by Laura Burton
“Still…” Lindzee looked at Victorine. “If you care about him at all, you will want to keep that woman as far away from him as possible. Here…” She handed Victorine her bottle of water. “Go give him this and get him out of there.”
Victorine grabbed the bottle and walked across the porch. When Charles saw her coming, he flashed her a smile that made her heartbeat quicken. “Thank you,” he said as he took the bottle from her hand. “By the way, this is Karen.”
Karen lowered her sunglasses only to have a better look at Victorine. “And I’m not sure he’s told you, but we used to be engaged,” Karen added smugly.
“He did, actually,” Victorine replied, turning to Charles. “Now, would you mind taking a break and going for a walk with me?”
“Sure.” He turned to Karen with a polite nod. “I’ll see you around.”
Karen forced a smile. which quickly vanished when her eyes met Victorine again. But Victorine couldn’t care less. She looped her hand in Charles’ arm then skipped up the newly renovated steps with him by her side.
“So…” He placed the water bottle on the wooden rail then wiped the moisture on his jeans. “Where to?”
“No idea,” Victorine whispered, letting go of his arm. “I was just told to save you.”
Charles laughed. “Is that how my sister put it?”
“Not just your sister.” Victorine leaned against the rail, keeping her voice low. “Seems to me like everyone here thinks you need saving from that woman. Why is that?”
Charles let out a long breath as if bracing himself to revisit unwanted memories. “All right...” He tugged on her hand, which sent tingles up her arms. “Let’s go take that walk.”
“Wait, so she broke up with you because you quit medical school?” Victorine asked as they walked by the lake. “Why was that such a big deal to her?”
Charles shoved his hands into his pockets as he faced the water. “She never actually said it, but… I’m pretty sure she was embarrassed.”
“Embarrassed of what?”
He took a seat on a large rock and looked at Victorine. “Her father has his own practice downtown, and even before I went to college, everything was already set for me to work with him. He’s been friends with my father for years. They went to medical school together. Anyway, when I quit my internship, he felt sort of betrayed—as did my father—and suddenly I became the disappointment of the family, both families. Then there was her mom, of course, filling her mind with garbage about how therapists don’t make as much money as surgeons do and whatnot.”
“That’s terrible.” Victorine sat next to him, shaking her head. “I am so sorry you went through that.”
“It never bothered me,” he said with a shrug, “but I guess I underestimated her need for approval.”
When he said nothing else, Victorine nudged him with her shoulder. “Well, she didn’t deserve you.”
He smiled as he glanced at her. “Now you just sound like my sister.”
“Do you still have feelings for her?”
“Not really,” he said. “But I did spend a long time wanting her to say it.”
“Say what?”
“The truth about why she wanted things to end,” he confessed. “I have my assumptions, but… that’s all they are—assumptions.”
“Maybe she will now that she’s jealous of you?”
He laughed. “She’s not jealous of me. She’s jealous of my attention shifting from her to you. In the end, it’s still about her.”
Victorine scrunched her nose. “That’s really selfish.”
“I don’t think she realizes it, but I can read people pretty well. Why they behave a certain way. It’s quite fascinating to me.”
“Is that why you changed your career?” she asked, and he thought about it for a long time.
“It’s not that I didn’t like being a doctor,” he confessed. “I guess, I just chose the mind over the body.”
“And how exactly did that happen?”
He looked out to the water again. “During my second year in medical school, I got really overwhelmed and burnt out by all the pressure my father was putting on me. He had me working thirty hours straight. And pushing me to learn surgeries I wasn’t ready for. I mean, the responsibility of having someone’s life in your hands… it’s already a lot of pressure.”
“I can imagine.”
“So, without anyone knowing, I went to see a therapist. I was only planning to go for a few sessions until I got back on my feet, but as time went on…” He paused, and she waited. “There was so much I didn’t know about myself, and learning that was fascinating to me. It took almost a year for me to be able to separate the person I really was from the person everyone expected me to be. Especially my father. But when I finally set them apart…” He let out a relieved breath. “I had never felt so free.”
“What about your mother?” she asked, and he shook his head.
“As a biochemist, she wasn’t thrilled either,” he admitted. “But she never stopped talking to me for years like my father did.”
“Wow... I am so sorry I kept the parking spot from you all these years.”
Charles laughed, and she looked at him.
“I mean it!”
“I know you do. That’s why it’s funny.” When their eyes met, something inside of her fluttered. She wanted to say something to encourage him, but her mind was too distracted by the stupid butterflies exploding in her stomach.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he whispered, and when his breath brushed her face, it smelled like peppermint.
“I’m sorry your family thinks I’m your girlfriend.”
“I’m not,” he said, and she blushed.
“Well, I guess it’s good for them to see that you’re not pining over your ex anymore,” she added, wondering if that was one of the reasons he was thinking of. But he shook his head.
“I stopped pining for her after she slept with my best friend. After that, I just couldn’t bring myself to fight for us anymore. Everything I felt for her was gone.”
Victorine’s eyes shot open as her brain went into overload. “Oh my flaming heck! That’s it!” She jumped to her feet in excitement. “Charles, you’re a genius!”
“I am?”
“Yes!” She grabbed his face in a rush of exhilaration and pressed her lips to his. But when he tensed, her brain glitched her back to reality and she froze. Ripping herself away from him, she pulled back with her eyes and mouth wide. “I. Am. So. Sorry.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but she closed her eyes and moved away from him. Crap on a stick! What was I thinking? “I am so, so sorry. I just got super excited because I finally figured out how to get past the whole Emily-block-thing and… it was something you said, and I just… I didn’t mean to…”
Charles raised a hand with a soft smile. “It’s totally fine.”
“Right.” She wasn’t sure why her heart felt suddenly tight, but she was too mortified to care. “I’m gonna go finish my book.”
Charles nodded but didn’t say anything else, and she walked away with her cheeks burning like fire. The taste of him still lingered on her lips, but she pushed the thought out of her mind, focusing on her book. On Emily.
And in that moment, Victorine braced herself to face the wrath of Daniel when he found out what she was about to write.
Victorine took a long hot shower in Lindzee’s bathroom upstairs. For some reason the basement only had cold water. Maybe that would’ve been better considering the kind of thoughts she kept having about Charles after kissing him at the lake.
She still couldn’t believe she had kissed him. The embarrassment twisted her stomach into a knot, but she still couldn’t push the memory from her mind. Closing her eyes, she immersed herself under the hot water, letting out a long, relieved breath. At least she had been able to write over six thousand words that day. Emily was still alive, but not for long.
“Are you kidding me?” Daniel’s voice startled Victor
ine, and she turned off the shower just as he pushed the curtain open. She fumbled with the towel as he stood there, glaring at her. “That is garbage, and you know it!”
“I know you’re mad,” she said in a gentle tone, but it did little to soften his steel-like expression. “But I needed to weaken her will to fight, and the only way to do that was weakening her love for you.”
“So you had someone tell her I slept with her best friend?” he yelled. “That never happened!” When he took another step forward, Victorine rushed out of the bathroom. “This is my life you’re messing with!”
“I know, and I’m sorry!” She turned around just short of the patio door only to find Daniel holding up a small blackboard in his hand. “What are you doing?”
“Tell her the truth,” he demanded, touching his fingernails on the board. Victorine gasped as goosebumps trailed up her arms.
“Don’t you dare.”
“Then give us a happy ending.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Then you leave me no choice.” Daniel lunged toward her, scraping his fingernails against the blackboard. She ran away from him, covering her ears, cringing at the sound. By the time the noise stopped, she was outside on the dark patio, pressed against the ornamental railing. When she turned around, Daniel appeared inches from her face, jolting her backward. She screamed as she lost her balance over the railing, falling into the bushes with a loud thud.
Ouch. She grunted from within the bushes, opening her eyes to a night sky full of stars. As her vision began to focus, she noticed something white hanging on the railing above her.
A towel?
When a gust of wind blew, making her shiver, her eyes widened in panic. Her towel!
She gasped, rolling out of the bushes despite the aches from the fall and tried covering herself with her small hands and thin arms. The backyard was empty but laughter came from inside the house. The women had moved to the living room with their glasses of wine, and Victorine scanned the area for a way back inside. She spotted a used towel by the poolside and without any hesitation, she darted toward it. Halfway across the lawn, she heard the back door open and Charles’ voice in the distance. She quickly jumped into the hot tub and turned it on so it bubbled around her.
“Hey.” Please, don’t come over. “I thought you were in the room finishing your book?” he asked, walking toward her with a young couple next to him.
“I was,” she replied, sinking down to her jaw as they approached. “In fact, I should go back. Would you mind passing me that towel?”
“Oh, you don’t have to leave. Let us join you for a bit.” When Charles pulled his shirt over his head, Victorine’s heart almost jumped out of her throat. She looked away, forcing herself to push the image of Charles’ chiseled muscles out of her mind. “This is Libby and Matt, by the way.”
The couple waved, also stripping down to their bathing suits, and Victorine hugged her legs underwater, forcing herself not to panic.
Crap on a stick!
“They’ll be getting married tomorrow,” Charles added, throwing his shirt aside and jumping in next to her. “We all went to high school together, and Matt’s been drooling over Libby since freshman year.”
“That he has,” Libby teased, poking Matt on his side. When he leaned in to give her a kiss, Charles glanced at Victorine. As if she didn’t feel mortified enough, he just had to look at her with a gaze so soft it reminded her of their kiss earlier.
“Quit flirting and jump in already,” Charles splashed them with water, and Victorine’s stomach flipped.
“I really should get going,” she mumbled. “Charles, please hand me that towel.” She gave him a pleading look, but he seemed totally oblivious to her desperation.
“Are you trying to get away from me because of what happened earlier?” he whispered, and she seriously contemplated drowning herself.
“Charles, please.” Her stomach was already tied in a million knots. “Just get me the towel. I am begging you.”
He let out a disappointed sigh. “Fine.”
She felt slightly relieved, but before he could move, the hot tub timer turned off and the bubbles disappeared.
Crap on a gigantic stick! Victorine curled into a ball, hoping it would make her feel less bare, but nope. And when she caught Libby’s wide eyes staring at her, she sunk lower into the water.
“Matt, we should give them some privacy,” Libby said, pulling her legs out of the water, and Victorine pressed her eyes shut. She could only hear Libby dragging her fiancé away.
When she opened her eyes again, Charles was staring at her with his eyes wide. “Are you…?”
“Please, just get me a towel,” she whimpered.
He reached behind him quickly, and after grabbing his own towel, he handed it to her. She wasted no time in wrapping it around her thin body. She was so mortified, she could literally die of embarrassment.
“Victorine, I had no idea—”
“Don’t mention it,” she said, jumping out of the tub and rushing back into the house, dripping wet. She bolted across the living room so fast, the chatty women didn’t even notice anything out of the ordinary. Or maybe it was the wine. Either way, she was glad to finally be back in the basement.
She leaned against the closed door with her stomach still in knots. How was she supposed to face him after that? She felt so mortified, she could puke. When her stomach turned again, she started toward the bathroom, not even caring that the water was going to be cold.
“Victorine?” Charles’ voice came from the door as it opened slowly, and her stomach flipped again. “Can we talk?”
“I cannot look at you right now,” she said, turning her back to him and reaching for her duffle bag.
“Victorine, please.” He walked in and shut the door behind him. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you—”
She grimaced at the memory. “You didn’t do anything. Really.”
“Yes, I did.” He came to stand next to her, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. “I didn’t know you were there waiting for me.”
“Wait, what?” She shot him a look, feeling even more mortified than before. “Charles, I was not—”
“Just let me get this out, okay?” He cupped her face and turned her toward him. “I’m sorry I didn’t kiss you back earlier, but it wasn’t because I didn’t want to.” When his eyes dropped to her lips, her breath got caught in her throat. “You caught me off guard, and I’m sorry I didn’t react fast enough. But the truth is… I’ve been thinking about that kiss all day.”
The world’s biggest butterfly explosion fluttered in her stomach, sending chills all over her body. “You have?” she whispered, and he leaned in, his lips inches from hers.
“More than you know.” When he brushed his thumb over her lips, all of her blood traveled south. “I would really like to try again... if I may?” His voice was soft and sweet and drenched in need—then his lips were on hers, and she gasped.
His mouth was hot and moist, and when she parted her lips, he deepened the kiss. She moaned against his tongue, and he pulled her closer, removing all space between them. He buried his hand in her hair, tugging it just enough to kiss down her neck. Shivers traveled down her body, and she pulled him with her onto the bed. Somewhere in her haze of pleasure, she felt his strong hand move up her bare thigh, and she grabbed a fistful of his hair. He let out a low groan filled with desire, and it was hands down the sexiest sound she’d ever heard in her life. But then he pulled back, panting.
“Maybe we should slow down,” he whispered.
“Why?” she breathed, still clutching his hair.
“Because…” He sucked in a breath, and she opened her eyes. “I don’t want this to just be a road trip fling.”
“What are you saying?” she asked, trying to stop her head from spinning.
“I would like to at least take you on a proper date,” he said, pushing a strand of hair from her face. “Then see where it goes.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She put her hands on his chest, and he rolled off of her.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, watching her stand and walk across the room.
“I don’t want to ruin what we have,” she confessed.
“How is this ruining anything?” he asked, scooting to the edge of the bed.
“Because it’s what I do,” she said, turning to him. “Even if we have a wonderful time right now, eventually I’m going to ruin everything because none of my relationships ever last. I only ever dated men in between projects, and if I’m being completely honest, most of them were just for research.”
“Maybe you haven’t found the right person—”
“No.” She frowned. “It’s because my books are my priority. They have always been, and they always will be. And I can’t ask someone to accept that. It isn’t fair to them.”
Charles stood and crossed the room until he was standing in front of her. When she looked up to meet his deep blue eyes, he smiled. “I’m not asking you to marry me, Victorine.”
“I know that.”
“Then stop worrying about what might eventually happen in the future. We’re not there yet.” He cradled her cheeks and pulled her toward him again. “We just had our first real kiss a few seconds ago. I don’t expect you to suddenly put me above everything in your life. That wouldn’t even be reasonable.” When he flashed her another smile, she felt suddenly hot, and dropping the towel was under serious consideration. “Why don’t we just focus on one day at time? Be my date for the wedding tomorrow, and we can reevaluate things at the end of the night?”
Victorine leaned into his bare chest, and he wrapped his strong arms around her. “One day at a time,” she whispered, and he kissed the top of her head.
“One day at a time.”
Chapter 6
It had taken all day to decorate the backyard for Libby’s wedding. The sun had started its descent in the sky when the groom took his position next to Charles by a makeshift gazebo. Victorine sat next to Nonna and her date, but her eyes stayed glued to Charles. Those blue eyes could be seen from a mile away, and when he winked at her, she felt flutters all over her body.
