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Ferro."
    "How do you even know him?" The Ferro family is filthy stinking rich, filled with brats that never get in trouble for anything. Everyone and their cat knows that family is bad news. "He's a freaking Ferro and we're in the middle of nowhere in Mississippi." I smack some cheese sauce and chicken onto another tortilla and stack it with the others.
    "His family owns that huge-ass white house by the reservoir."
    My hands still and I look at her. "Seriously?" It's gorgeous and all, but there's a glaring question. Why here? We're not anywhere near a major city. Jackson is over an hour away. This is the sticks with trees, trailers, and mansions scattered around a manmade lake.
    She starts on the onions, dicing them into tiny pieces. "Yeah, they banished some crazy relative here a while back and holed him up in that place. The guy only leaves his house to hang out on his yacht, but Jonathan comes down once in a while. I caught him walking across the spillway one night and nearly ran him over with my car. The idiot was walking... can you even imagine?"
    Okay, so walking across the spillway is stupid. Got it. Check. Still don't know why, but it appears that I'm not supposed to, so I don't ask. I'm still annoyed with her for dumping that guy on me. The rich brat is probably used to having girls fall all over him. That look in his eye, right before I left, had to be shock even though I thought it was something else. An uncomfortable twisting fills my stomach whenever I think about him, so I shove the guy out of my mind.
    "Speaking of idiots," I say, changing the conversation, "did my brother happen to call?"
    She shakes her head and tosses the chopped onion in the bowl with teary eyes. "Not that I know of. Aunt Paula doesn't have an answering machine—she thinks it's rude not to call every solicitor back—so it's hard to tell. Where's your cell phone anyway?"
    "Mom took it away before she sent me down here." I bite my lip to stop talking.
    "So, what'd you do?" Robyn stops working and looks over at me. "Come on, spill, Cassie."
    "It's not what I did, it's what it looked like—and it embarrassed the crap out of her. I went to a graduation party for my friend and fell asleep in his bed. I didn't come home until dawn. Some kids took pictures of me sleeping on his bed and Grant climbed in and gave the thumbs up, like he nailed me." I make a face. "Everyone knows Grant's gay. He was just messing around. Short version, my mom saw one of the pictures and sent me down here to pull my act together."
    Robyn is staring at me with dish plate eyes. "So, this is some sort of punishment?" I nod. "What about your Dad?"
    "My mom was spitting bullets about it—what will the neighbors think," I mock her polite voice. Needless to say, Mom and I aren't BFFs. We barely manage to keep things cordial. Dad is the family glue, the peacekeeper, but he didn't stick his neck out for me this time. "Right before I left he came into my room and said some time away would be good for me." So here I am, staying with my Dad's little sister, a relative that I almost never see.
    "Harsh." Robyn laughs and bumps her shoulder into mine as she mashes together the contents in the bowl. "Hey, wouldn't it be hysterical if you ended up in the papers for screwing Jon Ferro? Your mom would shit herself. There are worse things than having a snapshot of you in bed with a gay guy. She needs to get a little perspective."
    I nod and smile tightly at her. My mom needs something, like a different daughter—one that is more like her perfect son. Toby is two years older than me and the perfect child. He's one of those guys that excels at everything and everyone loves him. I'm the opposite. I worked hard to get my grades. I still pulled A's, however since it wasn't without effort, it doesn't count for my mother. Toby is all smiles and confidence, where I'm shy and quiet—a wallflower, forever plain as my mom says.
    Today was the first time that I didn't feel plain. The way Jonathan