Page 47

"I am Chloe."

"Chloe." The sudden purr in Lucy's voice was unmistakable: it was the tone anyone used when they were flirting outrageously. "Victoria mentioned a sister. She did not mention you belonged on a magazine cover."

Chloe blinked again, color rising in her cheeks. She laughed, oblivious to the threat beneath the words. "You are very sweet. English people are so polite!"

Victoria watched the interaction with growing horror. Lucy turned her head, locking eyes with Emma over Chloe’s shoulder. Lucy mouthed a single phrase.

I want her.

Emma sighed heavily, rubbing her forehead. She is probably straight, Emma mouthed back.

Lucy offered a dismissive shrug, smiling at Chloe again. "Let me carry this upstairs for you. Where are we putting the surprise guest, Emma?"

"Uh," Emma blinked, making a quick decision. "Room 3 is clean. Put her in Room 3."

"Follow me, Chloe," Lucy instructed, marching toward the porch.

Chloe followed her, looking totally bewildered by the display of physical strength.

Victoria stood by the taxi, holding the smaller suitcase. Emma walked down the steps and stopped beside her.

"She is delightful," Emma murmured.

"She is a menace," Victoria corrected, adjusting her grip on the handle. "I apologize for the chaos. I had no idea she was coming."

"Are you kidding?" Emma grinned, bumping her shoulder against Victoria’s arm. "I just learned you pulled a muscle in Pilates and that you organize socks by color. This is the greatest day of my life. I am going to use this information against you forever."

Victoria looked at her. The humor in Emma’s eyes was infectious, pushing back the guilt from the study and replacing it with that familiar, dangerous warmth.

"You will do no such thing," Victoria warned softly.

"I absolutely will," Emma promised. Her fingers brushed against Victoria’s hand as she reached out and took the suitcase from her grip. "I will take this. You go pay the driver. And maybe drink some tap water. Live on the edge."

Victoria watched Emma walk up the steps, her heart executing a painful stutter. She paid the driver and walked back into the inn, climbing the stairs to the second floor with her guilt and the lingering sensation of Emma’s fingers against her hand.

When she reached the landing, she heard voices coming from Room 3. The door was ajar. Victoria stopped. She recognized Chloe’s voice, followed by Emma’s laugh.

"She really alphabetizes her spices?" Emma asked.

"She does," Chloe confirmed, the sharp zip of luggage echoing in the room. "She is an absolute control freak. Though I will say, you’ve clearly broken her routine."

Outside in the hallway, Victoria stopped breathing.

"I did?" Emma asked, her voice softening with sudden curiosity.

"Oh, totally," Chloe laughed, rustling through tissue paper. "When she called earlier this week, she spent the entire first ten minutes complaining about your stubbornness and asking if cider gave people actual hangovers before she had to go down and face you. She never wastes time on small talk, Emma. Literally never. I was just shocked she even noticed what you were doing."

A quiet stillness fell over the bedroom.

"She mentioned the cider tasting to you?" Emma murmured, piecing it together.

"Ranted about it, more like," Chloe said casually, oblivious to the landmine she had just dropped. "I told her to just go downstairs, have a drink, and stop acting like a lunatic. She hung up on me, of course."

Victoria squeezed her eyes shut, a wave of heat rushing to her cheeks. She wanted the floorboards to swallow her whole. Chloe hadn't betrayed her on purpose—she probably just thought it was an amusing anecdote about Victoria losing her composure over a stubborn local co-owner.

And Emma was far too sharp to miss the implication. Victoria knew exactly what Emma was piecing together in that quiet room. Emma would remember the heavy silence of that afternoon. She would remember the tension at the kitchen island, and the desperate distance Victoria had tried to project before they ever touched a single bottle. By hearing that Victoria had spent ten minutes venting to her sister just to brace herself to share a room, Emma would know, without a shadow of a doubt, that she had derailed Victoria's untouchable routine.

Mortified, Victoria took an instinctive step backward.