted. “I have not glared at you once today. There is a difference.”
