Resisting Cassidy (A Forbidden Romance)

Tate

My feet were glued to the spot. My hands tightened around Maddy's beach bag and the umbrella she had asked me to carry. I wanted to charge at the guy straddling Cassidy. Slam my fist at his smug face until it became part of the beach. How could she let another guy touch her?

She's mine.

"This is adorable," Cindy observed, pursing her lips as she took in the scene, her tone sarcastic. "I guess we're far far far away from Miami now." She laughed, turning to me as an invitation to laugh with her or insult one of the best sceneries in Acadia Park.

"Behave, Cindy," I reminded her, even though I knew it wouldn't do any good. I could kick myself for thinking this would be fine, but I blamed my bad judgement on the exhaustion of having to deal with her the night before and early this morning when she'd tried to get into the shower with me. Hell, I'd already slept on the couch in my own house so we didn't have to share a bed. Cindy was up to something. She'd tried to pretend she was being nice and thoughtful, paying her ex and her child a surprise visit because she thought Maddy had missed her. She'd stop doing anything that benefited me or Maddy a long time ago, and Maddy hadn't asked to talk to her on the phone since she arrived in town.

"Oh look. Your babysitter's here, getting kinky in public." She scoffed, nodding at Maddy who'd taken Cassidy's arm and used it to wave at us. "Seriously, Tate, this is the kind of girl you have taking care of our daughter." It wasn't a question but her firm statement of a fact.

If she was waiting for a reply, none was coming. I was filled with anger, surprise, annoyance. Jealousy as verdant as the forest of trees surrounding the area.

Cass and I had planned to go to this beach with Maddy. To spend time together like any other normal families around us. To laugh, chase each other around, splash in the warm lake, have a picnic, enjoy the day like we had growing up. She could've gone to another beach if getting groped was what she was after. I spread Maddy's towel on the sand, just so I had something to do with my hands other than to pummel the guy's face. But I watched them carefully, under the brim of my hat and through dark shades. Cass introduced him to Maddy. I fumed more when my daughter giggled in absolute delight.

"Maddy, come here!" Wrong. Everything had gone wrong. I wasn't supposed to be yelling at my daughter. I wasn't supposed to be angry at the woman I'd been sleeping with and cared greatly about. And I wasn't supposed to be spending my day with my ex-wife. Yet, here we all were.

As though she'd read my mind, Cindy cackled when I looked her way. "Why so tense, babe?"

"Stop calling me that," I said for the hundredth time. She'd started it when we were all in the kitchen, waiting for her goddamned white omelette to cook.

Her grin grew. "Let's see what this lake has on the ocean." She sashayed down, waving over Maddy to join her.

Maddy hugged Cassidy after she pulled off her cover up and ran toward her mother. Without even checking, I knew all eyes were on my ex-wife. She was stunning, there was no taking that away from Cindy, and once upon a time, I was entranced by that beauty, too. Until the ugliness reared its head out and she became the woman I barely recognized. But my gaze remained on Cassidy in her pale pink bikini, the ones with flamingoes on them. As she stood, shaking sand off her legs, the guy next to her decided he'd help by running a hand on the back of her thighs. I saw red, and fumed vicious smoke out of my ears.

When she walked toward me, handing me Maddy's cover up, I couldn't help but spit out, "You just let any random guy touch you like that?"

She hadn't been smiling when she reached me, but her expression turned worse, her lips thinned, her eyes narrowed. Arms crossed over bikini top, her breasts rounding and spilling over the pink fabric.