However, just as he was heading up the stairs to repack his bag, Dawn came crashing through the front door.

“What the hell was that?” she demanded.

He turned on the stairs. “Why aren’t you in class?”

“Because I asked the driver whose damn name I still don’t know to bring me home so that I could say ‘what the hell, man!’ to the asshole who crashed my class!” she answered, slamming the door shut behind her.

She didn’t bother to take off her shoes, just came storming up the edge of the stairs to demand again, “What the hell was that?”

As always, his heart leaped at the sight of her. She’d gone back to wearing braids this semester. And though she was wearing a neon purple puffy coat, not a tee and sports shorts, this style made him recall the college girl who’d sat across from him in a Bentley ten years ago, right after Phantom had snatched her from her dorm room.

That, and the fury on her face.

“I brought you lunch,” he answered, keeping his face a careful blank as he walked down the stairs to come to a stand in front of her. “I thought you might be hungry.”

He designed his answer for maximum confusion and upset. And it worked.

Her eyes blazed at his answer. “You haven’t kissed me in ten years of marriage. Why did you do that? Why did you show up out of the blue and kiss me? In front of my whole class?”

He didn’t answer for a couple of reasons. The truth did not align with how he wanted her to perceive him. It wouldn’t do to let her know how jealous her hug with the Pittsburgh transfer student had made him. It would only cause him to lose face.

Also, silence had always been his best weapon. The perfect weapon. Adversaries backed down from arguments when you were silent. They changed the subject. Often, they talked too much to fill in the words you did not speak.

Victor knew the secrets of many of his friends and rivals alike simply because he never interrupted. It was the ultimate way to win arguments, he had found. How often had Phantom and Han let him have his way, simply because he refused to entertain their questions and counter suggestions?

As he stood before her, not answering, he recalled their first anniversary, when Dawn filled up all his silence with mostly one-sided conversation. Soothing herself to the point that she let her guard down and walked unsuspecting into the trap he had set.

But this time, she didn’t simply take his silence as she always had.