No Romance Required(73)

“We know, honey.”

“You’re not listening. I said we weren’t a real couple. She wasn’t ever my girlfriend, we never—” Her response finally sank in and he swiveled to face her. “Huh?”

She shook her head, smiling wanly. “You always think you’re so much smarter than everyone else. Your intelligence is both your saving grace and your biggest downfall, because it only makes the holes you dig for yourself that much deeper and muddier.”

“You’re saying you knew all along,” he said flatly. “I mean, I know you all confronted me at Sunday night dinner but I thought after we left you believed…”

“Not so much, sweetheart.” She sounded remarkably cheerful.

That rage he thought he’d tamped down on once he’d seen the utter barrenness of his family home came roaring back. “You…you set this whole thing up? You knew I’d fumble around for some woman just to get you off my back?”

“Not some woman. Vicky. You were the only one who couldn’t see how perfect she was for you all along.”

Cory ground the heel of his hand into his chest. He must’ve finally drunk too much coffee, or else his heart was trying to sear its way out of his body. “But you never even nudged me in her direction. What made you think I’d head there on my own?”

“Faith.” If she smiled any wider, her cheeks would crack. “I figured that eventually you would both realize what Dad and I had known for years. You’re both as stubborn as…well, as each other. But you’re also both extremely smart.”

“How could you be sure I’d—that Victoria and I would—” Christ, he couldn’t think straight. How could he have been maneuvered so easily? By his own mother?

Who hadn’t really done anything at all, even if it felt as if she had?

“We’ve watched you two dance around each other for years. It was time.” She shrugged. “Besides, who else but Vicky could put up with you long enough to pretend to be your girlfriend? That girl has the patience of Job.”

“I’m not that bad,” he muttered. Then he thought of that scene in the kitchen. “How could you have assumed she would go for a fake relationship?”

“Seems like that benefit made it pretty real, doesn’t it? At least according to those pictures.” At his sharp glance, his mom shrugged again, still wearing that annoying little smile. “Desperate times, sweetheart. When you have your own children, you’ll understand.”

“I’ll understand manipulation for some supposed good? I highly doubt it.”

Hearing himself, he frowned. For once he hadn’t denied he would ever have children.

“I don’t see it as manipulation at all. We never once mentioned Vicky’s name to you, did we? Besides, you already understand that sort of manipulation quite well,” she continued, ignoring his glare. “Think back to the Helping Hands benefit when someone who won’t be named paid off Alexa’s rent bill so she and Dillon would have a chance. I think they would’ve gotten there anyway, but you did what you could to nudge them together.”

“That wasn’t manipulation. Exactly.”

“No? What do you call a man who uses whatever resources he has to try to help his brother fix things with his woman?”

He groaned inwardly, not liking the conversation anymore. It was all going in circles, when one road in particular was clear as day. Standing around chatting was getting him no closer to getting Victoria. Now if only he could decide what would…

He hooked his thumbs in his belt loops and looked away from his mom. “I don’t know how to fix things with Vic,” he muttered, feeling like the biggest chump that had ever lived.

Admitting he didn’t know something was akin to him showing weakness. He didn’t. Ever. Yet he’d been driven to that point by his own needs.

Should he rejoice that he was human after all—despite all the evidence over the years to the contrary—or curse and throw things or whatever other men did when they’d been rejected?

No. What he should do was stop stalling and come up with a damn solution.

“Oh, sweetie. Do you love her?”

Absently he rubbed his shoulder. The ever-present burn in his chest was slowly creeping upward to encompass the rest of him. “I think so. I don’t have anything to compare it to. What does love feel like? I mean, for the opposite sex.”

“Much the same as it does for anyone.” Her indulgent smile eased his embarrassment for having to ask. “Except it’s about fifty times worse and a hundred times better. So wonderful you can’t breathe and so agonizing that the thought of being without them makes you want to die.”