“Nothing to be sorry for.” Grayson handed over her glasses, and she took them with a sigh and pulled away. He let her go so he could open the door. “Did you get a chance to let Isa and Des know you made it to Vegas?”
“I sent them a text earlier.” Cass, glasses back in place, pulled her phone out as she settled into the passenger seat and snapped the seat belt in place. “I also sent one to my parents, letting them know we were coming.”
Not that it was his place, but… “You sure you want to head over now?”
“Better to get it over with.”
“All right.” It was her choice.
He made a motion to close the door, but she put her hand out and stopped him. Then she waited until their gazes met. “You sure you want to stick around?” The tone of her question was teasing, but it couldn’t hide the worried shadows in her eyes.
He scrounged up a reassuring smile. “I’m good, Cass.”
She studied him for a long moment before she dropped her hand. “Okay. Just remember, you promised to let me know if that changes.”
Since he figured that wasn’t going to happen, he simply said, “Put in your parents’ address.”
Grayson wasn’t expecting the GPS to lead them away from the tourist trap of the Las Vegas strip and west toward Spanish Elms, one of the ritzier neighborhoods and home to a variety of high-profile people, including one of Vegas’s leading Arcane Families. The million-dollar custom homes populating the eleven neighborhoods ranged from ostentatious to intimidating, and the manicured golf course and multiple green spaces that spread across six hundred forty acres were a far cry from the xeriscape neighborhoods surrounding it.
His surprise must have shown on his face, because Cass asked, “What?”
He dared a glance at her before going back to driving. “You don’t strike me as the Spanish Elms type.”
“I’m not,” she said with a hint of defensiveness. “My parents moved in right before I left home.”
A quick mental calculation told him they’d lived there for at least twelve years. “Where were you all before that?”
“With my yaya in Summerlin. My parents wanted something bigger and closer to their business clients, so we moved.” Her even tone held a sliver of resentment.
“You were in high school, right?”
She fiddled with her seat belt. “Incoming freshman when we switched over.”
Which meant she’d most likely lost her circle of friends and had to start all over with a new crowd. “Sounds rough.”
Cass looked out the passenger window. “It was.”
Her two-word agreement held an unspoken warning, so he backed off. “I’m curious—what is your family’s business?”
There was a long pause. “Ever heard of Pythia Strategies?”
The name tickled but didn’t find purchase. “No. What do they do?”
“Strategic business forecasting.”
“Sounds…” Grayson wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence.
“Boring? Uptight? Pretentious?” she supplied wryly.
Although he agreed, he still raised his eyebrows at her word choice. “How about I go with expensive?”
She gave a cute huff. “They can definitely be that.” She was quiet a moment. “My grandparents started the company. They kept it small, picking and choosing which businesses to partner with, but after my grandfather passed, Yaya turned it over to my parents. Since demand was high, it didn’t take much for them to expand the company.”
“I’m guessing they wanted you to be part of it.”
“I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know that was the expectation. As the oldest, and as someone naturally inclined to the work, I was supposed to eventually take the helm. Problem was, that wasn’t what I wanted. My mom and I would get into these arguments, and no matter how much I tried to explain, she’d shut me down. It didn’t help that I had no clue about what I actually wanted, just that I wanted nothing to do with Pythia.”
He could picture a younger Cass facing down a demanding mother. “It couldn’t have been easy standing up to her like that.”
