Chapter 150

He gazed back at her with absolutely no expression on his face.

Clinically speaking, he was a handsome man. Lexi knew that, even if she didn’t feel the way a prospective wife likely should. Lily had spent the whole of their friendship moaning about how cold her brother was, how cruel, but Lexi had never seen any of that herself. He was simply… expressionless, always. But what she hadn’t understood until now was that he had never truly focused all of his attention on her before.

It was…intense. Something very nearly alarming. The full force of his attention made her want to squirm. But she didn’t.

“This is very awkward,” she said instead, because it seemed better to say it than to continue to sit there in silence. Victor only gazed back at her, as unreadable as before, “I certainly never anticipated that you would see…that.”

Lexi knew she should start apologizing, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Because she wasn’t sorry. If anything, she was sorry that Victor had interrupted them.

“I realize that we never spoke directly about fidelity, but it can’t have been pleasant to look up and see…” She blew out a breath and stared down at her tea, not remotely tempted to take a sip. “I take it you’re a member of this club?”

“I stay here often when I arrive in Olkfield too early to conduct business,” Victor said, his voice as devoid of emotion as the rest of him.

Lexi lifted her gaze to his. And even as some part of her told her she didn’t owe him anything, that theirs was an arranged marriage and surely he couldn’t expect anything of her, another part of her cringed in shame. Because she’d promised to marry him, and the promise had meant something to her. And then she’d gone to such lengths to tell herself that promise didn’t matter when she was down here in Olkfield. Was that really who she was now? Just…a liar?

Once Lexi started questioning the lies she’d told, they all seemed to crowd in on her. Stretching all the way back to a beautiful boy with eyes of the deepest green, who’d appeared in front of her out of nowhere one day when she was barely eighteen.

And had stolen her heart in an instant. But Lexi had never planned on falling in love. It was the one thing her otherwise indulgent father forbade her—and she’d agreed, because she never again wanted to feel the way she had after her mother had died. She’d done everything she could to make sure she never would. And yet here she sat, with a cup of tea she didn’t want and a sea of grief inside her anyway. Lexi had ended up right where she’d never wanted to go.

“We have no sexual relationship,” Victor was saying, his voice as remote as the rest of him. “As little as I might enjoy seeing a woman wearing my ring in the arms of another man, I can’t claim the sight hurt me in any way. I do not feel betrayed.” He studied her for a moment. “I do feel curious, however. Do you plan to continue this affair after our marriage?”

And somehow, that made it worse. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

She cleared her throat, then tried again. “I haven’t actually given the matter any thought.”

One of Victor’s eyebrows rose. “I don’t object. In theory. But there’s the issue of paternity.”

Lexi could remember, so vividly, standing out there near the Opera House Bar, blithely assuring Tyler that this would all be fine. That even if she fell in love, ha ha ha, she would scamper back off into the arms of the husband her father had arranged for her, and all would be well.

How had she ever imagined that she could do that?

She barely knew chilly, controlled Victor. And she couldn’t imagine, now, allowing a man she barely knew to touch her body. To pull out his cock and put it inside of her. The very notion made her feel ill.

Which put rather more of a damper on the issue of the paternity of their potential children than she thought he meant. And Victor was a decent man, as she told anyone who dared question her on her choices. Kinder than she’d imagined, if this calm response to finding her with Tyler was any indication. Then again, perhaps that only meant he was significantly more controlled than she’d thought.

But most of all, he was Lily's older brother. And even Lily had softened toward him recently, mostly because she happened to be shacked up with Victor’s best friend. Whatever the reason, Lexi found herself leaning forward, over the table between them, so she could take his hands in hers. Something flashed over his face and made those cold eyes of his look silver for a moment. She had the shocking notion that there was a different man in him, too. And one she would likely never see.

“Victor,” she said softly. “Why do you want to marry me?”

“You’re Lady Alexia. Who wouldn’t want to marry you?”

Lexi could think of one person who didn’t want to marry her. One person who’d looked at her with something like torture in his eyes and talked to her about how to let go of him.

“You mean, because of my father,” she said, concentrating on the man before her. Not the man she’d already lost.

The faintest shred of amusement moved across Victor’s face. “If you mean your father’s money, I have my own.”

“Then why?” Victor’s hands were warmer than she’d expected. And a whole lot tougher. “If I’m not mistaken, this is the first time you’ve ever really looked at me.”

Victor turned her left hand over, and fiddled with the ring he’d put there. “In the spirit of this sudden attack of honesty,” he said, and his voice was so dry that she couldn’t tell if he meant to sound that sardonic, or if it was simply a byproduct of the chill, “I didn’t need to look at you. You were good on paper. And I wanted to make the right choice. To live up to what was expected of the head of the Mckay family.”