“No, I think you’ve got it wrong. He’s serious about Tori and he won’t give up. At this point, I understand completely.” Rory hesitated. “You know I like Tori quite a bit, too.”
He turned on his younger brother. They were all mad for the girl, and she would destroy his family if he didn’t stop her. “You would have liked her even more if you had seen her a moment ago. She was spreading her legs for your brother while still wearing her engagement ring. Is that the kind of woman you want? Do you fancy Callum’s leftovers?”
Rory’s eyes narrowed. “Watch what you say about her. She isn’t some object, and she isn’t a whore. She’s a woman and she has feelings. I understand that you went through something terrible with your first wife, but Tori isn’t Yasmin. I don’t know what happened between her and Cal tonight, but I’m willing to bet she got caught up in the moment because Cal has more experience with sex in his little finger than she has in her entire body.”
“She looked pretty experienced to me.”
She’d also looked stunning, like a woman claiming her pleasure. Oliver had watched, and she’d been uninhibited and raw. Her beauty had shocked him. As soon as she’d caught sight of him, she’d utterly shut down, shame smothering her like a blanket.
He’d done that. He’d shut down her glow.
“Because you see everything through a set of pitch-black lenses, and I don’t know that you’re smart enough to ever take them off. I’m going to talk to Cal. Try to behave yourself around her. Just because you can’t see how pure and kind she is doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t. If you drive that woman off, you’ll have problems with more than Callum.” Rory strode away.
Oliver watched him go, blinking, bereft. All this time, he’d believed he could count on Rory when the chips were truly down. He’d genuinely thought his youngest brother understood him. All his siblings had closed ranks around him after Yasmin had nearly destroyed him. They’d sat at his bedside and nursed him back to health and assured him that he wasn’t at fault. But after a time, they’d fallen away as though they’d grown weary of waiting for the smiling, laughing Oliver again. Only Rory had understood that man was gone for good.
Finally, the door down the hall opened, and Tori stepped out, smoothing her gown around her. Oliver retreated to the shadows as she wiped at her eyes. When she glanced up, as if she sensed his eyes on her, he noted that most of her makeup was gone. She looked young and vulnerable and impossibly innocent.
Only he knew that face masked a cheating wanton.
Before she returned to the ballroom, he planned to have a talk with her. She would not jump beds from her fiancé’s to his brother’s. No matter what, he refused to let Callum fall into a relationship with a woman who would ruin him. Yes, Cal would be furious, but if he saved his brother future anguish, then Oliver could live in peace, knowing he’d served the greater good.
Of course in showing Cal the error of his ways, Oliver didn’t mind if he got a little pussy for himself.
Tori turned and fled the opposite direction, not toward the ballroom—but the exit.
Damnation. He couldn’t let her escape. He couldn’t let her play the wounded bird. Callum would fall right into that trap, and Rory, who was already half under her spell, would follow.
“Where is she going? Is Tori all right?” Claire approached, wearing a concerned expression.
Naturally, his siblings would take her side. Perhaps they wouldn’t when he proved she was nothing more than a doe-eyed hustler. “I don’t know, but I’ll find out. Help Callum get ready for his speech. Make sure his tie is on properly. He should be announcing how much money we’ve raised in the next fifteen minutes.”
“Is something troubling you, Oliver?” His sister had always been able to see through him.
He schooled his features into a polite mask and placated her. “Nothing. I’ll make certain Tori is safe.”
From everyone except him.
He left Claire and followed Tori down the hall, the world getting quieter as they put distance between them and the glittery ballroom.
Ahead of him, she sniffled but didn’t seem to notice anyone following. That didn’t surprise him. She’d never once noticed when he’d followed her before.
She managed to wend her way to a hall that led out of the building. When she darted outside into the cool, humid evening, she took a deep breath, then sighed as though relieved to be free of the pomp and the people.
Oliver was relieved as well. Now he could hunt her down properly.
Then again, she should be easy prey. She had no way back to her corporate flat. She’d come with them in the limo. Was she going to try to navigate the Tube in a designer dress that left her looking half naked and four-inch heels that would break on the first grate she stepped onto?
Absently, he wondered why she behaved with such maudlin desperation. She had Cal under her finger. All she had to do was bat her lashes and cry prettily. He would likely drop everything to take her home.
With a curse, Oliver texted his driver his location and continued following her on foot. When she got to the end of the street, she hailed a cab.
Luckily his car pulled up and he climbed in. “Follow the taxi, Charles.”
It didn’t take long before he realized she was heading back to her flat. Within minutes, the cab arrived in front of the building where Thurston-Hughes housed its visiting employees. Tori got out and turned to pay the driver with money she’d tucked into a clever pocket in her skirt.
The street was quiet at this time of night, though no part of London was ever really deserted. He watched as she stepped into the light under a streetlamp. She’d been crying again. It was there in the pink of her skin, the slight puffiness around her eyes.
Did she feel guilty now for cheating on her fiancé? Was she going to tell him that she’d been unfaithful or would she pretend it had never happened?