“You have,” Evan replied staunchly. There was no reason for Micah to feel otherwise. “Let’s get to the car. I’ll give you a lift to the Peninsula.”
“Thanks,” Micah acknowledged gratefully, nodding at Evan like he was silently thanking him for his support, even though neither one of them would voice their emotions aloud. “My car is already at Jared’s place.”
Evan watched as Micah jogged toward the Rolls, shaking his head as he thought about the mess Xander was in at the moment. Thank God those days of worrying about the sanity of a younger brother were over for him, and Jared had finally healed. But Evan couldn’t help but have sympathy pains for his eldest cousin. He’d been where Micah was now, and it had been pure hell just dealing with Jared’s alcohol binge. He couldn’t imagine adding drugs into the mix.
“Welcome to Amesport, sir,” his gray-haired chauffeur told him in a monotone voice, a sound that always greeted Evan in nearly every city he visited. His driver was dressed just as he always was: a gray suit and tie, his silver hair seemingly immaculate even though the wind was blowing. He took Evan’s small suitcase and his laptop from his hands and put both in the front seat.
“Stokes,” Evan acknowledged with a single nod as the old man opened the back door for him.
Micah didn’t wait for Stokes to move around to the other side. He slid through the open door and scooted over on the backseat, making room for Evan. Stokes closed the door firmly after Evan had taken his seat, and the elderly man stoically took his place behind the wheel and put the vehicle in motion almost immediately.
Evan silently approved of the way Stokes handled the expensive vehicle, even in blowing snow and poorly cleared roads. The chauffeur had been with Evan for years and knew exactly what his boss wanted. Evan always wanted to reach his destination with as little drama as possible. Usually, he’d be working in the backseat—like Micah had started doing as soon as he’d gotten settled in the car. Stokes got him safely from place to place, so he was generally unconcerned about traffic, the roads, or what was happening outside of the vehicle, but Evan knew he wouldn’t be able to concentrate on work today.
He was too worried about whether or not he’d see her.
Why do I care? She’s really not worth the wasted time I spend thinking about her, or wondering why we can’t seem to be together without irritating each other. So what if we see each other at the party? We’re two grown adults. We can be civil for a short period of time.
Not that he and Randi had ever accomplished being nice to each other in the past, but Evan vowed that he wouldn’t let her bait him this time. He wondered once again—he thought about the subject way too often—why he and Randi Tyler couldn’t seem to get along without throwing insults at each other. He never lost his temper to the point of bellowing, like some men did, but he’d come close with the she-devil he’d been forcefully paired with three awkward times. First it was Grady’s, and then Dante’s, and finally Jared’s wedding. Every experience had been a lesson in patience.
She’d decided he was arrogant and bossy.
He’d decided she was bitchy and impatient.
Strangely, Randi didn’t seem impressed by his wealth or his status as a Sinclair. She’d started out treating him like a friend, teasing him like she did with her friends and all the other Sinclairs. That had made him uncomfortable, so he’d ignored her. In turn, she’d either snubbed him or insulted him every single time he saw her, after the first time.
“She’s overly sensitive, unpredictable, and emotional,” Evan muttered under his breath, relieved when he saw that Micah was apparently answering emails on his phone and hadn’t heard him. Randi Tyler was everything he disliked in a woman, but for some reason he was still highly attracted to her. It was perplexing, confusing. He didn’t like her, but his cock certainly did. Her personality might annoy him, but there was never an encounter with her when he didn’t want to pin her to the wall and fuck her until he was completely sated. It was a situation he’d never experienced before, and he didn’t like it. He’d never had such a volatile reaction to a woman, and it wasn’t comfortable.
I can just avoid her, not react to her taunts.
The problem was, he never knew whether he was going to get the cold shoulder or if she’d decide to throw insults at him. Honestly, he preferred she did neither. He rather missed the way she had treated him that very first day . . . like a new friend. It had been . . . nice. But he hadn’t quite known what to make of her behavior then. He hadn’t been able to form the words fast enough to react to her friendly behavior. She’d taken his silence as disapproval—which it really wasn’t. Evan just hadn’t been certain how to respond to her, especially since she gave him an instant case of blue balls that never went away whenever he was near her.