Hidden Depths(16)

She was either playing dumb or his brother was the worst boss since Scrooge.

“Never mind.”

She said nothing until she got to the bedroom door. Then, over her shoulder, she said, “Call me next time you’re in town.”

And she was gone.

Jesus, why the hell did that piss him off so much?

* * * * *

Pretending he needed to go see his mother was better than pretending he wasn’t staying in town to see Andrea Prentiss.

Evan didn’t care about money. Men born rich rarely did, although Evan’s particular brand of insouciance did not include the flip side of that, which was the automatic dependence on it, the almost erotic belief they were entitled to it. The luxuries of his mother’s Upper East Side townhouse—the private elevator, the three stories of space, the priceless artworks—made absolutely no impression on Evan, just as he’d tried to explain to Andrea the night before. Amanda Evans Reynolds was almost, but not quite, as rich as her ex-husband, the Evans fortune being from railroads originally but culled into a more diverse portfolio over the generations. As an only child, Amanda Evans had been spoiled and adored by her older parents, indulged in every whim, including her ill-fated marriage to the worldly Damien Reynolds. And when that marriage ended with her brokenhearted at not being able to replace Damien’s long-dead first wife—as all of Damien’s marriages since the first had ended to varying degrees—Amanda took her only child back with her to live with her parents, who spoiled him every bit as much as they had spoiled her.

Though his grandparents had been gone for a few years, Evan still missed them. They had been the only model of a happy marriage that he had ever seen growing up, or since then, for that matter. The townhouse, with its casual elegance, reminded him of them. It was the place in New York he hated least of all, although that wasn’t saying much.

When the uniformed maid brought him a cup of his favorite green tea, Evan nodded at her absently.

“Why so glum, Evan?” his mother asked. “I just talked to your father. Your brother is going to be fine.”

Amanda Evans was every inch the pampered filthy-rich socialite, her blonde hair perfectly coifed, her skin smooth and unlined, not from surgery or Botox, but from a lifetime of expensive face creams and good genes. She was slim and healthy and could have passed for at least a decade younger than her real age of fifty-three. Still a very beautiful woman, as all Damien Reynolds’ wives had been, she had never remarried, though Evan knew she had companionship. But marriage after that first disillusioned love had been out of the question for Amanda and, knowingly or not, she had passed her cynicism on to her son. Or maybe his father did that all on his own.

Though Amanda Evans had been briefly stepmother to all of Evans’ brothers, Damien had never encouraged any of his wives to try to replace his oldest son’s mother. Damien made sure Michael knew that his mother was his father’s only love. And for that reason, Evan suspected Amanda was a little harder on Michael Reynolds than she was on anybody else in the Reynolds family. Except Damien Reynolds, of course. She still claimed she hated him.

“Why that man insists on keeping contact with me after all these years, I’ll never know. I couldn’t get five seconds of his attention when I was married to him. Unless we were in bed,” she added under her breath. “And now, every time I turn around, his name shows up on my caller ID.”

Evan sipped his tea. “You don’t have to answer, Mother.”

“Of course I do. How do I know he’s not calling about you? It is the one thing we share.”

“Well, I suspect in his mind he was calling about me. Michael is my brother, Mother.”

“Believe me, there’s no doubt of that. He’s the spitting image of your father. Thank God you have more of the Evans blood in you.”

Amanda Evans liked to make that kind of observation all the time, but he never had a clue as to what she meant. He had exactly the same amount of Reynolds blood in him as Evans blood, although frankly sometimes he felt as if he had neither. All this money, these things. He was weary at just being around them. He itched to get back to the isolation of his island.

Was it his fault he wanted to drag Amanda Prentiss back with him?

“Michael is all right, isn’t he?”

His mother, for all her bark, was soft-hearted.

“Yes, he’s going to be fine. He was ordering people about before I even left the hospital.”

“Good. Good. I don’t know what Damien would do if he lost that boy.”

Evan neglected to point out that according to her, she shouldn’t care about what Damien would or wouldn’t do. But he suspected his mother had never gotten over her first love, just as Damien had never gotten over his.