Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 123435 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 617(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123435 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 617(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
“This is nice,” Mom remarks, only deepening my suspicions. What is she up to? “So, Tate. Cassie said you’re a sailor?”
“Not professionally, but yes, I love to sail. Used to compete in high school.” While he talks, he plays with the edge of his napkin, and I watch the way his long fingers move.
Heat tickles my core when I remember the feel of those fingers moving over me. Stroking my body. Biting into my ass, my hips, as I rode him.
Oh no. Don’t blush, I tell myself.
He catches my eye and grins. Damn it. I’m blushing.
“I don’t compete as much I’d like to anymore,” he continues, while reaching for my hand.
He links our fingers together and I try not to smile. Holding hands during dinner? He’s making a statement, and I notice Mom gazing on in approval. Now that’s a rare look on her.
“Too busy these days with work,” he says.
“You work at the Manor?” she prompts.
“Part-time, weekends mostly. The rest of the time I’m at the family business.”
“And what would that be?”
“Bartlett Marine. Dad and I run it. It’s a dealership, but we handle rentals and charters too.”
I just listen to the conversation. Mom can be very charismatic when she wants to be. Disarming. I used to have friends from high school come over and look at me like I was crazy for even insinuating that my mother could be a raging narcissistic bitch. They all thought she was fabulous. I can’t entirely gauge Tate’s opinion of her. He was a bit reserved when we first sat down, but he seems to be warming up to her.
“Cassie showed me the newspaper article about your father,” Mom says, smiling. “Sounds like you hail from a family of celebrities.”
“Man, do not tell my dad that,” Tate replies with a groan. “He’s already walking around the dealership thinking he’s hot stuff because they ran a profile on him. Like, dude, it’s the Avalon Bee, not GQ.”
As Mom laughs, I come to poor Gavin’s defense. “Have you ever been featured on the front page of a newspaper? Any newspaper, for that matter?”
“Uh, yeah,” he shoots back. “I’m in the picture on the front page of the Bee, in case you forgot.”
“For an article about your dad. Jeez. Get your own achievements.” I give him a taunting smile. “You can’t complain about his excitement until you’ve experienced your own fifteen minutes of fame. You’d probably be even worse, too. Accepting fake Oscars in front of the mirror every morning.”
“Cassie,” Mom chides, but her eyes twinkle with humor.
“What?” I protest. “Look at him. He looks like the guy who delivers fake speeches in the mirror. Don’t deny it.”
He snickers. “I would never.”
Mom’s gaze shifts toward him, assessing. Lingers a little too long, but when she turns back to me, her expression still contains humor. “He does seem like the type,” she agrees.
I can’t believe my mother and I sided on something. And even crazier, that I’m genuinely enjoying myself. At dinner. With my mother present. People in hell must be wearing parkas right about now.
Whether or not she’s putting on an act remains undecided. But I’m still relaxed, my guard down. I end up ordering a cocktail. And now that I’m twenty-one, I can do that without stressing that someone is going to ask for my ID.
Dinner is excellent, which is to be expected from the most expensive restaurant in town. This place gets the freshest lobster and the best cuts of meat in the Bay. As we eat, Tate tells us funny stories about working at the yacht club. Seems like during every lesson, something ridiculous happens.
“Couples are the worst,” he insists. “Any time we take out a sailboat that’s bigger than thirty feet, at least one half of the couple demands to act out the king of the world scene from Titanic. Then I have to stand there taking pictures, like, a thousand of them, because the first nine hundred and ninety-nine are apparently never good enough for the ’gram.”
“Oh dear,” Mom says, giggling into her beer. She just shocked me by ordering a second one. “You poor thing.”
I suppose I can overlook the way she’s blatantly flirting with my sort-of boyfriend if it means she’s not frowning at my outfit or talking about breast reductions. Over dessert, she even shares some stories about her own days at the country club.
“There was this golf instructor—Lorenzo.” She sighs dreamily. “I had the biggest crush on him. Almost fainted with excitement when he asked me on a date. I think I was twenty-one, maybe? It was right before I met your father, Cass.”
I almost spit out my drink. “Mom! You dated Lorenzo? The immortal Italian vampire?”
Tate snickers into his beer.
“I don’t even know what that means,” she says.
“It means he’s worked at the Manor for five hundred years because he never ages.” I suddenly feel the color draining from my face. “Oh my God, he could have been my father.” I glare at her, aghast. “You almost got me sired by Lorenzo.”