Before I could comprehend her words, Cade burst through the bathroom door, wearing nothing but a fluffy white towel wrapped around his waist.
Soaking.
Wet.
All thoughts of regal, unsmiling intruders left me, and I could only stare at his bare, glistening chest.
party crashers
. . .
Cade
I’d never moved faster than I did jumping out of the shower when Ellie screamed.
Didn’t even bother shutting off the water—and I barely had the presence of mind to grab a towel before running into the room.
The bed was empty.
Ellie lay in a heap on the floor, tangled in blankets, with her demon cat looming beside her. Her big blue eyes were glued to my bare torso.
“Ellie?” I paused outside the bathroom, not understanding the danger. “You okay?”
She tore her gaze off my chest, and her mouth opened and closed helplessly. “I—I?—”
Giving up on words, Ellie raised a trembling finger to point at the door, and I did a double take at who stood in the entrance. “Mother?”
I had to be hallucinating.
The composed smile Vivienne Westbrook had spent years perfecting lit dark brown eyes that matched mine. “It’s been a while, Caden.”
My lips pressed into a thin line as she stepped further inside. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Well, as soon as Tobias and I heard you were gettingmarried, of course we had to come. It’s not every day your firstborn gets engaged.” Her practiced smile took on a sharper edge. “Especially when he never even mentioned he was seeing someone.”
My gaze flicked to the empty doorway, ignoring the barb. “Grandfather’s here?”
“He insisted on joining, and I saw no reason to argue.” She frowned. “It would’ve been nice of you to greet your mother out on the deck instead of hiding in this room all day.”
My jaw clenched. “It would’ve been nice of you to knock first.”
She dismissed me with a wave. “I came to freshen up in my usual room. How was I supposed to know it’d been reassigned?”
“This has always been my room,” I reminded her, glancing at Ellie. She’d gotten to her feet and stood frozen at the foot of the bed, while her cat licked her calf. “Yours is on the port side.”
“Is it?” Her eyes filled with feigned surprise. “I’m afraid I’m exhausted from all the travel, so you’ll have to forgive me. Do you know how long it took to catch up with you? We took the jet, then a helicopter, then a boat and another boat. Pardon me for mixing up our rooms after all that trouble.”
Except it hadn’t been a mix-up. But it wasn’t worth the energy to argue with my mother over her blatant lies. Better to just move on and get her out of here.
“Of course.” I schooled my face into a smile and nodded to the doorway. “It sounds like you need rest. I’ll help you to your room.”
“Not so fast, Caden.” She raised a perfectly poised hand. “Since I’m already here, won’t you introduce me to your friend first?”
She saidfriendwith an added two scoops of artificial sweetness.
I stopped playing along. “No. You can meet Ellie when we’re ready and you aren’t ambushing her.”
Ellie sucked in a breath, and my mother arched one perfectly shaped brow.
