Every Little Thing (Hart's Boardwalk 2)

I was possessive of it and of the boardwalk and the people in it. Admittedly that’s why my antagonism with Vaughn came to fruition. I thought I was protecting everyone from him when he first arrived.

I knew my mistake but by now the tone of our acquaintance had already been set.

/> “I think I might have a crush on Tremaine’s dad,” I blurted, five seconds after the men had walked out of the door.

Emery laughed. “The term ‘silver fox’ was invented just for him.”

“What happened there?” I threw my hands up in exasperation.

“What do you mean?”

“Well there is no denying that he spawned Tremaine.” Vaughn was an exact younger replica of his father. “But seriously? How did a man like Liam end up with a son like Vaughn?”

Amused, Emery crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s not like you know his father. You spent ten minutes with him.”

“And in that time I learned that he is way more down to earth and amiable than his son. You’d think he’d pass that kind of charm along to his only child.”

“Vaughn is charming to me.”

I tried to not let her words sting but in the end they did. “Of course he is. You come from money. You’re one of his people.”

“I don’t think—”

“Maybe it’s his mom,” I mused, realizing I didn’t know anything about Tremaine other than what everyone else knew—he was a hotelier from Manhattan and his father was the CEO of an international real estate and construction company. The secretive bastard wouldn’t divulge anything else. And I was above Googling someone. Okay. I wasn’t above Googling someone but I was above Googling a man who thought so little of me.

“Maybe what is his mom?”

“Maybe she’s a cold fish.”

Emery gave me a strange look. “Why are you speaking in present tense? Vaughn’s mother died when he was very young.”

Shock hit me right along with guilt for calling a dead woman a cold fish. “I didn’t know that. God. That’s horrible. How do you know that?” I tried not to feel peeved that Emery knew something about Vaughn that I didn’t.

We weren’t in high school after all.

Even though Vaughn made me feel like I was.

“My grandmother. She read the New York and Boston society pages religiously.”

“Does everyone else know about his mom?” Or was I the only insensitive idiot who didn’t?

“I don’t know actually. Now that I think about it no one has ever mentioned it.”

“What else do you know about him?”

“Not a lot. When my grandmother died so did the days of having to listen to her read the society pages to me. Grandmother died when Vaughn was in his early twenties and up until then he was always in the pages for being with a different woman at each event.”

That wasn’t a surprise, I thought, not at all bothered by the rumors that Vaughn had a different woman in his hotel suite every weekend.

Apparently, not much had changed. He was a player then and a player now.

He had to be charming to get all those women into bed. Of course, the fact that he looked like he did certainly helped, but women responded better to a combination of good looks and charm.

At least I did.

Not that I would respond to Vaughn if he did decide to turn the charm offense on me.

Still . . . it was a little hurtful that apparently I was the only one not worthy of seeing that side of him.