“Tori, I want you to meet someone special.”

Claudia gestured to Jake. “This is Jacob Holland, the eldest son of my dearest friends. Jake, this is my niece, Victoria Lerner.”

Lerner? Of course. Did he really expect anything different?

The whisper of a memory filtered through his mind, but he forced it back into the dark corner where it belonged. Remembering equaled pain, and he’d had enough heartache to last a lifetime.

“Victoria.” Her name slipped past his lips in a mix of a whisper and a gasp.

Victoria’s clover-green eyes tangled with his. She wore a pink sundress that complemented her pale skin. She lifted her hand. “H-hi, Jake.”

So maybe she wasn’t as confident as she appeared.

Good.

He didn’t need to be the only one feeling like he’d been kicked in the gut.

She smiled, creasing the dimples in her cheeks that could charm an ornery bull.

But not him.

Not anymore. He was immune. Had to be. It was his only protection against the devastation she was capable of causing.