No Romance Required(34)

She never did that. Drama llama? Absolutely not.

“Let’s just see how things go tonight, okay? Then we’ll proceed from there.”

She didn’t fight to hold on when he pulled back his hand. With the weather, he needed both for the wheel.

The next half hour passed in a blur of white-knuckled traveling, and once they arrived, introductions and chitchat. She knew all of his immediate family but she’d never met the entire assortment of family friends who were present.

“Trial by fire,” he said in her ear, guiding her from one person to the next.

Happily, everyone seemed pretty nice and no one appeared to have a vested interest in dubbing her a stinking liar right out of the gate.

Vicky soon found herself stuffing her face with crudités from the fancy setup on the sideboard in Cory’s parents’ dining room while watching her fake boyfriend out the window as he fed carrots to the horse in the pasture.

Though the rest of his family and friends congregated in the large kitchen, Cory stood in his dark jacket, gray sweater, and black pants, legs spread, unaware he was being observed. He looked cold. And so lonely that her heart ached.

“So, you and Cory, huh?” She glanced over at Dillon, who was filling his plate up with finger foods. “When did that happen?”

“Tuesday at six o’clock,” she said without thinking, her gaze still on Cory.

“What?”

“Nothing. Sorry.” She smiled cheerily. “I’m easily distracted today.”

Dillon popped a peanut butter-filled stick of celery into his mouth. “Staring after him already? That can’t be good.”

She forced a laugh. “You know how it is when you’re enjoying that first flush of infatuation.”

“You mean the go-all-night period? Yeah, I have some experience.” He grinned and licked peanut butter off his thumb. “With Cory that’d probably last about ten minutes in between appointments.”

“He’s an amazing lover. Just so you know.”

Dillon lifted his brows. “A little TMI, but glad to hear it for your sake. He blindsided us with you. Totally.”

Shit, Dillon was already staring at her with suspicion. She’d known him too frigging long. “I’ve been blindsided too,” she muttered, chomping on a cracker harder than she’d meant to.

“How did it happen? Just too many hours sequestered together working on the magazine?”

How did it happen? She’d traced the roots of her lust for him back to her first ninth-grade dance, but what was their “official” history? They’d have to coordinate stories. “Do you remember when I’d come over with my Girl Scout troop? You know, the field trips to see the horses and learn about how a small farm operated.”

“Uh, yeah.” Cue the first strange look of many, she was sure.

“He used to watch us come through, giggling as we always did.” She’d stayed with the Scouts right through high school, despite it falling out of favor with her friends. Not only had she been two years younger than the others in her grade thanks to skipping a couple of grades in elementary school, she’d needed the stability after her home situation had gone to hell. “Standing off to the side, just glaring. As if we were disrupting his ordered existence.” Sighing, she crumbled her cracker on her plate. “He always fascinated me.” Truth, all pathetic truth.

“Sure he wasn’t staring at you? He used to do that a lot.”

Her head whipped toward Dillon. “He did not.”

“You should ask him. Since you’re so close now, he’d tell you, wouldn’t he?” He clapped her on the shoulder. “So happy for you crazy kids.”

She frowned at his back as he strolled away, whistling. Yeah, he was humoring her, that much was obvious. He clearly didn’t think they were lovers. Dammit.

The first person she had to convince and she’d botched it. She’d have to do something to prove they were positively consumed with each other.

But what?





Chapter Seven

Cory shifted away from the shapely hip that seemed to be inching closer with every passing moment. Victoria hadn’t been dissuaded by his speech when he’d picked her up. Fine, half speech, since the moment she’d touched him he forgot how to form words. He’d been dismissive, almost rude, and except for a quick flash of hurt in her baby browns, she’d hardly stepped off-stride.

But it was early innings yet, and he wasn’t giving up. His parents wanted him committed to someone, so he’d put on a good show for them.

Assuming he managed not to be committed himself before they left.

“I’d like to make a toast,” Raymond Santangelo announced, defying convention by toasting at the end of the meal rather than the beginning. Leave it to his family to be different.