“Maybe he doesn’t care because Evan’s rich.”
“Bullshit!” Tommy snorted.
Cassie took the side door into the grocery store, noticing her dad behind the counter talking to a beautiful, older blonde lady.
She glanced quickly at Tommy, who had followed her in despite her warning, but he wasn’t paying any attention to the woman. Luckily, beautiful as she was, she was too old even for a male slut like Tommy apparently. Although her dad was paying an undue amount of attention to the fancy woman, flashing one of his rare smiles.
“So do you know my son?” the woman was asking.
“Sure. Of course I do, Mrs. Reynolds.”
“Please, call me Amanda. Mrs. Reynolds is not my favorite term of address. I just kept it after the divorce because I wanted to have the same name as my son and my ex-husband wouldn’t let me change his name, the horrid man. Of course Evan Evans wouldn’t have really worked anyway.”
The woman laughed, an attractive titter that seemed to captivate Cassie’s dad. He hadn’t even noticed his own daughter was in the room.
“I’m back, Dad.”
“Oh Cassie, come here. I was just mentioning you to Mrs., er, Amanda here.”
Was her dad actually blushing? God. How ridiculous.
The woman turned her megawatt smile their way. “Oh, you must be Cassie. My goodness, how very lovely you are, my dear. You better keep an eye on her around my son, Greg,” she added in a playful aside. “As wonderful a boy as he is, he is a Reynolds man.”
“Just what I was saying,” Tommy muttered, drawing her dad’s attention for the first time.
“Is there something you wanted, O’Neal?”
“Me? No. I was just, ah,” he grabbed a tube of toothpaste from a shelf, “shopping.”
“Well, get on with it, then.” Her dad turned to Amanda Reynolds. “Your son isn’t who I’m worried about,” he added with a wry look.
“Oh I can see why,” she responded in a conspiratorial whisper. “I was always glad I never had a daughter. So much trouble trying to keep them out of one lothario’s way or another, isn’t it? Evan’s half sister was a little terror on that score. My ex-husband certainly got his comeuppance trying to keep her in line, although she’s recently made a very nice match.”
Her ex-husband this. Her ex-husband that. How pathetic. The old gal was so totally still in love with the guy. Two seconds of conversation with her and it was obvious. Cassie had a weird sense of parallelism for a second—Gosh, she wasn’t as obvious as that about Tommy, was she?—before she remembered to be indignant that her dad and this woman were talking about her as if she wasn’t even there.
“Tommy has a right to shop here too, Dad. What’s your problem?”
“My problem is he doesn’t look like he’s shopping, Cass. My problem is he looks like he’s chasing after you, like always. That’s my problem.”
With a dramatic sigh and shaking her head, she turned to Tommy. “Just ignore him. I’ll ring you up.” Pushing her way behind the counter, she found herself further annoyed by the look her father shared with Evan’s mother. It screamed see what I mean.
Whatever.
Muscling the tube of toothpaste Tommy probably didn’t even want away from him, she said, “Was there anything else you wanted?”
“You’re Evan Reynolds’ mother?” Tommy asked.
“Why yes, I am.” For all she seemed to be commiserating with Cassie’s dad, she did give Tommy a friendly smile. “Do you know him?”
“Not really, but if anybody should be given a lecture about Cassie—”
“Three eighty-five,” Cassie said loudly.
God, did everybody think they could just talk about her as if she wasn’t in the room? It was bad enough all these gorgeous guys were pretty much ignoring her, but she had to hear everybody go on and on about her needing to be protected! From what? Both Tommy and Evan treated her like glass.
She suddenly remembered the feel of Tommy’s erection against her tummy.
Tommy a little less so, she guessed.
But still. It wasn’t as if she was getting any. Just ending up more and more frustrated. And jealous.
“Well, I wouldn’t worry about it,” Amanda Reynolds told Tommy. “Unlike his father, Evan has never really seemed to go for younger women.”
“Three eighty-five,” Cassie snapped again and Tommy dug the cash out of his pocket.
“Your father tells me you might take me out to the island,” Mrs. Reynolds said as Cassie made the change for Tommy. “I’m actually not sure Evan’s even there, though, as I’ve been calling him and can’t seem to get through.”