No Romance Required(74)

He nodded. “Yeah. I figured it was either that or food poisoning. Since I’ve basically stopped eating, I suppose it must be love.” He sighed. “Jesus, this fucking sucks. Sorry,” he added.

She waved a hand and swept in to gather him into another hug. “You need to tell her what’s real and what’s not, before she decides for herself. If she hasn’t already.”

“What about what she should be telling me?”

“That’s not your concern right now. You need to do right by her and let her choose how to respond. Lay it all on the line.”

Yeah, pretty much the same conclusion he’d drawn. He needed to make his stand—and he already had an idea how. It was a risky plan, but at least he had one. All he had to do was put it into motion, assuming he didn’t suffer a cardiac event first.

He grabbed his gut as it snarled. “See? I have the plague.”

His mom laughed and tugged on his shirt. “Sit down. Let me make you some lunch while you catch up your old mom on everything that’s going on with you.”

“Oh, I can’t. I have a meeting with—” He broke off and cast a glance at the ceiling. “Reformed workaholic, reporting for duty. I’ll reschedule.”

“Good.” She pulled his face down to hers and kissed his forehead.

His mother had a point. He had to take a chance and put his feelings on the line. He also had to move fast, before his window of opportunity closed. For that, he would be enlisting help from Jill, who didn’t appear to hate him on sight.

And possibly from Bryan, who might. Bryan had always been extremely possessive of his baby sister and probably hadn’t been too thrilled with Cory after the caught-on-camera debacle.

None of that mattered. With help or without, he would get this done. This time, he wasn’t giving up on Victoria without a fight.

…

She’d almost made it.

In under five hours, her flight to South Carolina would take to the skies and she’d be leaving Pennsylvania behind for a few days. She’d had to do some juggling to shift around her work schedule, but luckily Jill and Lorelie could pick up her slack. The other nice thing was that her college roommate had been excited to have an impromptu guest.

See, someone wanted her. It just wasn’t a sexy, dark-haired magnate.

She hadn’t gone away on vacation in forever, but there was no time like the present to escape. Melly had been so consumed with the scouting trip for her new frozen yogurt store and then just the day-to-day reality of running her business that they’d barely had time to talk recently. Bryan was busy with physical therapy and he needed to stay near the team doctors in Maryland. Her mother would be on her own at the group home. While that bothered her, she couldn’t keep putting her life on hold forever.

Everyone would be fine.

Okay, that was a lie. She was miserable and missed Cory so badly she’d had to remove his number from her phone to keep from calling him. When her final copy of Simply Home had arrived yesterday, with her own beaming face on the cover and a handwritten note from Cory inside, she’d had to fight her impulse to see if the paper smelled like his aftershave. Then she’d analyzed his note.

Victoria, here’s your first-edition copy. I appreciate all of your hard work on this. I couldn’t have done it without you. C.

Yeah, not a lot to go on there. She probably didn’t need to call in the CSI team yet. She was in danger of seriously losing it if she thought two hastily scribbled lines could reveal someone’s emotional state.

Did he miss her, even a little?

Sighing, she glanced around the banquet hall near the Santangelo farm that she’d helped decorate for the going-away party. She had no intention of actually staying for the event, but she hoped they’d understand. Doing her absolute best on preparing the hall had been her gift to them, and hopefully she’d get to stop in at the farm before they left next week. She’d only be gone a few days.

She just couldn’t handle being there with Cory. Not tonight. Maybe not ever.

At least the place looked great. Fall-themed decorations were everywhere. A square for dancing was sectioned off with white lights, and the seating area looped around the loaded buffet table. A gigantic ornamental tree—purchased from Value Hardware’s garden section—stood in one corner, and a chugging train wound around the base. She’d remembered that Cory’s stepfather was a train aficionado so she’d scoured the shops for the perfect set. She hoped he’d want to take it with him to Arizona.

More glittery potted trees dripped with twinkling lights, and each table held a lit arrangement of cinnamon pinecones and fresh fall flowers, thanks to Lex. On the portico off the main room stood another smaller tree, its lights a warm beacon in the night. Now if the promised rain just held off, it would be perfect.