The need to fill the awkward silence made her blurt out, “Can I fix you a cup of coffee? Not that it’s anything like Starbucks, but I was about to make myself—” she stopped before she could reveal that one small human had reduced her to a caffeine-craving wreck “—a hot drink.”
“No.”
“Tea?”
He shook his head.
She moved toward the kitchen, which opened off the living room, flipped the kettle’s switch and opened the fridge.
“I don’t have beer. Would you like a cola?” she offered with reluctance as his footfalls sounded on the tiles behind her. She wished he’d waited for her in the living room. There wasn’t enough space in the kitchen for the two of them.
“Please.” He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck and shut his eyes. An instant later they flicked open and she glimpsed … pain?
Victoria swung away and yanked the fridge door open. She stared blindly at the contents before reaching for two cans of cola. Shutting the door, she said more curtly than she’d intended, “So what do you want, Connor?”
His mouth twisted. “Certainly not sympathy.”
She flicked him a rapid once-over as she set the cans down on the counter. He made no move toward the drinks. A ring of white that she hadn’t noticed before surrounded his lips.
What was wrong with him? “Why on earth would I offer you sympathy?”
It couldn’t possibly be about his former girlfriend. That had been over two years ago and no one ever spoke about Dana or Paul Harper, Connor’s former business partner who had pinched his live-in lover while Connor had been out of the country on a business trip.
What Victoria had gleaned of the affair had come from a soft-focus women’s magazine feature on Dana and Paul not long after Suzy’s wedding. Connor’s ex had been nominated for a business award, and was quoted gushing about how happy she was, how she’d “come into herself.” There’d been an accompanying spread of photos showing the couple at home in a modern Italianate mansion, all glass and marble.
Yet according to stories in business publications, Harper-North Architecture hadn’t thrived well under Paul’s leadership after Connor had walked out. In fact, Suzy had once told Victoria that Paul Harper still owed Connor money. Victoria had surmised that the only thing keeping Connor from placing Harper-North—and Paul Harper—into receivership must be his intent to squeeze every cent he could out of Paul Harper.
By contrast, there’d been quite a splash in the media about The Phoenix Corporation, the waterfront development company that Connor had floated. Reading between the lines, Victoria had gathered that he’d turned what for a lesser man might have spelled disaster into a multimillion-dollar success story.
Yet a sense that something was not quite right closed in on her, as he rubbed his hands over his face in a manner she could only describe as helpless.
“I shouldn’t have made that crack about sympathy,” he said. “Oh, hell, let me start over.” He dropped his hands to his sides and the eyes that met hers were as expressionless as ever. “I’m sorry, Victoria, I’ve got bad news.”
“Bad news?” Bewilderment set in. “What bad news?”
“Michael—”
“No,” she interrupted, as if that might stop her absorbing the reality of the despair that clung to him. “Not Michael!”
Her index finger tapped her watch face with insistent, staccato force. “He’ll be here soon. I know it.”
Connor was shaking his head and his face was gray, his eyes drained of all vitality. “He won’t. He’s never coming back.”
He had to be.
A sickening fear hollowed out her stomach. She found herself standing right in front of him—closer than she’d ever been, except for that brief disastrous time when they’d danced together at Michael and Suzy’s wedding. And when he’d kissed her. “You’re wrong.”
Because if Michael wasn’t coming back that meant …
Seized by desperation, she choked out, “Suzy. Where’s Suzy?”
“Victoria …”
This time he didn’t have to say anything more. It was all in the way he looked at her with deep sorrow and regret.
“No!” she howled, her throat thickening with grief.
He moved swiftly forward. “Suzy’s gone, too.”
Victoria fell forward against the broad chest, uncaring of how unyielding Connor’s solid frame had become. After a moment of blubbering her arms crept up about his neck.
He grew more rigid still for just a moment until his arms came around her and squeezed. Then he shook off her clinging arms and stepped back, his eyes remote.
“There are arrangements to make. I need to get on to them but I thought you should know …” His voice trailed away.
“That Michael and Suzy are—” she couldn’t bring herself to say it “—are not coming home.”
A muscle moved high in his cheek. “That’s right.”
“No, it isn’t right. It’s wrong!”
The eyes that met hers were full of torment. “Victoria—”
She shook her head. “They’re supposed to knock on the door … Suzy will be laughing, she’ll call out, ‘I’m baaack.’”
He hunched his shoulders.
The lump in her throat finally got too big and her voice broke. Tears welled up from deep within her aching heart. “It’s not fair. They should be here.”
Backing out of the kitchen, Connor spread his hands, then dropped them to his sides. “Look, there’s a lot to be done.”
“And you don’t have time for good, old-fashioned grief,” Victoria said bitterly, as she followed him.
“You’re overreacting.” He looked hunted. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“No, you’re not. I work faster alone. And you need to take care of Dylan.”
Dylan!
She gaped at Connor in horror. Oh, dear Lord, how could she have forgotten about Dylan?
Dylan had lost his parents.
Connor couldn’t leave now. “Connor!”
But Connor was already halfway across the living room. He threw an unreadable glance over his shoulder but didn’t slow down. “When I come back we’ll talk about Dylan.”
One
August, two years ago
The taxi pulled up outside the quaint white church where Suzy and Michael would be getting married tomorrow. Victoria paid the driver and leapt out, tugging her rollaway suitcase behind her.
“Hey, Victoria, over here.” Suzy stood in the churchyard, waving madly from behind a white-painted wooden gate, her curly blond hair bubbling about her face. “I’m so glad you made it.”
“Me, too.”
Opening the gate, Victoria abandoned her suitcase and stretched her arms out wide to give Suzy a fierce hug.
“When my plane was delayed I thought I was going to miss the wedding rehearsal.” She’d been away doing an audit for one of her largest clients. The text message from Suzy that she was getting married in five days’ time had shaken Victoria—although in hindsight it shouldn’t have. Over the past month, everything Suzy said had been prefaced by “Michael says.” But Victoria hadn’t expected the romance to escalate so quickly. “You certainly decided to get married in a hurry, didn’t you?”
Stepping away, Suzy grabbed Victoria’s hand. “Come see what the church committee is doing with the flowers.”
“You’re changing the subject,” Victoria said with fond frustration.
Suzy cast her a grin. “Tory, it’s too late to try and talk me out of marrying Michael tomorrow.”
Victoria smiled at the woman she’d pulled from more scrapes than she cared to remember. “Well, I hope Michael knows what he’s letting himself in for. Is he here yet?”
“He and Connor—his best man—” Suzy tacked on at Victoria’s questioning glance, “are on their way. We’re taking you both out to dinner tonight to celebrate. I booked a table at Bentley’s.” She did a little jig. “I can’t believe it’s the last night we’ll spend apart. Michael can’t wait for tomorrow, either. Come on.”
“Wait, let me grab my bag.” With a laugh, Victoria reached for the bag and let Suzy lead her through a courtyard overflowing with ivy and rambling roses, rolling her bag behind her.
The late afternoon sun filtered through the branches of a lofty Norfolk pine, casting shadows across the sundial in the centre of the courtyard.
Victoria came to a halt. Suzy slowed. “What now?”
“Suz, don’t you think it might’ve been better to wait? You’ve only—”
“Known Michael for a month,” interrupted Suzy, finishing the sentence with the familiar ease that came from twenty-four years of friendship, “but I knew after an hour that he was The One.”
“But Suz—”
Suzy stamped her foot, managing to look sweet and determined at the same time. “No, don’t say anything more. Just be happy for us. Please.”
Now, how on earth was she supposed to withstand Suzy’s puppy-dog eyes? Truth was she’d never been able to say no to Suzy, despite the fact that Victoria was supposed to be the sensible one.